Earlier this week, we interviewed Seth Davis about his new book, "When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball." You can read the first part of that interview -- which primarily focuses on the book itself -- here. Below, Davis discusses sports books, advanced statistics, blogs, and why Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery are certifiably awesome.

When you were putting together the book, you probably looked at other sports books. What are your favorite sports books? What are some of the ones you looked to when you were writing When March Went Mad?

I don't know that there was any particular book that was similar to this one that I really read. Two books that have had an effect on me recently, probably because the authors are friends of mine, was probably the Pete Maravich biography by Mark Kreigel (ed note: Pistol) and the other one was the book "The Miracle of St. Anthony" by Adrian Wojnarowski. He used to work at the Waterbury Republican in Connecticut, and was covering UConn while I was covering high schools in New Haven. We were both around the same age and we both thought we were hot s---, so we became friends, and we've always sort of rooted for each other. He's obviously a great guy and unbelievable at what he does, and he had done this book and it was such a great book, and it got me thinking about wheter it was something I wanted to do. I just needed the right subject to come along.

And then of course there's "Friday Night Lights." When I was taking John Feinstein's journalism class at Duke, he assigned that book. And I just knew, I want to write a book like this some day. I'm not saying this is going to be as good as "Friday Night Lights." [Laughs.] It's always good to try, though. It's always good to have high goals.

Moving away from the book a little bit, how do you personally cover basketball in the offseasons? College basketball has this buildup and then a long offseason. How do you keep interest high?

Well, I write books. [Laughs.] It's very hard to do that during the season. Until the past four or five years, I'd cover golf, but now I've got a wife and two young sons so I don't want to be on the road too much.

But then there's also recruiting. I'm sure you can relate to this with your relationship with Rivals, but recruiting is huge. In some ways people are more interested in who their school's recruiting than who they have right now, which is sort of sad. So, I don't do recruiting like Rivals, but I generally get five or six events in the course of the summer where I can familiarize myself with the high school players coming, as well as see coaches and schooze and get cell phone numbers and that sort of thing.

Do you think college basketball writers do a good job covering unethical or illegal recruiting? Is there room for improvement there?

I actually think they do a good job of it. Part of the problem is the story's been done to death. We'd do it at Sports Illustrated, and we'd pitch more stories, and at some point they'd say, OK, we get it, we know who Sonny Vaccaro is. Maybe there's a new Sonny Vaccaro moving in, um, it's just that people are inured to it.

Now, when you have a situation like O.J. Mayo that explodes, or the story I read in the Washington Post about Under Armour and Maryland and Lance Stephenson, that's great reporting. I think recruiting is one of those things like in politics -- the real scandal is what's legal. At the end of the day people understand that it's business, and it's sleazy and it's corrupting and unseemly, but it is what it is, and at the end of the day they don't mind their own coach engaging in this kind of activity if it means getting a great player that they can root for at old State U. That's just the reality.

At Sports Illustrated this year, perhaps more than last year, your colleague Luke Winn and others have been doing a lot more with advanced basketball statistics, tempo-free stats, that sort of thing. To what level do you incorporate those stats into your writing and your coverage on CBS, and do you think there's a future, so to speak, where those numbers are used as widely in the mainstream?

Honestly, we probably could do a better job of that. I do think there's a danger getting too bogged down in numbers, to be honest with you. I feel like there are times when I'm reading these internet sites and they're really delving into these numbers, it's assumed that you can make an analysis without watching the game. You're just blinded by numbers. Now part of that might justify my own laziness in trying to figure it out. I get into Ken Pomeroy's site and I don't understand what's going on, you know, I'm just not smart enough. [Laughs.]

I understand the concept and I like to know, generally speaking, offensive and defensive efficiency, because that helps me a lot. But I'm a guy who just watches a lot of games. My Tivos are always going, I sit in the studio surrounded by monitors, I download games on my computer. There's nothing I like better to do than get on the treadmill and watch a game that I recorded the night before. So yeah, I think we could probably do a better job of that, but I also think there's a chance you can get too bogged down in numbers in general, and they're so complicated that when you get down into weeds they almost lose meaning. But maybe that's a generational thing. That might make me sound old to a young stud like yourself.

No, no worries. Ha. [Ed note: This is the part where I laugh awkwardly, which, come to think of it, happened for most of the interview.] Speaking of the studio, during the first few days of the tournament, you're doing like four halftime shows a day. Do you guys even get to watch basketball?

[Laughs.] Oh yeah. Those first four days -- I basically spend my whole year trying to prepare, both mentally and phyiscally, for those first four days. It's an unbelievable mental and physical grind. I mean, you're tired by 7 o'clock the first day. You're really just grinding your way through. Though, obviously, it beats the hell out of working for a living.

