Coach Dan Hurley, Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus, Ovi Breaks The Goal Record, An Incredible Final Four And All Time Choke By Duke

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On today's part in my take, we have a two for the people.

We have two great interviews.

Coach Dan Hurley on the show to talk about the Final Four national championship.

Also,

everything that's gone on the last six months in his life.

Really good interview, honest interview.

And then we have a great interview with Blink 182's Mark Hoppis.

Really, really awesome conversation with him.

Legend of the music industry.

And we're going to talk about the Final Four.

We're going to talk about Ovie breaking the record.

Great weekend in sports.

And then we're going to finish off with a Monday reading, which I don't think we've ever done a Monday reading for our guy, Mike Florio, but Mike Florio gave us a beautiful Monday reading that we're going to finish the show with.

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Today is Monday, April 7th, and Alexander Ovechkin is the gold king.

He breaks the record.

Congratulations to Ovi.

Congratulations to PFT.

Incredible, incredible moment.

Yeah, I mean, it's been great watching him.

That's been one guy that pretty much since I was in college, I've gotten the pleasure of watching Ovi score that same goal over and over and over and over again.

Some call him a one-trick pony.

That's not the case, but he is very, very good at that one-trick.

Yes.

So he...

That goal that he scored, it was awesome to see him score it from his office against the Islanders.

That's the same place where Gretzky scored his last goal, too.

They did it in the exact same number of games.

I noticed that Memes was running the account today, so he made sure to post about all class by the Islanders congratulating Ovechkin.

That was the first thing that he posted.

That was the first goal content?

No, the first goal content.

He had a graphic, and then the first highlight of

after that goal was the Islanders congratulating Ovi.

But I agree, Memes, all class, great job by the boys in the barn.

Great win today.

The game on Friday, though, I watched him play play against the Blackhawks.

Big cat, I don't know how you deal with this motherfucker, Jerry Reinsdorf,

because it was on NHL Network.

It was a nationally broadcast game.

I couldn't watch it.

I had to download an app and then pay $20 to be able to watch a month's worth of Blackhawks games.

I've been watching all the games illegally this year.

Good for you.

I have a workaround that I will not tell, but I have a workaround that I've been watching the games illegally because he's such a piece of shit.

Yeah.

I don't want to give him money.

He sucks.

So I paid $20.

I need to cancel that subscription immediately so I can get my money back.

But the game on Friday was awesome because Ovie had what ended up being the game-winning goal.

And then he could have stayed on the ice to get a hat-trick with an empty netter.

And he told Carberry, the coach, no, don't put me in the game.

I don't want to break this on an empty netter.

So instead, we got Ryan Leonard, Ryan Leonard Skynyrd's first NHL goal on an empty netter that could have been Ovie's.

Ovie was like, fuck it.

I know it's at home.

And I don't think anybody would have given him a hard time if he got an empty netter when you take into account that he also got the game winner, and it would have been a hat-trick.

Right.

That would kind of take away some of the sting from the haters that might be like fake record.

But he said, no, I don't want to do it on an empty netter.

Instead, he did it from his office.

Yeah, he did it perfectly.

Perfect.

Perfect shot.

That shot has been happening for 20 years.

Yeah.

He's been scoring that goal for 20 years.

Nobody's ever figured out how to stop it.

Nobody ever will figure out how to stop it.

And then, yeah, he had his two sons there.

They came down on the ice.

His wife, his mom, was in attendance.

I'm terrified of Ovi's mom, by the way.

I think she could beat the fuck out of me.

Probably.

Yeah.

But it was, yeah, it was perfect.

You didn't want, like, in these memorable moments.

First of all, it's crazy this record, like, I think a lot of people thought this record would never fall.

Credit to John Butchergrass.

He actually has the receipts.

In 2010, he wrote a blog being like, hey, could Ovi break this record?

And this is when Ovi was like 24 years old.

Yeah.

And he did an entire list, like being like, here's what I think he could score every year, like throwing in injuries, throwing in, you know, maybe waning a couple years.

And he's like, yeah, I think he could do it.

People called him crazy then because this was one of those records that's like, it's never going to be broken.

And so credit to Bucci for being the first call.

But the fact that he did it, how he did it, not doing the empty netter, scoring that goal, the celebration was perfect.

You didn't want the goal to be like, you know, either like a deflection or something, you know, where it just doesn't,

obviously it doesn't matter how he scores, but it was perfect that he scored that way.

Yeah, great shot, great assist by Tom Wilson.

The crazy thing is, well, also, you're right.

The celebration was perfect.

Just slide on the belly.

Yeah, just shoot.

And that's what I fucking love about Ovie.

Throughout his entire career, every time he scores a goal, he turns into a four-year-old.

Yeah.

That's like, I score a goal.

And he jumps against the glass and he freaks out.

You can go back and watch the goal that he scored when he was a rookie.

His rookie season, they call it the goal against the coyotes, where he's sliding on his back, rotates, does a toe drag past the defender, and then scores from from his side, essentially.

The coach of the Coyotes in that game was Wayne Gretzky.

And you can see the look on Wayne's face after he scored that goal where he looks up at the scoreboard.

He's like, holy fuck, this kid's really, really good.

Somebody else pointed out Brian Boucher was the goalie that day, and he was the on-ice reporter for the game where Ovie scored his goal.

And also Austin Matthews.

was in the crowd.

That's like the Chris Berman, Tom Brady thing.

Austin Matthews was watching.

And one of the craziest ones that was very cool,

in 2004, this date, the Capitals win the draft lottery for the rights to draft Ovie.

So on this date, 20, whatever it is, 21 years ago,

they're like, we're about to draft Ovie and our franchise is about to be completely changed.

And then on this date, 21 years later, he breaks Wayne Gretzky's record, which everyone thought wasn't going to happen.

I also was thinking, PFT, because

it's crazy.

It's like there's...

This is unbreakable.

There's very few records that still stand in all of sports where you're like, holy shit, stop and be like, man, this is crazy.

This happened.

I'm so happy that he won a Stanley Cup.

Yeah, I know.

This moment would have changed everything.

This moment would have kind of sucked.

Yeah.

I mean, it would have been great.

It would have been super impressive that he did it, but it would have kind of sucked because

everybody would have been like, never won the big one.

It's also awesome that Ovi's done it all in one jersey.

This is something that doesn't happen often in sports as well.

Like, it's very cool to think, like, even from a big, and we're about to get into the NHL playoffs, so we're going to have Biz and Yans and Wit on a bunch, but like

to have Sidney Crosby and Ovie be one jersey guys and also completely live up to the hype is pretty cool.

Yeah, live up and surpass the hype for both of them.

And it's funny because over the years, I used to fucking hate the Pittsburgh Penguins.

I hated them so much.

But now as both Ovie and Crosby get older, it's kind of like you respect the other team.

It's like Crosby was really, really good.

Ovie was really, really good.

And if you go back and look at, because I was fully prepared to battle haters, I thought that there would be many haters

that would try to tear it down.

Surprisingly not.

Surprisingly, everybody was like, this is great.

But can I just say the things that I would have said if there had been haters?

Sure.

I was anticipating the empty netter goals, those guys.

But again, as I've said before, if you score an empty netter, it means that you were winning the game.

Correct.

And a lot of those winning games were because Ovi had scored earlier in the game.

Correct.

And then

he had two strike shortened years, essentially lost like a season and a half

to lockouts.

I don't know if they were strikes or I think they were lockouts.

And then.

Yeah, there was one where the hockey didn't start till like January and played like whatever.

And then there was COVID.

And then there was a COVID season.

So he's lost about two seasons worth of games throughout his career.

And he still did it.

And he's still going.

Still going.

And also, credit to Wayne Gretzky because if you took away all of his goals, he would still be the all-time leading points getter in NFL history, NHL history, which is crazy.

So he was obviously much more of an assist guy than Ovi was.

But Ovi, yeah, the best goal scorer of all time, and he's not done.

And he did it in a season where the caps are not only competitive, they're competitive for the President's Cup.

And he broke his leg.

And he broke his leg, and he's still playing great.

Like, this is one of his better seasons that he's having right now.

Yeah.

So, yeah,

I was very pumped.

I'm not going to lie.

I got a little misty-eyed because something like this happens, and you think of all the times you got to watch your favorite player scoring these goals over the course of your adult life.

And it was really, really cool to see.

I don't know.

I don't want to say it's unbreakable because that's what they said when Gretzky got it.

But maybe Ryan Leonard will get it one day.

It's going to be very hard because he's still going.

And I don't know if he's going to stop.

And you know what?

I love it too that Ovi,

he's doing it with his way in terms of not the best body.

Yeah.

You know, kind of just a guy's dude.

Yeah.

I saw this clip of Pennsylvania dance.

Pansamaka dance.

Yeah.

I saw the clip because there's been so much Ovie content.

It's all been so funny.

The his first ever golf round, he had a 1-1.

Yeah.

He's just like, yeah, I hit it in.

Yeah, it was so hard.

I hit it in.

He swung and missed on the first one.

I was just like, what do you mean?

I hit it in.

When he got the key to the city, I think when he was a rookie, he was like, no speed or limit in Washington, D.C.

He's been so fucking funny.

Yeah, he's so funny.

So, yeah, congrats, PFT.

Congrats, Ovie.

Really, really cool moment.

At some point, I would love to have Ovie on part of my take, but I I feel like that would need to be in person.

Might be a bit of a language barrier there.

Yeah.

Probably, probably would be a language barrier.

Yeah, I didn't see many haters at all.

I saw one stray tweet that was like the biggest loser tweet ever, but that was someone was like, he likes Putin.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's.

Imagine someone breaking the record and liking Hitler.

And it's like, what?

Yeah.

For a while, there was.

Also, you know, have you looked up what Bobby Hull has said?

Yeah.

I created the DC Sports Superstar Triangle a few years ago.

I think it was right during the invasion of Ukraine.

But Jaden kind of got rid of the sports triangle.

But for a while, the sports triangle was,

you can only pick two of

these three things.

One, generational talent.

Two, does not have a debilitating injury.

Three, does not support a murderous dictator.

So you can pick two of those.

Yeah.

You can't pick three.

You can't be choosing.

To my knowledge, and I hope nobody asked Jaden Daniels what he thinks about Putin.

Yeah.

Please.

Yeah.

Let's keep that off.

Yeah, we don't need to know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it was super cool to watch.

Very, very cool.

Uh, also, I did see an insult stat that someone posted about the Sabres.

That this just crossed.

I got tagged in it because insult stats, I get tagged in insults.

The last time the Sabres made the

playoffs, Alex Ovechkin was 594 goals away from breaking the record.

That's crazy.

That's insane.

I think they have the record for, I know they have it in the NHL.

They might be close for all sports.

Yeah,

that's nuts.

Not being in the Netherlands.

Memes says yes.

Do they?

They go back and forth with the Jets.

Oh, okay.

So right now it's the Jets.

As soon as the season's over, it's back to the Sabres.

Switching back and forth.

So, Memes, it happened against the Islanders.

You feel like they did a very classy job?

They did a very classy job.

The ceremony took way too long.

You got to do it at one of the 20-minute intermissions.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, they had that red carpet out there instantly.

Yeah.

They're ready to go.

Okay.

50 has a shirt with the date on it already.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Go buy the shirt.

Go buy it.

We got all sorts of Ovie goat merch up in the store right now.

My favorite is the one that shows him scoring the same goal for 20 years.

Yeah.

The GOAT King.

Do we have

any other sports to talk about this weekend?

There was some sports happening this weekend.

Yeah.

There was a great game on Saturday.

The Polero, Texas Open.

No, it was talking about the Crown.

Congrats to Nebraska.

Yeah.

Big 10.

With

two or three of the Dodgers.

I mean, Ovi deserved this top of the show, but

if you guys have been like, hey, you guys want to just talk about Duke's downfall for four hours, but like, sign me up.

I'll take off my pants right now because that was.

It was great.

Holy fuck, was that an incredible Final Four delivered?

So let's talk Florida Auburn first because I want to just edge myself a little bit more.

And then I want to talk about Houston.

And then I want to talk about Duke.

Okay.

Because I had.

It was a haters.

It was the best hater watch I've had in a very long time.

I barely slept last night.

I was just reading message boards, all the shit.

All right.

So Florida Auburn, great game.

Walter Clayton.

Walter Clayton is so fucking good.

He had 34 points.

He's the first player to score 30-plus

in back-to-back Elite Eight Final Four games since Larry Bird.

I think Larry Bird might be the only one who's ever done it besides him.

Pretty, pretty good company there.

34 points.

And it was, you know what's crazy about what Walter Clayton did?

I actually thought Auburn played decent defense on him.

He was just so good.

That like that baseline three that he made,

you can't do anything about.

He had a couple drives where it felt like there were four Auburn players and he found a way through and finished at the hoop.

Like he was out of control.

I also saw the best way to sum up how good Walter Clayton is is a tweet from March 16th where a guy named T.

Black said, Walter Clayton Jr.

is so raw, you forget his first name is Walter.

And Walter Clayton replied with a bunch of laughing laughing emojis, but that's the fact.

Is Walter Clayton the best Walter Ayton ever in the history of sports?

Walter Ayton?

I would say, yeah, there's probably a couple other Walter Aytons.

I can think of one.

Yeah.

But yeah.

But it's true.

It is true.

Walter Payton is like that name fit because that's what you named people back then.

Walter's not a name you hear anymore.

Walt.

Walt.

Walt.

It's.

Yeah, I think he's probably right.

When I think about Walter Clayton, I don't think about Walter.

I just think about the W.

I think about, yeah, I just think about that guy's raw.

Yeah, so I love watching him play Elijah Martin.

He might be the best dunker in college basketball right now.

Yeah,

that dunk changed the energy of the game.

That's how I evaluate NBA talent based on how you dunk in college.

Yeah.

And Elijah Martin, yeah, I'd take him one.

Yeah, he was, it was Florida also, like the first half, their front court looked like they didn't know how to hold the basketball, play basketball.

Like Condon didn't have, I mean, Condon was still impactful.

He didn't have the best offensive game.

But second half, it felt like a combination of Walter Clayton just absolutely taking over and Elijah Martin also.

And Janai Broome, who I feel like the beginning of the game, you saw Janai Broom, the real Janai Broom, then his adrenaline wore off and it just wasn't the same.

Like the injuries

finally caught up to him, and it was clear he wasn't fully healthy.

And then

the other guys on

Auburn outside of Baker Mazar, like they needed to be great, and there wasn't that much.

Tahad Petiford, who I love, was not great.

And so that's where the difference in the game came.

Baker Mazzar gave him a little bit of offense.

He made some big shots.

Yeah.

Yeah, he scored like 10 points in the first half.

I don't think Alex Condon played well.

Well, and he was out there.

Defensively.

He still is like

doing something.

He's bigger than what's his name, Ha?

Yeah,

Haw's better.

I don't know how you pronounce his name, but he's better offensively, clearly, than Condon has been.

Yeah.

But then Condon, yeah, he's a bigger body on defense.

Yeah, it was, I mean, he did not, he had a game to forget in terms of offensive numbers, but I still think he's important in some of the things he does, especially, I mean,

he had some big rebounds a block.

But yeah,

Florida felt like they could have played a lot better.

Their front court was not good.

They didn't have their best game, and they still beat Auburn.

Pretty good.

Because Walter Clayton is like that.

Yeah.

He was incredible.

Incredible.

Now,

I think, Big Cat,

Houston's going to be a little bit different than Florida in terms of defending Clayton.

Yeah.

Well, but again,

Auburn, like, they, they did a lot.

Walter Clayton wasn't, it wasn't like he was getting open look after open look.

He's just been so much in the zone.

And they were saying that after, like, he's just been in the zone.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, they're going to defend him differently, but I just,

he was making shots that you can't really, it happened in the Elite Eight when he had that shot that he, you know, where he was standing in the lane and basically just dribbled backwards and then popped it right before anyone could even realize what he was doing.

That baseline three, like he's just doing shit that it's, he's playing on a different level.

Yeah, he's great.

He's an awesome player.

This game had way too many reviews.

Oh, yeah.

Way too many out-of-bounds reviews.

Oh, yeah.

And it got to the point where players were doing the look at it again for things that I didn't care if they got right or not.

