NCAA Tournament With Mark Titus, Aaron Donald Retires, Hot Seat/Cool Throne + #MadOnline

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we have our good friend Mark Titus on to break down the entire bracket. We've had a couple nights to sleep on it, figure out where we're going with our picks, storylines, everything to get you ready for Thursday morning, one of the best days of the year.
We are going to do Hot Seat Cool Throne. We are doing hashtag mad online.
Correct, Hank? Yep. Also, I finished the Patriots documentary.
I don't know if you guys did. I did.
Maybe do some cherry on top because holy shit, did they really take down Belichick. Yeah.
The last two episodes were... They were...
Woo two episodes were they were whoo abomination yeah so we'll talk about all of that and uh some more tournament thoughts the barstool golf time app makes it easy for golfers to find the best tee times at the best prices stop searching all over google for your next tee time start searching multiple courses in your area from one app it's annoying to have to create accounts for each individual course to book online. Just make one account with us at Barstool Golf Time and book all of your tee times.
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Okay, let's go.

Boy!

Boy!

Now in the street there is violence. And I's lots of work to be done No place to hang out or wash in And then I can't blame all on the sun Oh no We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue And then we'll take it higher Oh we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue It's part of My Take presented by Barstool Sports.
Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. New customers can bet $5 to get $150 instantly in bonus bets only at DraftKings Sportsbook with code TAKE.
Today is Wednesday, March 20th, and we are just 24 hours away from the best two days of the year. Boys, I don't know if you guys feel the same way, but Monday night, I crawled into bed, and my body was craving college basketball.
It was like I had been, you know, all championship week i've been watching all this basketball and then they just shut it off and i was like give me college basketball well big need more college basketball big news today also the start of spring yeah we made it shout out that groundhog is it yeah that little motherfucker was right i thought it was the 21st. 20th.
Oh, shit. 20th, first day of spring.

Hank was right.

The calendar's so stupid.

We're done with winter.

The calendar's so stupid.

The start of spring is St. Patrick's Day.

There should be sports that go along with the changing of the season.

It's St. Patrick's Day is start of spring.

Start of summer is Kentucky Derby Day.

Start of fall is week zero college football.

Start of winter is Halloween. Christmas.
Oh. Thanksgiving should be started.
No, I like to pretend that winter doesn't shorten winter. Winter's just Christmas.
It's the St. Patrick's Day.
You're like, ah, it's two months. But when you have the score bugs on TV and it's the cornucopia and all that stuff, that is a little bit of both autumn and winter.
We made it to spring. Spring has sprung.
Good job, boys. How are you guys feeling when we're 24 hours out from the best two days of the year? I'm feeling good.
Do you agree that it's the best two days of the year? Best two sports days of the year, yes. I would agree Thursday, Friday of the NCAA tournament because it's just all you think about the entire time.
You wake up. You start making your preparations you take one last look at your bracket your bracket you go you sit down on a couch and you don't move for basically 48 hours yeah and and it's uh i know that there will always be a random it'll be a random day weekend in the fall where you have like an insane nfl slate and insane college football slate but you can't depend on that that's That's year to year.
Like, you know, if all the stars align, this is just it. I think underrated, the second best is the two weeks of the first round of NBA and NHL playoffs where every night there's a game that matters.
Okay, I agree with that. But if it's the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs, there's a lot of blowouts.

Yeah.

A lot of blowouts.

But you have NHL.

You do have NHL as well.

You have NHL.

They should, you know,

we spend a lot of time talking about

how the Monday after the Super Bowl

should be a national holiday.

Thursday and Friday should have Thanksgiving rules.

Absolutely.

Like, people pretend to work on Thursday and Friday,

which, actually, you know what?

I'm talking myself out of it.

I think the holiday of this Thursday and Friday

is that you get paid for going to work,

but you just don't work.

Yeah, you don't work.

It's an unspoken holiday.

