ESPN analysts sound off on Champions Classic

"You're going to be put in a Final Four atmosphere. This will probably be more powerful. Given that only four No. 1 seeds have made it to the Final Four once, these are all No. 1 seed caliber teams. This will probably be better than the Final Four.... We'd be lucky to have a Final Four this good."

"It's not unusual in today's game where a freshman is going to be your best player. I think Parker is his best player, but he's got other really good players. And they're very versatile, and it gives him a lot of flexibility on decision-making. He can go big, he can go small, he can play Parker at the five, he can move him around the floor. They've got a lot of versatility. It's got to be a fun team to coach, and I bet it will be a really fun team to watch."

"You can say whatever you want to say to your coach. You can say whatever you want to say to the media. When Jabari Parker has the ball and he sees Wiggins in front of him, he's going to want to put on a show. We call the basketball court, that's his dance floor—when you go out there, it's time to tango. And if you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best. Do you want to get your highlight against the 15th man on the bench, or against the guy that you're going to be sitting at the NBA draft lottery room with?"

Rose on this year's freshman class in college basketball:

"All of these young guys, including the Harrison twins, they're poised, they're mature. When I was 17 or 18 years old, if I made a great play or was in a position where we should be serious or we should be concentrating or we should be disciplined, for some strange reason I did the exact opposite. These young men, the Harrison twins, Randle, Jabari Parker, Wiggins, they just carry themselves with so much maturity. It's because they've been seasoned, they've been schooled. Older players hate to hear this but, they're way more advanced than us in dealing with situations like this. We worked out growing up—they have trainers. We talked about what may go down in all sorts of scenarios on the basketball court—they are trained and conditioned to do that."

“This is a terrific day for college basketball. You know that while players are the driving force to what’s going to happen to determine the outcome of the games, the face of college basketball has always been the coaches. Even in these matchups you’ve got Bill Self, who’s a terrific coach and a champion, you've got Coach K the same thing, Tom Izzo as well and obviously Coach Cal. So now when you transfer that to the players, you’ve got elite players out there on the floor that’s not only getting the hype, but actually living up to the hype. That’s awesome to see what Jabari Parker, Randle and Wiggins—I think they’re going to be terrific players, and it’s just good for the sport.”

“I hate to tell it to fans, but whatever happens tonight has no bearing on what’s going to happen in March. It’s going to be a good comparison for us to go back and say, ‘Well these guys played in November and here’s how these teams looked,’ to follow the progress of college basketball and pro basketball. You’re a different team a handful of months away, but it’s a good proving ground and I’m glad that this was set up by the teams because so many teams play cupcakes in the preseason so they can tell their fan base, ‘Hey we won 25 games,’ then they go undefeated in their non-conference schedule, but they lose four or five games once their conference starts.”

“It’s always great lessons when you go against the best. If there’s a list of 30 players that Chad Ford came out with today of NBA prospects, 13 players are here today. There’s no better proving ground than going against the best, and we’re going to see elite competition tonight."