Jon Rothstein, CBS Sports College Basketball Reporter

Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb's show Coast to Coast on CBS Sports Radio.

Now joining us, one of the best college basketball insiders around via our friends at CBS Sports and also on behalf of FanDuel, America's number one sports book, is of course Jon Rothstein. Jon, I know it's been a while but appreciate the time as always. How you been my friend? Great Zach, always good to be with you buddy.

Thanks so much for coming on. Let me start you off with UNC. So two years ago we know they got to the national championship game and they lost. Last year they took a little bit of a step back. This was a big year for Hubert Davis at UNC with the Tar Heels. Why has he been able to get it right so far as we get closer and closer to March?

You know there's a number of reasons Zach. I think one of the biggest is rhythm and chemistry and this is not a slight on Caleb Love who's having a great year at Arizona who's on one of the best teams in the country but we are seeing right now a higher usage and a bigger focal point being made for RJ Davis who has separated himself unequivocally as the best point guard in college basketball and one of the ironic things if you want to look historically for North Carolina, North Carolina has not had a guard who was a first team All-American since Joseph Forte in the 2000-2001 season. Other players in North Carolina's program have been second and third team All-Americans.

Ray Felton, Rashad McCants, Ty Lawson and Kendall Marshall but nobody since Joe Forte has been a first team All-American. That is going to change this season with RJ Davis. I know Kentucky lost last night to South Carolina. What do you think the ceiling is for John Calipari's squad this year?

Extremely high. As high as any team in college basketball but the irony to me is this. When we have seen John Calipari have his best teams at Kentucky and even his best teams at Memphis they have been elite defensively. Think about 2012 when he won a national title with Michael Kidd Gilchrist and Anthony Davis.

Think about 2015 when we had the 38-1 team that was anchored by Willie Cauley-Stein. This Kentucky team is at its best when it out scores you. This Kentucky team has firepower for days but this Kentucky team also struggles defensively so it's kind of like that Seinfeld episode where George Costanza was always doing the opposite.

This is the opposite of what has always made John Calipari successful. A great offensive team that struggles defensively. Talking to John Rothstein right now, who do you think is the best team in the country with what you've seen so far? Connecticut's the best team in the country as of right now.

I do think there's a couple of teams that have separated themselves at the top. Connecticut, Purdue, North Carolina but Connecticut you have to remember, handedly beat North Carolina in December and just looks crisper, sharper, more effective than any other team in the sport and I think when you look at things right now we have to remember that the three best players on last year's team that won a national championship at UConn, Adama Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson, are no longer a member of the Huskies program and UConn also lost a very key reserve in Joey Calcaterra. So I think if you're asking me right now in January who's the national coach of the year, it's Dan Hurley, seven days a week and twice on Sunday. And it's crazy with what he's done because you win a championship, naturally you're going to probably regress the next year to be this hot out of the gate and to be the number one team in the country right now. I know he didn't need another endorsement to understand how he's this good of a coach but it's really impressive what they've done this year. What Dan Hurley is doing at UConn is Calhoun-esque.

That is the best way to describe it. Now as great as Jim Calhoun was, three national championships, four Final Fours, a whopping 17 Big East regular season and tournament titles combined, one thing that UConn has not done in its storied history is reach the Final Four in back-to-back seasons. Dan Hurley can accomplish that this year and I want to point this out. Every single game in college basketball matters and you know I tweet that when I reference certain teams who go up or down daily in the net but every single game matters especially if you're one of the teams who is vying to be a high seed in the NCAA tournament. For UConn it matters more and this is why. If you look at the makeup of the regional sites in this year's NCAA tournament, the East region this year is set to play first and second round games at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn and then Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games at TD Garden in Boston.

What does that mean? Once UConn, if it's the number one seed in the East, finishes the regular season it would go to the Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden. It would then again if it's the top seed in the East go to the Barclay Center in Brooklyn and then if it were to win there it would go to TD Garden in Boston. That is an easy trip for Dan Hurley to play a max seven postseason games before the Final Four up and down 95 and yes UConn if it's the number one seed in the East could get back to the Final Four for the first time in program history without getting on a plane. Talking to John Rothstein right now, so we all remember what happened when Virginia was a one and lost to a 16 seed the next year they won it all. What do you think the chapter is going to be with Purdue with what has happened a year ago and a lot of their early round exits from the tourney?

Purdue's season will not truly start until the first game of the NCAA tournament and the only way for Purdue to truly exercise its demons from last year when it lost to Fairleigh Dickinson and the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament is to get to the Final Four in Arizona. Anything less will be a disappointment to Matt Painter, to Gene Cady, to the Boilers players, to the Boilers alumni and they have the team to get to a Final Four and it's not just Zach Eady, it is not just Braden Smith. The guy for Purdue that has reached another level the last couple of weeks is southern Illinois grad transfer Lance Jones. He's averaging over 19 points a game in his last couple of games. He was brought in to help add quickness and versatility defensively on the perimeter. Lance Jones is giving Purdue offense. As Lance Jones continues to play like he is right now, Purdue will be in the Final Four for the first time since 1980.

