If you’re a college basketball fan, the day you’ve been waiting for is almost here. The season officially starts Monday and will culminate with the Final Four in San Antonio in April. There are plenty of storylines for what promises to be an enjoyable ride.
To help us understand more, we recently caught up with Rob Dauster, founder of The Field Of 68. The media network is launching an inaugural event. The Field of 68 Opening Day Showcase will be played at the Sanford Pentagon on Nov. 4. The games will include College of Charleston vs. Southern Illinois at noon ET, Saint Louis vs. Santa Clara at 3 p.m. ET, and McNeese State vs. South Dakota State at 6 p.m. ET. The games will be streamed on The Field of 68’s YouTube Channel and X.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Awful Announcing: Why should a casual sports fan tune in during November?
Rob Dauster: “The storylines and the gameplay are going to be better than I think we’ve had in a long, long time. Duke is going to be awesome to watch. They have Cooper Flagg, who could end up being the No.1 pick in the draft. You have a UConn team that is trying to become the first team to threepeat in more than 50 years. Kentucky’s got a new head coach who will play a style that is incredibly entertaining to watch. Alabama might be the best team in college basketball, and they play the fastest tempo and get up the most threes that you will see any college basketball team play. Kansas, coached by a Hall of Famer, has a center in Hunter Dickinson, who is the most polarizing star that I think we’ve seen in a long time in college sports. He’s a guy who loves to troll people online. On the first day of the college basketball season, we have Baylor facing off Gonzaga, a top-10 matchup between teams that have a chance to win a national title, The storylines are there. The talent is there. The big brands are going to be good.”
How would you assess UConn’s threepeat chances?
“I think they’re pretty good. I think that with the pieces that they’ve been able to bring in, both from the portal and the freshmen that they got, bringing back Alex Karaban and, most importantly, making sure that they got Dan Hurley back from the flirtation with the Lakers, will help them. They have some things that they have to figure out. They’re not a great rebounding team yet, especially on the defensive end. They are relying on new faces in bigger roles. That always takes a little bit of time. You have guys that were the sixth man or seventh man last year. Now they’re being asked to come in and play 30 minutes. But they’re going to be good. If you’re betting against Dan Hurley, you’re probably losing that battle.”
Who’s the best player in college basketball?
“I would probably have for preseason Player of the Year Mark Sears, the point guard at Alabama. Alabama is going to be a preseason No.1 or No.2 for everybody. I have them No.1. Hunter Dickinson is right there in the conversation at Kansas. I still would probably say there’s a chance that we look up in February and it’s like, ‘What were we talking about? Cooper Flagg is the best player in college basketball. This is why he’s kind of worth all the hype.’ He’s also a kid enrolling in college a year early. He turns 18 in December. I’m going to be very interested to see how he is able to acclimate to the college level because that transition from high school to college is not always the easiest.”
Who will be the best freshman not named Cooper Flagg?
“There are a couple of kids at Rutgers—Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper—who are going to be good. Baylor’s got a kid named V.J. Edgecombe who played over the summer for the Bahamas National Team. He’s going to be special. It might take him a little bit of time because what they run at Baylor is a little bit more complicated.”
What team do you think will be the biggest surprise?
“I think Louisville is going to surprise a lot of people. I (like) the pieces they brought in and how well they’ve already kind of acclimated and adjusted to new head coach Pat Kelsey. They’re old. I looked it up the other day. I want to say that they have two sixth-year guys, four or five fifth-year guys, and another three or four seniors. They have two guys who played last season with Charleston where Pat Kelsey was. They went on their trip to the Bahamas this year. They got their extra practices in. They’re probably going to go 10 or 11 deep. Nobody has them in the preseason top 25. I get why because there are so many new faces. But I think they’re going to have a chance to be good.”
Which new coach has the hardest job?
“Oh man, there’s a bunch of them. It’s a very weird year because a lot of the guys that ended up being the biggest names that moved in the off-season landed in places where I don’t think they’re going to have a ton of pressure… If I had to say one, I’d probably say Mark Pope just because of Kentucky fans. Even with all the issues they had the last couple of years, (the Wildcats) were a No.3 seed this past season. If you lose two games in Lexington, the sky is falling, and the world is over. So maybe it’s Mark Pope.”
Which coach is on the hottest hot seat?
“Kyle Neptune at Villanova is probably the guy with the most pressure on him. There’s a level of expectation when you are a program that has the pedigree that Villanova does, who has the expectations that Villanova does, who frankly spent the money at NIL that Villanova spent and then has struggled each of the last two years. He’s heading into year three and he is two games above .500 overall. He is 20-20 in the Big East in two seasons. Kyle Neptune probably has the toughest job right now when it comes to finding a way to turn something around.”
Who is the best team in the state of Indiana: Indiana or Purdue, and how much pressure is on Mike Woodson?
“I think Indiana is the most talented team, and I would bet on Purdue being the team that has the best record. I trust Purdue and Matt Painter to find a way to win more games…
“It’s Indiana. If you don’t make the tournament, it doesn’t matter who you are, your seat’s going to be hot. They expect to win… This year, they spent a lot of money and brought this class, so you have to win. I also think they’re probably going to be able to do enough to win and get to the tournament.”
What makes The Field of 68 podcasts different?
” I just think that we do a really good job at kind of breaking down what is happening in real-time. The model we kind of built the show off of, specifically After Dark, is Baseball Tonight. When I was 14, 15, 16 years old, in the summers, the one thing that I would do every single night was make sure that I turned on Baseball Tonight. I got an update on everything that happened in baseball that day. I felt like that didn’t exist in the college basketball space. If you watch some of these networks, they’re more focused on recapping the games that happened on their air, as opposed to trying to big-picture conversations about everything else.”
Why did you decide to do The Field of 68 Opening Day Showcase?
“We’re trying to build something to bring a little bit of excitement back to the first day of the college basketball season. The first Division I versus Division I game of the year will be on our network. It will be streamed on YouTube and broadcast on our X platforms. It’ll be College of Charleston vs. Southern Illinois. We will have Saint Louis and Robbie Avila playing Santa Clara. And then we will have McNeese State playing at South Dakota State. The event is going to be about 45 minutes from South Dakota State’s campus. So, we’re going to have a packed house for a team in McNeese State that might end up being a borderline top-25 team. I think we put together something pretty good here and pretty fun.”
Who are your picks for the Final Four and eventual champion?
“I would be really surprised if both Alabama and Kansas did not make it. I think that they are clear cut the two best teams in college basketball. I also think that once we kind of get to February, some of the freshmen no longer like freshmen. People are going to be surprised by how good Duke is. So, I would say that those three are probably the ones where I think that they’re the favorites to make it. (For a fourth team), let’s go with Illinois. Duke beats Alabama (for the national championship).”
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