Gary Parrish on why Graham Ike is the player he's most excited to watch
CBS Sports college basketball insider Garry Parrish breaks down Graham Ike's importance to the Gonzaga Bulldogs and why people will regret the latest conference realignment wave.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Dan DeCowell here for Gonzaga Nation.
00:11 As we continue to get prepared
00:13 for the start of college basketball season,
00:16 practices are upon us.
00:18 Like to check in with some of the best analysts
00:21 across the country.
00:23 Today's one of my favorite insiders.
00:26 He hails from Memphis, Tennessee.
00:28 He does a ton of work for CBS Sports Network
00:31 as well as CBS Sports Online.
00:33 Nothing more, nothing gets by this guy
00:37 in the world of college basketball.
00:38 A conversation is to be had with Gary Parish.
00:42 Gary, appreciate the time.
00:43 Thanks for joining.
00:45 - Brother, it's always my pleasure.
00:46 I appreciate you asking.
00:47 How you been?
00:48 - I can't complain too much.
00:50 We got some new digs in the studio here
00:52 trying to up our game.
00:55 'Cause I look at your backdrop,
00:56 looks like your home office.
00:58 You got some bobbleheads behind you.
01:01 Share us a little bit with those bobbleheads
01:02 and some of your equipment behind you is.
01:06 - Yeah, my kids helped me decorate.
01:08 During the pandemic in the early stages of that,
01:10 it was pretty clear for CBS Sports,
01:13 we were gonna be working at home for a little while.
01:15 And it ended up being pretty much an entire year
01:18 between the time I last went to New York
01:20 and first went back to New York.
01:22 So we decided to build a little podcasting studio
01:26 in our home.
01:27 This is an old attic space that we just had redone.
01:30 And then my kids, of course, helped me decorate it.
01:33 So here we have a Better Call Saul up here.
01:37 And then of course that's Roman Reigns, your tribal chief,
01:40 your WWE champion.
01:42 And then Diego Maradona and Ronaldo there.
01:44 That's Zach Randolph, Z-Bo from the Hillbillies over here.
01:48 Some Met stuff, John Franco, Dwight Gooden, Pete Alonzo.
01:52 Here, Grizzly stuff, John Morant.
01:54 Kanye West used to be featured back here
01:56 somewhere with a bobblehead.
01:58 We had to remove him for obvious reasons.
02:00 Perhaps he'll redeem himself in the bobblehead world someday.
02:03 But for now, he's out.
02:05 So you just throw some books up, some bobbleheads,
02:08 some awards to make it look like you've accomplished something.
02:10 And that's how you do a backdrop, I guess.
02:13 So a quick story I'll share with you.
02:17 During the pandemic when I was calling game for CBS Sports
02:20 from home, and they'd send us all these big kits
02:21 similar to what you're working on right now to call games.
02:25 I was sitting in my home office.
02:26 Rich Waltz was the play-by-play guy
02:28 sitting in his home office outside of Seattle.
02:32 And I would always close my door to my office.
02:37 And I would typically put a chair against the door
02:41 'cause I don't have a lock on that door, unfortunately.
02:43 Well, one day I forgot to put a door against,
02:46 (laughs)
02:48 a chair against the door.
02:50 And our five-year-old Josie, who was about probably 17,
02:55 18 months or so at the time,
02:58 she came barging into my studio
03:00 right in the middle of a game,
03:02 right in the middle of the action, calling the action.
03:05 And my wife, I look back,
03:07 thankfully we weren't on screen at the time
03:08 'cause it was in the middle of the game action.
03:10 My wife was behind thinking we were on air.
03:14 She army crawled into my office
03:16 and drug our little one out of the office
03:19 as quietly as could be.
03:22 No, I think a lot of people had similar experiences
03:25 when we were all working from home.
03:26 Like my little guys now are nine and six.
03:28 So at the time they would have been six and three
03:31 and they would wander in here.
03:33 This is like, there's nothing in here for them.
03:34 They know that, but yet sometimes they still wanna open
03:37 the door and peek in and they hear my voice.
03:39 And I can remember, you know,
03:41 like my little guy being three years old
03:42 and he's like, the door is right,
03:45 he is five feet from me right there.
03:46 This is a small space.
03:48 And he would open the door and he's just standing there.
03:49 I'm live on CBS Sports HQ.
03:52 They're shooting me from here.
03:54 So he's out of set, out of the shot.
