Welcome to the finale of my two-part interview with CBS Sports’ college basketball insider Jon Rothstein. We wrap it up with Jon talking in his inimitable style about a wide variety of subjects, including the type of schools that could benefit most from NIL, the challenges he sees facing Kentucky in an increasingly balanced SEC, and, of course, his passion for pasta and his on-camera sitdown dinner with Kevin Willard.
J.P. Pelzman: How challenging was it to keep up the high standards for you and the folks at CBS Sports Network? How were you able to navigate this past season given the restrictions of COVID?
Jon Rothstein: For me, I think the biggest difference was not being able to go around as much during preseason because of COVID. I usually get to around 40 schools to see practice but that was obviously lessened because of the restrictions.
As far as the studio work at CBS, we had to be tested multiple times during (every) week to be cleared to work, which was obviously a different circumstance than previous years. And then I was fortunate enough to be assigned to work in the bubble at the NCAA Tournament, where I was in an enclosed environment for 25 days and there were only two places I could really be--my hotel room and the Indianapolis Convention Center, where the teams were practicing. It was obviously a very unique experience, but an experience that I was very grateful for that I was assigned that opportunity.
JPP: That video about your daily routine was fascinating. (It’s pinned to the top of Jon’s Twitter feed at Twitter.com/JonRothstein.) What was that like, that whole experience?
JR: We had daily testing in the hotel from 7-9 (a.m.), and whether you were working until 1 o’clock in the morning or 3 o’clock in the morning, you had to make the 7-9 window or else you wouldn’t be cleared to work. That was how we started every day.
JPP: Wow.
JR: It's hard to put into words and the best way I can say it is, it’s June 9 right now, and picture from June 9 to July 1 being in your bedroom and only one other area of your living space, and those are the only places you can go to for about 25 days. It was completely unique. It was unlike anything else, obviously and hopefully, we’ll never have to have a bubble again for the NCAA Tournament. But it’s definitely something I'll never forget.
JPP: Again, I give you a lot of credit. I feel you maintained your high standards despite all that.
JR: Thanks, man.
JPP: You talked before about guardrails with the transfer rule. Do you think guardrails need to be built into the NIL? How do you see that changing recruiting going forward? Is it a work in progress?
JR: That’s a work in progress and I think it will be a case-by-case basis. I think you are going to see schools and programs that are based in college towns have a significant, significant advantage in the NIL market versus schools and programs that are based in urban areas that have professional teams.
JPP: Is that because in a college town you can set a player up with the car dealership down the road and put his face on a billboard whereas that isn’t so easy in an urban area with more competition?
JR: Well, let’s just say you’re in Atlanta, and you can do a marketing deal with the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, or Trae Young (of the Hawks), or a player on the Braves, who’s going to get the marketing opportunity? That guy or a college kid?
JPP: Yeah, exactly.
What's changed the most since you started doing this? Well, first of all, let me back up. How long have you been doing this?
JR: My first season at CBS Sports was 2010-11 and I was at MSG Network for three years before that, starting in 2007.
JPP: What would you say is the biggest different from then to now in the sport?
JR: I think the way that teams have built rosters, and I think the landscape of college basketball has always had Cinderellas, always had unpredictability, but I think because player retention is not as frequent with so many teams across the country, you are seeing more and more upsets in the NCAA Tournament.
Don’t get me wrong. We obviously always had Cinderellas and upsets in the NCAA Tournament, but when you look at what’s happened in the last couple of years, and when you look at the unpredictability of certain things...In an eight-day span this year, Illinois won the Big Ten tournament and then lost to Loyola of Chicago (in the second round of the NCAAs). The level of separation wasn’t that far from a team that won the Big Ten to a team from the Missouri Valley Conference and Illinois was a team that had key players back but Loyola, because it had more players back, essentially their whole team back, was able to advance.
You look at what happened with UCLA. I know they’re UCLA, a brand name, but they still were on a four-game losing streak going into the NCAA Tournament and had lost three potential starters (for various reasons) and still made the Final Four. When you look at this thing on a year-by-year basis, it’s really interesting to me. In 2019, Auburn loses its best player up to that point in the NCAA Tournament, Chuma Okeke, and they still were able to go on a run where they beat Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina and easily could’ve beaten Virginia. (The Tigers beat Kentucky and lost to Virginia by one without Okeke.)
And then Chris Beard was able to take a Texas Tech team primarily made up of players who were together for a one-year stretch and they were one possession away from winning a national championship. In 2018 you can go back to Loyola making the final Four and in 2017 you had South Carolina making the Final Four for the first time ever.
The list goes on and on of how outliers continue to emerge in college basketball every time an NCAA Tournament is played.