Shout out to the people. what i'm talking myself out of it i think the holiday of this thursday and friday is that you get paid for going to work but you just don't work yeah you don't it's an unspoken holiday shout out the boss button remember when they unveiled the boss button in like 2006 or something or seven and they're just like yeah you can click on it and it has excel pop up yeah i hit that one time i i think it was my professor was like why are you looking at a spreadsheet yeah my this is an english lit class yeah my in my first job, I remember there's like, you don't use Excel.
Yeah, what's Excel? You don't know how to use Excel. Maybe you didn't read my resume.
I said I was proficient. Yeah.
Me being proficient in Excel is knowing the website for the boss button. Shout out 99% of the world who has put proficient in Microsoft Excel on their resume.
Yeah. That's just a must-have.
That doesn't mean shit. Mm-hmm.
Have you ever seen the Excel Olympics? Yeah, they're sick. People are basically like musicians.
No keyboard. Yeah.
They just use a mouse. No mouse.
No mouse. Just keyboard.
They're like piano players, the speed that they go. Yeah.
Oh, I actually saw it. Oh, man.
Since we're down this rabbit hole, fuck. I got to try to find it.
It was a Monday reading that I saw that was probably the most diabolical thing I've ever seen. Someone fill in while I find it.
Oh, okay, got it. Someone in IT trolled me for over a decade.
Have I any recourse? I work in a medium-sized firm. Between 2014 and January 2024, I found myself constantly making mistakes while working.
Some examples are my calculations on Microsoft Excel being wrong, data inputs on spreadsheets being wrong, booking the wrong days with my annual leave by accident. I booked the 1st through the 10th October, but suddenly found I had booked 3rd to 13th October impacting the business negatively.
Typos and documents that I had sent, counts was cunts. I felt like I was going crazy.
So I would do things like screenshot what I had calculated, but found my screenshots had disappeared when I logged in the next day. So I was wondering if I ever took them in my first place in February, 2024, our it guy, we'll call him Bob left us after facing a disciplinary and we hired another one.
The new it guy over the next two weeks approached me and showed me a series of records. Bob had been accessing my system, editing my work, and changing the information I had put into my annual leave sheet, among other things.
The man has been sabotaging my work life for a decade. The consequences I have faced are, I don't mean to laugh, but it's funny.
I was not allowed to work from home like my colleagues due to my apparent unreliability. This resulted in $250 in transfer costs every month.
I've been overlooked for promotion. I've had my professional life and credibility massively damaged.
I had to undergo assessments for ADHD and early onset Alzheimer's and other cognitive tests with the NHS. I was put on a performative improvement plan.
Shout out memes. Pip, the old IT guy has moved out of the UK, but is there anything I can do? I spoke with HR and they issued an apology.
It allowed me to work from home again and ruin my pet. How crazy is that? All right, so my take is I would hire Bob in a heartbeat.
To me, Bob sounds like a guy that he gets shit done. He's vengeful.
I actually, I look at this as a negative on the dude that wrote this post how how many years 10 10 years and all your shit's getting fucked with all the time you couldn't figure it out like bob i would like to have bob at my company to see how dumb people are is this like a fight club situation i mean it's crazy it's like a it's like an evil if jim halbert was like the most evil person ever and he did all his pranks to dwight that ruined his life life. I was thinking the same thing, Hank.
It could be like me, myself, and Irene. This guy's got split personalities.
Spoiler if you haven't seen the end of Me, Myself, and Irene, our fight club. But it might be this dude.
What's in the box? He might go home. It was his wife's head.
He might go home and then he just fucks with himself when he thinks that he's asleep. He might be schizophrenic.

That was crazy.

I saw that and I immediately screenshotted it.

So that's an extra bonus Monday reading.

But don't you almost respect Bob?

Oh, yeah.

What an absolute savage that guy is. I would hire Bob just to make sure that Bob was under my control.

Yeah, he moved out of the country.

He's like, I got to get the fuck out of here.

Yeah, because otherwise every job that I go to, it's going to be like, I hope Bob's not working here. It might be Kim.com.
He's in the Philippines somewhere. Oh, yeah, that guy.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, but the XL, no one knows how to use it, and everyone says they can use it.
Yeah. XL, that's a program that will one day end up replacing human brains.
Yes. All right, so any other thoughts about the tournament before we continue with the show? I'm just so excited.
NIT, big NIT, number one. We'll do a poll tomorrow.
Should Max livestream Villanova's bid to win an NIT championship? This is Max's Super Bowl. No, I mean half on Instagram.
Yeah. Just give it to us.
If it's within 10 points in the fourth quarter, you should have to go live. On Instagram.
On the part of my take Instagram.

Fine.

Deal.

The NIT did quarters at some point.

I don't know if they still do.

Because then you can also join.

Oh, yeah.

We can join.

We can laugh at you.

Yeah.

Max is ready to go for the NIT.

I just filled out my NIT bracket.

Shout out NIT Stu.

I've got Ohio State beating Villanova in the finals.

Wow.