03:56 But like, if he says a word, the mic's gonna pick it up.
03:59 It's also sort of distracting.
04:00 So you're like holding your hand up in his face right here,
04:03 like be quiet, don't say a word.
04:05 And you're still trying to talk
04:06 as intelligently as you can about,
04:09 you know, Kentucky brings back Oscar Sheeway
04:11 and blah, blah, blah.
04:12 It's just, those were weird times
04:14 trying to work in that manner.
04:15 But so, what happened to you?
04:17 Don't feel, what I was told early on is like,
04:20 if something happens, have fun with it
04:22 and just, you know, make a laugh out of it
04:24 because it's happening, you know,
04:25 it's happened on the Today Show.
04:27 So if it happens on CBS Sports Network, it'll be fine.
04:30 Just have a good time with it.
04:31 But yes, those were wild times.
04:34 - Well, both of us are kind of like kids on Christmas Eve.
04:39 We're right about to our favorite time of the year
04:41 with college basketball, the game's about to start.
04:43 It's been a topsy-turvy off season.
04:47 Coaching moves haven't been necessarily as sporadic
04:51 or kind of excitable as they have been in years past
04:54 with no Coach K movement or anything like that.
04:57 But in regards to transfers for players in the portal
05:02 and then just the NIL burst
05:06 of just things that are out there,
05:09 what have been the biggest storylines
05:11 for you in the off season?
05:12 - It's all NIL stuff.
05:14 That is the thing.
05:15 No matter what coach you talk to
05:17 and no matter what the conversation was initially about,
05:19 eventually you're gonna turn to
05:21 name, image, and likeness rights
05:22 and the one-time transfer waiver
05:24 and how the combination of those things
05:27 have really turned the sport upside down.
05:29 Used to, and I promise you, Mark would tell you this,
05:33 in any coach, as recently as a few years ago,
05:37 certainly forever before now,
05:41 you'd go on an in-home visit.
05:43 I bet you when you hosted coaches into your home,
05:47 when you were a prospect,
05:50 that they'd come in and they'd sit down
05:52 and they'd talk about style of play
05:53 and they'd talk about their roster makeup
05:55 and how we're losing our point guard
05:57 and we're gonna need a point guard.
05:59 They're talking about their facilities
06:02 and their graduation rates and all of this stuff.
06:05 And now coaches tell me that, yes, you still touch on that,
06:08 but the truth is,
06:11 everybody's waiting to have the conversation about money.
06:14 And you're better off walking in,
06:16 instead of talking about,
06:18 I've been to the NCAA tournament every year,
06:19 I've ever coached, which is something Mark Few can say,
06:22 you're better off just walking in and saying,
06:24 we got 225 that we can get you
06:28 if you will enroll with us
06:30 in name, image, and likeness rights.
06:31 And by 225, I mean $225,000.
06:36 We at CBS Sports in the off season,
06:39 every year, do what we call the Candid Coaches Series,
06:42 where we ask roughly a hundred coaches
06:44 a series of questions,
06:45 we grant them anonymity in exchange for honesty.
06:48 And one of the things we wanted to do this off season
06:50 is ask coaches, like, listen, we all hear stories,
06:52 like what's Drew Timmy getting
06:54 and what's Hunter Dickinson getting and whatever.
06:56 But like, you guys are in it, you're like living it.
06:59 You're like having to negotiate this stuff
07:01 and talk about it and be involved in it.
07:03 What's real, what's not real?
07:07 If you're in the market for a guy who will be,
07:10 say a starter, but maybe your third leading score
07:14 at a high major program.
07:16 And I would obviously consider Gonzaga a high major program,
07:20 even though it plays in the West Coast Conference.
07:22 So if you're like, you're looking for, let's just say,
07:25 a Graham E.K. or a Steele Venthers,
07:29 you know, what is that costing in the market?
07:31 What are those players looking for
07:32 when they enter the transfer portal?
07:33 And what are they actually getting?
07:36 And of the roughly 100 coaches we surveyed,
07:38 the most prominent, the most consistent answer we got
07:44 was that that level guy,
07:46 a guy who's in the transfer portal
07:48 and he's gonna be your third leading,
07:49 he's gonna average 11 and seven.
07:52 That, he's not gonna be your best player,
07:53 but he's gonna be an important player.
07:55 That guy's looking for 300
07:56 and probably getting somewhere between two and three.
07:59 That's the going rate. - Wow.
