Missouri Valley Examiner interview with ESPN's Andy Katz

[electricmayhem]

I was fortunate enough to be able to do an interview with ESPN's Andy Katz for my site. I asked him questions about mid-majors, and threw in a few Valley-specific questions.

The interview is here:

http://www.examiner.com/missouri-valley-basketball-in-national/interview-series-nine-questions-with-espn-s-andy-katz

The roundtable discussion at 4pm CST on ESPNU on Friday, Aug. 19 includes WSU Head Coach Gregg Marshall. Should be interesting...

[tornado]

Thanks -- BUT I have some disagreement with some of Katz' answers --

First - he says..
"These are isolated instances (in the "larger schools" and BCS) of coaches or recruits or players committing violations."

...OMG -- gimme a break -- Katz has blinders on and is in the tank for the BCS boys...
..the cheating, lying, and rules breaking we've been seeing at USC, Tennessee, Ohio State, UConn, IU, and Michigan are unprecedented in volume and scope -- they are anthing but minor or isolated.


And as expected Katz denies there's any bias against the smaller schools and mid-majors --


Then his opinion on the gap closing between big and smaller schools...
.. I would express that the "gap" in talent and certainly the gap in athletic department recruiting budgets between the BCS's and mid-majors is as wide as ever.

People use the Shaka Smart/VCU example -- but let's wait and see how many of their players end up in the NBA...
Katz also cites UNI's run to the Sweet Sixteen in 2010 as some kind of proof that UNI was as talented as Kansas...
...but again -- did they have the same level of talent Kansas had?? Not one person in 1,000,000 would say they did, the upset had NOTHING to do with talent, just better effort and coaching.
I'll bet even Ben Jacobson would freely admit Kansas had far superior talent and he'd have loved to have had it!

In the end - the advance of two teams into the Final Four proves little about the talent gap but lots about the coaching abilities ofplaenty of young guys at the mid-major level.

The BCS schools with their $50 to $100 million Athletic Department budgets will alway sget the best talent, and I just don't see the evidence that it's turning significantly yet.

[electricmayhem]

I agree that the incidents aren't isolated... it's a widespread problem.

I didn't expect him to think there was a bias, but it was worth asking, as he worked for newspapers in Fresno and Milwaukee...

I think the gap in resources is wide, but I like his answer about teams that are together longer have a chance against schools with inexperience in the postseason.

T - to me, you are implying that if Brad Stevens, Ben Jacobson, etc. had the talent of Kansas, Kentucky, etc. that they would be playing in the title game every year. I don't think it's that simple. Do I think the mid-major coaches have a harder task than the big boys? Yes... but I don't agree that the coaching style would be the same.

We will see what happens with Cuonzo and Dana...

I was very appreciative that Katz agreed to do this...

[tornado]

not every year but pretty close

[LittleBrave]

Nice job, Joe! Keep the good work rollin'!