Would that be incredible? It would be so funny. We should talk quickly about Anthony Edwards ending in life last night.
Yeah, that was embrace debate. Was that a dunk? So all those dunks always like.
Yeah, when you zoom in, you're like, did the ball leave his hand beforehand? Didn't touch the rim. Or did he follow through on the rim? Some of those screenshots.
You see he made John Collins smell his fingers before he dunked. He dislocated his finger.
Yeah, he dislocated his finger on the dunk and then stayed in the game afterwards. I'm counting it as a dunk just because I like cool sports moments like that where the world stopped to be like, did you see what Anthony Edwards just did? Yeah, it was pretty incredible.
And he's had like six dunks like that over the course of his career where people have stopped and legitimately asked the question like is this the best dunk of all time yeah so he's he's fucking awesome the only problem with that dunk was um it was kind of overshadowed by austin reeves getting dunked on last night oh no i didn't because oh you got big cat i want to get your live reaction to it there was a teabagging oh no there was a teabagging and they asked austin reeves after the game what it was like from his vantage point he's like nobody wants to see that from my vantage point no one wants to see that i we also should mention wait hold on jalen johnson on austin reeves oh no it was oh no it was johnson fallback is the problem it was literally johnson on reeves i would If I were Austin Reeves, I'd try to headbutt his dick. Bite it off.
Yeah, there's only one move. I would never get dunked on like this.
I just want to say that right now. No.
Because I would foul way before that. Well, I also have pride in my rim protection.
Yeah. I would just tackle him.
No easy buckets. Tackle him before that.
Oh, man. Yeah.
It looked like he actually was hitting a hurdle. Holy fuck.
That's bad. Yeah.
Vicious stuff. We also, while we're talking NBA, we missed it because we were deep into college basketball.
But Kyrie's game winner was one of the coolest shots ever. It was crazy.
The left-handed floor. Over Jokic.
It was such a cool shot that you had guys from around the league in their next practice trying to recreate that shot to see if they could make it. They had on the maps like i don't know who was on the baseline like put their hands on their heads and like collapsed yeah that was fucking awesome yeah it was wild but it is college basketball time we we respect the sports calendar uh i had one thing that we also missed on sunday uh which we should probably talk about aaron donnell yeah aaron donnell Yeah, that's our fault.
Maybe Aaron Donald, you could have the case, the perfect career. If he had won two Super Bowls.
So if he had won the other one, but that wasn't a defensive issue. That was, you know, the Rams defense came to play in that game.
They gave up 13 points to the Patriots. But Aaron Donald played 10 years in the NFL.
He was a pro bowler all 10 years. He won rookie of the year.
He won three-time defensive player of the year. And he was an eight-time first-team all-pro selection.
And he had a Super Bowl ring. And he had some crazy-ass stats like for the last six years, Aaron Donald faced 1,797 double teams, 150 more than anyone else in the defensive field.
Yet he still led all defensive tackles and pass rush win rate during that span at 26%. Hank.
He also was responsible, like, highest of highs, most viral, best interview

on this podcast ever,

as well as one of the worst. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah.
There's probably

him and John Cena in terms of, like,

really good interviews while also having really bad

interviews. And then remember, he got, he was on

that other podcast where they asked him just football

questions, and he kept being like, I'm just here

to talk about Epsom salts. Yeah.

I want to talk about this Epsom salt company. That was on this show, too.

Yeah, that was when we interviewed him at the Super Bowl

in Miami, and it was incredible memes whole career was based on that interview uh with me calling him a pussy yeah yeah all-time clip and then he came on to what was he promoting a sports drink and he insisted on his partner coming on as well who might have played basketball at pit but we didn't have any questions for him and we did like 10 minutes and then he wanted to go yeah so he gave it all he really was everything but i i actually think that aaron donald is as close to a perfect career as you could possibly have minus the super bowl loss but i he literally was a pro bowler every single year and eight out of his 10 years he was an all pro first team and he trained with knives's also an all-time clip, is watching him just work out in the offseason. There's a guy trying to stab him.
And he also... He's just like, no.
And he also was just, like, the fact that he was, quote-unquote, undersized at his position, but still so goddamn dominant. Yeah.
Because, like, you know, a lot of defensive tackles are, you know, you think of, like, the Helody Nadas or the, you know, Vince Wil or Vince Wilfork, but he had a fucking six-pack, and he would just dominate everyone all the time. One thing I don't like is the new trend of really good players retiring, and then instantly the official Hall of Fame social media accounts being like, we'll see you in four years or whatever.
But leave some suspense up there. Yeah.
Like,'s gonna be a hall of famer he's one of the best football players of all time give it give it some time give it some time don't annoy him just yet yeah i like the official accounts to stay out of that yeah the official account should be above all the speculation yeah i agree it's final when it's final for them i agree but yeah aaron donald i think probably probably the best defensive player I've ever seen play. Yeah.
He's the most dominant in this era. I know J.J.
Watt was, I mean, J.J. Watt was, his peak was very, very dominant.
But a reminder that Aaron Donald did it from the defensive tackle position. Yeah.
Which is just, that's not, your job isn't always to get after the quarterback, and he just always did. He also had time of year to retire quit your job before march madness yeah i wish he had done it on not sunday of conference championships we would have talked about it on sunday that was our fuck up yeah imagine though imagine imagine retiring one year and you're like oh shit what am i gonna do now that i'm retired yeah oh wait yeah i have an entire month of college basketball to watch.
Pitch and make it, though. Yeah, it's tough.

Also, RG3 got ratioed to hell.

Yeah, RG3 loves the take game.

Man, he was so off.

He basically was like, Caleb Williams should not go to Chicago.

And basically had no facts behind it. No, I agree with him.