08:00 - That's what, and if the SEC gets involved,
08:03 I'm just telling you what coaches told us,
08:04 and if the SEC gets involved, the numbers go up.
08:07 'Cause they will, they'll spit, there wasn't a spin.
08:10 - SEC is clearly the most active in all sports.
08:13 I mean, you even look at, - SEC is, yes, SEC is.
08:15 - I think the gymnast at LSU is making a ridiculous amount.
08:19 - SEC is the most active, broadly speaking,
08:22 from a conference perspective,
08:23 but then you'll also hear, and Kansas, and Texas.
08:27 So it's like SEC, Kansas, Texas,
08:30 you would hear Memphis more so in years past than now,
08:33 but certainly Memphis would get thrown
08:35 into that conversation.
08:36 So when you hear that Gonzaga went out
08:41 and added a former Mountain West Conference
08:45 preseason player of the year,
08:47 Graeme A.K. is probably operating under the impression
08:50 that over the next year of playing basketball,
08:53 he's gonna make six figures and probably
08:56 in the neighborhood of, if not more than $200,000.
09:00 And so some coaches are still frustrated by this,
09:02 others understand it's just the way of the world now,
09:06 and there's no way to change it.
09:07 We're not going back,
09:08 you're not putting toothpaste back in the tube.
09:10 But it is interesting that most of these men
09:14 entered this profession and they were literally told,
09:18 if you even give a dollar to somebody,
09:21 it might cost you your career.
09:23 And now they are actually out there
09:27 raising money for collectives and then brokering deals
09:30 to build their rosters.
09:32 What's fascinating is Kansas is still waiting
09:36 on punishment from the NCAA for a violations case
09:39 tied to Kansas, basically using Adidas to funnel money.
09:44 - Of what they're doing now.
09:46 - It's literally what they're doing now legally.
09:48 They still have to be punished for what they did
09:52 when the rules were different.
09:54 It was like, Bill Self, you can't be on the phone
09:57 with the Adidas head, the head of Adidas every day.
10:00 That's against the rules.
10:02 You can't do that.
10:03 And now you know what?
10:04 If Bill Self's not on the phone
10:05 with the head of Adidas every day, he's not doing his job.
10:08 That's how dramatically the rules have shifted.
10:11 What used to get people on post-season bands
10:16 and coaches their jobs is now like,
10:20 it's just the way you have to do it
10:21 or you can't get players.
10:23 - So how do you kind of make it regulated
10:28 across the country and across the board?
10:30 Because I think that would really help.
10:32 The transparency and contracts
10:35 of what players are actually making.
10:37 Would there be a way for the NCAA
10:40 or maybe particular leagues to set a quote unquote
10:43 salary cap like professional sports have?
10:46 - This is what I hear from coaches all the time.
10:48 It's like, listen, just tell us what the deal is
10:50 and we'll do it.
10:51 But we would like to know definitively what we're up against,
10:54 what's real and what's not.
10:56 And transparency, like, you know,
10:58 I've had multiple college coaches tell me
11:00 every one of my fans know how much I make,
11:05 but they don't know how much my point guard's making.
11:08 And I don't know how much this guy's point guard's making.
11:11 I wish, if all the numbers are gonna be out there,
11:13 let's put all the numbers out there, including.
11:14 The problem is, of course,
11:16 coaches' salaries are often done
11:19 through public universities,
11:20 at which point they are publicly available.
11:23 Whereas these student athletes are securing deals
11:28 with entities outside of the university, private entities.
11:32 So we have access to their W-2s in no more way
11:37 than they have access to mine or yours, right?
11:39 It's not publicly known what you make for doing this show
11:43 or what I make for doing what I do.
11:45 And student athletes at this point
11:48 are under the same umbrella.
11:50 Where I think this will eventually go,
11:53 like, it's one of those things
11:54 where we know what the destination is.
11:57 We just don't know how long it's gonna take to get there
11:59 and how we're gonna get there,
12:00 but we know where we're going.
12:01 And where we're going is eventually,
12:03 yes, the student athletes will be unionized.
12:09 I think football certainly will be separated
12:12 from other college sports, probably men's basketball,
12:16 women's basketball, and maybe baseball.
12:18 Anything that could be considered a revenue sport
12:21 for the big leagues, like the Big Ten and the SEC,
12:24 I think they'll break away.
12:26 Within those sports,
12:27 the athletes will unionize and be allowed to.
