PREDICTIONS: College Basketball Rankings

We all know a guy who only occasionally shaves for big occasions. And it's because that occasional shave really hurts. It's the time of year for big occasions and yet there he is, suffering with that cheap drugstore razor.

Let's help him out. Henson's Shavings line of razors, built with aerospace precision, deliver a smooth shave your dad, brother, and even son can enjoy. Eventually. With replacement blades just 10 cents each, you'll buy it once and they'll use it for life. How's that for the perfect gift? Celebrate with 100 free blades on your first purchase and no subscription headaches.

HensonShaving.com slash holiday. Tonight, seven o'clock in Chicago. It'll be Duke and Michigan State at the beginning of the season. I think this was a top four match. Duke was like two. Michigan State was like four.

I don't know. I mean, I don't pay that much attention to preseason basketball ranking because even during the season, the basketball rankings don't mean as much because we play so many games. There's so much fluctuation, but we do have four ranked teams and should be fun at the Champions Classic.

Gary Parrish, CBSSports.com. Ion College Basketball Podcast joins us now. This is obviously a great event, but I want to go back to Friday night and try to apply what we saw when Duke took on Arizona to tonight. Duke could not get a rebound, it seemed, in the first half. Is that going to be as big a deal tonight as it was on Friday?

I don't think so. If only because, like you said, it was really bad Friday and I think some of that had to do with Arizona's front court as much as it had to do with any issues Duke might have going forward. So, listen, I know, and just, you know, for the record, you had it right. Michigan State and Duke were both in the top five of the pre-season A people, Duke two, Michigan State four. And I know when you're ranked second in the country with an incredible recruiting class and a lot of great five-star prospects back from last season, you don't want to lose a game at home. But it was tied with 47 seconds left. That is the classic example of a game that could have gone either way. And in the last 50 seconds, Arizona made more plays than you. But for the previous 39 minutes, it was basically an even basketball game, despite Duke's struggles on the board. So I'm not ready to panic about Duke or even be too concerned or change my long-term predictions for this team or John Shire, but I will tell you, and you know this better than I given where you're located, if you now lose again, you know, to a Michigan State team that just lost to a mid-major and you're sitting here at two losses eight days into the season after, you know, not doing everything you were supposed to do last season, that is the type of thing where, you know, I bet you tomorrow throughout the state of North Carolina, people will be, you know, talking about John Shire in whatever way they'll talk about him. Well, that will happen, especially here. You're right about that.

Gary Parrish, CBS here, is joining us on the Adam Gold Show. But what it would really do, it would make it harder to be a one seed if you lose those two games because these two teams, Arizona and Michigan State, both figure to be in that mix, unless their seasons go sideways, they will both figure to be in that mix. And while it's not a tiebreaker, it certainly would benefit them to have the wins over Duke, especially Arizona winning here. Now, that that particular issue intrigues me because this is not a game that Mike Krzyzewski would have scheduled. This is John Shire doing something departing from the ways of his former coach. Kay wasn't averse to playing these games.

He just wasn't going to go to your place. So let's take this game to a neutral site. But John and Arizona, they decided to let's do it. Let's play a home at home.

This is great. It's, you know, it's great. It's great for the fans who get a chance to see these games.

There's no question. And you just turn on the television last Friday night and it, you know, they've been good games, other places, you know, South Dakota, Las Vegas, but they don't look the way it looks when you're in a true home road environment. And Cameron looked amazing last night and most of these other places, you know, when you start talking about neutral site matchups, even between promise like the United center will not tonight look anything close to what even Purdue looked like last night when Purdue was playing an overmatched opponent. So I love that John is willing to do this. I had talked to him about it in advance of him taking over the program full time from Kay. He already knew he was going to be the head coach, but we were still in caves last year and he was just sort of, you know, I could tell by the way he was talking, he was interested in, in doing this and understood properly understood what it means to take the Duke blue devils to another campus or what it means for another program to come to Duke's campus. Like way back in a previous life, I was a newspaper beat writer for the university of Memphis at the commercial appeal. And I can still remember my last year on the beat, Memphis played Duke in the preseason IT or one of those events at Madison square garden. And that was a big deal. Not that Memphis was playing for a championship in November, the day after Thanksgiving, but that Memphis was playing Duke inside the garden.