I think he made some good points.

And then he should demand a trade to a successful, well-run franchise,

historically, like the Washington Commanders. And i quoted it and just stated simple facts and he then quickly did the kermit the frog all big cat in his feels everyone's like dude he got ratioed again it was like thousands of quote tweets on his original tweet yeah rg3 likes to he likes to dip his toes in the game i like him but man he has some bad fucking takes that was fucking takes.
That was a bad take. Real bad.
I think he's right. I had time for it on Monday.
I went to war with the fallout of the Caleb Williams-Justin Fields. There's still some people.
There was actually, I don't know if it was a troll or not, but there was one person who did tweet out a petition for the Bears to bring back Justin Fields. No, that's what we were talking about.
Remember, like, if Caleb Williams gets dinged up this year. Yeah.
Just, I want to sprinkle it out there for Bears fans to just have in the back of their head, why not bring back Justin? Yeah. I was looking at stats.
I was doing everything because people were arguing about there's not enough quarterbacks that have won Super Bowls on rookie contracts to actually be like, this is the way. And I went and looked it up.
It's essentially if you have Mahomes or Brady, you win a Super Bowl. Yeah, and it's also that if you have a cheap quarterback, you would rather have a cheap quarterback than an expensive quarterback.
Am I right? It gives you your best chance, so I'm pulling it up. I went through the whole thing.
Like I said, I had time for it on Monday because I was just waiting for college basketball to start. But starting this past year, Brock Purdy was in the Super Bowl on a cheap cheap contract the year before jalen hurts was on a cheap cheap contract burrow was on a cheap contract in 21 mahomes in 20 mahomes won it in 19 on a cheap contract golf in 18 foals uh because remember carson wentz was still on his rookie contract foals won it uh not paying a lot.
Cam in 15, Russ in 14, Russ won it in 12, and Flacco went against Kaepernick who both were on cheap contracts and he won it, Flacco won it in 12. So basically every year someone from the Super Bowl is going to be a cheap quarterback and the other one's going to be Mahomes or Brady and they're going to win.
Yeah, you'd rather have a quarterback. That's not getting paid a lot of money.
So you can pay a lot of money to other good players. Yes.
If you, if you disagree with that premise, I don't think we're even speaking the same language. The argument boils down to, if you, if you want to say having a cheap quarterback, we'll just get you a loss in the Superbowl to my homes or Brady.
That's fine. Fine.
Oh, I would suck. I would suck a dick.
Take it. I'd take it in a second.
It's a, it's quarterback Photoshop season two. So Shane came up to me earlier today and said that he's working on Photoshop for the draft.
And so I was like, just give me all the quarterback Photoshop. Just make me a Caleb Williams one just so I can look at it.
Yeah. Caleb Williams DC one.
I just want to have that on deck. You looked at it? I looked at it.
It looks pretty good. That's mine.
I agree with RG3. That's mine.
Hank, while we're talking about Brady and Mahomes, the Patriots Dynasty documentary has concluded. Yep.
Wow, was that a hit piece on Bill Belichick. Yeah.
Big time. Holy shit.
I'll say this. It was very clearly pointed, and it was meant to make Robert Kraft look like the benevolent father.
Who kept it all together. Who kept it all together.
Calling him Tommy constantly. Which is very creepy every time he says it.
And then it made Belichick look like he was abusive. They made him look like he was abusive and negligent.
And the only thing that I would say to Bill would be he didn't do a very good job of acquitting himself in those interviews. When they asked him the tough questions he would just be like I don't want to talk about that right now which made him look worse than I think the actual situation was but Bill Belichick's not like an open book he didn't want to be doing the documentary if he had just been like a little bit more gregarious if he explained like one or two things more in depth rather than just sitting there and we don't know what they cut out right.
Right. We don't know what they cut out.
Right. But from what they used, he just seemed like he would rather be anywhere else than answering those questions, which ended up making him look worse.
But I love, I intentional. I loved those, some of those answers when they asked him, what did you think about Tom Brady's performance in the Superbowl against the Eagles? And he's like, well, their offense scored more than, than us.
So keep credit to their coaches. to their coaches yeah so the the Malcolm Butler thing was it still is weird to this day so weird so weird but they also you know they set that season up to make it seem like all the players hated they you know they didn't want to be there all those players came back they made it to the Super Bowl that year almost won they won a Super Bowl the next year and then they did give Belichick credit for that Super Bowl against the rams but then they also made it seem like well because you know bill did good i had to i told tommy tommy knew like i had to sign belichick like it almost made him seem like he was mad about the fact that they had won a super bowl and then that he was like well you know that kind of decided the fate like we had to go with with bill right it made it seem like they were going to fire belichick if he lost that super bowl which i don't think was ever going to happen.
Right. My, it was weird watching it because it almost, it made it seem like they were going to fire Belichick if he lost that Super Bowl, which I don't think was ever going to happen.
Right. It was weird watching it because it made me, you know, they slanted it from Kraft's POV, but they didn't have any, you know, being a Patriots fan for those 20 years, rooting for Belichick, rooting for Brady, rooting for all the players, was the greatest time of all time.
Like, being a Patriots fan was amazing, and they didn't really, like that they made it feel like you were you shouldn't you should be sad for being a Patriots fan and like oh you're a fan of this guy like how dare you so that that part made me sad where it was like this was you know the greatest run of all time and and they're not making it feel like that yeah the weird part to me is like I've I've been consistent when everyone's like Brady or Belichick it's like well the player is obviously the most important thing like when we talked to Diana Rossini and she was like the Patriot way is like the Patriot way is having Tom Brady just like the Chiefs way is having Patrick Holmes if you have the best quarterback in the game it doesn't really matter like everything else kind of works but to like so so I don't think most people don't say like oh it's belichick over brady they're like yeah the player he's the he's the greatest quarterback like that's that's the guy so to then go even further to bury belichick seemed just so unnecessary and he was also you know slightly bearing his own organization with the trainer stuff being like oh you know it was crazy crazy they kicked Alex Guerrero out when he was directly going against what the Patriots team trainers were saying, which I don't know if those were Belichick's guys or Kraska's or whatever, but that whole thing was strange. It was a sad watch.