It just had dumb basketball down the stretch.

Auburn, I think their biggest fatal flaw besides Janai Broome being injured was just they had a lot of dumb basketball moments.

Yeah.

And those came out at the end of the game where it was just like, what is going on right now?

But it was great watching these, even when one team would pull away, because Florida had what?

They were down by eight points at halftime.

Yeah.

Even when the game wasn't that close in the moment, you could still watch these guys play and be like, these are two great teams that are playing each other.

Yes.

It felt good to feel that way about college basketball.

Yes.

And have a Final Four actually deliver on a game that

we need some good games.

So the second game was a fantastic game.

The second game was incredible.

Houston.

Would you say all-time?

All-time choke job all-time game all-time choke job so I don't I have a lot of Duke hate that's gonna flow through me but I don't want to forget how good Houston was and how impressive they are as a team and Kelvin Sampson he had the quote afterwards no one ever loses anything as long as you don't quit when you quit I don't care you've lost and like that

watching that game and coach Danny Hurley tells us this

about like most a lesser team would be dead it did feel like Houston was dead and they just didn't give up.

And their guys made big play after big play down the stretch when the game started to tilt and their defense ratcheted up.

And I think like more than anything with Houston, it's their culture as a team and a program

like was illustrated at the end of the game when you had things like Jaywan Roberts, who's a 67% free throw shooter, hit two big free throws to go up.

Also, I found out afterwards that Kelvin Sampson has everyone on the team.

They take 150 free throws a day, even on days off, and they tape it and they review the film.

I love that.

Love that.

They had

the

Tuggler moment where probably one of the dumbest plays ever with Joseph Tuggler trying to strip the inbound before the ball comes in.

That's Houston culture.

Ends up in a technical foul.

Con Kniple hits the free throw.

But what happens?

He stays locked in, and he has the putback dunk that makes it 67, 66.

Like shit like that.

Or I don't know if you saw, but like the

Malik Wilson, like the sequence with 32 seconds left.

You can look at the box score.

32 seconds left.

It's like Uzan gets subbed out for Malik Wilson.

Malik Wilson subbed in.

Malik Wilson stealed.

That's the next play.

Like Kelvin Sampson knowing, hey, we have an offensive, defensive possession here.

Put in our best guy.

That changes the whole game.

LJ Cryer, who was two for, or sorry, three for 13 in the Elite Eight and Sweet 16, he was six for nine from three.

Like, just keep shooting.

Like, it's just all these guys that are just so good and they didn't give up.

And the way they fought was so impressive because it did feel like Duke was going to steamroll them.

And it felt like there was no chance the game was over.

And they just didn't stop fighting.

And Duke had, what, one field goal in the last 10 minutes?

Yeah.

So if you look at the stats for Duke's offense, I think they had one field goal.

Yeah, one basket from the field in the last 10.5 minutes of the game.

Can we pull up this video from Mike

underscore Jagack J A G A C I?

A C K I.

They also had.

Because this is Houston in practice.

Is it the diving around?

This is what Houston does every single practice.

They have two guys line up, and then the coach throws the ball.

I don't know if that's Covin Sampson or not.

Somebody throws the ball out.

Then they just wrestle on the court to see who gets the loose ball.

That's how Houston plays all the time.

This is an awesome way to end practice at an elite college.

Like they're running into the walls and shit, wrestling each other.

Yeah.

And that's how they play.

And at the end of the game, when they get that steal off the inbounds pass, that was Ceon James that was inbounding there, right?

I thought he might have had a concussion earlier in the game when he landed on his head.

So he inbounds the ball.

It gets deflected twice,

bounces out to take the three, and then the putback dunk on it.

Yeah, that was the tuggler dunk, which was an incredible.

And Malik Wilson was the one who stole it.

Also,

this drill, Duke's last rebound, not offensive or defensive, last rebound in the game was with three minutes and 24 seconds left.

Yeah, pretty good.

That was it.

Like they just, and they put the pressure on him.

They, you know, started.

It was just, it was, the whole thing was so impressive by Kelvin Sampson Sampson because if you watched the first 30 minutes of that game, you thought Houston was going to be outclassed, and they just did not give up whatsoever and kept fighting and kept fighting.

And I was completely in their game plan.

Like Malowak didn't have any rebounds.

It was very clear what they were doing, making pulling him away from the hoop and giving themselves a chance to get those offensive rebounds.

Kelvin Sampson is an insanely good coach.

They also had Jim Nance wearing his lucky sweater that he's never lost in.

And he was crying.

He was crying.

You made Jim Nance cry cry tears of joy at the end of it,

which was incredible.

Here's some fun stats about Duke.

And actually, before we get to the fun stats about Duke, Cooper Cup is awesome.

Sorry.

Cooper Cup.

Cooper Flag is awesome.

He's an

Are we doing the Duke stuff?

Are we getting the Duke hater on?

Let me get to it.

Let me get to it.

He's not clutch.

Cooper Flagg is incredible.

Not clutch.

He had a great game offensively.

I'm throwing all this.

I'm going to get to it.

He had a great game passing passing the ball.

He had a great game just making the right decision.

Great game defensively.

He was doing it all.

But as our good friend and recurring guest, Skip Bayless, would like to know, does he have the clutch gene?

And I sat down, I watched 15 minutes of Skip Bayless breaking down Cooper Flag.

And when I say 10 minutes of those 15 minutes were actually Skip Bayless talking about LeBron and the ways that he's disappointed him, it was a perfect video from Skip Bayless.

He reminds him so much of LeBron James, except he might be a better free throw shooter than LeBron James.

But at the end of the game, you got to get up if you want to get it in.

He didn't get it up.

No.

Hit off the front iron.

He had his chance.

Duke has been in four close games all year, and I think three out of four, he's either fallen down or missed the shot.

Kentucky.

Not good, not a clutch player.

I'm not saying anything nice about Duke.

Duke gets all the hate.

That was the biggest choke in Final Four history.

They're the only team to have a higher field goal percentage, more free throw attempts, more assists, fewer turnovers, more steals, and lose in the history of the NCAA tournament.

Other teams were 335-0

when doing that in March Madness.

Best team ever analytically.

Does Coach K win this game?

I have some Coach K questions for later.

He might.

I don't know.

They shouldn't have shown him on the TV as much.

Also, Coach K trying to use the media on Friday to write a story being like, Coach K is the real reason John Shire is shined is because Coach K is taking a step back.

I see you, Coach K.

He was trying to make it.

It was not a nice story.

It was literally like John Shire owes everything to Coach K being like, I'm not coaching this team anymore.

That's what a lot of people do when they retire.

I would say every person does that when they retire.

He wanted credit for not showing up to practice for a team he doesn't coach.

A lot of coaches coach.

Facts are fact.

He literally wanted credit for not showing up to a practice for a team he doesn't coach.

He didn't write the story.

Oh, he didn't write the story?

He didn't write the story.

All right, so Duke, biggest choke in Final Four history, best team ever.

Actually, no,

it's either this Duke team or the 99 Duke team.

Yeah, those are the top teams.

You can just decide.

I won't debate it.

It's one of the Duke teams.

Duke

has had a 10-year drought of no championship game appearances.

Here are some of the players that have played for Duke in that drought.

Brandon Ingram, Luke Kennard, Jason Tatum, Marvin Bagley, Gary Trent Jr., Wendell Carter, Zion Williamson, R.J.

Barrett, Cam Reddish, Vernon Carey, Paolo, Mark Williams, Jared McCain, Cooper Flag, Con Knupal, and Maluak.

That's some pretty good players.

No championship appearances.

They choke.

One done.

Weird choke artists.

When was the last Duke championship appearance?

That's not

relevant to this conversation, PFT.

I was nice enough to do Ovi to start the show.

Don't do that.

The

what?

When was that?

Yeah, that's mean.

I was purely thinking about it.

That's mean.

We started the show with Ovi when we had two final

names that were incredible.

You know what I was thinking?

Let me get my Duke Hayden on.

You know what I was thinking about?

I was thinking about how many more national title appearances that UNC had in that same time span.

One.

No.

No.

They've been to three.

One, one.

They've won one.

Yeah, they've won one.

I think they've been to three.

What I'm doing, I'm sorry that you got caught by a stray, big cat, but it was a stray.

It was a stray.

It was a

shot stray.

It was a stray, but it just, I'm trying to defend my Roy Williams better coach in North Carolina while he was in North Carolina than Coach K was take, which is aging like wine because I'm counting this as a final four loss for Coach K because he was so close to the court.

That's true, and they kept on showing him non-stop.

So, best team of all time was what I kept on hearing.

Maybe I said it as well.

Turns out you need a point guard.

An actual point guard.

Yeah, Cooper Flag was handling, he was bringing the ball up the court.

As soon as Houston started putting the pressure on inbounding the ball, a point guard who can bring the ball up the court, a point guard who can, when shit starts to fall apart, be like, hey, guys, I will run this offense.

I will get us a field goal in the last 10 minutes.

Yeah, that was probably a miss.

A true point guard.

Proctor seems pretty comfortable with just standing there on the court.

He looks like he should be bringing the ball up the court every single time, but what he likes to do is get down court and then stand at the edge, stretch the defense a little bit, and then not get the ball and not shoot it.

Also, shout out Proctor.

He's actually the only good thing I'll say about Duke.

Thank God that you thought you were a good enough free throw shooter to not pass it to Cooper fucking flag at the end of the game.

That was insane.

Proctor being like, I got this as the worst free throw shooter on the court for Duke was absolutely insane.

Cost them the game.

And I love Duke fans complaining about the over-the-back.

Oh, my God.

Could you imagine being a Duke fan who gets every call every year, never plays an away game, a true away game, ever, and being like, man, the rest really got us?

Justice Winslow touched it, okay?

Not during the regular season, no away games?

They don't play true out-of-conference away games.

They don't.

Coach K never would schedule them.

Where do they play?

Oh, they play in fucking Atlanta.

Oh, they play in Madison Square Garden.

Oh, they play...

Maybe, maybe, you know what?

I haven't done my research on John Shire yet because I'm just getting my hate back, which last night reinvigorated all my hate.

Maybe John Shire has.

Coach K never did.

He wouldn't play away games.

You know this, Hank.

I didn't know you said out of conference.

Well,

obviously, they have to play in conference.

I bet you they try.

I bet you they probably talk to the ACC and they're like, make everyone come to us.

Do you think the fact that Coach K has stepped away from the team has led to their lack of conditioning, which Houston excels in, and that's what made them get the tired legs at the end of the game?

Because John Shire wants to be like, I'm not like all the other coaches.

I'm a cool coach.

Good question.

I'm not going to make you run.

Good question.

So

that was a choke of all chokes.

I was stunned.

Stunned.

You know what?

Like, okay, I agree with Skip Bayless and Big Cat in that Cooper Flag probably doesn't have the clutch gene.

If I'm drafting number one in the NBA draft and I'm, I don't know, the Utah Jazz, I would pass on him.

Yeah.

And let whoever is picking after take him.

Like, because you're not going to win with him.

That's true.

So if you're the Jazz, don't draft him.

You don't win league games.

Don't pick him, please.

It felt so good to just get my true hate back because I was struggling with this because, you know, I watched Duke this year and I don't hate John Shire like i hated coach k

and cooper flags seems like a nice guy and con nipple whatever he's got a red face and he's good at basketball all those things he was there in 2015.

yeah he was i saw that um yeah he had his badger he probably had a sam decker jersey on or frank kaminsky uh

but last night just watching duke choke there really is no better sports watch.

What if this was Con Nipple's ultimate payback?

This was like the Count of Monte Cristo, where he waited all these years, decided, no, I don't want to stay in state.

I want to get recruited by Duke so that I can miss a few field goals in the final four.

And he was pretty good, though, really get revenge.

But you have to be, yeah, you have to be good enough to get close.

He played a pretty good game, but I'm not giving any compliments.

It was just, it was euphoric.

I loved it.

And I have, Max, did you like that game?

Do you count yourself as a Duke hater?

I don't, whatever.

Oh, okay.

I don't.

Not Not biggies.

Okay.

All right.

That's good.

The last question I had about this, and I literally, I stayed up till 2 a.m.

just watching videos.

I re-watched the end of the game a bunch of times.

I went on message boards.

Duke fans just crying, crying, crying.

Love it.

Oh, the over the back.

Oh, my God.

I need more people crying about that.

This is so fucking good.

This is where it backfires.

It was a picky-tack call.

Okay.

Don't care.

This is where it backfires.

Here's where it backfires in Duke fans because they'll incessantly show this replay, not realizing that it makes everybody happy to watch this.

Yes.

It's the total reverse.

It's the complete reverse because is that a call every single time?

Probably not.

Is the fact that it happened to Duke, does that make the majority of people who watch it very happy?

Yes.

Yes.

You're absolutely right.

That's actually a highlight reel for everybody else, not one that you can be like, we got fucked, because it's like, this is great.

Yeah.

And it's to me again.

And listen, I was accused of reverse jinxing this year with Duke.

I actually will be honest with everyone, that was not my intention this is i was thinking about it because i was literally laying up in bed just just relishing in the moment i was like why is this feel so good i had actually come to the conclusion that this duke team was one of the best teams of all time and they were going to win the title like i had i had become at ease with the fact that it was going to happen so that it wouldn't hurt as much so it was almost like a reverse sucker punch like i never saw this coming and it made it that much better it's like when we're talking to titus we get to say, Duke let me down.

Yeah.

I'm disappointed by Duke because I did think that they were the best team in the country.

I did.

And they were fun.

They were the funnest Duke team to watch that I've seen in probably 30 years.

And they let me down.

They let America down.

But again, they also gave America quite a blessing because America had the white Lotus memes ready to go.

Oh, yeah.

And that would have gone to the sad graveyard of unused memes.

And memes, I'm sure you have quite a folder of

memes.

It's like the saddest story ever written.

Yeah.

Meme.

Never sent.

It was just so sweet.

The whole thing was so beautiful.

I loved every second of it.

A stunning, stunning loss.

So here comes my last question.

And

I think you guys will agree with me, but I want your take.

Deep down,

if we had True Serum,

Coach K's happy.

He's happy.

I don't think so.

Oh, he doesn't want the next guy to win a title in his third year.

I don't think he's ever happy.

The former player is assistant.

He is happy because he's a narcissistic piece of shit.

He's happy.

I don't think Coach K is ever happy, even when he's winning.

But he's probably a little happy.

He's probably a little happy after that.

He probably was like, see, John, it's a lot harder than you think to win these things.

Look at that foul.

Look at the foul on Cooper Flag.

Oh, man.

He's so good.

He shouldn't have done that.

He shouldn't have gone over the back.

That That was a blatant foul.

I call that 100 times out of 100.

Looks like he ripped that guy's right arm.

Yeah.

It actually should have been a flagrant, too.

Notice how they're only showing this angle of it.

They're not showing the other one where he's grabbing him in the back and got his thumb up his asshole.

You guys don't think that Coach K is, there's a small part of him that's like, now I get to sit John Shire down and be like, John, the first three years were good, but our standard here is national championship.

Coach K is probably,

I don't know if he's happy, but I don't think he's a cell phone guy.

I think he's probably a landline guy still to this day.

Probably just has the one in the kitchen with a really long cord.

He's probably pulled up a chair next to the phone and just sat there, not gotten up off the chair at all, waiting for the call from Coach Shire

to ask him for guidance.

How do you bounce back from something like this, Coach?

What could we have done differently?

He's been just posted up in his kitchen like junior soprano, just waiting for that call.

So here's why I think he's happy too.

Because

if you're a legend like Coach K, and I've said it, he's the best college coach of all time.

And

I hate him.

I hate his guts, but that's just a fact that I believe.

When you leave Duke, you don't, there's like, there's, there's different paths that can go down.

The, you know, Duke is an institution go down.

They could completely bottom out.

And I think that would be bad because Coach K would then be like...

blamed for, hey, it was all about you.

You didn't have a succession plan, all this stuff.

You could have someone who goes and wins at the level that Coach K wins right away, and then it's like, hey, it's Duke.

It's not Coach K.

Isn't this the perfect spot for Coach K where John Shire,

he had the succession plan.

The school has not dropped off in terms of a level of basketball.