John Rothstein here with us. It's always tough to win your bracket pool especially when a lot of people just end up watching in March and filling out their brackets in March. So right now as January is coming to a close, who are some teams that you have on your radar that we may be talking about a lot more when we get deep into March?

It's a great question. I love Richard Pitino's team at New Mexico. That's a team in a program that hasn't been in the NCAA tournament since 2014 but if you study this program, if you watch this basketball team, they have a perimeter troika in Donovan Dent, Jaylen House, and Jamal Mashburn Jr. That's one of the top perimeters in college basketball. Not just the Mountain West in college basketball. Richard Pitino also has a freshman in JT Toppin who's one of the best front court players in the country that not a lot of people know about and I firmly believe if that troika that I referenced Dent, Mashburn Jr., and Jaylen House played for Villanova, played for Miami, program synonymous with elite perimeter players, we would be talking about New Mexico as having obviously a team that is in a situation where it could go far in the NCAA tournament and if New Mexico's guards which I referenced played for Villanova or played for Miami, you would be hearing them referenced as the best backcourt in the country at least in an arguable sense on a regular basis.

John Rothstein here with us. We know FAU is still in the top 25. They're down to 22 now. Returned basically almost their entire roster from last year with Dusty May that went to the Final Four.

It's tough when you go on that run to have success again the next season. How much of a player do you think FAU will be in this year's NCAA tournament? I think they'll be a player.

I think they'll be dangerous. It all comes down to matchups in the NCAA tournament and we have to also remember the margin of error that exists for these teams that get the benefit of the doubt and I'm not taking anything away from Florida Atlantic and what it accomplished last year but Florida Atlantic was fortunate to beat Memphis by a slim margin in the round of 32. Florida Atlantic then did not have to play top-seeded Purdue in the round of 32. It had to play Fairleigh Dickinson to get to the Sweet 16. It gets to the Sweet 16. Who does it play?

Tennessee. Who didn't Tennessee have available? Zaki Ziegler its starting point guard and then Florida Atlantic obviously beat a very good Kansas State team in the Elite Eight so this reminds me a little bit of when Eric Musselman had that team at Nevada with Cody and Caleb Martin and they went to the transfer portal and they added reinforcements but it's not the identical thing to Purdue but it's similar in the sense that we almost don't feel like the season's going to start for Florida Atlantic until it gets into the NCAA tournament to see if it can replicate the success but the good thing for Florida Atlantic is it has the resume to get there and that's because of the work that the Owls did during the non-conference portion of the schedule beating Arizona, beating Butler, beating Texas A&M and beating Virginia Tech but Zach you know as well as I do this is only January. Yeah and we got a long way still to go to get to March.

John Rothstein here with us. So in college football we had Nick Saban walk away a few weeks ago. We know the last few years right Jay Wright walked away. He had Coach K retire.

Roy Williams retire as well. Is there an older coach now or maybe a coach that has that legendary status right now whether it's a Calipari, an Izzo or whoever. Bill Self like you're kind of monitoring to say hmm maybe this person hangs it up a little bit closer than what we anticipated. You know I think you're always monitoring but somebody told me a long time ago never speculate on speculation and I think college basketball coach in today's climate with the transfer portal with name image and likeness it's a lot more time consuming to be a head coach in college basketball than it was 10-15 years ago but a lot of these guys and you know this Zach they don't do other things.

They don't have other things that they would want to necessarily immerse themselves in. I've you know talked to Tom Izzo about this. I've talked to Bill Self about this.

You know Tom Izzo is somebody who I could never see entertaining retirement. Bill Self told me in a conversation I had with him a couple of weeks ago that because of what he went through health-wise recently he has never been more appreciative just to go to work every day and go to practice because remember he couldn't coach last year in the NCAA tournament and I spent some time in Miami in the preseason with Jim Larranaga and you know Miami's put together a terrific recruiting class but I asked him flat out imagine a life without coaching and he told me absolutely not and that's somebody who again took his second program to a final four last spring and I think Zach in a lot of ways coaching for these guys and the adrenaline that comes with success and winning is like a drug. I asked Jim Larranaga what do you think about now that he'd gotten Miami to a final four because he always used to tell me after he took George Mason to a final four all he thought about was going back to another final four. He said to me it's real simple winning a national championship that's what I think about. He is Jon Rothstein great college basketball insider for CBS Sports. He joins us on behalf of FanDuel America's number one sportsbook. Jon always great to catch up with you. Thank you. Thanks, Zach. We sleep in May.