Also, from Belichick's point of view, your star player has his own personal trainer who's also working with other people on the team. That same personal trainer has also been accused of being a fraud in the past that misdiagnosed cancer and like said or not misdiagnosed said that he had like cures for cancer and diseases like that that he obviously did not have that's probably a liability in your head like oh there's this outside guy that's working with my best players trying to grow a business trying to grow a business so conflict of of interest probably right on the inside.
So yeah, it's not as cut and dry as they made it seem in that documentary. But when they talked about the Malcolm Butler stuff, Hank, how many people on planet Earth do you think know the true exact story of what happened and how Belichick reacted to it and decided to bench Malcolm Butler? Maybe three? Four? Yeah.
How much money would you pay to know that? To have your own personal documentary made about how it went down and have all the footage? I don't know. I don't really want to know, I don't think.
Here's the one thing that doesn't make sense to me about the Malcolm Butler thing. Malcolm Butler has never said what he did, right? Right.
So it has to be something that people would be like, whoa. You know what I mean? Like Malcolm Butler's in a good spot right now because everyone's like, we don't know why he got benched.
Belichick will never say it. Malcolm Butler will never say it.
So your mind can just be like, Belichick fucked up. But doesn't it feel like if you got benched in that position and you literally did nothing wouldn't you just be like i don't like here's everything i did and there's nothing here i just don't know it makes no sense to me yeah i mean obviously it was a very very very personal situation right so doesn't it feel like if malcolm butler said it if malcolm butler probably knows deep down what happened and if he he said it, people would be like, oh, well, dude, yeah, you shouldn't have done that.
So now we need to ask, like, is Bill Belichick the good guy in this situation? I don't know. For never saying what it is.
That always confused me about it because it's like Malcolm Butler, as far as I know, has never said, like, I think it might be this. You know what I mean? No, he was acting oblivious in the duck right and it's to get disciplined by the patriots if you're a star player you have to do something really fucked up right really fucked up yeah it was weird and also the trump you know they they pinned the trump thing on belichick but it's like it was brady craft belichick it was all three of them were were yeah were trump guys but they started the episode with like the reading the letter from belich and then that slanted the whole thing.
I thought it was a good documentary in the fact that they did... No.
Okay. I thought it was a good documentary in the fact that the things that people are interested outside of you is those stories.
But it was so slanted to bad stories instead of a couple good stories. That's what people want to watch.
People don't want to watch a documentary. It's just like they won six Superbowls.
I know you do. Could have been, it could have been like a 15 part series, just only football porn for Hank Lockwood.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I guess the, the only thing comparable would be the last dance, but the last dance was through Michael Jordan's lens and it was anti ownership. And this was through the owner's lens and it was almost and it was anti belichick yeah now there's there's another piece of this that i wanted to bring up and also brady like that was tough where brady was like yeah there's things i don't want to talk yeah and then craft just said it yeah like giselle said you're not making my my husband a man you're not doing like a man they don't treat tommy like a man that was so weird yeah that was very same max was Was Brady a part of the edit? Because there's a part that I want to talk about.
Are you and I about to talk about the same thing? Max and I are on the same page here because I've got it queued up, Max. Yeah.
So my cool throne was going to be Tom Brady's pettiness because a Twitter user, Todd Orendenker, discovered that they edited something out during this documentary that's very weird that it was edited out. They showed the highlights of the Super Bowl where the Eagles won.
And on the Philly special, they played an edited version of Al Michaels' play call. And so I want you to listen to these two play calls.
One is the first is the actual game call, and then the second is as it appears in the Dynasty documentary. So it's right here.
This is the call by Michaels. Obviously saying the word Foles, because he's the one who got the touchdown.
Caught Foles touchdown. So what does the Apple Show do? You snap it, and it's Trayford.
And Foles caught. Touchdown.
What? They edited out the word Foles. What? And we've seen clips of Tom Brady not liking it when people bring up Nick Foles.
Was it one of the Mannings that brought up Nick Foles' name? He fucking name he fucking hates nick foals and he had his name edited out of this documentary that's wild that is wild yeah i mean i'm not going to defend the filmmakers of this so wow it seems like that would be a tom brady specific request i don't think that there's a filmmaker that's like you know what i'm going to edit out foals well for time you know you to save time. It may have been like a quarter of a second.
You know, Hank makes a good point. Also, for time, I think the time of each episode varies between like 37 minutes and like one hour and six minutes.
Yeah. I think they can do as much time as they want.
But no, you're right. Probably edit out for time.
A 10-part series, they cut for time. One word.
Yeah. I like that.
I respect that level of pettiness. That's awesome.
Max, does it make you feel good, though? No, I love that. I mean, the Eagles are so far in Tom Brady's head, and Nick Foles will always be there.
They also discredited the whole— That Super Bowl had nothing to do with the Eagles winning. It was just Malcolm Butler.
Yeah. Yeah, if Malcolm Butler plays that, you don't have a Super Bowl ring.
Nah, I don't care. I didn't watch it.
I won't watch anything about the Patriots dynasty. Yeah, that is so funny just thinking Tom Brady watched all 10 parts.
It was like only one note. Yeah.
Foles. Remove the word Foles, please.
But if you broke down the 10 episodes into things that were not positive versus dynasty It was definitely- It's like 75-25. Yeah, it shouldn't be called.
It wasn't about the dynasty. I just feel bad for Belichick because he's the best coach of all time and he just got butchered.
Yeah. Absolutely butchered.
I do think, though, I like the NFL films backed out when they kind of realized what was going on, and I feel like that's going to invigorate them and Belichick to come out with their own version, which will be. That will be awesome.
Die nasty. Yeah.
Yeah. I like that.
Come back at it. I like that.
Yeah. The demeanor that Belichick had the entire time he's being interviewed was that of a man that knew it was a setup.
Yeah. Oh, we have breaking moves.
Breaking moves. Former Chargers wide receiver Mike Williams is signing with the Jets.
Oh, congrats. Memes.