But what Coach K has done to win titles gets magnified even more of that's really hard to do because John Shire couldn't do it with one of the best analytic analytically best teams of all time.

I think Coach K's happy.

I mean, when you can't score in the last 10 and a a half minutes of the game.

Yeah.

I think he's happy.

I think he's happy, Hank.

A little part of him is like, I get to go fucking teach some lessons.

I'm going to show up to practice.

I'm going to be like, man, I remember how hard it was, but I did it five times.

You guys haven't done it any times.

Do you think Coach K, do you think he's calling up like one of his tech guys that used to work for him at Duke and being like, We need to build a PowerPoint this offseason.

Just in case Shire wants it, like I'm willing to come in and show it to the team.

I just need you to come over for two days and we'll build the PowerPoint together.

We'll have the deck ready to go if they need it.

Yeah, definitely.

When did Coach K, how many years into his coaching did he win his first title?

91.

It was like 11, right?

1980 was his first year.

Right.

So 11.

Yeah.

So if Shire did that in three years, that's too fast.

No, because it's based off of the foundation that Coach K built.

But it's still too fast.

He wants Shire to win one eventually.

If we're talking 10 years from now,

I wouldn't have the same take.

It's also different.

It's different eras.

Shreya's playing one and done.

He's going to have different rosters every year.

Coach K was doing one and done, too.

He literally lasted.

The last title he won was one and done guys.

But we're talking about

his first 11 years.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know what's so funny is they're probably going to win one in the next couple of different standards.

In the next couple of years, I'm just going to say Duke's probably going to win a national championship, and it's going to be with the Boozer Twins.

And then Coach K will be able to say, like, David, they're only here

because of me.

God damn, was it sweet?

I loved it.

It just, it, I felt alive again.

I don't know.

Something, something happened to me where I was like, man, I was.

There were so many times in the last two minutes of the game, three minutes of the game, where I was just asking myself out loud.

I was actually talking to Blake, is this really happening?

Is this happening?

Is this happening right now?

Yeah.

Are we going to do this?

Yeah.

This is actually going to happen.

Don't give me blue balls.

This is happening, right?

Yeah.

I'm not dreaming this.

Hey,

here's a question.

Should Should Duke go to a real conference?

Because clearly playing in the ACC this year hurt them when it came to playing in close games.

What were they against the top 25 teams on Kim Pom?

I think they were about 500.

Yeah, because they didn't play.

I mean, I know they beat Auburn.

Guess where they played Auburn, Hank?

Where?

Cameron Indoor.

They smoked Auburn.

Yeah.

There's one bad one in there for you.

They won out Arizona this year.

I mean, that's, come on, Arizona.

That's like half Duke fans there.

I said, by the the way, I admitted, I admitted that John Shire might have changed that.

Coach K did not.

Did not play True Road games out of confidence.

Five and four against Kin Pom, top 25.

Duke should probably leave the ACC.

Did the ACC leave Duke a long time ago?

Duke should be independent.

Duke should be independent.

They should be like Notre Dame in football.

They are the Notre Dame of basketball.

Oh my God.

I just loved it so, so, so, so, so much.

And it is great too whenever some of whenever Duke has a loss like this and then there's some new fans that are like, they like kind of realize they're like, oh,

you're, you're, you're never going to get over 2015.

That's where they hit.

I'm like, yeah, dude.

Yeah.

I've admitted that a million times over, that a small part of me died.

I'll never get back.

And every time Duke loses in a tragic way, and this was a tragic loss, a tiny little like one, like 0.01% of my life comes back.

Yeah, I think Duke, for the most part, it's like people that went to Duke and people whose families went to Duke Hank.

But I think most casuals love it when this happens.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I'd say almost all.

Yeah.

And this is sweet revenge, sweet justice.

Yeah, it's not like Notre Dame where there's a lot, like, there's a lot of Notre Dame fans just because the Irish Catholic thing.

I feel like you have to have like

there's not a lot of Duke fans.

Yeah.

There aren't.

I think there's a lot less Duke fans than Notre Dame fans, and I just.

There were those people that are just fans of excellence.

Yeah.

Where they're like, yeah, they win a lot.

And I appreciate all the work that goes into it.

But yeah, that's what you get for bouncing JMU out of the round of 32 last year, bitch.

Cooper Flagg and John Shire having to show up at 8 in the morning for the Naismith Awards.

Oh,

that was beautiful.

Cooper Flagg and that little golf cart.

Oh.

Cooper Flag hiding in a room because of the media availability.

They were running out the clock on it.

Ah.

i still want that so bad that dunk that he had where he he just swung around horizontal i feel like this hate's got to come out of nowhere what do you mean i feel like this year you've you've said that you like kind of that you kind of because i couldn't i couldn't fully i was one guarding myself because i thought they were that good and two i've always said that like i'm not going to just hate john shire like i hated coach k i have to let it build

and it so yeah that was a good that was a good moment for you great moment and it also it was literally so shocking i i think you guys agree like that loss was so shocking.

Yeah, it is.

I thought they were going to win it all.

So having that just gifted to me was like, oh my God, I feel again.

So it's also, it's like watching Duke lose is fun for most people.

The fact that it happened against this Houston team, which is so fun to watch, especially if you're a fan of football because they play like a football team.

Watching them do this to Duke was extra nice because they just out-tuffed him.

Yeah.

It really was, though, Max, to answer, it's just, I was, people accused of the reverse Jinx is wrong.

I was convinced they were the best team that we've seen in a long time.

Like, I really was.

And

forgot to have a point guard.

Oh, is that important in basketball?

Like, a true point guard.

Max, when you won your titles, did you have point guards?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Name one.

You want me?

I can name.

Yeah.

I can name multiple.

You had awesome point guards.

All the Archie Diakonos.

Jalen Bronson, Ryan Archie Diakino.

Scotty Reynolds.

He was a good point guard.

He didn't win, but he was.

Connor Gillespie.

Colin Gillespie.

Colin Gillespie.

Alan Reynolds.

And Connor Gillespie.

Is there Connor?

I don't think so.

Connor Gillespie.

There were two Archie Iakinos.

There was two Archie Dacinos.

Connor Gillespie, yeah.

Yeah.

All right, should we talk about the championship game that will not be including Duke?

Yeah.

Houston, Florida.

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Alright, so Florida, Houston, I...

This is gonna be a great game.

This Final Four is delivered.

I think this is gonna be a great game because I think both of these teams, they're one, so close to each other, and two, I don't, and I could look really stupid saying this, but like, I don't think either team is

good enough to blow out the other team.

That's how close they are.

You know what I mean?

I think it's not like last year where you're like, okay, Purdue could hang, but UConn's really fucking good.

I think both these teams are just really fucking good.

They've got a lot of great players.

They're

awesome teams.

Like, there's no question that Florida can score against Houston.

Will they score enough?

I don't think that they will.

I have a future on Florida that I put in.

I'm going to be probably

going against that, but the parlay that I'm putting in with my winnings, I'm going a lot of rebounds from Houston.

I'm betting on a fuckload of rebounds.

Jawan Roberts, seven rebounds.

Emmanuel Sharp, three rebounds.

Tuggler, five rebounds.

Just rebounds.

And then I've got L.J.

Cryer, three-pointers worked in there.

Plus 500.

But yeah,

a lot of rebounds.

It's a big gym.

People forget that.

Yeah.

Big gym.

I also have a future on Florida, so I'll be rooting for Florida.

I'll probably just put the bonus bet on Florida, just more of Florida, because I'm not a hedge guy.

Did you see also this is a battle of the nerds?

So Ken Palm, which is the most popular analytics site for college basketball.

Ken Palm had Duke as the number one team going to that game.

They had Houston number two, Florida number three.

Another site that I frequent, Bart Torvik, had Houston as as number one going into that game.

So Bart Torvik has won this round.

He had Houston as the better team than Duke, and Ken Palm has had Duke as historically great.

So does he have Houston as a better team than Florida?

Yes, Florida's his fourth best team.

I also get Team of Destiny vibes from Houston.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I get that huge.

Like that blob

against Purdue.

They also have that kid, Jace.

Have you seen Jace?

He's kind of like an unofficial member of the team.

Yeah.

He's like a little kid that goes around with him.

They bring him to like all their huddles, all their locker rooms and shit.

Big fan of Jace.

I don't know.

Kelvin Sampson, the way that his career has gone recently, this feels like Team of Destiny.

Yeah, no, I agree.

I have a lot invested in Florida, and I'm basically like Walter Clayton, save me one more time.

That's how I'm going into this game.

Walter Clayton, just do it again.

I think they're going to do a better job.

than most of limiting Walter Clayton.

Yeah, but still,

he's still, like, even that Texas Tech game, I think he didn't have a point for the first 10 minutes.

I should never have seen that video of them wrestling around for the ball at practice because that's going to change everything.

That's going to change everything in terms of how I analyze Houston.

Yeah.

Like, I can't go against these guys now.

I just can't do it.

All right.

Shout out the UConn women's team.

Yeah.

Paigey Buckets.

She came back for her fifth year.

She had an up-and-down career with all the injuries, but UConn, they beat three.

I still don't really understand how they were the two-seed.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just know they're bad for for women's basketball.

Yeah,

they beat three one-seeds on the way to a championship.

Their 12th championship.

Also,

Sarah Strong, their center, I think she's a freshman.

She's going to be like the best college basketball player of all time because I'm pretty sure, well, one, it pays to stay at college now in the women's game.

And I think, doesn't the women's game, you have to stay for three years?

I don't know what the rules are, but I do know that a lot of them make more money in NIL than they would in the WNBA.

Sarah Strong, she's a freshman.

She's a problem.

She is a problem.

That's a great name, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She was incredible.

24 points, 15 rebounds.

They smoked the Ladycox.

Oh, twice this year.

They beat him by 20 plus.

Yep.

Will never make sense that they were the three.

Bad job by the committee.

Who's the buddy, the Bubba Cunningham of women's?

Liam Bluntman said that the Big East had a down year, so that's why.

But it's still when you win, when you beat three one seeds as the two seed and then also win the championship game by 20,

I feel like you shouldn't have been a two-seed.

Yeah, so where's she going to play?

Is it the wings?

Who has the number one pick?

Oh, let's hit the simulator.

Do we have the simulator?

I think she might be a better WNBA player than Caitlin Clark.

What about that?

Whoa.

Whoa.

What about that?

I'm a Juju guy.

Yeah?

Have been for a while now.

She's going to mellow.

She's not going to sell tickets as many tickets or get as many ratings.

No, the ratings were...

It was crazy.

They were bad.

It wasn't bad.

It was just the difference.

It was like $14 million last year and $4 million this year.

But you just got to hope for like a magic bird type thing, like a big rivalry.

Dallas.

Dallas.

Congrats, Dallas.

Nico Harrison gets his hands on Paige Buckets, trades her away.

Shout out to Gino Oriama.

Wait, are you simming it?

I think they already did the lottery, didn't they?

Because they're going to draft them and then they'll have to play real soon.

I think I just wanted to sim it.

Wait,

what do the sky have as a pick?

Oh, we gave our pick to Dallas.

No, you get wait.

Reset.

Let's reset.

Let's reset.

Damn it.

No, you gave your pick to Washington.

Why are we simming the draft?

Wait, but then why does it say that we have the third pick?

It says that you're giving it to Washington.

Then they have the fourth pick?

Yeah.

That was bad management.

I don't know who we got in that trade, but it was a bad trade.

Let's go, Mystics.

Is it M-I-S-S space T-I-C-K-S or is it M-Y?

There we go.

That was a joke, Max.

Yeah, I think Paige Buckets, I think she's got in her.

She's got the clutch gene.

Yeah, the Mystics have the third, and the Mystics have the third, fourth, and sixth pick.

Yeah.

Holy shit.

We're back to rebuilding.

That was bad.

I should have known that joke.

Yeah, you should have.

I was like, I'll look up at this point.

You should have.

You should have.

It was a terrible joke, too.

You should have known it.

Okay, any other sports?

So, official picks for, I know, Hank, you have Houston.

Houston.

You have.

I got.

I have a future on them, so I'm going to say Florida.

Yeah, I'm riding with Florida.

I'm not getting off that.

But if I were to bet it right now, I would take Houston.

Yeah, Max?

Florida's more.

Florida.

Florida?

Yeah.

Okay.

What was that?

That was painful to get out.

No,

they're just fun.

They are fun.

They're more scoring, so I appreciate that.

That's true.

But you love dogs.

Yeah, I do.

But scoring.

Clayton, fun.

I like what Dan Hurley says.

They're wolves.

Yeah.

Honestly, if we could just do, if we do the championship game, you're like, Duke actually won that game, but it's guaranteed they lose.

I'd be like, sign me up.

I want to watch him lose again.

I don't even need a championship.

It could never be in that fashion, though.

That was

one in a million.

It was incredible.

It was stunning.

Hank, I'm going to watch it again tonight.

As a former, and I think still a closeted Duke fan.

Duke is your future on Houston.

Duke is my favorite college basketball team.

Like, I don't have a team that I would root for over Duke.

Obviously, last night was unique in that I had a future that I bet in February and they happened to line up.

But you're also not a big college sports fan.

Right.

But did you feel...

But if I had to pick one team that I wanted to win, it's Duke.

But you've been poo-pooing your Duke fandom this year quite a bit.

Watching that game on Saturday, were you like, this fucking sucks?

No, because he's a Houston future.

I have a Houston future, which I was like, this is a loser.

This is a loser.

This is a loser.

Literally only after the over-the-back call, obviously, that's when they took the lead.

Great call, by the way.

I could not believe what was happening.

Like, it was one of those games where you just sit.

I think we just sat in the gaming cape for like 25, 30 minutes after, just stunned.

Yeah.

But I feel bad.

I feel bad for Duke.

I don't like seeing people pile on.

Just jealous people, you know?

Do you think we're piling on?

Yeah, I think, you know, you hate them because they beat you in the only time you'll ever make the championship.

And

it's just sad to see.

They're kids.

But I admit to all of what you just said.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's not like, it's not a aha moment.

What you said is exactly right.

No, I just don't like seeing it.

You don't like seeing my hate?

Yeah.

They said it's very ugly.

Yes.

That's crazy.

It's ugly.

Why can't I hate the kids?

Well, it's you.

It's the proverbial you.

All the Duke haters?

Yes.

I mean, that's everybody.

I know.

I'm saying you asked me about my Duke fandom.

It's like...

You don't like how much I don't enjoy.

Like, I don't.

I'm not living and dying with the team but i do not like seeing people you know jump down their throats

max sim the nba draft lottery one time i like jumping down their throats a lot i just did it no no i wasn't paying attention you guys sim it for for the class

i really like it sim

fuck if the spurs if the spurs get it again spurs i'm gonna store the alamo that was very funny i was in san antonio for a day and a half we did two live shows and we were doing uh barcel live on friday and we were just like halfway through the show.

And Dave was just like, oh, yeah, I forgot.

I hate Popovich.

He just said that.

I was like, what the fuck?

The whole crowd was like, what, dude?

Popovich is also like Brad Stevens.

You don't have Brad Stevens without Popovich to an extent.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So that didn't make a lot of sense to me.

And I didn't realize that Popovich had a stroke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dave didn't know that either.

But yeah, it was a very funny moment in San Antonio.

Thank you to San Antonio.

I had a great time.

Yeah, it's a great time.

Love going down to San Antonio.

It was a blast.

Okay, let's get to Who's Back of the Week.

Then we have Dan Hurley and Mark Hoppas.

Two great, great interviews.

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Okay, Hank, who's back of the week?

My Who's who's back of the week, Augusta National, Masters, Masters Week, golf in general, big week for golf, big week for mini golf.

It's probably going to rain out, though, on Monday at Augusta.

But it looks like good weather for the week for the most part.

I love that you're locked in on the weather forecast.

I'm super locked in.

Real dimple head.

I love that.

Super, super excited.

I mean, we're going to do a masters preview on Wednesday.

You just jump in the gun.

It's master's week.

Okay.

Who's back?

Okay.

The masters.

That's fair.

Okay.

Fair.

Who's back?

Hank thinking about the Masters.

Hank thinking about the Masters.

Yeah, it's Masters Week.

