Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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DBR Bites episode 153. Donald here. Jason here. We're coming to you on Wednesday night. It's about 925 p.m. We did not think we were going to get on here tonight, but some news just came down in the last 10 minutes that we want to discuss. We'll also talk a little bit about the status of Pat Gongba for tomorrow, but... Jason, why we are here is the news that just came down a few minutes ago.
Jeff Porzello of ESPN, I saw first with this news. Evan Brads, the assistant coach for Duke men's basketball, has agreed or is finalizing a deal to become the next coach at Duke. Belmont. Now, Belmont is a place that he played ball. He's one of their best players in Belmont history.
He graduated in 2017 as the all-time leading scorer in the program's history in Division I and moved on into coaching immediately. And obviously, we've talked about his track throughout the pro level to get to Duke. So, Jason, very first of all, hello. Good evening. We think we're going to talk to each other tonight. But
Give me your initial thoughts, obviously very raw thoughts about Evan Brad's accepting the job at Belmont. Well, the most important thing from the standpoint of the 2025-2026 Duke Blue Devils, who are about to embark on the NCAA tournament, is that every reporting that we are seeing, everything we are hearing, is that Evan Brads will stay with Duke throughout the duration of the NCAA tournament.
This is not a situation like Jay Lucas last year, where Jay had to move on to Miami almost functionally immediately. In terms of this season, in terms of what Evan Brads has meant to the staff, in terms of his continued contributions, nothing changes. And that's a really good thing for Duke. And I think it'd be easy for us to sort of go, oh, he was only here for one year.
John will find someone else to replace him in the offseason. No big deal. I think that that sells Evan Brads a little bit short. The reason that Evan Brads was brought in was because John Shire had heard from a number of people in the NBA. John is close to a number of younger NBA coaches, especially Will Hardy at Utah. I know he knows Brad Stevens.
There are a number of guys in the NBA that John knows really well, and all of them were saying – that Evan Bradds was a genius. People were all like, this dude really knows how to coach. And Bradds was on Will Hardy's Utah staff prior to coming to Duke. So I think what we've seen, what we've heard from behind the scenes and things like that is that Evan Bradds
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Chapter 2: What recent coaching change is impacting Duke basketball?
That isn't a very common thing. But we should be happy for him and at the same time be a little bit sad that we didn't get more with him. I mean, look, it's four years for John Shire and he's already building himself a little bit of a coaching tree here. You know, a little bit. He's got two guys. Yeah.
And that's not well, that's not counting all the guys who have gone to the NBA like, you know, J. Rob and all those guys. Right. So he's starting to build up a little tree here. And I think we should. first talk about the fact that I will reemphasize the fact that he will be with this team during the NCAA tournament. He is not leaving. So that part, I think we all agree is a good thing.
Let's talk about very quickly how we got here because people are like, well, Belmont, weren't they pretty decent? Yeah, they were. And they weren't a team that was going to make the NCAA tournament, but they were in line to be accepted to the NIT. Then their coach got hired by Kansas State, Casey Alexander. So he left. That's what created this opening.
Belmont then said, because of our coach going to Kansas State, we're going to forego any bids to postseason play. Again, the NIT was where they were probably headed. And their search started immediately. But again, this is not a situation where they're looking to get people in the portal and things like that where a guy would need to be in place immediately. He's also one of their own.
And I think for one of their own, they're easily more equipped to say, Evan, go do your thing in the NCAA tournament. When you're done, come on home and we're ready for you. So I think they gave him some grace.
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Chapter 3: Who is Evan Bradds and what is his significance to Duke?
I'm sure that was part of the deal with signing this or agreeing to this deal. But yeah, it's a great thing for Evan Braz. It's actually a great thing for Duke in a way that... he gets to spread his wings and fly. You want your assistant coaches to one day become coaches. That's how John Shire is a coach now. So I think we wish him well.