12:33 They will collectively bargain.
12:35 And at least those sports,
12:38 or at least some combination of those sports
12:41 will look very much like professional sports.
12:44 Now, once you do that,
12:47 if you wanna collectively bargain a salary cap,
12:50 any of these things, you can,
12:54 but it has to be collectively bargained.
12:56 It can't be artificially put in place
13:00 because that's how you end up in court
13:02 and you end up losing again,
13:03 trying to limit what student athletes can earn.
13:06 But if it is collectively bargained,
13:08 then you can limit what they are allowed to earn
13:11 the same way the NBA can limit
13:13 what LeBron James is allowed to earn
13:15 or Damian Lillard is allowed to earn.
13:16 So that's where we're going.
13:19 And I do think that will be a,
13:20 I'm hesitant to say better 'cause I'd have to see it,
13:24 'cause I think what that actually introduces
13:26 is more cheating.
13:27 It's like, okay, here's the salary cap
13:28 and then people will just work around it.
13:30 Now it's interesting, like in major league baseball,
13:32 NFL, the NBA, certainly the NBA where the salary cap
13:36 is the more, I guess, traditional,
13:39 it's just the one that's very difficult to get around.
13:43 It's like, hey, we don't have the space, we can't do it.
13:45 It seems like in the NFL,
13:46 they can manipulate it all the time.
13:48 In the NBA, it's a little more difficult.
13:49 My point is this,
13:50 they don't have problems in those leagues
13:52 with people trying to circumvent the salary cap.
13:55 You'll hear a story pop up every once in a while.
13:57 There was some thought that maybe,
13:59 there was an international player a few years ago
14:05 who signed a deal with a team,
14:07 it was like, yo, are you getting something on the side?
14:09 'Cause that doesn't,
14:10 but these stories pop up infrequently.
14:13 And so maybe it wouldn't be a problem
14:14 at the collegiate level if we instituted a salary cap,
14:17 but to answer your initial question,
14:19 that's gotta be collectively bargained.
14:21 It will be someday.
14:23 It'll just probably like all other things
14:25 in college athletics,
14:26 take us longer than necessary to actually get there.
14:28 Remember, we just got here
14:30 and people had been talking about getting here
14:32 for 20 years.
14:33 - Yeah, those are some really great insights
14:38 and points about the NIL
14:40 and the collective bargaining agreement
14:43 possibilities down the road.
14:45 The other thing that's been very prevalent
14:47 is conference realignment.
14:49 I live on the West Coast.
14:51 You've seen conference realignment
14:53 because Memphis has been in a number of different leagues
14:56 over the course of the last 20 years.
14:59 It's now hitting the West Coast
15:01 in what has traditionally been the best basketball league,
15:03 the Pac-12, like nobody could have ever imagined
15:07 18 months ago.
15:08 There's two schools left.
15:11 What is your take on conference realignment
15:15 on the West Coast?
15:16 And then is the WCC truly the best basketball conference now
15:20 West of the Mississippi?
15:22 - Well, I mean, like everything's West of the Mississippi
15:27 now, at least in some regard.
15:29 - Yeah, 'cause I guess it's nationally.
15:32 When you, I guess, time zone based.
15:34 - Yeah, I understand.
15:35 Maybe, certainly we gotta see what this,
15:38 barring a surprise, like Oregon State and Washington State
15:42 are just gonna need a home
15:44 and they'll probably find it with,
15:47 either they will join the Mountain West
15:49 or they will try to lure the best Mountain West schools
15:52 to join them and maybe keep the Pac-12 name.
15:56 There's a lot of moving parts here.
15:58 It could be one of those deals where Oregon State
16:00 and Washington State say,
16:01 "Well, rather than we join the Mountain West
16:05 as currently constructed,
16:07 why don't we knock off these bottom feeder
16:10 Mountain West teams, leave them alone,
16:12 and then we'll have the best of the Mountain West
16:14 plus Washington State, plus Oregon State."
16:16 As always, we'll see.
16:18 But it's sad.
16:20 But the idea that the Pac-12,
16:22 forever labeled the conference of champions,
16:23 this proud sports league is just not going to exist
16:27 in the way that it's existed our entire lives.
16:31 It stinks.
16:32 It's not a good thing for college athletics.
16:34 It's a bad thing.