We're back.

We're back.

Shout out NYJ Matt.

He sent Mike Williams a bacon, egg, and ham to the facility.

Okay.

It got to him.

That sealed the deal.

Oh.

I like that.

Okay.

Good job, NYJ Matt.

Why didn't you do that?

Is it because you're on the pip?

Stop saying that.

I think his name is just Pip. He's just going to be talking to me about this for the rest of the night i love you memes i'm not gonna let that take away from this news this is awesome yes and marvin harrison possible marvin harrison no dano jeremiah dropped a mock draft and had the jets drafted marvin harrison and what number four train up oh okay up.
I love mock drafts with trades in them. Yeah, the best.
Just anything can happen. They're trying to sprinkle around.
They're trying to get clicks so they're like each fan base can have something to look forward to if there's a trade. I can't wait for draft season.
The Vikings are up to something. Yeah.
The Ryan Windhorse meme, up to something. They're JJ.
They're the favorites to draft JJ. I know, which would be the perfect quarterback for the Vikings.
Yeah. Where he will be discussed endlessly.
Justin Jefferson is not going to be happy with that. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Let's do Hot Seat Cool Throne, and then we'll get to Mark Titus talk brackets. Hot Seat Cool Throne is presented by Coors Light.
From day-to-day annoyances to the big stuff life throws your way, it's easy to get worked up, but there's a better way, a chiller way. Turn that canceled concert into a parking lot dance party.
Too cold for an ocean swim, play volleyball and light a bonfire instead. That's choosing chill.
And when you choose chill, reach for a Coors Light. When the mountains turn blue, it's as cold as the Rockies.
And we have something very special because today, as we're taping this on Tuesday, it is the start of the Choose Chill calendar brought to you by Coors Light. And when you're listening to this on Wednesday, it's day two of the tournament, so we get to open up both day one and two of the Choose Chill calendar.
Oh, look at this. Look at that.
That's nice. That's incredible.
All right, so open up one and two for us, PFT. On the Chill calendar.
On the Choose chill calendar. Don't let your bracket break you.
I had to beat Hank's ass because he tried to open up the first day early. Okay, what is that? We've got some pencils.
Some pencils here. It says pick by team on one pencil, pick by uniform.
Oh, I like that. So it helps you with your bracket.
Yeah, and then on the the second day what do we have here chill calendar oh oh an eraser yes everyone makes mistakes i like that so the choose chill calendar love it from coors light they're always coming up with the best ideas this is for uh don't let your bracket break you choose chill so when you choose to rise above it all choose chill choose co Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to CoorsLight.com slash take.
Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado.
Hank, your hot seat, cool throne. My hot seat was going to be John Collins, so I'll go with my other one, which I'm kind of scared to talk about, but Boeing.
Yeah.