We not only have to watch the games, but we're constantly getting fed pieces of information, and we don't get on that much but we always have to be ready to get on. Sometimes you're watching a game and it's thrown to a commercial and we don't even know we're going to be on, and then we're on, and we have to be ready with up to date information. We have an unbelievable research staff and production staff to keep us fed in that regard, but believe me, we're watching the games on a bunch of different televisions and I'm constantly pinching myself that this is actually how I get to put food into my children's mouths, by watching college basketball games.

You're also colleagues with Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery. I'm not sure if you're aware of it or not, but on the Internet, or maybe just among fans in general, those two are basically cult figures. The general consensus is that they're awesome. Do you guys get a sense of that in the studio? When Billy Packer drew criticism during his time with the network, did you guys hear that as well? How does that work?

We're fairly in tune I guess. Maybe not in terms of what's online and that whole culture. To be honest, when you're out there, there's only so much you want to delve into that because much of it is not particularly nice, which is fine. But I will say this: it doesn't surprise me, because those guys are awesome. They're so much fun to be around, and I think what comes through is that if they weren't calling the game, but were just watching it, they'd be saying the exact same things. They are not turning something on because they're on television.

I sit in the studio with Gus and we just laugh and talk about hoops and life. We have a great time. Same thing for Raftery. He's such a sweet, sweet guy, and he's got a great basketball mind. So count me among the many who think they are awesome. [Laughs.]

About reading what's online, I'm probably obligated to ask this because I'm a bloggy type, but do you read sports blogs? Do you try to keep up to some extent?

Oh yeah. Definitely.

Do you have any favorites? To what level do they influence how you look at sports, if at all?

To me, the real value to a blog is someone who provides you a lot of links to cool stories or different information. I'm less interested in somebody's opinion about a game. We can all sit back and watch, but I'm always looking for something I can use. A lot of times blogs will beam me around the web and send me to newspaper stories I hadn't seen, or a Youtube clip I missed, that sort of thing. And then some of them are just funny -- I'm a Deadspin guy. I have Deadspin bookmarked on my computer and I like checking in with them. Some of the college basketball blogs are pretty good too. Storming the Floor, Rush the Court, Kyle Whelliston's site. They all sort of run together eventually.

I won't say I do it every day, Eamonn, but every other day or third day I like to check in and see what's going on. Honestly, some have done a really good job. I think it's great. I mean, you can't fight it. I'm a fan and I'm a consumer, first and foremost, so I love reading and seeing what's out there and trying to get a feel for what's going on.

As a blog reader then, have there been times when you've had a colleague or someone you admired say something inflammatory about blogs and just been like, "come on, man?"

You mean like Buzz Bissinger?

Ha, yes, Buzz Bissinger, or Rick Reilly, a former colleague of yours, who had sort of a mini-rant recently about bloggers. He said he didn't need to hear from people on their couches, something like that.

"Holding down couch springs," right? [Laughs.] Listen, obviously there's a lot of inflammatory and irresponsible stuff out there, but there's a lot of inflammatory and irresponsible stuff in the mainstream as well. We in the mainstream media -- if I have to cast myself that way, which makes me completely uncool -- if we in the mainstream take this holier than thou approach to this that our standards are so much higher and we would never stoop to this, and so on. Well, I think those people need to spend a little more time reading newspapers. Certainly they need to spend more time listening to sports talk radio. What's on blogs is no less responsible than what I hear on sports talk radio -- and that's from the hosts, not the callers!

Honestly, it's just frickin' sports here. That's what gets to me. We're not, you know, we're not talking about the Iraq War. We're talking about your bubble teams. So if someone doesn't like my bubble teams -- that's why people get mad at me, because I snub their teams or something. If you're going to get mad at me for not talking about your team, fine, you know? I just care that you're watching, and that you care enough about what I have to say that you're going to hate me because I picked against your team in the tournament.

At the end of the day to me, it's all good, it's all fun, and the more people at the party the better the party. 

This year, the transition for you guys at CBS has been with the departure of Billy Packer and his replacement by Clark Kellogg. How's that transition been. Does Clark Kellogg want to be the next Billy Packer, a guy who becomes sort of the face of the tournament for however many years?

He ain't doing it for 37 years, I can promise you that. [Laughs.] Clark has a lot of other things in his life that he is passionate about, and of course he got a later start than Billy did when Billy started. Honestly, Clark Kellogg might be the smartest person I've ever met. He's surely the nicest person I've ever met. And I think it's a great combination that he brings. It's a different style, but the next time you listen to Clark do a game, count how many times a possession goes by where doesn't say anything. I think that's a mistake a lot of analysts make today is they overtalk the game. Clark talk me very earlly on: In television, less is more. I think that's why he such an easy listen. He doesn't overtalk the game.

And of course the other addition is Greg Anthony, who has been in the studio and has been doing games. He's a lot of fun to be around. Also very smart, works extremely hard. It's a bit of a challenge for him because he's been working the NBA for a long time, but he works very hard and he's great on television. I think he and I have clicked and I hope that comes through to the viewers.

Related: College Basketball Media