16:36 On a personal level,
16:37 like I know people who work in that league
16:39 and I know that it was badly run at the top
16:43 and they had back-to-back,
16:45 I don't want to say incompetent commissioners,
16:47 but like commissioners who quite clearly didn't do the job
16:49 the way the job needed to be done.
16:51 Otherwise you don't end up in this situation.
16:54 But that doesn't mean that...
16:55 So I hear people sometimes say the Pac-12 did this
16:57 to itself and perhaps there's some truth to that,
16:59 but it doesn't mean that there's some good people
17:01 who worked in that office,
17:02 that got families who didn't have anything to do
17:04 with what happened and they're now paying
17:05 an enormous price for it.
17:07 I feel sick for those people.
17:08 - I tell you, Dan, I genuinely believe this.
17:12 When we do the 30 for 30 or the Netflix documentary
17:15 on conference realignment in 20 years or 30 years
17:17 or 40 years or whatever,
17:18 even the people, the men and women who are involved
17:22 in making these decisions,
17:23 in other words, they got the power to do it
17:25 and they're doing it,
17:26 they'll look back on this with regret.
17:28 All of this will be regrettable.
17:29 And the main reason is because
17:33 every decision that's been made,
17:36 I don't want to say every,
17:38 but the overwhelming majority of them
17:39 have been made with money in mind.
17:41 Now it's somewhat just like,
17:43 we need to get on that side of the rope.
17:45 So like, SMU agrees to take no media rights money
17:50 for X amount of years to join a power conference.
17:53 They just want to get on the right side of the rope.
17:55 But largely the reason being on the right side of the rope
17:57 is so important is because the money gap
18:00 between the haves and have nots is just massive.
18:04 Everybody's chasing money,
18:05 but you know what makes fans happiest,
18:09 coaches happiest, universities the best.
18:14 It's not having the most money.
18:16 It's not having the wildest practice facility.
18:21 It's winning.
18:23 People like to win.
18:24 The reason the Kennel looks the way it looks every night
18:27 is because they win nearly every time they play there.
18:31 And the Zags have been one of the most consistently
18:34 dominant programs in basketball
18:37 for a not insignificant amount of time now.
18:39 By definition, when USC and UCLA at the very least
18:46 go to the Big 10, and now you see Oregon, Washington,
18:53 like these are all top 25 football programs right now.
18:56 All right.
18:56 By definition, when they all go to the Big 10,
18:58 you know what happens?
18:59 Everything gets harder for them
19:02 and everything gets harder for Ohio State,
19:05 Michigan, Penn State.
19:07 All right.
19:08 These teams got to play each other.
19:10 Two teams can't win the same game.
19:11 For every win, there's a loss.
19:13 Somebody's got to take that now.
19:15 Instead of finishing first in the pack 12,
19:18 like USC would do in many years,
19:20 now that might equate to third in the Big 10.
19:24 They don't feel the same.
19:26 Same thing with the SEC.
19:27 Texas and Oklahoma go to the SEC.
19:30 Everything just got harder for both of them.
19:32 You know who else it gets hard for?
19:33 Alabama and LSU.
19:34 All right.
19:35 That's not fun.
19:36 We will look back on all of this.
19:38 I bet everything I have.
19:40 We'll look back on all this and go,
19:41 I understand why they did it when they did it.
19:44 The money was massive and everybody was trying to get it.
19:46 But boy, what did you get for that money?
19:49 Are you having more fun?
19:51 I got to be even wilder prediction for you.
19:53 You ready for this?
19:54 Washington is on its way to the Big 10.
19:57 Washington State is left behind.
19:59 Over the next 10 years,
20:01 you know who will have more fun?
20:02 Washington State fans will have more fun
20:04 than Washington fans.
20:05 'Cause Washington's gonna go in basketball and football
20:07 and get their brains beat in more often than not.
20:10 And Washington State might end up being the class
20:13 of whatever this new Pac-12 Mountain West is,
20:16 and they're winning football championships
20:18 and going to playoffs.
20:19 Now all you got to do is be better
20:22 than the people you're in the league with.
20:24 For Washington, that gets very hard.
20:27 For Washington State, it's not as hard.
20:30 I won't be surprised if Washington celebrates
20:34 changing leagues, but Washington State actually has more fun
20:37 after changing leagues,
20:38 'cause they're gonna win more than they would
20:39 if they were in the league they would prefer to be in.
20:42 All of this is gonna lead to people going,
20:44 we blew up rivalries.
20:46 We made things more difficult for our athletic programs.
