This week’s Sports Media Podcast brings on CBS college basketball analyst Wally Szczerbiak just in time for March Madness.
The former NBAer (who’s also the color commentator for Knicks broadcasts on the MSG Network) joins co-hosts Austin Karp and Mollie Cahillane to play a game of “If you were Czar of College Basketball for a day,” as Szczerbiak offers his viewpoint of how the sport can stand out of football’s shadow -- and what not to mess with when it comes to March Madness.
Excerpts have been lightly edited.
Does college basketball gets its due? “It does for me, because I’m all basketball. I know the goal is to reach the casual fan a little bit more. And what I loved about this season ... just the matchups at the beginning of the year were massive. Every night, there was a top-five matchup or top-10 matchup. And with the new NIL rules, with the new transfer portal, with so much money running around in college basketball and moving around in college basketball, players and coaches and teams and schools are motivated to play big games early on in the season and be on big TV networks and try to generate as much revenue for the TV networks as possible. ... And it’s carried through the regular season, and as a result, this year is going to be the best NCAA Tournament.”
How to drum up more interest in college basketball: “There has been a suggestion to lengthen the regular season a little bit. I know coaches want to coach their guys for more games. It gives you a little bit more of a chance to blend your team together, because right now, the season is 30-35 games, and with the transfer portal, it takes some time for your guys to mess and gel. And there was this suggestion of Mark Pope, the coach at Kentucky, to lengthen the season to 40 games. Now, again, you run into competing with football, which is obviously very dominant, college and pro, but at the same time, I don’t see any downside to it.”
Would an expansion of March Madness help college basketball? “The way the tournament is operating now, it’s awesome. To me, you get 68 teams, that’s plenty. When I played in ’99, we made the tournament of 64, and the play-in has added a little bit of drama. And that’s one of the reasons people are asking for more expansion, because of the drama the play-in has brought. Now, ultimately, you cannot sacrifice the product, which is the Final Four, the Sweet Sixteen, and you don’t water down the first couple rounds leading to the Sweet Sixteen, the Final Four and the Elite Eight, and if you can generate more revenue, maybe it makes sense.”