Boeing is on the hot seat, allegedly, I guess I'll say.

No, they're on the hot seat.

They're on the hot seat.

There was a whistleblower, John Barnett, who was doing a deposition.

He worked for Boeing.

He had all the inside secrets at one of their plants or factories or whatever.

He did a whole testimony kind of going through what he said.

I guess he was reciting a lot of stuff off memory, that scared the boeing lawyers he was supposed to drive home boeing lawyers asked him to stay one more day to finish his testimony and then the bot his body was found the morning of three nine dead yeah he was allegedly from suicide even though he told his family if i die it's not suicide he was suicided and uh there was another thing that happened i think was a flight from new zealand where uh the plane dipped like it dropped for about 30 seconds and everybody on board was certain they were going to crash and the uh the boeing explanation of what actually happened on that plane was that a stewardess hit one of the buttons on the seat which made the plane drop i am um like not putting your phone in airplane mode yeah i'm not an expert on planes um i do know more than i think the the standard fly sexual out there but there's not a button on a seat that makes the plane crash that would be a bad button to include on a plane i did used to think when i was a little kid that my game boy could control the plane yeah because that part's true and i was like oh they have to turn it it off because i could just be like left plane goes left that part's true really dumb stuff from a kid but yeah boeing not not a great week to be boeing no and i'm worried about you hank that was henry lockwood who said that he lives on allegedly he does have information pertaining to the arrest and subsequent convention conviction of hillary clinton as well please contact if you're looking at him but don't do it at work nope if i die it's not suicide uh and then my cool throne if i die it's not suicide as well it's not suicide it's another unless billy gets elected president then i will if i die it's not suicide okay cool kate middleton yeah she's alive is she no bbl what do you mean is she what do you mean she's alive how do you know is she there was pictures of her out with her family was that real her oh the the blurry picture the big foot quality footage is she what do you guys think i don't think i think she might be alive i don't think that was. I think they just keep putting these things out there to try to get us off the case.
Any AWLs out there that have had a Brazilian butt lift, let us know. First, how it turned out.
Second of all, how long it took for you to be out in public again. Because I'm pretty sure that it's not like four months.
Wasn't the throne supposed to announce something? Didn't they have like an announcement coming? Yeah. King Charles might be dead? And it if you well yeah i think it was like sputnik over in russia that reported that king charles was dead and then england had to be like psych he's not dead that's fake news but those the british people are fucking weirdos king charles could be dead like he could have died on saturday and they'll just have him laying in that bed giving him little kisses and being like we love you are we are we gonna do the thing that we did during football season where we like delayed kickoff of week one to all cry for the queen you remember that well we're gonna do that again for charles also i'll just say if king charles did die like dude what the fuck you waited how long your mom lived to be like 100 years old you waited you waited 50 years to become, and then you just, damn, dude.
If he is dead, I'm taking Alabama to lose in the first round of Charleston, though. Yeah.
You got to think of the edge in that situation. I also kind of love the royal family because they're the quintessential, like, you can just make fun of them because you can punch up to those people all day.
Maybe that's what they're there for don't feel bad they're not really there to give hope and meaning and and optimism to the british people maybe they're just there to have like a group of people that you can just make fun of we can all make fun of them yeah american we can make fun of them all we want yeah they gotta fuck his brother's a fucking pedophile anyways allegedly but oh no i think we you say it. He's a pedophile.
Yeah, yeah. He's a pedophile.
Sweating problem. Yeah.
Doesn't sweat. If, yeah, if I lived in England, I would just, that would, that would be my career.
It would just be making fun of the royal family. Yeah.
It's awesome. But also, like if you're Kate Middleton and you've been, you, you just got caught releasing a fake Photoshop.
At some point, if you're okay, wouldn't you put out a picture being like, Let us know.

Sorry I got caught putting out a fake Photoshop.

Here's a real picture of me.

Do a Reddit AMA.

Yeah, I'm okay.

Yeah, with today's date.

Okay.

Good hot seat, cool throne, Hank.

Thanks.

PFT?

My hot seat is the NIT.

Oh.