20:50 We sent student athletes all over the country
20:53 to play volleyball and soccer, why?
20:55 When we look back on this,
20:57 everybody will be able to acknowledge
20:59 it was, if we could snap our fingers and undo it all,
21:02 we would.
21:03 - Yeah, there's a lot of interesting points
21:06 that you made there, and I agree with a lot of it.
21:08 I think it's been driven by money,
21:11 and unfortunately, years down the road,
21:13 hopefully sooner rather than later,
21:15 people realize just do something that makes sense
21:18 for football and leave the other sports alone.
21:21 But let's get back to what both of our passion is,
21:23 and that's college basketball.
21:25 Practices are now underway.
21:27 Games are right around the corner.
21:29 You got to be just immersed in season prep right now.
21:34 What does that look like for you
21:36 before you start heading to New York
21:37 for your studio gigs with CBS Sports?
21:40 Are you getting to practices?
21:42 Are you traveling out to see different programs?
21:44 What does your preseason prep look like?
21:46 - Haven't started that yet, will very soon.
21:50 We do a series in the off season,
21:52 just in the spirit of creating podcast content
21:55 for the Ion College Basketball Podcast with CBS Sports,
21:58 where we basically run through 20 teams.
22:00 We dedicate 20 different episodes
22:02 to not necessarily the 20 best teams on paper,
22:05 but just 20 teams we think, yeah, we'll be good,
22:07 but also have something interesting to talk about.
22:10 So we did an episode on St. John's,
22:12 not necessarily because St. John's
22:14 is gonna be one of the 20 best teams in the country,
22:15 although it might,
22:16 but because St. John's hired Rick Pitino,
22:18 and that's a big story,
22:19 and it felt like we could get 20 minutes out of that.
22:22 So in terms of prep, yes, I'm creating content,
22:28 but it's like a homework assignment.
22:30 It's like a summer reading almost,
22:33 if you were in high school,
22:35 because you have to really dive into Gonzaga,
22:38 and then you gotta really dive into Duke,
22:40 and you gotta really dive into Kentucky.
22:42 And I don't care how closely you follow this stuff
22:44 on a national level,
22:46 there's just so many teams and so much going on,
22:49 you'll miss things, or you won't quite pick up on things,
22:51 or you won't properly have a grasp
22:53 for who's gone and who's back.
22:54 So those are terrific prep sessions for the upcoming season,
22:59 'cause you're forced,
23:00 those school-specific episodes,
23:04 largely the people who are gonna listen to them
23:05 are fans of that school,
23:07 and you can't fake it with them.
23:08 They're gonna know more about it than you do,
23:10 so you gotta make sure you know about it.
23:12 And so those are incredible homework assignments
23:14 that help me get ready,
23:15 and also help generate enthusiasm.
23:18 Like I'm ready to go.
23:19 I tell you, and I don't know that this is unique to me,
23:23 I also don't know that it's common,
23:26 but it's just the truth.
23:27 I say this every year.
23:29 By the time February 1st hits,
23:31 I'm ready for it to be over.
23:32 Middle February, I'm just ready for it to be over.
23:34 People are like, "Are you excited for the Final Four?"
23:37 I'm excited for the Tuesday after the Final Four.
23:39 I'm exhausted.
23:40 Like you noted, once January hits,
23:42 I'm back and forth to New York every week.
23:44 I'm flying on Mondays, in-studio Tuesday, Wednesday,
23:46 flying on Thursdays.
23:47 I am so lucky to be able to do that,
23:49 but I would be lying if I told you it doesn't take a toll.
23:51 It's exhausting.
23:52 I have a wife and three kids,
23:54 and I'm not here as much as I would otherwise be.
23:59 You miss things, right?
24:00 And it's just like, you get worn down,
24:02 you feel like you're not present enough,
24:04 and I'm just like, "God, I can't wait for this to be over."
24:06 And then I really enjoy the off-season,
24:08 but by about now, I'm like, "All right,
24:11 "I'm ready to go again.
24:12 "Let's get going."
24:14 I'm tired of wondering if Zack Eaddy's
24:18 gonna be a statistical monster again,
24:20 how Hunter Dickinson's gonna adjust to Kansas,
24:23 how Graham E.K.'s gonna bounce back from injury.
24:25 Tired of wondering about it.
24:27 Let's see it, and then let's start talking about
24:29 the things that are gonna emerge
24:31 as the biggest stories in the sport.
