CBS Sports Eye On College Basketball Podcast

ESPN.com lead college hoops blogger Eamonn Brennan is back on the podcast, and we're talking Big Ten, Indiana, Minnesota's stupidity, UCLA's anxiety and Norlander's pathetic attempt at remaining cool. That comes first. In general, it's a look-ahead to the season forthcoming, with emphasis on recent news items in the past few days. Enjoy.

If you consider yourself a loveable and knowledgable college basketball fan, it means you do three things. 1) You religiously read CBSSports.com 2) You're a beautiful and loyal subscriber to this very podcast 3) You've already ordered the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook. And if that third note isn't correct, then correct it immediately. The pod brings on the editor of the sport's very best, thickest, most objective preseason magazine. Chris Dortch is knowledgeable on all things hoops, but especially the SEC, and a good portion of today's pod focuses on that league in particular, which means Kentucky hoops is of course addressed.

It's a two-part pod today. We return to regularly scheduled programming, with Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish coming back on with host Matt Norlander every Wednesday. But this time, Goodman and Parrish couldn't line up their schedules. So the first half is Parrish, the second Goodman. Norlander's stuck in the middle; he is the moderator of this debate. We touch on the gobs of preseason content that's been posted on the site, and even flirt with the political. Yes, briefly, political. Bust mostly hoops, as it should be. Did you see our top 100 players list? It's a doozy. We get into that and much, much more.

We've hit October, which means college basketball's regular season is now a month away. But the start of it is even sooner, officially, since practices begin Oct. 12. Publications are getting out all their preseason content, and we want to bring you a variety of voices with dissenting opinions. In the lead-up to the season, we'll do just that, and we start with Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News, who was just voted into the United States Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame this past spring. DeCourcy explains himself with a couple of wild preseason prognostications and also goes into his disdain over one specific aspect of the investigation into academic fraud at North Carolina.

Yahoo Sports national college writer Pat Forde has written a book on Jimmer Fredette, and we want you to know more about it. Fredette is one of the most iconic players to come from the sport -- of all-time. Is he one of the 20 best? No. But he was polarizing, mesmerizing and must-see during his BYU days. Now he's in the pros, but how did he get there? Forde's new book, The Contract, details why the most important factor in getting Fredette out of New York, to BYU, and ultimately to the pros was ... his brother. Plus, Pat and Matt get into the college football landscape now and how it compares, in a negative way, to college hoops.

After spending nearly a decade at ESPN, Doug Gottlieb is now a full-fledged member of the CBS Sports family. So we had to get him on the podcast, mainly because he's not yet started any of his CBS-related jobs yet, so he's basically bothering people with his unprompted opinions at the local Starbucks. Doug discusses his start in the business, how, when and why he made the decision to leave the Mothership, plus touches on the UConn/Kevin Ollie/Jim Calhoun situation. And which coaching legend will retire next?

Few people better help us understand just what the heck choose what to do -- or not to do -- than the Bylaw Blog's John Infante. He's been on the pod before, and he's back today since Lance Thomas just decided to settle with the jeweler who was suing him for defaulting on a nearly $70,000 loan payment for jewelry Thomas purchased while at Duke. Curious, right? Will Duke avoid trouble? Not necessarily. Infante explains why, and also gets into the murky case with UNC, which is dealing with issues totally separate from Duke, even if they both are coincidentally battling off cynics and the NCAA alike right now.

Gary Parrish hops on the pod with host Matt Norlander. We've got a lot to talk about regarding Jim Calhoun's legacy, Kevin Ollie's nearly impossible situation, the future ahead for UConn -- and what our first concert experiences were like. Yeah, of course we venture into the random. We're also talking Notre Dame to the ACC and how it's another ax hack to the tree of the Big East.

One of the biggest and most jovial voices in the history of American sports television is today's podcast guest. Verne Lundquist just finished up his 30th year working for CBS, and with that anniversary, we had to get him on the pod to tell a story -- or 10. We also couldn't pass up having him discuss Penn State, given the Freeh report's damning new findings re: Joe Paterno and all things wrong with that debacle. It's one of the best podcasts we've recorded, for sure. Lundquist is made for these kind of chats.

Finally, we're less than 30 days away from the draft. With that in mind, senior college hoops blogger and podcast host Matt Norlander brings back CBSSports.com NBA senior blogger Matt Moore. That's just a fancy way of saying Norlander and Moore were desperate to talk to each other, and the draft gives them a way of doing that in a public fashion. The top 10 lottery teams are examined, as is their current standing in many mock drafts. Which players does Moore really not believe the hype in? Also: the draft combine begins later this week, but what do we learn from that? Isn't it just a way for general managers to needlessly fall in or out of love with players?

How can college basketball be better? By changing everything about its regular and postseason. Seriously. The NCAA tournament is the best American postseason event. But you know what the best postseason event in the world is? The UEFA Champions League. It rewards the best teams, makes for the most interesting and competitive regular season, and offers two different kinds of titles, both respected in their own way. So what if college basketball modeled itself after the Champions League? Made a secondary tournament that was five times better than the NIT? The sport's popularity would go through the roof. Let SI.com's Andy Glockner and Bylaw Blog's John Infante, who join host Matt Norlander, explain to you how this could work. It's the offseason: let's have a little fun and a lot of imagination.

Mark Titus is the most well-known walk-on in the history of college hoops. This became so after he started a blog, Club Trillion, during his playing days, from 2007 to 2010. Since he graduated, Titus put a lot of his time into writing a book. It's titled, "Don't Put Me in Coach," and it chronicles the entirety of his college career and then some. Titus joins Matt Norlander to chat how the book came to be, his relationship with Mike Conley Jr. and Greg Oden -- but most importantly, Evan Turner. Titus is critical of Turner throughout the book, but there's context that needs to be added to what he says. It's not all gossip, though. Titus is a huge fan of Lost, Bond for N64 and being lazy. You'll find you most likely have a lot in common with the man.

It's the best of both worlds: college hoops and the NBA. Host Matt Norlander brings on Eye on Basketball senior blogger Matt Moore to chat draft. With Kentucky's five underclassmen officially heading off to The Association, draft prep is ready to start in earnest. So what are teams doing right now? You might be surprised at how little anyone really knows, outside of Anthony Davis being the clear-cut No. 1 pick. Moore and Norlander talk a few guys who could really fluctuate in this year's draft, but overall, this is an intro to a few more pods coming down the pike as we prepare for what should be a pretty solid 2012 professional selection process.

Well ... that got out of hand. Meaning New Orleans. Pretty much all of it. Welcome back to the podcast, this being the first of many to come in the offseason. Matt Norlander brings back Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman to recap the Final Four, but more importantly, tell you of the gallivanting that took place away from the Superdome. There are some great things to share, but plenty of others they can only allude to. Yes, there's also plenty of basketball talk as well.

You want the most entertaining podcast episode possible leading up to the Final Four? This one fits the bill. Gary Parrish and Jeff Goodman check in with host Matt Norlander. There is much to discuss, and the former two are already in New Orleans. They've got to talk about the city, the good and great things about it. Plenty of Louisville-Kentucky talk spans the pod; it's pretty much every angle you could expect the trio to hit on, plus more. And Kansas-Ohio State aren't shunned, either. Pot shots, memories of past experiences in New Orleans and debate over whether a Louisville win Saturday would be more crushing than Laettner beating UK in 1992. Click and enjoy