How's the weather?

It's not looking good for Monday, but it's looking good for the rest of the week.

What does Monday matter?

It doesn't.

I don't know why PFT brought it up.

I was just trying to rain on his parade.

Oh.

Okay.

Friday.

I mean, I am a big, like, I get really bummed out when there's bad weather at the Masters.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I don't want anything to impact Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Definitely not that like the rain delay that Brooks had to deal with when Hank cursed him by releasing the shirt.

But yeah, it'll probably soften it up, right?

Yeah.

On Monday?

We're going to do our Masters preview on Wednesday.

We're going to have a great show preview, maybe have one of our good friends on.

But I got a pick for you guys.

You want me to hear it right now?

Jake Manny.

Something a little crazy out of the box here.

I'm thinking Brooks.

I like that.

I like that.

I like that.

He's won there before.

I bet Brooks

every single year.

He was.

I'm a loyal guy.

I'm a loyal guy.

I like Max Homo.

There we go.

Hank?

I like Brooks.

I've bet Brooks.

I've bet Max.

And then I'm doing my Liv round Robin again.

Oh, man.

I love Liv.

It's a big week for Liv.

Huge week for Liv.

Liv's going to show out in a big way.

Love that for you.

Okay.

PFT.

My who's back of the week this week is John Morant.

Because we talked about him on Friday's show.

Yeah.

He got in trouble for, well, they investigated him for doing a simulated gun on the court, and then they reprimanded him.

Yeah, said, Hey, Ja, knock it off with even with the fake guns.

We should have specified that when we told you not to hold any guns.

This includes fake ones.

And then on Friday, he goes out there and he just does the fake gun again.

Yeah.

Which respect.

Very funny.

I respect the hell out of that.

I don't know if he did it and that it's just like an involuntary reaction when he makes a shot to pretend to hold the gun or if he did it intentionally.

And then memes went mega viral.

Yeah.

Mega viral memes with the clip of Ja pulling the gun out.

When did the

trend of like, is there an AI program that just simulates somebody grabbing a gun out of nowhere?

Or is it Jess Quakes?

It's called Quakes.

Is he the trend?

He's the one-man trend.

Because this is going to be a thing now.

Yeah.

Like somebody's going to design a piece of software that probably takes like a week to write, and it's just going to be like engineer anybody to pull out a gun out of nowhere.

Yeah.

And it's all going to be traced back to his brain, which I love.

He got it from like one of those AI type in whatever things, but like he's the one who did it the first time and now it's for everything.

Yeah.

I just love the fact that John Morant can't quit holding fake guns.

My new favorite.

It's the best addiction of all time.

Yeah, my new favorite argument online too is people being like John Morant is getting treated unfairly.

Oh, yeah.

That's like he's being there.

The NBA coming down on him for his fake guns is bullshit.

Just ignoring all the history of John Morant with real guns.

I love that shit.

It's great.

I mean, it is behavior that like a five-year-old would do when they learn back in the day, if you were like playing cowboys and Indians or like cops and robbers, you just go around like doing the finger gun point.

Oh, yeah.

Like this.

I do it with my son and I have to stop myself because I'm like, I shouldn't do this.

Yeah, you have to like teach a six-year-old, hey, don't always go around pointing a fake gun.

John Morant, again, I think it's progress by John that he's now doing fake guns exclusively, and they might be super soakers.

We're not sure.

But yeah, it's very funny that he just continues to do it after they tell him not to.

Were you guys toy gun houses growing up, or you had to go to your friend's house to play the toy gun?

I had a friend that had the best toy gun collection.

I had a friend with cap guns, all the stuff.

I'd go over there, and I'd be like, we had some super soakers.

First thing, first thing I'd say, walk in the door, you want to play guns?

Yeah.

And he'd be like, dude, I play guns all the time.

I'm like, yeah, but I don't have guns, so I want to play guns.

Nerf guns, cap guns, all that shit.

Yeah.

You're either that house or you had a friend who had that house.

Max, were you?

No, I wasn't allowed to have guns.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably, actually, like,

our parents probably did it just because they were like, oh, this is probably not right.

Max's parents probably were like, he really actually shouldn't.

He shouldn't have a gun.

Like, his temper.

Well, so an Italian walking around carrying a gun, you would get profiled in ways that me and Big Cat might not.

Yeah.

If you had a gun when Big Dom, fake Big Dom, called in on Wednesday, would you have used it?

And by using it, I mean just even flashing it.

If Jerry was in the room, probably.

You would have flashed it.

I would have.

At least flashed it.

it.

Maybe.

Fuck Jerry.

Yeah, just imagine every time that Max does this.

Yeah, actually just slamming a clip into it.

You just need to get quicks to do that.

I used to be so bad as a kid.

I used to get so many technicals in basketball.

Of course.

Where if we're going like this?

Just for losing my temper.

Yeah.

Okay.

I have two who's back of the weeks.

First one is Aaron Rodgers, because there's a theory floating out there.

So Pat McFee has a show on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh.

Yep.

Memes, what's the name of the show?

I think he's doing like a homecoming show.

Can you look it up?

Can you tell us what the name of the show is?

Hometown Throwdown.

So the theory is that Aaron Rodgers is waiting for that show to come out on stage and say, I'm going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler to fuck over the mainstream media, which I would love.

That would be awesome.

What's the.

Look for the...

No, no, it's a live show in Pittsburgh in a theater.

We got to look at it.

I'm trying not to look at Twitter.

You told me not to be on Twitter.

Just Google Pat McAfee live show Pittsburgh Wednesday.

That's basically what I Googled.

No, you didn't put live show or Pittsburgh.

You said, yeah, you said.

Big Night At with Pat McAfee and friends.

Okay, so I think it's sold out.

Memes, give it to us.

What's it called?

The Big Night At.

Yeah, there we go.

Memes loves doing the accent.

So I think he might announce that, which would be sick.

And Pat's the type of guy who could pull this off.

Don't tell to like Pat has enough pull that he could be like, Hey, Aaron, you want to announce your signing at my show?

The whole world is content now.

Yeah, it really is.

It's like, okay, we're going to wait for a podcast to do this.

We're going to have this guy on my podcast, and then that guy, I got to go on his podcast because I beefed with this other guy on this other podcast.

And then it's a big podcast crossover, and then it's the pod crossover that will end them all.

But I have, I kind of like this, and no offense to our good friend Adam Schefter, who we love, but like I kind of like every now and then a player stealing it from the insiders and being like, I control my own message.

No, don't get me wrong.

Like, this is what Pat's doing.

This is if we had our way and like Blake Griffin was announcing his return to the NBA because he can dunk again.

I would love for him to do that on this year's show.

Yeah.

But

yeah, it's just...

If Aaron Rodgers has been waiting and he actually hasn't told teams for the last month because he's like, I got this live show thing I'm trying to do.

That's kind of fucked up.

I kind of like it.

But if it was your team.

Oh, yeah, I'd be pissed.

Yeah, you'd be pissed.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, for sure.

But I just like the, I like chaos and the,

you know what?

I'm kind of like a

fuck you to power kind of guy.

Yeah, you are.

Yeah, we're rage against the machine.

You are like that.

We are.

We're big time rage against the machine.

The establishment, fuck them.

Except in this case, the establishment is also our friend, Adam Schefter.

Yeah, and also, yes, but also we can hold two thoughts in our head at the same time, which is he's the machine.

Sometimes I kind of like the machine.

Yeah.

And it's Schefter.

He can be cool.

Oh, the machine.

We need to have Notes on for the machine.

Yeah, when the machine delivers the goods, you're like, fuck, I'm glad we have a machine.

Yeah, it would actually be nice if Schefter got it like two seconds before and then everyone else didn't.

That would be a funny twist.

Because you know what that would be?

That'll be Adam Schefter raging against

it.

Shafter should just go to the show.

Yeah, that would be great too.

If he's just reporting.

He's going to get it first.

Yeah.

If Schefter, if Schefter, like right before the show, scooped aaron rodgers then that makes aaron rodgers the machine yeah and shifter wins yeah

um this has nothing to do with anything in my who's back except for the fact that we were talking about pittsburgh but i saw sometimes you see the perfect tweet uh and i saw the perfect tweet the other day it's from larry davids mistress and uh this person said paul skeens looks like if you tried to draw josh allen from memory

And that nailed him.

Okay.

Yeah.

He really does.

He was in the GQ photos.

The mustache is an important difference, yeah.

Yeah, if you were just like, close your eyes and draw Josh Allen, you'd end up with Paul Skeets.

I would just draw a goat.

No, there you go.

All right, my other who's back is

censorship because Kiki Hernandez got censored.

I don't know if you guys saw this.

They did not put the accent on his name?

Yeah, they did not put the accent on his name.

No, he was getting on the team flight

for the Dodgers, and he was wearing a hat, and they blurred out the hat.

And he was like, why did you blur out my hat?

Turns out the hat was a skeleton with its nose inside of an ass, and it said butthole whisperer.

I saw the picture of him getting on that plane, and I was like,

There should be something there in the center of his hat.

Yeah, and that's an awesome company.

I don't know anything about the butthole whisperers, but I'm all in.

Yeah, I feel disrespected that my hat got Photoshop, is what he said.

That's pretty cool.

When you're the Dodgers, you can do this kind of shit.

Memes, how scared are you whenever you have to tweet Kiki Hernandez highlight?

Good question.

How scared?

Yeah.

That's pretty.

Not that scared.

Okay, good.

Good.

Memes is so not racist that he doesn't even know.

No one would know.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's get...

The booth boys showed up early.

We got a Monday reading.

Shane got you in here?

Okay.

Who wants to read?

Early.

Hey, they want to read.

All right.

Let's get to our interviews.

We're going to do Coach Dan Hurley first and then then Mark Hoppis two great interviews.

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Okay, here he is, Coach Dan Hurley.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest, good friend of the program, two-time national champion.

Still, as of the taping of this show, reigning national champs, it is Coach Dan Hurley.

This is your last 24 hours.

Is there anything you, what do you do?

Is it like when Miss USA loses her crown?

You got 24 more hours.

We're your champs.

Are you going to do anything special with it?

I think

I'm going to celebrate tomorrow.

There you go.

You know, I'm going to take all of Monday because

I didn't really think about it until the weekend where it's like, yeah, it's about to expire.

And when you get eliminated from the tournament, I mean, it's obviously it's

over.

You're not going to win it again, but there is still time.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm left.

Yeah.

Raining.

Yeah.

Reigning national champion.

That might be one of the last times people get to call you that for at least another year.

So enjoy it.

Is that the net behind you?

There's some of the stuff.

This is my wife's office.

So she's got some stuff with the kids, you know, some like flag football and some little league mixed in with like an elite, a Final Four net.

So it's like, it's just like random stuff from the kids, CYO.

Third place trophies, all that type of stuff.

Was it weird?

I mean, it's crazy to say, but it must have been weird this weekend not being at the Final Four.

I know you saw this.

John Fanta reported that both coaches have shared a lot of words with the officials in this game that are not safe for television.

Danny Hurley doesn't go to a Final Four, and all of a sudden we've run amok and the coaches are acting with bad behavior.

Like, you got to get back to clean this up.

I thought TV could have did a better job.

Just like, you know, right as the coaches were getting angry at the officials, you know, normally, you know, with me, the camera stays a little longer and gets the full interaction.

And I just thought that maybe they just thought they pulled the camera a little early when we could have seen something good.

Yeah, yeah, you did.

You quote, it said, No way, what a disgrace, which I like because it is, it is very funny when it's like, oh, wow, a coach trying to win a very high-stakes game gets gets animated.

That's crazy.

Never seen before.

No, and I don't think Coach, uh, I mean,

I don't think Coach Sampson's going to be very intense

at all.

I mean, I don't think that he's a

hard coaching guy that sometimes

has questions about a call.

Yeah.

But yeah,

no,

I think him and Todd are they're going to, I mean, that's a steel cage.

I mean, I shared the court with Todd.

I mean, Todd is an intense coach.

uh most of the coaches are i mean you look at the big east i mean you know

there's some intense coaches and uh todd's an intense coach.

And, yeah, I mean, it feels weird not to be playing.

You know, it does.

It's,

you know, something that we just got

just got accustomed to it the last two years, man.

Really, the last couple of years

has felt like one long year.

So.

Have you been watching the game since you got eliminated?

Are you just like, I don't want to see?

No, in 22, when we got bounced, like, you know, in a very unceremonious way,

you know, by New Mexico State and Teddy Allen

as a 5 to a 12.

I couldn't watch it.

I mean, it was,

you know, just unbearable.

But no, this, I watched,

I watched the game straight away this time.

It was,

I was like disappointed we couldn't go on.

But like

I also wanted to kind of see what the teams that were still playing were doing and like why they were still playing and why we weren't.

you know like how yeah what did they get right that that that that we didn't get right with the squad?

You know, so how do you feel about like watching Florida?

Are you taking the mentality of like, if they win the national championship, at least we lost to the national champion?

Or are you angry at Florida and you're like, I hope these guys lose because I'm pissed at them?

Those are the only two options.

Yeah, this is how fans think, by the way.

Yeah, is there a third?

No, that's it.

Yeah, well, no, the third is going to be another

option.

The third is

like you could even go even further where if you are rooting for Florida to kill Houston and then you can say, well, we actually played Florida the toughest.

So we're second place.

Yep.

I think when you've experienced championship glory,

you don't like get the petty moral victories that way.

I think you're just like.

I mean, you do notice and you say to yourself, like, we had opportunities in that round of 32 game, you know, up three with the ball,

you know, in transition, three and a half minutes to go with the chance maybe to get a three in transition to take a six-point lead, but we turn the ball over.

It then goes to the media timeout.

And, you know, from there, Clayton, you know, Clayton took over and did a little bit of like a Kemba Walker, Shabazz Napier thing.

And he's kept doing it.

Yeah.

So, you know what?

I mean, I respect how, you know, Todd, I mean, he put, I think, you know, both, you know, listen, Houston is amazing.

They're doing it it on culture and will and,

you know, and just a program mentality.

You know, obviously with Florida and I think with Duke, they put together like incredible rosters, man.

Like their roster construction is like top, top notch,

you know, high level stuff.

And same thing with Auburn.

But, you know, Florida.

You know, I take no solace in having had a shot in that one to keep it going.

Yeah.

So

from their perspective, from Florida and Houston's perspective, you win the Final Four game.

What does the next like 24, 36 hours look like from a coach's perspective?

How much are you actually putting into a new game plan?

And how much of it's like, hey, we just got to, we got to trust what we're doing and hope what we're doing is going to work here instead of trying to overload the guys with new information.

Yeah, so, you know, you've got one of your, you've got one of your coaches on staff that's obviously, you know, doing um you know all of the advanced work on you know those other teams right whether it was um if you're florida they're already you know they've got uh you know a fully detailed scouting report on on on uh you know on on duke uh you know or houston and um

you know but you you go and you you play that semifinal game for us like we just focused on in the in the 14 tournaments just that first game only we did not uh you know whether it was superstitions or just not wanting to get ahead of ourselves, we focused on just that one opponent, that first game.

And then, you know, what happens is you get back so late

on the bus ride back to the hotel after the semifinal game.

You're, you know, last year, I probably watched one of Purdue's games,

you know, just the NC State game on the way back to the hotel and then at the hotel the night of the semis.

And then you're literally that next day, you're doing so much media and you've got such a short practice time that you're just walking around with a tablet, you know, trying to get three or four of the Purdue games in that day on Sunday,

just to have as much knowledge and

feel for them as you can as a head coach.

And obviously, you're going to put a lot of trust into your assistant, you know, which with us was Luke Murray, get ready for that Purdue game,

you know, and really letting him come up with a defensive game plan and trust in your staff that way.

But like the game is on top of you

so quickly and you're part, like obviously you're really tired, long ass season.

But everything is pretty automatic by this time of year, man.

Like you know, you know the place that you're calling versus man versus zone.

You know, you know your substitution pattern.

I mean, everything is pretty automated at this time of year because you've just, you've played so many games.

You've played like 40 games.

Yeah.

How much time do you have to actually implement anything that you find on tape through like advanced scouting?

How much time do you have to actually translate that to a change in the game plan for your team?