Obviously, we don't have to do that, hopefully, for a few more weeks. Hopefully, he's in Duke Blue through the first Monday in April. But, yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing him thrive at Belmont. I think that's a good situation for him to be back in his alma mater. Well, and going to Belmont, he's going to a pretty good program. This is – so here's how many games Belmont has won.
I mean, God, wait. Hold on. I'm looking at their record. They've won 20 games – goodness gracious me – every year since 2010. This is a program that constantly, consistently – wins 20-plus games. They won 26 this year, 22, blah, blah. I can go on and on.
If you look at their record over the years, this Belmont club is a club that is a pretty darn good mid-major, one of the mid-majors that you would aspire to. They've been on the bubble as an at-large in previous years, right?
Not like, oh, they're a team that should get in the tournament, like a team that was so good that when they lost in their conference tournament, people were like, no, they're a serious – we need to consider bringing them in as a bubble team because they're that good, right? This is a team that people have heard of. This is a team that's consistently making the NCAA tournament.
And again, this position is only open because their coach did so well that K-State said, we need you. So there you go. Yeah, and Missouri Valley is one of the better teams Of the mid-major conferences, it's like the Missouri Valley is up there with the Atlantic 10, Mountain West, West Coast Conference, American Athletic Conference, Big West.
It's right in that realm of fairly good mid-major conferences. Look, I don't know how many guys Evan Brads is going to be able to retain at Belmont. You know, who knows what happens in the portal. The way rosters are nowadays, it's all chaos.
But you have to feel like a guy with his reputation and a guy with his skill that he's going to, you know, we're going to be hearing about Evan Bradds in the future. I am certain of it. And like I say, you know, we wish him really well. And I'm really glad. that he is sticking with the program for the next couple of weeks.
And now we get, Donald, we get a little bit extra intrigue in the off season. Who will John Shire elevate or who will John Shire hire or who knows what it may be. A lot of different options on the table. A lot of former alumni, a lot of, you know, obviously John has gone into the NBA ranks and other places like that. Ton of options and there's nobody.
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Chapter 4: How will Evan Bradds' departure affect Duke's NCAA tournament chances?
They're gonna be like, yes, please. Let's have a conversation. Yeah. So again, I'm sure that wasn't part of the to-do list for John Shire afterseason, but it's once again as part of the to-do list, and I'm sure he will have a home run higher just like he did here with Evan Bradds. We're going to take a quick break.
On the other side, we're going to talk about the status of Pat Gongba and talk about his status for tomorrow's game against Siena. Duke fans, DraftKings Sportsbook, the number one sportsbook for live betting, is built for March. The tournament is unexpected. The rewards are guaranteed. DraftKings Sportsbook is delivering the most generous rewards in the market. That's right, Jason.
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Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. All right, we are back. We shift our attention to the game that is ahead of us, which is, as we speak, on Wednesday night, just less than 18 hours away against the Siena Saints in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Of course, the team is down in Greenville, and today they had their press availability for all of the teams that are playing in Greenville. And, of course, they had players. They had Cam Boozer. They had Dame Sara. They had Isaiah Evans. And then they had a press availability with John Shire. And, of course... The very first question was about the status of Pat Gongba.
Jason, you and I were on that press conference, and the quote, very unlikely, was the quote from John Shire about Pat and Gongba's status. Very unlikely that he will play in this first-round game. Jason, how does that maybe change your feelings about not just, I mean, not necessarily Duke's chances, because I think we obviously have a great chance of winning without him.
We've done that in the past week. But maybe your injury worry about Pat Gogba. Yeah, I will freely say that when Pat missed the ACC tournament, I sort of thought, oh, that's no problem. He'll just be back for the NCAAs because we'd heard he was so close. I mean, literally in the afternoon of the Carolina game, all the expectation was that he was going to play.
It wasn't until he warmed up that they went, oh, no, wait. So you sort of think, oh, you know, that's two weeks ago at this point. Of course he'd be better by now. Well, to hear that he might miss an NCAA tournament game, it's one thing to miss the ACC tournament. To miss an NCAA tournament game, yeah, it's a 1 versus 16.
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