Mike DeCourcy's Insight on College Hoops & NBA Draft Prospects

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00:00Mike DeCoursey, the famed scribe from the Sporting News, joins us weekly here on Coast to Coast.

00:04You can also catch him during the college basketball season on Fox Sports, College Hoops

00:09coverage, and the Big Ten Network. He's on the take for the Indiana Hoosiers and for Pharrell

00:13because he's from Pittsburgh. God bless him. Anyway, you wrote about Ace Bailey, and I thought

00:19it was interesting that you said that he's kind of transformed into Johnny Lawrence on the Karate

00:26kid, into a villain type, because over the last few days, he's been portrayed as this guy that's

00:35unwilling to meet with teams and the like. But I only care about his basketball prowess.

00:42Although I have to say, and I know Dylan Harper, I watched him train every morning for about two

00:49years where I play ball. He would be with his trainer shooting in the morning at 5 a.m.

00:56when we got there at 5.30. I'd always see this kid. And I mean, I used to sit and watch him, Mike,

01:02and I was like, oh my goodness. He like, I saw him hit like 100 straight threes. And I was like,

01:09I've never seen anything like that before in my life. And he was right in front of my very eyes.

01:13I played against his brother that obviously made it at Rutgers and into the league.

01:20And I knew Dylan, but you know, he's number two automatic. Why couldn't Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey

01:28win together was what threw me off. I can never understand how average they were. That team was

01:35awful. Well, I think it starts with the fact that they didn't have a lot beyond those two. I think it

01:42was hard for Rutgers to be Rutgers. Rutgers got to be successful in the Big Ten over the previous few

01:48years by being this lunch pail type of team that worked hard on both ends of the floor,

01:56especially at the defensive end, were never elite offensively. That was hard to instill into a couple

02:01of five-star freshmen in short order. They had less talent around them. After Cliff Amore decided

02:08to go to Alabama, they lost a lot of what would have made them a successful team.

02:14And also Dylan was hurt a lot and they didn't get a lot of health as a result of that. Ace came into

02:21the year hurt. So he missed a lot of the preseason prep. It just didn't work. And honestly, Scott,

02:26the history of this circumstance where you aren't used to having these guys, these five,

02:32not just five-star guys, but like the very cream of the guys who are going to be lottery picks.

02:38If you're not used to having them in your program, you usually fail. When you go back to Washington

02:43with Lorenzo Romar, when it ended up costing him his career, we've seen a lot of coaches that were

02:50fired very close to having those sorts of players on their team. And it just, it's not a great

02:57situation. So I don't look at those two guys as what Rutgers was this year. I look at them as

03:03prospects, irrespective of what they did in terms of their team success. And I think Dylan is a great

03:12prospect. He fits the mold of what the new point guard is, the Shea Gilgis, Alexander, Tyrese Halliburton,

03:186'5", 6'6", 6'6", guy, except he's more physical than either player. And how that comes into play and how

03:24that works for him, we will see. But he's physically stronger than either one of them. And then Ace is,

03:31it's phenomenal to see what's the narrative that's happened with him over the last week and a half.

03:38Because I talked to Steve Peichel probably before that really started to go. And Steve is like,

03:44this kid is the best kid that I have. He is just wonderful. He says, the best explanation of it is,

03:51he said, we have like 26 student managers in our program. And I think I know most of them,

03:56but I don't know all of them. And he said, Ace knows every single guy, because that's how,

04:01that's the kind of guy he is. He connects with people around him. He plays with great joy. That's

04:07something that, that Fran Fraschilla from ESPN told me in the article. He's not the player he's

04:13being portrayed as. They seem to be trying to, to get him to go to a certain direction. And I don't know

04:19what that direction is, Scott, but I don't understand it because what you should be trying

04:24to do is go as high in, in the draft as possible. The difference between the number three pick and

04:30the number six pick doesn't seem like much, Scott, over the first three years of the, of the contract,

04:35the rookie scale contract, it is $8 million. That's, that's like playing a full year for free.

04:43Why would you do that voluntarily? Yeah, it makes no sense at all. I have to ask you,

04:49how big is he? Uh, there's been so many lies about his size and why, I don't understand why people,

05:00is it that people are doing this to him or that he's doing it to himself?