And I think John understands that, that, that means something. And I hope that what happened last Friday night, does it move him off of this? We need more coaches throughout the sport, the sport, particularly coaches, the big brands agreeing to do what Tommy and John agreed to do last week. We don't need fewer of them being open to the risk that comes with it because ultimately, like you said, especially if Duke loses tonight, it does become harder to get a one seed, but the season is so long and there's so many opportunities for you to get quality wins. There's really not much that can happen in the first eight days of the season.

That's gonna, that's gonna set you back too far. You mentioned Tommy Lloyd, the head coach at Arizona and his in game interview. He talked about just how cool it was. Like he referenced that a few times about what a great, how honored he was to be able to bring his team here. And we, and you know, McHale center's a great setting for college basketball as well. And John Shire will bring next year's team.

However many five stars are on it. We'll get to that in a second. He'll bring them out there and it's going to be great. Real quick about John Shire's, I guess he's not going to have any problem recruiting, huh?

It doesn't look like it. He's, he's just, he's a really smart, you know, and he's a smart guy and he understands, like he doesn't shy away from the name image and likeness space. Like, you know, he went out and made a hire to try to make sure Duke is best positioned in that space. And what you're finding out is the coaches who embraced it quickly are flourishing now. And the ones who, you know, for lack of a better word, sit around and just complained about it and moaned about it.

Well, they're the ones getting, getting left behind. You can argue that recruits recruiting looks no different under John Shire and might even be better, but, but ultimately, you know, this is a results given or a results driven sport rather. And like, I know that they were disappointing last year relative to expectations, but some of that's easy to explain. It was injuries and your, you know, most heralded freshmen, you know, never really became what anybody thought he was going to be, although he was still a, you know, obvious first round draft pick.

So I think that's easy to explain away. And they did get really good before they got eliminated in the NCAA tournament, but you don't want to be replacing a legend and have two losses this quickly in your second season after having a relatively, you know, speaking a disappointing season in year one, because then people start asking big questions about you. Like, you know, Josh Passner was a first time head coach at Memphis as a replacement, John Calipari and recruited really well. But when the results didn't match the recruiting rankings, it really created problems for him.

And so what you hope if you're John and what I hope for John is that he never gets to that place that he wins enough to where people never wonder, is this guy just a recruiter who struggles to do the job on game day or not? Gary Parrish, CBSSports.com, Eye on College Basketball podcast, joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. Kentucky and Kansas is the nightcap right after they have the fake college basketball, college football ranking show, which is unfortunate. They should just be talking about basketball throughout the entire experience, but that's not the way the world works. Is John Calipari feeling some heat at Kentucky?

Yes. I don't know if it's real job pressure, like Brad Brunel might fill it, Clemson or Jared Haas might fill it, Stanford. But he is under an incredible amount of fan pressure because for all of the recruits that he's enrolled and NBA players, he's helped develop, you know, over the past eight seasons, the results just aren't there. Zero final four since 2015. He's now gone eight straight years without coaching in a final four. Never in his college coaching career had he ever gone eight years without making a final four. Didn't happen at UMass, didn't happen at Memphis, had never happened at Kentucky until now. And it doesn't help him, although these things aren't directly tied together, but like when you were facing this type of criticism, everything just gets stacked on top of each other. Like when Tyrese Maxey goes out and gets 50 in an NBA game, people go, my God, what, why do we keep watching Jamal Murray when an NBA finals and Tyrese Maxey go from 50 and all these guys come through our program and we haven't done with them.

What, you know, common sense suggests we should have done with them. So if this season doesn't go well, I mean, if it's a disaster, I do think they would pay whatever they have to pay to make a coaching change. You saw what had just happened to Texas a and M I'm not ruling that out at Kentucky, but what's interesting about this, and I'm not predicting this. I think Kansas wins tonight, but John Calipari could be a guy who's facing all sorts of fan criticism and, and, and, and questions about his future. If they just want a 40 minute game tonight, they could reasonably be ranked number one in the country, you know, cause then, cause then it's easy to just switch the narrative. Right? Well, God, they got, you know, two projected lottery picks, two other projected first round picks and I'm one recruiting class in the country.