You had a,

going into the semifinal game, you could do some real things,

you know, with those days.

I mean, if you played,

if you played on a, you know, on a Saturday and then you don't play again until that next Saturday in the Final Four.

I mean, you could really throw some wrinkles in on offense, some wrinkles in on defense.

But basically, all you're going to get with your team, you're probably going to get, you know, two video sessions, two, maybe, two, maybe three video sessions before, you know, the national championship game, going over tendencies, going over personnel.

I think it's mostly going to be heavy personnel driven, trying to take things away individually from the other team, like trying to chase three-point shooters off the three-point line.

If there's a dominant post-score, are we trapping the post?

Are we playing that single coverage?

Are we trying to send them to one shoulder or the other?

Is this a team we should try to pressure more or sit in gaps and make them shoot threes?

I mean, there's not a whole lot of adjustments or wrinkles you could do because

you're going to basically get maybe an hour and 15 minutes a day before the game on the court to walk through some things.

Some coaches shoot around the day of the national championship game.

Some don't.

They try to save the legs and some just, you know, want to get on the court and do the walkthrough.

I mean, we would always go out there and do the walkthrough because you can't put a person like me just in the hotel all day, the day of a game.

You got to turn, you got to let me out of the cage for a little while.

Yeah.

All right.

So, so, so it's very interesting that the assistant coach is doing a lot of the prep for you when you're in this short tournament setting.

Now, when you're like in the game, so Luke Murray, for instance, you're in the game against Purdue.

Is he like telling you things like, hey, I know they're about to do this?

And then you, you obviously trust him to a level where it's like, all right, or even like in the huddle, is he drawing stuff up instead of you?

Because he has an intimate knowledge of what their next plays might look like.

So

a lot of what the

coaches that have the scout do, I mean, they're handling a lot of the other team's offense.

So, you know, you'll see those guys like,

you know, when an opponent's taking the ball out in an out under and they see the formation, they'll be standing up and yelling to our team, hey, you know, it's screen to screener or, you know, it's, it's, or if they hear a play call or something that they recognize, you know, they'll stand up.

If it's a half court, you know, set play that they're running, they'll stand up and yell, you know, stagger, flare screen, back screen, and try to let them know what's coming, you know, more so, I think, from a defensive standpoint.

You know, and

but they deal with them a lot, like in the TV timeouts are really long in the Instant Blade tournaments.

So you're in those huddles.

It feels like halftime in a regular huddle.

So they're giving them a lot of information.

You know, before I get into the huddle after yelling at the ref or talking to Tracy Wolfson, you know, then I'll come into that huddle and they'll have gone through a lot of like the stuff that they want them to think about for us defensively.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you talk about with Tracy Wolfson when she comes over and she tries to ask hard-hitting journalism questions, you know, either during the game or coming out of halftime?

Do you have a script ready to go for where you're like, here's here's where I'll say something and not say anything at all?

Well, I mean, my SID,

Bobby Mullen,

you may have heard of him.

Yes.

He'll tell me before the game, hey, you know, you've got TV at the under 12.

But I mean, once the anthem hits, I'm like,

All that has gone out the window and all I can see is red.

So I'll have no idea that that camera's coming my way.

And I mostly just check to make sure I don't have like any white stuff on the side of my mouth because your mouth gets real dry and you're just yelling at people and

feeling the pressure of the moment.

So I just mostly, I never know what she's going to ask.

And I just don't want to have any white stuff on the side of my mouth.

Or a little piss that you have that you just took your swig of piss.

So you got like a little piss coming down your chin or something.

Yeah, which I could not have in the actual piss bottle.

So I know people were upset.

But you have to use the March Madness cups.

But it was piss, right?

It was still piss.

It's piss from a red-headed person.

Or

a ginger.

Yeah, you just get yourself fired up.

All right, so

after the game against Florida, there was some hubbub.

There was a lot of Dan Hurley discourse going on that you had to address, you know, the tunnel,

you know, Bobby Mullen.

Was there any point Luke Murray, like two days later, was like, hey, are you going to apologize to me for saying shut up?

Because like, that was like maybe like fifth on your list, but that was a very funny clip that was going viral.

I just, when I saw the clip, it just how casually I said, Yeah, it's just a shut up.

Yeah, just to shut off.

Sometimes you got to be direct.

You didn't even stop your sentence, you like barely stop where you're going.

You just shut up.

But the thing, though, I mean, me, Luke's been with me since Wagner.

Yeah, I mean, since the Wagner days, since then, a second tour of duty at Roadie, and now back with me a third time.

So, obviously, you know,

we've got a great give-and-take relationship that way.

But I just, I was making a, there was something I wanted to do on the court.

And then Luke was just telling me either something that he saw or wanted to do.

But I was so focused on what I wanted us to do that I just quickly wanted to tell him to shut up.

Did you notice this year?

I know there was, there was obviously the Creighton thing, which

we're big fans of rivalries.

We love rivalries.

We think there should be passion.

That's why we're a fan of yours.

Like, sports are boring if guys aren't, you know, with their heart on their sleeves, playing with their emotions.

But did you think it was a little weird that the criticism kind of ramped up this year when I actually think you've maybe gotten a little bit more calm than the Wagner and Rhode Island days, but the only difference being you won back-to-back national titles.

So people are like, oh, he's too much.

It's like, he's not really changed.

He's always been this way.

yeah yeah i it listen it's definitely it's i mean it's it's the winning i mean there's so much there i mean yeah i mean i was like i was i've i'm an asshole at times i mean that's

you know it's just who i am i mean i'm from i'm from jersey you know like when you're from like north jersey like new york's you know new york city area i don't think it's as like offensive to people like outside of that area, like people in the Northeast.

I think they, they, they understand me more that way.

I think there are people, though, that like live in the Midwest, or maybe if they're from like, you know, parts of the West Coast, that they just don't understand human beings like me that we could get,

you know, as intense or

as emotionally charged, or

you could put as much of yourself into

a competitive endeavor and then take the results as badly.

I mean, we could break them down individually.

I mean, you know,

I didn't think the refs really cheated us in the Florida game.

I thought there was a call on a caravan drive

that there was a foul that needed to be called that would have kept it at a two-possession game if he made his free throws.

And I felt like that, you know, that that.

That was on my brain as I was heading down that tunnel, as our pursuit of a three-peat and this incredible historic run that we had been on, as it all had gone down in flames.

And I was filled with all this emotion.

I mean, did I actually believe what I said?

No.

To a fellow combatant that was about to enter the ring, I just kind of said something to like the Baylor guys that we played this year, like, you know,

you better be on your shit today because they ain't going to do you no favors out there.

You're about to go play a one seed as a nine or an eight seed.

You know, you better be ready to go.

And that's just kind of what combatants say to each other.

I had no idea that somebody would be like,

you know, in a tunnel area where there is never media when these games end.

I mean, back by the locker rooms, there is never,

I thought it was like my safe space.

Yeah.

You know, where I could just say some shit and let off some steam.

And then the Creighton one, you know,

that gentleman waited a long time for me to get back to that tunnel.

I felt like he deserved for waiting so long.

It was like a, it was like waiting for sand at the mall.

Like you wait, he waited forever for me to get back there.

I did TV.

I felt like he deserved an interaction.

I understood karma at that point.

That's why I didn't get pissed when

the kid on Creighton dunked the ball in the Big East tournament.

If you noticed, I really didn't flip out.

I understood that karma.

I had said something to the balding guy.

And then...

And then I got my comeuppance at the Big East tournament.

And that's why I didn't didn't flip out and act like the victim.

Yeah.

I got what I deserved, karma.

And other coaches get that too when they say, you know, when they say shit.

Yeah,

that's a very fair answer because I think that's what we always love about sports.

It's like sometimes you're on top, you talk your shit, sometimes you eat the shit.

And that's something you keep going.

And I'd like to say, hand up, we did a bad job for not even thinking that through after the Creighton thing.

Like you were doing that guy a favor.

Yeah.

Like that, that made that guy's year to have an interaction to get cussed out by Dan Hurley.

That's worth the price of the ticket right there.

So, good job growing the game, coach.

Yeah,

balding, though.

I called him Baldy.

He's

Balding, not Baldy.

And he was telling me that I sucked and that I was a horrible coach, and that a bunch of things about my family.

And, you know, just people are yelling a lot of these vile things, but mostly they're telling you that you suck.

And I was telling him that I don't suck.

Yeah, but we should start writing.

We should start writing stories where it's like

Dan Hurley ignores fan that calls him, tells him he sucks for two and a half hours.

How could he?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, if you want to put it in that perspective, like you probably this year have ignored.

400,000 people that are telling you that you suck.

Yeah.

They don't write stories about that.

That's what to keep her cool.

Yeah.

One balding guy at Creighton.

It's the end of the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the social, you know, you don't realize, I mean, it's like,

you know, you don't become beloved when you win.

You do.

I mean, listen, the media, I mean, part of it is the standard that they hold you to, I guess, that if you're a championship level coach, that there's this gentlemanly fashion that you're supposed to conduct yourself, you know, with that,

you know, I don't, I'm, I guess I see that point when you become a, you know, one of a, you know,

one of the faces of college basketball that there is i guess a more gentlemanly way that you could handle yourself in victory and defeat um

i guess there's a perspective with that that's just not my perspective for me right now you know my perspective is i don't want to change a whole lot of things about the way that i go about my coaching and my fire my intensity because it has produced um it you know it's produced historic success at UConn the last couple of years.

Yeah, that's fair.

We actually, we have a Villanova fan, if you want to do just a practice run, Max, you want to just tell him that he sucks?

See what he says?

Yeah, you suck.

How are you guys doing?

That's good.

Look at that personal growth.

That's personal growth.

Incredible.

On a serious note, I loved watching the games.

I loved watching the Final Four.

We had two great games after, you know, a ho-hum start to the tournament in terms of competitiveness.

Uh, can you break down what you saw from the Houston Duke ending the last uh like three minutes of that game?

Because watching it as a fan, I felt a lot of things as I watch it.

But I want to know what somebody that knows their shit, somebody like you, can tell us what happened at the end of that game.

I mean, just uh,

I mean, Houston's got some dogs, and

you know, just like a lesser coach and lesser,

just a lesser

organization or

team or something.

I mean, they just would have lost by 15 or 17 in that game, but Houston is just a bunch of wolves, man,

led by a wolf.

And,

you know, it sucks for Duke and it sucks for John because like, you know, the way he put that roster together

was just, it was meticulous.

And, you know, he, I mean, he had, I think he had the, you know, the, just the best team,

you know, just from top to bottom.

I mean, it felt, it felt bulletproof going into that tournament and it looked bulletproof.

And there was a just, I think,

obviously not being in a lot of close games, I think, just really hurt them a lot.

You know, just not having to inbound the ball versus pressure, not having to shoot one-on-ones with pressure on them.

you know, whereas Houston's played a lot of close games.

But, you know, obviously, you know, they had a super year.

and just not being in those situations, not having pressure possessions

down the stretch just hurt them.

And

we were not good last year in close games

at UConn.

We weren't good either.

But

the remedy for that is just whenever we got teams down like they got Houston down,

we put them away.

And they really needed to find a way to just put Houston down and keep that game 14, 16, 18, back to 12, back to 15.

Once that shit got below six,

it got scary.

Yeah, it's true.

It's a really good point that they missed a few.

They had that stretch where they had like one field goal in 10 minutes, and it felt like that kill shot just never, they let them hang around for too long.

A dumb question.

So Cooper Flag, obviously, you know, he won Naismith Player of the Year.

You guys recruited him heavily.

If I were running a program and I missed and Cooper Flag like picked another school besides my school, I would be like, fuck this.

I'm going to be sad about it forever.

Do you ever, like throughout this year, were you ever a moment where you're like, man, that would be sick if we had Cooper Flag on our team?

Or are you just so focused on your team?

Because that's what I would do.

I would like have a bad day and be like, I wish I had Cooper Flag.

I mean, if I did robot coach talk more often, I could save myself a lot of a lot of people get pissed at me when I say shit.

Yeah.

We just focused on our season and I always focused on the next practice and I never think about shit like that.

But no, when he played that crazy game against Notre Dame, I'm like, my God, if we threw him on our team with some of these guys, I mean, what would that look like?

I mean, I probably wouldn't have just blown a seven-point lead the last 30 seconds at Seton Hall twice.

You know, like,

so yeah, I mean, no, but, but then I'd say this, you know, like

when you're watching their team play this year and the way that their staff put it together and just the quality of what they put together, you're like, yo, he made it, he made it, I mean, that was a great choice too, because they put a squad around him and that thing was

impressive.

And then you meet him.

He's a total baller.

That kid, he's a dog.

I mean, he's a warrior.

That guy.

And then he's got a lot of swagger and just a lot of pop to him.

That guy is just what basketball needs.

Yeah, he is.

He's tremendous.

But I, yeah, it was an incredible season for him.

All right.

So I do have a question about Houston in this matchup because you did play Florida.

Yes, I was, but yes, I was jealous.

Okay, yeah, that's a good human, like, because you're right.

Like, most coaches would be like, no, we're fucking, we got the guys we got.

But if you're watching Cooper flag and he was, he was down between Duke and UConn, and you're like, shit, this would have been cool.

Yeah, and the thing with like guys like Cooper, when we first first took over the job uh and first got the job at uconn it had fallen off so far that we couldn't really the first couple recruiting classes until we won that first

that first uh natty like we didn't even swim in the waters of recruiting five stars because we were still just trying to you know get our head above water so he was the first you know like five star you know, one and done, you know, that we really went after because Steph Castle, you know, he was a guy whose like ranking had moved up and he committed to us so early, you know, that he wasn't like this one and done top five, top 10 player when he committed to UConn.

Like, he was like a top 30 guy.

So, yeah.

Did you ever, do you ever have moments where you were like, I said the wrong thing to Cooper Flag?

Like, oh, I could have done this different.

Like, he probably didn't like he, you know, I emptied.

Like, we went,

we went, we emptied,

we emptied

all of our clips.

I mean, we, we went, I mean, we said, and

yeah, because we understood the, you know, the, the, you know, the pull to Duke.

And obviously, Duke's a special place.

And,

you know, we were talking to him about dynasty.

I mean, we knew we had a squad that that

had probably the best chance of anyone to win two,

two in a row.

So we were just talking dynasty, you know, dynasty, dynasty.

We're going to get three in a row.

Dynasty,

you're from Maine.

You know, you're in this, you know, you're in this area.

But, you know, we still have a shot at the dynasty.

If you get three and four years, it's still a dynasty.

That's fast.

Yeah.

You said that you emptied the clip.

Did you offer his twin brother a scholarship too?

Ace is a player, man.

Yeah.

Ace could play.

Ace is like stretch.

You know, I think he's going to Maine.

I mean, you know, Ace is going to light up some high majors in these bye games.

Okay.

Yeah.

I would have done that.

Ace is a good player.

I would have done like the Giannis thing.

Like, yeah, we'll get your brother on the squad, too.

The whole gang's going to be here.

All right, so, so, Houston, though, so you obviously you played Florida in the tournament.

Houston, you haven't played since you were in the AAC your first couple years, which is always so funny when you look back and you're like, oh, yeah, UConn was in that conference for a while.

What is it when you're playing a Kelvin Sampson team?

Like,

what do you do for the way they rebound and defend?

Because it is unlike any other team where they just feel like they are part of every single board that gets, you know, every shot that goes up, they've got a chance for that offensive rebound, unlike any other team.

So, what do you do?

What is Florida doing?

I mean, nothing prepares you for it.

I mean, we were, you know, we competed against those guys in,

you know, back, you know, back when we were in the AAC.

And then just watching it,

you know, and my brother played against it in the Big 12 this year.

I mean, it is, you really feel like you're under siege.

I mean, it is

just wave after wave of and the life or death, relentless pursuit of the basketball.

I mean,

you can't go do two-on-two rebounding drills the week of that game and try to get these guys ready for it.

Because the way they get after it, you can't prepare for it.

It's like a pass rush that just the quarterback is going to be rattled.

And

it kills your transition offensive game because it's hard for you to even run on them because getting a defensive rebound feels like survival.

You know, some of the things things I think that they have going for them is,

you know, their ball screen defense is really aggressive.