24:33 And this is another thing that I always love
24:34 about college basketball.
24:37 In the NBA, you can reasonably assume
24:41 what the big stories are gonna be in the sport.
24:44 There ain't somebody who has never been an all-star
24:47 who emerges as an MVP candidate in the NBA,
24:50 just out of nowhere.
24:51 That doesn't happen.
24:52 Nikola Jokic is gonna be an MVP candidate,
24:56 and Joe Ellenbead.
24:57 It's not gonna be somebody that glows you,
25:01 like, "Oh my God, I would have never imagined this."
25:04 In Major League Baseball, you'll get some of that as well.
25:07 In the NFL, some of that as well.
25:09 Like who had Tua Tunga-Villoa and the Dolphins
25:11 scoring more points and gaining more yards
25:14 than any team in the first three weeks of the season
25:16 since the 40th.
25:17 You'll get some of it, but for the most part,
25:21 you kinda know who's gonna be good
25:23 and who's not gonna be good.
25:24 I still have to say this.
25:25 Last preseason, I don't think we said five words
25:28 about Zach Yee.
25:29 He was just one of many good big men
25:32 returning to college basketball,
25:34 but not considered the best.
25:36 That would have probably been Oscar Chibwe, right?
25:38 Or Drew Timmy.
25:39 And then Zach Yee becomes the National Player of the Year
25:41 and produce a one seed.
25:42 Nobody saw that coming.
25:44 I love that about this sport.
25:46 There are things that happen every year
25:49 that just you couldn't have possibly imagined
25:51 are gonna be the things that dominate the sport.
25:55 Even in the Zion Williamson year,
25:56 where he was the biggest figure in the sport by far,
25:59 he was the third best recruit
26:00 according to the recruiting rankings in Duke's class.
26:03 RJ Barrett was ranked higher.
26:04 Cam Reddish was ranked higher.
26:06 And then Zion Williamson is a phenomenon
26:09 within two weeks of the start of the season.
26:11 That's not something many people saw coming,
26:14 but it is something that happened.
26:16 We'll have that again this season.
26:17 And I'm ready to get to it so that we can start.
26:20 'Cause in the preseason,
26:23 obviously you end up talking about the same things a lot.
26:25 Like, do you think Purdue is gonna be able to bounce back
26:28 after losing to a 16 or whatever?
26:31 The season starts, it gives us new things to discuss
26:34 'cause there are things that happen that, again,
26:35 we didn't necessarily see coming.
26:38 - Awesome.
26:38 Well, obviously I love having you as a guest.
26:41 We could go on for hours about college basketball,
26:45 but we're both limited on time.
26:47 So I got one last question for you
26:49 because I know the listeners of this
26:52 are going to be curious about your take on Gonzaga.
26:55 You've always been extremely positive towards Gonzaga.
27:00 You felt that they were undervalued,
27:02 underrated for a number of years.
27:03 You've done a lot of deep dives on the program,
27:07 but this is a different year.
27:08 I think nationally,
27:10 people don't know a lot about Graham E.K.
27:11 because he played at Wyoming.
27:13 People don't know a lot about Steele Venters coming in
27:15 'cause he played at Eastern Washington.
27:17 The one transfer they probably know nationally
27:19 a decent bit about is Ryan Nembhardt
27:21 'cause he played at Creighton.
27:22 But from your perspective,
27:25 give us the national viewpoint of Gonzaga
27:27 this upcoming season.
27:28 - Listen, the safest thing you can do every preseason
27:32 for a long time now is just assume Gonzaga's gonna be good.
27:35 You know, they've been number one
27:38 three of the past seven years.
27:40 They finished in the top 10 at Ken Palm seven straight years.
27:43 They haven't finished outside of the top 25 at Ken Palm
27:47 since 2011.
27:48 Roster turnover,
27:51 you can lose a West Coast Conference Player of the Year.
27:54 It has never mattered.
27:56 They've always been good.
27:58 So if you were assuming they're not gonna be good,
28:01 then you're really betting against all of the data.
28:05 The question's how good?
28:06 Are we talking final four good?
28:07 Are we talking top 20 good?
28:10 Or what are we talking?
28:12 And I think it's,
28:13 I believe I have them 19th in my top 25
28:16 and one at cbssports.com.
28:18 They did lose four of their five starters.
28:21 They did lose, you know,
28:23 one of the greatest basketball players in the country
28:28 at the collegiate level
28:29 and one of the greatest college basketball players
28:31 we've had over the past decade in Drew Timmy.