05:06Well, it seems to be the, the direction he's getting from those around him. I mean,

05:11cause I don't think that somebody said, Hey Ace, we want you to go ball in Philly. And he said,

05:14no, I don't want to ball. That's not who he is. You, you, you roll a ball out at him and he's

05:19going to go. So someone's, uh, that, that, that is, uh, handling him, uh, agent manager, whatever

05:26is saying, this is how we're going to do this. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't fit with his

05:31personality. Uh, and it doesn't fit with his taste for competition. He loves to play. So I, I don't

05:37understand that part of it. Uh, the, the, the height part of it is not a big deal. Look, everybody,

05:43everybody plays in shoes and everybody height as listed on their roster is the shoe height.

05:50Why the NBA does this. And then I think it's because they get a little buzz out of it. Oh,

05:55look, he's only six, seven and a half. Well, first of all, no one types out the six, seven and a half.

06:00It's a pain in the butt. So right away, the guy's six, eight, you throw a couple of shoes on him,

06:05a couple of basketball shoes. Now he's six, nine. So if they fudge the extra inch, what difference

06:09does it make? He's a six, nine small forward. That's still pretty big Scott. Yeah. There's no

06:15doubt about it. Speaking of big, how about your guy, uh, Derek queen? We saw him take his game

06:21to an entirely different level at Maryland last year. He was really phenomenal and teams have to

06:29be licking their chops at this guy. Except that they aren't Scott. And one of the reasons is

06:34yeah. I mean, I think you're, you're seeing him mostly projected into double figures,

06:3911, 12, I think is the consensus. And we'll maybe somebody will surprise us and say, no,

06:44I see what the course he's seeing. I agree with him. Uh, we're taking him higher, uh, because I

06:49think Derek queen is a special talent. He has a gift for the game that is rare. It's not measurable.

06:55It's a rare gift. He doesn't jump high. He was measured, I think at 28 inches in his max vertical.

07:02That's not high. That's the kind of thing that makes it difficult for you to be a great shot

07:06blocker. You know what Jokic is vertical was measured at Scott. It was 17 inches when he was

07:1319 years old. And yet he somehow is the NBA MVP. Now I'm not saying that that's where Derek queen is

07:18headed, but I think it's showing that it can be overcome. And Derek has a lot of the same skills

07:25again, not to that degree, but a lot of the same skills. Now he'll have to become a better shooter

07:31in order to succeed. I think he was, I think he made 17 threes as a freshman at Maryland. It's going

07:37to have to be better than that, but that's not uncommon for a guy, his size, who's been playing

07:42as a center for his entire career, all the way coming up, even when he was at Montverde, he's still

07:47the center and he's surrounded by a bunch of perimeter guys like Cooper flag. So he's not going to get a lot

07:53of opportunities to get out there and stretch it. So it's something he'll have to work on now,

07:58but if he has that hunger, and this is something that I say with a lot of players, I don't know the

08:02players and how desperately they want it, but in order to become great in the NBA, Scott, the first

08:10paycheck can't move you. The second one, the third one, the first year, none of it can move you.

08:15The only thing that can move you is what moves Kevin Durant and moves LeBron James. And that's the

08:20hunger to be great. If you have the hunger to be great, and if their queen has that hunger,

08:25I think he'll be special. How big was the de Corsi birthday celebration over the weekend?

08:32It was pretty small, but it was nice, Scott. Absolutely. I went to see Camelot. It's a musical

08:40I've always wanted to see. It was here in Pittsburgh, the Civic Light Opera. So I saw Camelot

08:45and it was a great experience. We loved it. I've been there to the Civic Light Opera. That is

08:51fantastic. I'm glad you had a nice 40th birthday, Mike. Congratulations from all of us at Coast to

08:57Coast. Real quick, have you been watching the Club World Cup and the Gold Cup? I was at the Juventus

09:04game last week, so I have been watching it all and looking forward to the quarterfinal against Costa Rica

09:09for the U.S. in the Gold Cup and to the Club World Cup getting down to the real meat of it. It is

09:15early part not to great. Happy belated, Mike.

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