You know, so they're going to get the ball out of Clayton's hands.

They're going to blitz him in ball screens.

But will they make those fatal mistakes the last five minutes that teams like ours made?

Texas Tech made,

Auburn made late in games where Clayton has gotten those threes off the dribble,

where your hedge guy is a little late getting up to the level of that ball screen and Clayton has got these crazy threes that he is hitting off the dribble like these incredibly high degree of difficulty shots where if you just make one mistake in ball screen defense and your big does not get up there and hedge it or blow it up or blitz him um that that's where he's just burying people and ending people seasons yeah yeah it's going to be an incredible fun um you know championship game we got a prediction we got a final score you know i i just don't want to show up and make more enemies.

I mean, I've got enemies all over the place.

I've added the Lakers this offseason.

Oh, have you thought about like, what if I had Luca?

That'd be cool.

You know, I just, well, no, I mean, Florida's fans already hate me because

I blamed it on the refs.

Yep.

So I didn't give their proper respect on having beaten us fair and square, which they did beat us fair and square.

I'd like to get that.

I'd like to get that out there.

But,

man,

it's a tough one, man.

Houston, to me, you know, and listen, they've both played games they could have lost in this tournament.

Yeah.

You know, so they're both battle-tested.

I think, you know,

you know, Florida had the game versus us and the Texas Tech game that both could have gone the other way.

Houston had the Purdue game and the Duke game that could have gone the

could have gone the other way.

I mean, it's basically

the heater that Clayton has been on plus their front court, you know, versus like Houston has been knocking on the door of this for the last couple of years.

So

I guess I would take Houston.

Okay, yeah, it's going to be an incredible game.

And it is like, I mean,

we needed this Final Four because there weren't a lot of, I mean, for a while there, your game against Florida was the best game, was the most dramatic game we had for like, you know, a week there.

So it was good watching great basketball.

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The last question is: so you have a book

coming out, or it's out called Never Stop,

which is the perfect title for a Dan Hurley book.

Am I allowed to stop every now and then?

Like never stop, never stop?

I mean, you're like a shark, right?

If a shark stops, it dies.

Yeah.

Or at least I've read that.

Yeah.

And then, I mean, listen,

some of the stuff that I've been doing, should I stop?

I mean,

maybe.

I've got a lot of things to consider.

This offseason.

And I am, you know, listen, I didn't go to San Antonio and parade myself around there.

I have self-awareness and situational awareness where I felt like the best thing to do was to lie low and not head to San Antonio and parade myself around, you know, because I do think that people needed a little break from me.

The run we've been on, the way this year's gone.

You probably won't be seeing a whole lot of me until it's time to then go and talk about the book.

Yeah, because obviously I've got to get out and plug the book when the book comes out.

Right.

And it was smart.

Like, you weren't on 60 Minutes or anything or did anything like that.

Yeah, that stuff was all shot in the summer.

Majority of that stuff was shot

a long time ago.

Okay.

All right.

You did a good job on 60 Minutes.

You didn't flip out at the interview or anything.

That would have been funny if you had flip.

If you got mad.

That's not a fair question.

Yeah.

Don't touch my pace.

I did get worried with 60 Minutes because there was some concern in my camp

that based on the way the year is going, that that could turn into a hit piece.

Oh,

just there was, you know, I had obviously, you know, the meltdown in Maui where I tore my Lululemon pants when I, when I was, you know what, there was an over-the-back call there that,

you know, that, that got, that, that obviously set a lot of things in motion.

But there wasn't as much anger with that over-the-back call as the one last night.

Yeah.

And,

you know, where were all of the slow-mo's of my over-the-back call that set me off?

It's a good point.

It's a good point.

Yeah.

It's not the same stage of game, I would say, a quarterfinal game in Maui and around Thanksgiving and the national semis.

They should call it the same way either way.

Yeah.

So consistency.

Yeah.

Consistency.

Yeah.

Well, just be consistent.

Well, listen,

people, we've been accused of being Dan Hurley apologists, but we feel like we've been honest.

I think every time that you have one of these things happen, we literally say what you said earlier.

Like, is he an asshole?

Yeah.

Do we want more of it in sports?

Yeah.

Like,

and I think I actually have said the quote, like, Dan Hurley will tell you he's an asshole sometimes, which you did just now.

So, like, what are you going to do?

I like sports are supposed to be entertaining like this.

I want the bad blood.

I want the rivalries.

I want passion.

I want all this.

Never stop.

Guilty is charged.

It makes the sports, I think it makes it better.

I mean, it makes the crowds better.

when we go and play some of these games the environments that

you know that i bring my team into it's like the intensity gets ratcheted up just because of you know just of our our presence and how much people want to beat us because you know they hate us and they hate me and i think the thing that that most of these fans of a lot of these other schools though is they just they you know that they hate the fact that we're able to do something that is obviously so hard to do and we did it twice and we did it we did it twice we did it two times in a row and we did it it with historical margins that will probably be never be done again yeah did you ever say to yourself like after you lost a game against florida well at least we covered again yeah kept that streak alive well i noticed that um

so i think bobby i think bobby mullen again i'm gonna uh i think he might have mentioned to me you know like i get trolled a lot i guess by the the gambling sites like they took some shots at me this year and i guess that's why you know i guess i cost them a lot of money yeah true well not in the tournament always bet on on hurley in the tournament yeah yeah it's i mean it's a it's a good streak is still alive in my eyes yep yeah you can still you can still go so uh well coach thank you it's always great having you on um and next time next year i know we were trying to work it out but when you come to the paul you got to come to our office put us through a quick drill because we got the full court here so uh that would be fun well you could just beat us up for like 20 minutes Give your guys an off day.

You could actually have them watch you.

Bring your whole team.

They can watch you beat us up.

That would maybe be good team bonding.

Training session, I think,

just a 20-minute

20-minute session.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Make us beat up.

Yeah.

We'll drink piss.

Like defense condition.

Drink piss before you start.

It was just like like offense, like skill work to like some defensive fundamentals to some cardio and then to some game situational live play.

Yeah, like hell,

a real hard 30-minute workout.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm in.

We're in.

We're in.

Well, coach, thank you for

joining us and we'll talk soon.

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And now, here's Mark Hoppis from Blink182.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very special guest.

He is an incredible musician.

He's also an author.

It is Mark Hoppis from Blink 182.

He's got a new book out called Fahrenheit 182, a memoir.

And we are very excited to have you on.

We're big fans of yours,

big fans of Blink, big fans of your career.

But you have a book now.

So we got to start with the book.

Yeah, I'm always curious.

You know, you've had a very interesting life.

I would put you up there of people I'd want to read a book about.

But what made you

jump to write a book?

Because I always am like, is there a part of you that says, is this an egomaniac move to write a book?

But you have an interesting life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was the hardest thing for me to about writing the book was thinking that anyone would be interested enough to read a book that I'd written.

So, but when I was sick, I got sick with cancer a few years ago.

And my doctor told me, when you're going through this, just write.

Just write like nobody's ever going to read this.

Just write your feelings, write your thoughts.

And so I started writing all this stuff while I was undergoing chemotherapy.

And it was really helpful to me.

And then I had this stuff that I had written.

And my manager was like, you should write the story of Blink 182 from your perspective.

And, you know, Travis has his

memoir, and Tom has written books.

But I really wanted to tell the story of Blink 182 through my eyes and my experience because it's my favorite band of all time.

I love love my band members, and I'm such a huge fan of Blink 182 that I wanted to share these stories.

That's awesome.

That's really cool.

So I might be a bigger fan of Blink 182 than you are.

Maybe.

I'm not sure.

I took the shades off for this interview out of respect.

I think there have been like three guys that we've interviewed on this show.

I just want to look you in the eyes, Mark, because

your band provided one of the seminal moments of my childhood, which was getting kicked out of school for the first time.

When I got sent home, because I was wearing a t-shirt that said Blink 182 Crappy Punk Rock.

You got kicked out of school for crappy punk rock?

They sent me home early.

It wasn't like a suspension, but I felt like a badass.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I.

Well, thank you for that.

I appreciate being part of your

story.

I was going to say, you were part of my childhood, too, just that when Enema of the State came out, I was like, wait, women can be that hot?

That was also like, oh, holy shit.

I think maybe the soundtrack to my first-hand job.

Nice.

Yeah.

You've been there for all of us.

You got to be there.

Yeah.

You'd be there through all these important moments in your lives.

The ups and downs.

But no, we appreciate you coming on the show.

And

you guys,

I noticed last year, all the small things kind of became a sports anthem.

Somewhat out of nowhere.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I know that you're a Dodgers fan.

I am.

And Tom is a Padres fan.

Yep.

And the Padres were using all the small things as like their pump-up song in the series against the Dodgers.

Did you think about calling the Dodgers and being like, I do not give you permission to use this song?

No, not at all.

I like, you know, the Avalanche used it as their fight song on their run to the Stanley Cup.

The Padres were using it during our playoff season last year against the Dodgers.

I just love that people care about that song enough after whatever it is.

That song was released in 1999.

It's 2025.

It's 25 years of that song, and it's become a rock jock anthem.

It's awesome.

Love it.

It is.

It is good.

So the book,

from your perspective, and it goes through your whole life, do you think it would have, I mean, I think part of why it's going to be so interesting is you guys broke up a couple times, but still got back together.

And that feels good because I know that like the bands break up and they never get back together and everyone just sits there being like, man, my favorite bands just no longer, you know, exists.

So like getting back together on both times, how is it different?

And also, does it make it the book, like writing the book a little easier knowing that it had somewhat of a happy ending?

I am so thankful that after all that our band has been through, the breakups and the

reunions and breaking up again and getting back together again, this is the third iteration of Blink 182 and people still want to buy albums and listen to our music and come to the shows.

And to have that kind of

fan base, I don't even call it fan base.

It's like to have that many people support our band is just so incredible and we're so thankful for it.

When we sat down

this last time when we were talking about let's do blink 182 again let's do it on entirely our own terms the way that we want to do it the three of us blink 182 forever like we can't mess this up again i don't know if i can curse on your show no yeah

we can't fuck this up again the third time is just we will be a joke at that point like if we're getting back together as the three of us it has to be forever and that's it and everybody is like fully on board and it's the best feeling so so when that conversation happens is just the three of you in the room and is it i would imagine it's just very, you guys have been through so much together that it's kind of everyone's stripped down to like, we know each other like brothers.

Yeah, totally.

Both times that like, you know, it's been when Tom quit the first time, he and I, he and I didn't speak for like four years.

When he quit the second time, we didn't quit, we didn't talk for a while and then we were just cordial with one another.

But when we come back together, it's almost like, what are we doing?

Like, that was so dumb.

Why, like, why did we ever get to that point?

There's a shorthand and a brotherhood and a friendship that we, we just come back together and it's like, okay, cool.

What are we going to do now?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

The first time you guys met,

you, you broke your feet trying to impress him.

Is that true?

Yeah.

I met Tom the day that I moved to San Diego.

I woke up in the morning.

I was in Ridgecrest, California, which is in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

That's why I grew up.

I drove to San Diego to move in with my mom and stepdad to go to college in San Diego.

Got to San Diego, unloaded all my stuff, which was just my clothes and a trash bag.

And

my my sister was in high school at the time.

And she said, oh, you know what you should do?

You should meet my friend Tom.

He's my boyfriend's best friend.

He plays guitar and he's trying to start a punk rock band.

And so I grabbed my bass, drove over to Tom's house that night, wrote our first songs together, kind of became bros at that point.

The bromance began.

And afterwards, like we were sitting, I was sitting out in the

cul-de-sac in front of his house.

I was smoking cigarettes and we were kind of talking and stuff.

And I looked over and I saw a light pole.

And I was like, I bet I can climb that light pole.

And I climbed all the way up and I came back down and I just jumped off way too high and ended up, you know, busting my heels.

It was on crutches for six weeks.

But the next day, Tom Coleman was like, hey, you want to come over and buy some more music?

That's cool.

He was like, that was sick.

That's all.

That's respect.

This is a guy that I vibe with.

He's like, nice crash, idiot.

Let's make some music.

Did you?

So, so when you, when you guys decided to make music together, was it...

instant because one of my favorite parts about you know music and and watching bands and and their growth it feels like that first album always has that spark to it.

And it has that like everyone together and you're all trying to make it together.

Is that a fair assessment?

Like where you guys had that spark right away?

Like, oh, we did.

We were meant to do this together.

Yeah.

You know, the first song that Tom and I wrote together was a song called Carousel.

And, you know, we had just met.

I plugged in my bass in his garage, which he had turned into his bedroom at his parents' house.

And he said, do you have any ideas for new music?

Because we were talking about bands we like.

And I said, oh, yeah, I wrote this thing a couple of weeks ago and I played it for him, but it was really incomplete.

It was just like a little riff.

And he goes, oh, my God, that works perfectly with this thing that I've been working on.

And he played me his guitar thing.

And I'm like, it's even in the same key.

Like, it works perfectly.

And so we had already started writing songs with each other before we'd even met.

And it felt like, you know, it felt like it was meant to be from day one.

Yeah.

I'm always curious when I'm talking to musicians about when you know that you're going to commit to this full time.

that it's going to be your job because it's fun to play music with your friends.

It's fun to be in a band, but at some point you guys have to commit to it and say, this is my focus.

If we need to get into a van and travel around for like three weeks, we'll do it.

We'll make dog shit money, but this is going to be my full-time gig right now.

What was that for you guys?

I was in college

and Blink was starting to play some shows and we'd get more shows over the weekend.

So, you know, one weekend we played San Diego and the next weekend we'd play L.A.

And then like a month later, we'd play San Diego, LA and Phoenix.

And then a couple weeks later, we'd play San Diego, L.A., Phoenix, San Francisco, Sacramento.

And so I was missing a lot of college.

I was doing poorly in school.

And the band was just starting to create this kind of tiny little spark where people would come and see us play and we were getting more opportunities.

And I went to my mom and I was like, look,

we're making 50 bucks a show at this point.

Like we can barely afford gas money, but we can afford gas money now.

And there's an opportunity to go on tour maybe sometime in the future.

What do I do?

Cause I don't want to fail out of college and, you know, waste all this money and waste my parents' money.

and she was like you can go back to college anytime there are people in their 40s that go back to college and finish their degree you only get one chance to be in a band get out there and go find your dream and i was like all right cool and so i ended up living at her house with my mom and my sister and my stepdad until i was in my mid 20s just treating the place like a skateboard flop house me and my bandmates and skater loser friends would stay the night there.

We would stay up till four o'clock in the morning playing Street Fighter 2, screaming.

My parents would come out in the middle middle of the night, shut the fuck up.

We're trying to sleep.

And we'd go back to it.

And it was, it was great.

It was the only way that I was able to start being an abandoned tour at all was that my mom was like, yeah, live at home.

Go do your shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then very cool mom move.

Things kind of took off when Dude Ranch came out.

And when you're recording that and you're listening to Damn It for the first time after you've recorded it, do you know this is going to be a hit?

Like my life's going to happen.

We thought it was a cool song and we thought it was a highlight of the album and we thought it would be the first single.

But first like we didn't have singles at that point people weren't really playing us on the radio too much there were a few stations in southern california that were playing uh eminems off of cheshire cat and maybe josie no josie was on dude ranch so maybe they were playing uh min m's off of cheshire cat but We didn't have singles until Dude Ranch.

And so when we were recording, like we didn't know that that was going to be a single that was going to be played on the radio.

We were going to film a video for.

It was just the highlight of the record at that point.

So that song we still play as the big closer of our sets, even now 30 years later.

Yeah.

And I remember the first time when I heard the intro to damn it, I was like, I love this.

Before the song started, really, I was like, I love this song.

This is now my favorite song.

And you wrote the guitar port for that, right?

And so when you're showing Tom the guitar part, is he like, dude, what the fuck?

I write the guitar parts.

No, we've always written kind of everything together.

Like he writes, he'll be like, I think the bass goes like this.

And I'll be like, I think the guitar goes like this.

And we have license to change one another's ideas or try and come up with something better.

When I wrote the guitar riff at the beginning of Damn It, I wrote that on a on an acoustic guitar that I had busted at my mom's house.

And it only had the bottom three strings on it.