28:34 That's a lot to overcome,
28:36 but they recovered incredibly nicely
28:40 in the transfer portal.
28:41 I think everybody knows Ryan Nimmard,
28:44 brother played there.
28:46 He has, you know,
28:49 started 64 games the past two years at Creighton,
28:53 you know, NCAA tournament teams,
28:55 teams that were good enough to go to the final four,
28:57 even though they didn't.
28:58 He averaged 12 points, five assists last season.
29:01 He's a rock solid lead guard at this level of basketball.
29:07 Still Venters is a fourth year player
29:11 who's an accomplished three point shooter.
29:14 He shot above 40% for his career so far.
29:19 That's a reliable number.
29:23 He'll be great,
29:25 or at least a guy that creates space
29:27 just by his ability to shoot.
29:29 And then the one that I'm most excited about is Graeme E.K.
29:33 Because I agree with you.
29:35 A lot of people haven't seen him
29:36 because he played at Wyoming,
29:38 but like buddy, I'm in studio on Tuesday and Wednesday nights
29:41 CBS Sports Network.
29:42 I watched a lot of those Wyoming games
29:44 and he was like awesome the last year that he played.
29:49 He averaged 19 and a half points and 9.6 rebounds
29:53 for a team that made the NCAA tournament.
29:57 So these weren't empty stats for a whatever team.
30:00 These were real numbers for an accomplished basketball team,
30:03 like a good team.
30:05 And he was the Mountain West Conference
30:08 preseason player of the year heading into last season.
30:10 And then he just never played.
30:12 I guess it was a foot injury.
30:14 And granted I haven't seen him
30:18 since the last time he played at Wyoming.
30:20 And I don't know what the recovery process has been like,
30:24 but if he just comes back
30:25 and he's the same player he was at Wyoming,
30:28 he, I don't wanna say that,
30:30 the Zags won't miss anything because they will.
30:33 Drew Timmy was an amazing college basketball player.
30:36 But Grammy King's a really high level
30:38 college basketball player too, who has already proven it.
30:41 I tell you this, you remember last year
30:44 at Kansas State, Keontae Johnson,
30:47 ended up being an all conference player,
30:49 all American candidate,
30:50 helped him get to the elite end of the NCAA tournament.
30:53 This time last year, nobody was talking about him.
30:55 Why?
30:55 He was the preseason SEC player the year, two years earlier,
30:58 but then he had the heart condition.
31:00 He was just sort of out of sight, out of mind.
31:02 Like we just like, man,
31:03 I guess Kansas State got Keontae Johnson,
31:05 but he hadn't played in two years.
31:07 Like, what's that gonna look like?
31:08 And as soon as he got on the court, you know what it was?
31:10 It's like, oh wow, he's not only as good as he was
31:14 when he was voted preseason SEC player of the year,
31:16 but he's even better than he's ever been.
31:19 Just keep that in mind about Grammy King.
31:21 I don't need him to be anything other than what he was,
31:24 'cause what he was was a Mountain West Conference
31:26 preseason player of the year who averaged roughly 20 and 10
31:30 for an NCAA tournament team.
31:31 He could be the guy that nobody's talking about
31:33 in the preseason.
31:34 You look up in December and you're like, man,
31:37 the Zags got another front court statistical monster
31:40 who looks like he could compete for, you know,
31:43 a West Coast Conference player of the year.
31:45 I'm not predicting it.
31:46 I'm just saying, I don't think the Grammy King edition
31:49 got enough attention nationally
31:52 because he's been sort of out of sight, out of mind.
31:55 But he's, the last time we saw him play,
31:57 he was a terrific college basketball player.
31:59 - Love it, Gary.
32:00 Always appreciate your insight as do our listeners.
32:03 So thanks again for joining Gonzaga Nation.
32:06 And at some point, I'm sure we'll have you back on
32:09 during the season.
32:09 So enjoy this great time of year
32:12 where we're all getting ready for the season.
32:14 - I can't wait, buddy.
32:16 I appreciate you having me.
32:16 Always good to talk to you.
32:18 Hope to see you in person real soon.
32:20 - Sounds good.
32:21 For Gonzaga Nation, he is Gary Parish.
32:24 I am Dan Dickow.
32:25 Thanks again for watching.
32:27 (upbeat music)
32:29 (upbeat music)