Bo Mattingly Fires Back at Jeff Goodman for Boogie-to-Florida Jackpot Payday Mix Up

I wouldn’t expect Jeff Goodman to be getting a Christmas card from Bo Mattingly later this year or really ever after this week’s latest social media celebrity tiff.

Goodman, of course, is a national college basketball writer and insider who has never been too popular with the Razorback fan base, dating back to his beef with Mike Anderson. As long as John Calipari is coaching the Arkansas basketball team, he certainly won’t be – especially after what he penned just a few months ago.

Although it’s possible his piece cherry-picking the quotes of Calipari naysayers, one of whom alleged the Hall of Famer had “lost his fastball,” helped catapult the team out of the slide it was in. That rebound lasted all the way into the NCAA Tournament, culminating in Calipari’s first trip to the Sweet 16 since 2019.

Mattingly, meanwhile, put himself in the headlines last week when he shared on the show he co- hosts with Chuck Barrett that Boogie Fland, according to media sources he had contacted, could command $5-$7 million in NIL if he elects to withdraw from the NBA draft. 

In this instance, Florida – where Mattingly happens to hail from and who has been connected to Fland – would be the one hoping to employ his services.

Arkansas Basketball Aggregation Goes Awry

Chuck & Bo’s media team put out a clip of that, and it got picked up by a college basketball Twitter/X account called @CBKReport. That rando behind that account shared it to 93,000 followers, attributed the monetary amount to Mattingly and – presto – the all-important buzz ensued.

If it had just stopped there, Mattingly probably would’ve let it slide. Nobody outside of who runs that account anonymously knows what kind of credibility it has, other than just aggregating college basketball news stories and analysis.

Also, it would be next to impossible to respond to the amount of disdain and vitriol that the former 40/29 and KNWA sports director and longtime radio host gets on social media on a daily basis. It just goes with the territory when you’re in the profession of offering strong opinions and have a following.

But this is where Goodman reappears.

Apparently that CBK Report tweet came across his algorithm, whether he’s a ‘for you’ guy or just follows his timeline like a normal person does.

Goodman then decided to chime in with his take, which skewered Mattingly even though he didn’t mention him by name:

‘A case study in how social media works’

Mattingly wasted no time in talking about it on Tuesday’s “Chuck & Bo” show, jumping into it in the second segment by taking umbrage with Goodman’s “‘insanely inaccurate” comment.

“Jeff Goodman, you are not the only person that knows anything about NIL or how much money somebody is getting,” Mattingly said emphatically. “I would argue that sometimes you’re the last to find out.”

The co-host then pivoted to saying that he wanted to present this as a case study in how social media can easily distort the real meaning of what someone is trying to say. 

“This is how information travels, just so you know, on social media,” Mattingly said. “So that clip has now turned into, ‘I said that he’s going to basically get $7 million.’”

To be fair, the CBK Report tweet did say “up to $7 million,” which is essentially what Mattingly originally said, but he never specifically tied the number to Florida. A report tying Fland to the Gators was simply what prompted him to ask around about the talented freshman in the first place.

A good media beef is all good fun, as long as nobody is taking unwarranted potshots at each other. No question, Mattingly’s $7 million is shockingly high, but it also makes sense why some parties involved would want to exaggerate Fland’s market value. That could, undoubtedly, help with negotiating at some point. 

Boogie Fland will command something, at least

The fact point guard Boogie Fland is in the transfer portal at all is kind of odd, if you think about it. This was a guy that, prior to the season, was appearing in the early first round of almost every reputable mock draft there was. Some were talking about Fland being amongst one of the greatest Razorback guards in history going into SEC play.

Obviously the hand injury and missing almost two months of action changed things, but it shouldn’t have been enough to really make him go from a lottery pick to a mid-to-late second round pick.

Scotty Thurman says “hello.” He had three years of college tape, hitting clutch shot after clutch shot, and had the measurables that suggested he would be at a minimum a serviceable NBA player. He went undrafted and never got a shot.

It’s 2025 though. Not 1995. There was no NIL package back then to entice Thurman to stay in Fayetteville for his senior year, and the transfer portal was 25 years from existing.

Fland is either going to stay in the draft, get picked in the top 40 and work his way onto a NBA roster, or he’s going to not get the feedback he wants from the combine, withdraw his name and go somewhere and get paid handsomely to be a team’s point guard.

Whether that’s Florida, who recently took itself out of the Desmond Claude sweepstakes, or somewhere else, remains to be seen. The Gators are also linked to Pop Issacs of Creighton and Malachi Smith from Dayton.

If that Fland-to-Florida actually does happen, you can bet a whole lot of Gator chomping will go down in Gainesville and an equal amount of hands will be wrung in Fayetteville. Even if, as is so often the case in these kinds of scenarios, all parties are winners.

More from the “Chuck & Bo” show on Goodman starting at 20:30 here:

Outtake:

 Goodman said piggybacking off the CBK Report tweet, he gives Goodman credibility when he likely doesn’t want to. If Mattingly stands by what he said based on what he heard, then who cares what Goodman thinks about it?

Another thing that social media aggregators like to do is prop up the most egregious or ‘eye-catching’ statement or “cherry-pick,” as Mattingly’s executive producer Bart Pohlman called it, and not present what was said in its full context or its entirety.

That is likely what was done in this scenario. They didn’t want to be the ones putting their name on what Fland may command on the open market, so they looked at Mattingly’s Twitter/X following, saw it was close to theirs, and attributed it to him. It gets them off the hook.