It only had the EAD strings on it.

So that's why it just has those.

You can play the whole thing on three strings.

Yeah.

And that's kind of, I think, the limitation was why the song is kind of good because it's so simple and catchy.

Yeah.

Do you have a moment in the history of of Blink 182 where you're like, oh shit, this is now changed forever?

Like we, you know, whether it be an album song or, you know,

getting,

you know, a tour or anything where you're like, okay, we've, we've hit the point of no return where this is now, I've made it, so to speak.

Well, made it like this is the point of no return.

I would say probably during the enemy of the state era where we started like touring enough that we were playing amphitheaters and arenas and you know, we had hit songs on the radio and we were playing being played on TRL and we'd walk into like a clothing store somewhere and they'd be playing all the small things.

What the fuck is this?

And at that point I was like, wow, okay.

Now I feel a little confident that this is going to be at least going for a few more years.

You know, you never know what's going to happen as a musician, as an artist, a you know, a performer, actor, whatever it is.

Like, what's the next gig?

What's the, are people going to still care in five years?

And, you know, we've always worked and written the best songs we can and toured our asses off and believed in ourselves and it's worked out well for us, but you can't ever count on it, you know?

Right.

Right.

Do you think it's harder or easier like in today's?

Because you know, we obviously have access to more music now with Spotify and all the stream.

But like you mentioned TRL.

I remember as like a kid, a child of the 90s, like coming home and turning on TRL and being like, oh, these are the top 10 songs right now.

And that being something that's, I don't want to call it monoculture, but it felt like that as kids at that time.

Do you think it's that was like a big part of breaking through?

And today it might be a little more difficult.

Yeah, I think it's really difficult then and now in completely different ways.

Back then, it was expensive to record.

Now you can have your laptop computer, a few rudimentary microphones, and you can record great sounds and you can put together songs and you can upload them to

SoundCloud or

there's like tens of thousands of songs being uploaded all the time to the streaming services.

And you can use your social media to get the word out there and you can be on all these different things.

But it's harder to cut through all the noise now.

Back then, it was expensive to record.

It was expensive to get your music out there.

We literally had to drive to a building, an industrial park in downtown San Diego to pick up cassettes, go home, go to Kinko's, print up all the artwork for the cassettes, cut them out by hand, fold them all up with my mom and my sister, my stepdad, and bandmates on our living room floor, and drive them around to every single record store in San Diego just to get music in stores that hopefully people would maybe see us at a show and buy our demo, and it was five bucks.

Right.

So that was a lot of work back then.

And you had to flyer.

And if we had a show, we like Tom used to go to his high school and stuff flyers for a band show in his friends' lockers and hand them to people at lunchtime.

And I would flyer my colleges and we would go to record stores and put flyers everywhere.

And so it was a lot of physical work and movement to get the word out.

But once you got played on like MTV or you got played on a radio station in Los Angeles called K-Rock or K-Rock, New York, there are a few like, like once that, once you reach that barrier, then it really got the word out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in the TRL era, when the all the small things video came out, that was, uh, it felt like a moment because like we were going through the boy band era at the time.

And then this comes out and it's like giving kind of like a fuck you to the boy bands, but it was funny.

It was like a funny joke.

But I read an excerpt from the book that you didn't know anything about the boy band music videos while you were filming that video.

And so while you were doing that, it was like, you were like, are fans going to like this?

I didn't like it.

I thought it was a terrible idea.

I was like, when they pitched the idea and they were like, we're going to, you know, do spoofs of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, 98 Degrees, NSYNC.

I was like, okay.

And we were filming it.

I'm like, this isn't funny.

Like, I don't understand what we're spoofing.

I don't know these videos.

And I went to like bandmates, management, label.

This isn't funny.

I don't back this idea at all.

I'm going to go on record and say, I think this is going to be a horrible video.

And I was wrong as shit.

Yeah, very wrong.

He was like,

can we just get naked again?

Yeah.

Can't we just like run around in our underpants or do something stupid?

But yeah, that video was genius.

And I think it was the right time in TRL.

I think that people, because like the pop thing had grown so exponentially and it was so big and it was everywhere and it was ubiquitous, just, you know, pop stars and pop videos and very manufactured safe stuff and kind of you know green day had already come and kind of kicked the door open and then blink was poppy enough that we were accessible but not so punk that we were like uh you know off-putting to people and we kind of just slid perfectly into this change between pop music and what was taking over at that time, which was punk rock and new metal and a lot more edgier, distorted guitars, heavy drums.

I think people were ready to kind of go off a little harder, laugh a little and uh and be a little more edgy yeah you had an absolute heater too with album titles so you thank you you had dude ranch which by the way is dude ranch is that come

no

but I don't, when I said Dude Ranch, I just thought it was a funny thing.

But I don't know if Tom this whole time thought, oh my God, that's come.

But maybe he does.

It wasn't my intent when I suggested the title, but I think it's a great joke.

And then Enema of the State was something that Tom came up with and was genius from day one.

There's even videos somewhere of Tom talking to the camera.

We're shooting photos

for the cover of the album.

And he's talking about how he's so great

he wants to become a model for enemas.

Enema.

And he goes, of the state.

Enema of the state.

He goes, ha ha, that's funny.

Hey, Mark.

And you can see the moment where Enema of the State came about.

Then take off your pants and jacket, I think, is just genius.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

it was so good that you were like, I don't know that we can, let's just next album self-titled.

Yeah, self-titled, exactly.

Next album, we're like, we're not going to try and do it.

But at that point, we were like, we're a serious rock band now.

We're going to make an art rock album, and we don't want to have a joke thing at all.

Like, we want to stand on our own two feet and not have it be a joke thing.

And so we did the untitled record, which is a lot more serious and a lot more introspective and kind of where we were at that point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In that course of your albums and like the creative process, did you, were you guys ever feeling pressure from, because we've heard a million stories of, you know, the record execs and trying to fit you guys in a box.

Were you able to stave that off and be yourself?

Totally.

We were very lucky in that in the beginning, the labels didn't care enough about us to come down and put any pressure on us.

They were like, yeah, just go do your thing and we'll put it out and kind of just left us on our own.

And then by the time we did that with Dude Ranch and NMO the state, then when we did the untitled record, we recorded that mostly in San Diego.

And most of the label people are like, I'm not going to drive down to San Diego.

No way.

Like,

I'm not leaving L.A.

and driving all the way down to San Diego to listen to what these dudes are doing.

And so we've always been really autonomous and basically at the end just turned in our record and said, there you go.

That's awesome.

That's great.

And when Enema comes out, obviously you make the switch to Travis on the drums, who I think is one of the best rock drummers of all time, just an incredible musician.

Maybe the best songwriting drummer of all time.

When you think of how he breaks down songs, did that put any pressure on you to up your game as a songwriter?

To be like, this guy's way fucking better at his instrument than anybody I've ever played with.

I got to step it up.

Yes, entirely.

When Travis joined the band, the whole everything leveled up.

Like, you know, I felt pressure to be a better songwriter.

I know Tom felt the same.

Travis would come in and, you know, Tom and I would present these ideas that were like, you know, really straightforward punk rock songs, whatever.

And Travis would be like, what if I played this beat on top of it?

And then you're like, oh, shit, that takes the song to a totally different place.

And then we'd build on that.

So Travis joining the band brought in elements that we had never really incorporated into our band before because Travis came in with like all these different musical influences.

He grew up listening to punk rock, but he also grew up like a metal head and he grew up playing in drum line and he grew up listening to hip-hop and rap music.

And so he brought in all these different styles to Blink that really

creatively inspired me and Tom to bust out of our, we're a punk rock band.

And no, we're not just a punk rock band.

We're a rock band with all these different cool influences.

yeah yeah is there an alternate universe where travis is just the best ska drummer of all time if you've ever given him the call

he was a great drummer and aquabats he was killing it when we watched travis with aquabats and we're on tour blinkworn 82 and aquabats are on tour together and that's when we met travis he was doing stuff in a ska band that you're like that is way beyond what a ska band should be doing yeah just yeah incredible drummer and um yeah you guys have had such an incredible career is it harder to write pop punk songs as you get older?

Because so much of what you started with in your catalog is like teenage angst, right?

Like you're not getting laid, you're pissed off at your parents, that sort of thing.

Is it harder to write that type of music getting older and dealing with different problems?

Sometimes what really it is, is you think about, like, you know, for me, I think back to moments that I was upset or inspired or in love or felt angry about something and extrapolate that.

And I'm not trying to write songs about like I'm I'm angry at my parents and chicks won't talk to me about things like that.

I'm more writing about songs from memories of my life or things that I see in the world or things that I see happen in my friends.

And I think it would be disingenuous for me to be like, you know, writing about high school stuff

unless it was something that I remembered from my high school and was writing it in that frame of mind.

But I'm not trying to be like, yeah, fuck you, mom.

Right now.

Right.

Although, like, after you write Family Reunion, are you like, maybe we've peaked as a band?

This is a great song.

Yeah, that was pretty rad.

And in fact, when we recorded Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, we were like in, we were in full reaction against Enema of the State, where we were on TRL and it was poppy and it was fun and it was bright and it was all these, you know, fun time, summer things.

And we went in and we're like, we're wearing all black everything.

We are Fugazi.

We are punk rock.

We are post-emo, post-hardcore, like no more joke shit.

The label came in to hear the record when we were done.

And what we did is we played them the three joke songs, which was When You Fuck Grandpa,

a song about Tom having sex with a dog.

And I forget what the third one is, right?

Oh, Mother's Day, which is like, you know, a song about Mother's Day being a celebration of having sex with your mom.

And we played him those three songs as if this were the record.

What was her reaction?

Really concerned looks between the label president and the head of ANR.

Because we were like, yeah, this is what we want to do.

Like, we want to take it to a different level.

And then we played him those three songs.

And so, yeah.

That's great.

All right.

So, so I read when you were battling cancer, you did the thing that I am always so nervous about because I share on Instagram, I share like pictures of my kids to just my friends.

You shared that you had cancer to everyone

accidentally on your Instagram story.

Yeah.

What that had to have been, I mean, you already were battling cancer.

Then on top of that, that had to have been like a, oh, fuck.

This sucks really really bad moment.

Yeah, I had intentionally not been public about my cancer diagnosis.

I had told my friends and I had started chemo and I was on my third round of chemo.

And I accidentally posted it.

And I was trying to like, I'd put a picture of me starting chemo round one, let's go to just my friends to be like, let's go and be positive and whatever, make a joke out of it.

And so round three, I posted a picture of myself saying,

yes, one cancer treatment, please, while I'm hooked up to my IV.

And they had,

they had just given me my Benadryl, which makes me tired.

And so I took the picture and I posted it and I started feeling groggy.

And two minutes later, my manager, April, calls up and was like, did you mean to post that on Maine?

And I was falling asleep and I was drugged out of my brain.

And my last thought was, oh, fuck.

And I woke up a couple hours later, deep into chemotherapy and looked at my phone again.

All these people texting, people calling, people.

And by the time I was done with my treatment that day, which probably took whatever, four to six hours, and I was driving home, I felt like hell.

My body was full of all these toxic poisons, burning all the cancer out of my body.

And the publicist is like, you have to make a statement.

People, like radio stations are running with this.

And so we pulled over to the side of the road and I typed on my phone something.

My wife was driving and I typed out something.

You know, I have cancer.

I'm very lucky to have great doctors and family and friends to support me.

And I'm, you know, hope for the best.

Yeah.

That's that's brutal.

Yeah.

Go keep going.

Sorry.

And so, yeah, I wrote that and I texted it to our friend Lisa Warden, who runs,

you know, who ran K-Rock Los Angeles and now runs 987 in Los Angeles.

And she read my statement over the air immediately.

And we're still on the side of the road.

And I'm still full of dry.

And it felt like I was Tom Sawyer at his own funeral when he sneaks back into his own funeral and he's hiding in the rafters and looking at what people think about when

they think that he had passed.

And it was really surreal.

And it was like, oh, shit, everybody knows I'm sick now.

And I didn't expect the outpouring of love and support that I got from the world.

I thought people would be more like, ha ha, finally, you got yours, you son of a bitch.

How are you feeling now?

You feel healthy?

I feel really healthy.

I really have to work hard at staying healthy.

And I go to the gym five days a week.

And I'm working out with weights.

And I eat right.

And I stop drinking and like all this stuff.

So I'm in a really good spot.

The only part that is lagging at all is my brain fog hits from time to time.

And when that happens, it sucks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad you're feeling so much better.

I got a question for you about the relationship with Tom.

Obviously, thick and thin, ups and downs.

Did you ever think that like one of the first times you guys broke up when it's like Tom is really into going off and finding aliens somewhere?

Did you ever think that that reunion would end with you being like, Tom, you were kind of low-key right about finding aliens.

Everything you've been doing aliens.

Yeah.

My bad.

I've asked him that before.

I've been like, you know, hey, you're kind of right.

And he's like, I know.

But Tom has so many takes on so many different things, especially aliens.

Like he told me at one point in the same conversation that he just, he'll just start talking and he rambles and he can't stop and he'll talk to you or at you for half an hour.

And in the same conversation, he said, we never landed on the moon.

That was a hoax perpetuated from a studio in Burbank.

And the reason that Kennedy was shot was because he found out when we landed on the moon that there were secret alien glass castles on the dark side of the moon.

So I'm like, well, which is it?

Do we go to the moon or do we not go to the moon?

And then he kind of thinks and he goes, exactly.

Exactly.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

So if you come up with enough takes, eventually something's going to be right.

That's the premise of this entire show.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah.

We just throw enough things at the wall that every now and then we can be like, told you guys.

Totally.

You're like, Aaron Rodgers is going to come back and win and win, you know, the Lombardy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I could see Aaron Rodgers and and Tom getting along real well.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

Totally.

They, you know, Tom, for fun, for a long time, would go and he, he would buy like military grade night vision goggles and he would go on missions, go camping to try and find Bigfoot.

That's badass.

That's, yeah, that sounds like a fun guy to hang out with.

Yeah.

Totally.

Tom Rules.

He's awesome.

And I love that he chases whatever, like, whatever it is that he wants to do, he's going to go do it.

When you guys had your period where you weren't talking and then you get back together, I know you said like once you're in person, you pick right back up.

But

was it difficult?

I mean, thinking of like your best friend in the whole world, you don't talk to him for four years.

That's got to be hard.

It also has to be a little sad.

Like even looking back now, being like, I missed four years of your life.

Yeah, totally.

It sucks.

It was painful.

It was,

I felt like I had lost not only my band, but my best friend and my sense of self.

And what was I if I wasn't Mark from Blink 182?

I'm just Mark Hoppis, some dude that was in a band.

Or what am I?

Or who should I be?

Or, you know, like my creative partner was gone.

My band was gone.

My sense of self, everything.

It sucked.

Yeah.

Who texted first?

Tom called the first time Tom called me out of the blue

and I looked at my phone.

It was a, it was a San Diego number and I'm like, huh.

And he answered the phone.

It was Tom.

And I was like, hello.

And he goes, hey, it's Tom.

And I'm like, oh, shit.

And I walked outside and like, how you doing, dude?

And he's like, I'm good.

How are you?

And I'm like, I'm good.

and it was like a it was kind of like we picked right back up from four years ago but not an argument's sake like we didn't be like you know what you suck whatever but we we had a really great conversation how are you in your life where are you just like family kids mental health that kind of stuff and then he goes so what have you learned over the past four years

whoa

and i was like And then we had a really great heart-to-heart about what each of us had learned over the past four years.

And it was really like instantly

wholesome and great and fulfilling and like i felt like like the floodgates open and i felt all this like love and opportunity and and uh i don't know life come back into me that's really cool and the first time you guys get get back into songwriting mode together what's that like are you guys doing it like you're writing together or you come with ideas you see so the first time we got back together on neighborhoods tom had an idea for a song that became up all night and it was great from the beginning but writing songs after had after having been so adversarial and so like the band broke down and everything else, when we first started writing songs, we were very cautious with one another, very tender with one another's feelings, very like, you know, let's not accidentally knock out this flame that we have going.

And bands, especially with Blink, like we need to be able to say, that's a great idea, but I don't like this section or this could be better or whatever.