Of course they're good. Like he can flip the whole thing tonight. Maybe not permanently, but, but at least temporarily, but I don't think there's any doubt the most, or at least among the most fascinating stories in college basketball to see that it is the story at Kentucky, because once again, he's got arguably just in terms of pure talent, maybe the most talented roster in the country, but you at this point got to have the results to back it up. Kentucky fans are done celebrating lottery picks. They don't care that John Calipari has coached a bunch of players who now have contracts worth billions of dollars. They want final four banners. They want another national championship, but if they don't get it, that's a problem for him. I said this a long time ago that the way Kentucky basketball fan works is not unlike the way Carolina fan works and the way Duke fan work. I think it's a little bit more extreme, but not completely dissimilar is that when you get so many great recruits and you have, and they haven't even had great regular seasons of late, which probably adds to it, is that at some point they're not going to be happy with sweet 16s and elite eight appearances.

They want the whole thing and I understand it. But it has been a while and I, man, we all know a guy who only occasionally shaves for big occasions and it's because that occasional shave really hurts the time of year for big occasions. And yet there he is suffering with that cheap drugstore razor.

Let's help him out. Henson shavings line of razors built with aerospace precision deliver a smooth shave your dad, brother, and even son can enjoy. Eventually with replacement blades, just 10 cents each, you'll buy it once and they'll use it for life. How's that for the perfect gift. Celebrate with 100 free blades on your first purchase and no subscription headaches.

Henson shaving.com. Slash holiday. It's hard. It doesn't it speak to the fact that one and done players, one year players. It's not, it's just another way of doing it.

It doesn't give you an advantage talents. Great. But sometimes what Tennessee's got or what some of these other schools have in terms of older players who have been around, maybe that's the better way to do it. I think it is now that's and you've touched on it. This is the biggest thing that has affected or impacted John Calipari.

People like to say things like, well, maybe he's lost it. I think that's less true than this. The sport has changed dramatically and he's still operating largely the same way he's operated since he got to Kentucky, which is being heavily reliant on some of the other schools.

And once upon a time, like you could do that. And every time Kentucky would enroll the top recruiting class in the country, they would be preseason number one or preseason number three, always in the top five. They were 16th in the eight people. This, this preseason with the number one recruiting class in the country that has never even come close to happening to John Calipari at Kentucky. But I think people have now, I think, realized you're way better off having talented 22 year olds and 23 year olds instead of even more talented 18 year olds. Like you, you've still got to have talent, but every team in the country can go out and remake their roster every off season with grad transfers and junior transfers and senior transfers. And look at Memphis. How'd you mention them?

What up? What at Missouri last Friday night by 15 points, impressive performance. Memphis says top five scores are all 22 or older. They have two former McDonald's all Americans who will be 24 and 25 years old on selection Sunday in Jordan Brown and Javon clinically. I'm not telling you Memphis is better than Kentucky, but I'm telling you it is much easier to win with a bunch of talented older guys than it is to win with a bunch of 18 year olds, even if the 18 year olds are more talented than the older guys. Perhaps John Calipari flips that on its head this season.

But the reason folks are skeptical of Kentucky is that it's been a long time, you know, in basketball terms since a team this heavily reliant on freshmen was able to go out and really operate at the tip top of the sport. Gary Parrish, you're the best man. I appreciate your time. Enjoy the ball tonight and turn it off during the fake football selection show. That's a deal. You got a promise. I appreciate you having me, buddy.

You got it, man. Gary Parrish here from CBSSports.com. I'm on College Basketball Podcast, which not only is great if you're into college hoops, it's a great podcast. It has the best producer ever in the history of podcast.

You know who produces the podcast? No. Nada. Our friend. Yes.

Love Nada. He is the man. We all know a guy who only occasionally shaves for big occasions. And it's because that occasional shave really hurts the time of year for big occasions. And yet there he is suffering with that cheap drugstore razor.

Let's help him out. Henson's shavings line of razors built with aerospace precision deliver a smooth shave your dad, brother, and even son can enjoy. Eventually with replacement blades, just 10 cents each you'll buy it once and they'll use it for life. How's that for the perfect gift. Celebrate with 100 free blades on your first purchase and no subscription headaches. HensonShaving.com slash holiday.