Like, you don't want to just be like, oh, yeah, that's great.

Oh, yeah, totally.

That's good.

Oh, yeah.

You know, so you need to be able to push back on stuff.

And that took us a while to get to that point where we could say, like, I understand what you're going for, but let's do it this way, or I think we could do it different, or I don't like that idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm always interested, too, to know how you come up with the order for songs on an album, like the track list.

Love it.

Because I feel like you got to tell a story, right?

Yeah, it's like a set.

Like when you, like, we still very consciously think of how one song goes into the next song as if you're listening to an album.

And you, like, I did the, I did the sequencing for Enema of the State and Take Every Pants and Jacket.

We all did it for

The Untitled Record.

Travis really led the charge on one more time.

And it's a very important thing.

You're trying to tell a story.

You're trying to, you know, start strong and, you know, have highs and lows and emotional, like songs that are similar can't be next to one another on the record.

Songs that are in the same key maybe don't.

align necessarily on one song going into the next.

So that's something we take a lot of time and

care doing.

And so the trilogy of anthems that you have,

Anthem Part 2, Anthem Part 3.

How do you you know when you're writing a song like this could be an anthem?

We should name this one Anthem.

Those are all Tom songs that start with Tom.

And he wrote Anthem, and it was an awesome song.

And then we were writing Anthem 2, we were like, well, this kind of has the same vibe as that.

And kind of with Anthem 3.

And Anthem Part 3 on one more time, I think, just really shows how genius Tom is as a songwriter.

Like, I listened to that song.

You know, we've been performing that song for a year.

We've known, we've had that song in our lives for probably a year and a half, maybe even two years at this point.

And when we play it on stage, it still gives me goosebumps because Tom is such a great songwriter.

It's so like the guitars are soaring.

And when he's singing it,

it's coming from his soul.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So, Mark, I have one last question.

I know PFT probably has a last question as well.

My last question, the robot question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code take.

20% off your first purchase.

Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, promo code take.

So, your book, Fahrenheit 182, the cover, by the way, I meant to mention,

I just, whenever you put like pink or some type of neon on the cover, I instantly like, oh, I got to read this book.

You just walk.

And you're like, that was really smart.

That worked.

Thank you.

The interesting story about the book cover is during the pandemic, I started.

Twitch streaming and I opened up a Discord and on the Discord I was talking with people and fans and whatever and we kind of built this rad community and One of the people in the Discord is this woman named Joe who just happened to be a book designer.

And so when it came, like literally she designs the covers of books.

And so when I decided to write a book, I hit her up and she's like, I would love to do your book cover.

And so that's the product of it.

She knocked it out of the park.

All due respect.

She did.

So, all right.

So obviously people who are huge fans of Blink, huge fans of yours, are going to buy this book.

What do you think they're going to find out about you in this book that they might not have realized, you know, when reading about your whole life?

I think that people are going to discover that I'm smarter than people think that I am and that also I'm a lot darker than people think that I am.

Oh, okay.

That's a good combo.

Smarter is always being a little bit smarter than people think you are.

That's also the premise of this show.

We want people to think we're idiots and we are idiots for the most part, but it is good to do it that way.

It's bad to go the opposite way and just be like, oh, you're actually dumber than I thought.

Totally.

In what way darker do you think?

I think that I deal with anxiety and depression a lot more than people think that I do and a lot more than I allow people to think that I do.

But I'm very honest in the book about my struggles and about my shortcomings and the difficulties that I've had.

And I think that will surprise people because I think most of the time people think of Blinkoon 82 as fun, brotherhood, youth, parties, go have a great time.

And then they'll read this and be like, whoa, okay.

So this dude really is goth in his soul.

Yeah, I watched some of your Twitch streams and some of the content you started putting out over the pandemic.

You love collabing with people.

You love working totally.

I love that process.

I love creativity.

I love people bringing an idea and me working on it or me presenting an idea to somebody and them making it better.

When you write a song and you're driving home from a studio and you put on, you know, it used to be, it would be on cassette and you'd put the cassette in and you're like, holy shit, I'm listening to a song that I love that didn't exist two days ago.

There's no feeling like that in the world.

Yeah.

It's pretty cool.

No, I've appreciated what you've done.

What's your your going rate for a Mark Hoppis feature?

What do they have to send you?

I think it's 10 grand.

10 grand?

But it's also free.

I mean, I don't do anything for money, and I don't do anything unless I like the song or I like the people or I believe in it.

Like, I'm not for sale,

but it would be 10 grand for sure.

I like the song featuring Mark Hoppis that they wrote.

Oh, yeah.

And then you're like, fuck it, I'll jump on this track.

Yeah.

I should, but I'm, but I'm not on that track.

What was that band that did featuring Mark Hoppis?

Oh, shit.

I forget forget the name of that band.

Yeah, but it's a great song, and I love it, and I thought it was really clever that they used my name as like a, I don't know, a meme, like a meme grab.

I think it's really awesome the way that bands now

they'll make shorter songs.

They'll do a song that's two minutes long.

Hot Mulligan was the name of the band, by the way.

Yeah, yeah.

They'll like write two-minute songs that are so hooky that you go back and listen to it a second time because then they'll get two streams.

So rather than write a four-minute song, bands will write a two-minute great song that you'll just listen to twice.

Yeah.

Yes, really smart.

Yeah.

So I've got a band here at Barcelona Sports called Pop Punk.

And we're a pop-punk band, but we're also a parody of pop-punk bands.

Like we've got a song, My Real Girlfriend, which is about obviously fake girlfriend.

We've got a song called Peaked in High School we just recorded.

I'm going to send you, I'm going to send you, through your literary agent, I'm going to send you Peaked in High School.

And if you like it, just say, just record yourself saying Peaked in High School, and I'm just going to use that in the track.

Great featuring Mark Hopes, or if you just want to say peaked in high school right now, I'll just grab this audio.

Peaked in high school.

Okay, there you go.

Peaked in high school featuring Mark Hoppis.

It's on.

So Jerry O'Connell is going to play the guy who peaked in high school.

Yeah, I love it.

Well, Mark, thank you so much.

We appreciate you joining us.

Good luck with the book tour.

When you're in Chicago, we'd love to have you come by.

I'll be there.

Also, I saw you sold your Banksy.

Were you just tired of telling everyone that you had a Banksy?

You know what?

Honestly, when we bought the Banksy, it was, I loved it, and it changed our lives forever.

Like, we love that painting so much.

But it became worth so much money that it started to feel, and then we ended up putting it in storage for its own protection.

And then, like, I didn't want a painting to sit in a box somewhere.

And it started to feel like we were talking about Banksy, like we owned a Banksy.

It started to feel like ego, and I didn't like that.

Okay.

And you gave it to a good cause.

I just know that if I had a Banksy, I would tell everyone that I had a Banksy.

And that's why you're going to be the first thing out of my mouth.

Totally.

Yeah.

No, I was super proud of it and then it became worth so much that i was like oh now i sound like a snob and i don't like that yeah i have a banksy it's not here right now yeah totally it's in storage but it's cool trust me it rocks uh all right well thank you so much mark everyone go buy fahrenheit 182 and uh thanks so much man this is so much fun all right see you soon

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all right I'll wrap up with a Monday reading from our good friend Mike Florio

Rare to have him be in the Monday reading because usually the Monday reading is something crazy.

Well, actually, you know what?

This is crazy.

So here it is.

Usually Florio is spot on.

Yeah, this is the best fan fiction he's ever done.

This is where Florio is like, we're in the spot of the calendar where he, because I think he does take a vacation after

like mini camps.

Yeah.

Before training camps.

You know what it is?

This is not vacation time, and it's still a lull because we're not at the draft.

It's an exercise in creative writing.

Creative writing.

Bengals, Bears could, in theory, come together and pay for a stadium in Chicago.

New York, okay.

New Jersey has two teams.

Los Los Angeles has two.

If London ever has one, it will likely have two.

What about Chicago?

The market currently supports two teams in the sport that used to be America's pastime.

Nice dig there.

Real nice dig.

People forget.

Yeah.

That boxing, baseball, horse racing.

That was the big three.

And with the Bears getting nowhere when it comes to finagling taxpayer funding for a new stadium, the solution could come from having a second team play there.

Instantly, the inventory of games would double from 10 to 20.

Math checks out.

Yep.

It would become much easier for the Bears and possibly the the other team, unless it's just a tenant, to pay for the building with minimal public assistance.

That was also kind of mean that he said 10 to 20, not counting playoffs.

Yeah.

Also,

they can pay for these stadiums.

They just choose not to.

The billionaires?

Yeah, they could.

I mean, they could probably...

The McCaskies are poor, but they could sell the team to someone who could pay for the stadium.

Enter the Bengals.

They're less than three months away from the final countdown to the expiration of their lease at Paycourt Stadium.

During the league meetings this week, executive VP Katie Blackburn said the quiet thing out loud.

After 2025, the Bengals can go wherever they want to go.

It's easy to come up with a list of cities that currently have no NFL teams, but the best outcome for the Bengals and the Bears could be to partner up in a new Chicagoland stadium.

I disagree.

That is not the best outcome for the Bengals.

No, not at all.

It's far from close.

It's far from the best.

They shouldn't move.

There should be a rule saying that teams should not be allowed to move just because their owner doesn't want to pay for a new stadium.

That's part of the price of owning a team.

And guess what?

When you get a new stadium, your team is worth a lot more money, and you'll end up making money on it.

Also, like,

this is going to sound stupid, but like, AFC South, or sorry, South West, NFC South, NFC West, AFC South, AFC West.

I could somehow see it moving.

Maybe that's because they have.

Like, the North and the East, you can't move those two.

You can't change the NFC North.

Although the Browns, but yeah.

No, you can't.

The Packers, Bears.

Yeah,

you can't move Cincinnati.

That's the AFC North.

Right.

That's football.

Right, but I'm saying like.

Why couldn't they still be the AFC North?

They could, but like, if they're, if they're in,

I don't know, like, if they're in San Diego, the San Diego Bengals and the AFC North.

No, they can't.

They can't.

Oh, I was saying if they stay in Chicago.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I'm saying, like, I just don't, I do not believe that those teams can move.

Again, the Browns I know moved.

Yeah, So what are the other cities that people are throwing up?

Because for a while, Las Vegas was a very important city because every team would threaten to move to Las Vegas because it was open.

So now it's my guess is probably San Diego.

Probably

they used to have one.

They failed.

St.

Louis is always out there.

St.

Louis is out there.

They got the Battle Hawks, though.

All right.

So I'm looking at it.

And then San Antonio?

Potential expansion cities is from AI.

Sacramento, San Antonio, Orlando,

Toronto.

Yeah, no.

No.

Toronto actually could stay in the FC North.

No, it's too close to the Bills.

And it's also Canadian.

Yeah, those are Bills fans.

Yeah.

Okay, back to his article.

So not the best outcome.

We all agree.

Bengals should stay in Cincinnati.

The chances of this actually happening are low.

Not low enough for Florio to write the story about it.

I'm just putting myself in Florio's head here.

Is the whole genesis of this article, like, this is kind of weird.

They're spending money on people.

They have to have some plan to make more money, like an obscene amount more money.

Yeah.

Since they're giving contracts to their own players.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's probably, he thought about that too hard, and then he's like, they're probably planning on moving.

I also think he's just a master at writing like any type of fan fiction where it's like, it's not going to happen, but it could conceivably happen.

So I'm going to write about it knowing people will click on it.

He's great.

Yeah.

Just put it in theory.

Yeah.

In theory.

Oh, Florio should write a blog.

Maybe you should get back on your blog game for one, return once PFT, and maybe in theory, the NFL could create a Coliseum where all the teams play.

And also wild animals.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bring back Rome.

On Sunday, they just go back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

Like, the Bears actually take on the Bengals, except it's the animals.

Right.

The chances of this actually happening are low.

In theory, it's possible.

It would make a lot of money.

That was me reading the article again.

And with the political winds blowing more and more strongly against subsidies for football teams worth upwards of $10 billion and beyond, it might take brash creativity to solve the current stadium situation for the Bears and the Bengals.

Are the current political winds actually blowing that way?

Because I feel like we're still doing a thing where owners threaten to move and then they get more tax breaks from the city and then they stay.

I think people are kind of what's been going on.

I think in general, people are a lot more against paying tax money for these stadiums because the franchise costs are so insane.

I agree, but it still happens.

But it's more, but we're like, this sucks.

Fuck you.

It's more than, I feel like 30 years ago, it was just like, oh yeah, stadium, that's a public good.

Which brings me to a point I've been meaning to bring up with Max.

The Eagles should play tariffs.

They should pay tariffs on Jordan Milata.

They should.

Disagree.

That should cost you more money.

Where are the other boys?

You guys, you got them in, you got them freaking out.

I didn't freak them out.

I just, I didn't know if they wanted to sit in the booth for 30 minutes left of the show.

Get Get them in here.

They're coming.

All right.

Bengals and Bears.

That would suck.

Yeah, I don't think anybody would be happy with that.

Can I just, and we love Florio.

Wait, why?

What?

It'd be cool.

Because the Bengals would move out of Cincinnati.

I'm not for that.

Yeah, they got a good fan base.

It's fun for Chicago.

You're the problem with the world.

You are the problem with the world.

You're like Bengals?

You're like, yeah, it'd be kind of cool to say we got two.

You're completely discounting everybody in Cincinnati and like northern Kentucky that loves the Bengals.

And you're like, yeah, it'd be kind of, I'd like it if they played in my backyard.

Can I just throw, and we love Florio.

We do.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're the problem.

I feel like Florio didn't.

Florio is the problem.

Always.

You're pointing out he's the reason that you would accept a new team that you don't care about.

Well, it's not me.

I'm not like a Chicago fan or a Bengals fan, but like as someone that lives in Chicago, it'd be cool.

I can say that.

Think about traffic.

Everything depends where the stadium is.

So that's where

that's where I think Florio kind of missed the mark here.

If he really was going to do this article, I was expecting him to pick a random location in the middle of Indiana and be like, this is equidistance between Cincinnati and Chicago.

Both teams just drive

two and a half hours.

It's like a floating stadium in Lake Michigan.

I wanted that, Florio.

Cincinnati's like

a little less than a five-hour drive to Chicago.

She'd be like, yeah, here it is.

This random town will now be the host of the Bengals and the Bears.

Hank, I kind of don't hate that idea.

What?

Move them both to Gary, Indiana.

Get rid of all the trucks.

That would be a little bit of a commute for the Bengals fans.

They make the truck.

You think so?

They'd be like, yeah, we're going to drive three hours.

I don't know if that guy

with the giant beard

cross state lines.

That might be an issue, too.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hey, booth boys, I didn't want to scale you off.

I just also didn't want you to have to sit in that hot booth next to Max for 30 minutes.

Sorry, there was some confusion, but we're back.

Pug, has Max threatened you over the course of the past weekend?

Yeah, watch the PM TV.

It was very well done.

It's been good.

We can't have another flare-up.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And you are his boss.

Really?

Inside these walls?

Like, inside these walls.

When we sit with the mics on, you are the president.

You're everyone's boss.

Fuck yeah.

So, anything you want to do?

Try to slap him?

Yeah.

No, yeah.

Never.

I would never.

I would never.

That's such an alpha move right there.

Just making him think about it.

I thought you were.

Good, good, good guy.

Max Oma had your side, Pug.

At least I got one Max that has my back.

Yeah.

Just kidding.

Okay, Pug.

You are the president, so why don't you numbers?

Why don't you decide first?

I'll go with 99.

Three.

Pug.

Ah, it's fucked up.

Memes.

Memes, you've been jumping around.

Yeah.

Oh, eight.

I was going to pick it up.

Oh, man, if you go.

15.

Actually, no, I'm not going to do 15.

You want 15, memes?

No.

I wanted 8.

I'm going to do 73.

I just said 8.

Yeah, Hank's got it.

73.

One.

You're not going to get it, memes.

You never do.

15.

Do one.

Jack.

Oh, Jack.

One.

I just said one.

Fuck.

That one you did on purpose.

Two.

You're going two?

Go two.

That's what I got for PFT that one time.

PFT backed up.

I got number three this time.

Oh, seven.

Fuck it.

Man.

One away.

So close, move.