Because Tom Crean, I think he cried on TV when they announced the brackets. We love we love tom creen i like i like his passion i admire his passion but uh he's just saying like coaches should demand to get better and then somebody brought up the fact that his last year at indiana they had the opportunity to host an nit game and they declined hosting it because they thought hosting an nit game would be beneath the university of Indiana.
yeah um you know what dockets would say to that my ass my ass fucking my ass my ass uh but now to be fair to tom creen i believe that was right before he's about to be fired it was the ad's call right right when we had him on yeah it wasn't tom creen's call yeah um so all the we're getting all facts around the situation, but people are upset at Tom Crean. I agree.
Like, if you're a college basketball coach, you probably want to coach more basketball. Now, if you're a player, you probably don't want to play.
I don't know. I've always assumed the NIT, like, if you're a player who's maybe not a starter or someone's going to the NBA, but if you're someone who, like, wants to get better, like, playing more basketball is good, right? Yeah.
If you want to cement your job for next year, it's like bowl games. Everyone shits on bowl games.
That's an extra three weeks of practice for these college football teams that all these young guys opt out. Young guys get a chance.
Listen, I want to watch more college basketball. I'm always in favor of having it.
I bet the NIT. Just more sports on.
Yeah. And then my cool turn was going to be pettiness with Tom Brady editing out the word foals.
I love it. Which, again, kind of respect, but also good for Max.
Yeah. Okay.
My hot seat, I have two. One is, Memes pointed this out, the hot seat is Houston.
So this was on college basketball Reddit. In every tournament since 2021, a top two seed is lost in the first round.
Big sample size, by the way. In the first round to a team with a phallic euphemistic name.
In 2021, Oral Roberts defeated Ohio State. In 2022, St.
Peter's defeated Kentucky. In 2023, Fairleigh Dickinson defeated Purdue.

That's three years in a row.

Once is happenstance.

Twice is a coincidence.

Three times is a pattern.

In 2024, Houston will face Longwood in the first round.

Just looking at the bracket right here, I see two right next to each other.

What about Moorhead?

Moorhead.

Yeah.

And then Drake.

Yeah.

Drake's very phallic.

Yeah.

Drake is also phallic. Okay.
will happen i don't know interesting i'm going i'm going to go with drake it's it's only one and two top two seats okay and this huge sample size um well yeah i don't know i think it's just because usually big schools play against schools that you don't hear about that have they have to get admissions admissions up somehow, so they have to insinuate penises into their names. Exactly.

Well, there's also St. Peter's again.

Yeah, St. Peter's again.

15.

Oh, there we go.

Tennessee, there it is.

The Peacocks.

Peacocks.

Yeah.

The Cox.

And Long Beach.

Long Beach.

Not a euphemism.

It's like Longwood.

Just the word long?

It's the same as Longwood.

Long Beach.

Oh, Wood is.

Yeah, Long Beach.

We're going to miss.

We're going to miss.

Okay.

Long Bitch.

Thank you. Yeah.
It's like Longwood. Just the word long? It's the same as Longwood.
Long Beach. Oh, wood is.

Yeah.

Long Beach.

We're going to miss.

We're going to miss.

Okay.

Long bitch.

My other hot seat is Clemson fans.

So this is from a hilarious Twitter account that everyone should follow,

Board Geniuses.

It's message Board Geniuses.

This Clemson fan called Tiger Bomb won.

I stayed up all night watching every New Mexico State game, start to finish,

And from what I've been able to determine, there are two things the staff needs to be on the lookout for. First, if they shoot threes, we better be careful.
They are not bad misses, or we may get out-rebounded. Second, I hope our team is well-rested going into this matchup.
We can chalk this up as an automatic W if we win in those two key areas clemson is playing new mexico not new mexico state that's awesome but tiger bomb one stayed up all night to watch every single new mexico state are we sure he didn't watch new mexico and called them new mexico state i don't know but that's just very i hope he wasted his time the idea of just watching all of them being like we got this what is what did new mexico new mexico state uh let's see their basketball team this year well they dealt with some off the court stuff last year yes after chris jans left and now he's doing a great job at mississippi state yes but i think it's been downhill for they were 13 and 9 in conference usa so easy dub easy dub for clemson uh my cool throne is jim har, who did, in the most Jim Harbaugh way ever, a garage sale at his house in Ann Arbor. Is this common? When coaches get fired or they leave to go somewhere else? For Jim Harbaugh, it is.
They just sell all their shit? The man who has millions and millions of dollars is like, well, we got to... He doesn't waste things.
He doesn't waste a nut. He would probably win the Excel Olympics.

Yes, for sure. He's proficient in Excel.
I just love the visual of Jim Harbaugh being like, here's all my junk. Because you know he's going to get good prices for it.
Yeah, it's not a bargain hunter's dream. The khakis would probably go for like $500 apiece.
Oh, man. Game one khakis? He probably has some dips of school that have just a little bit left in him.
And he's like, fuck it, sell those too. When we next interview Jim Harbaugh in person,

we got to ask for some game-worn khakis.

Yeah.

I bet you he'd give them to us.

I think so.

Some of the transition lenses too.

A mock turtleneck.

Yeah.

The whole deal.

I would like that.

Jake.

My hot seat is us here on Part of My Take

because we have some new competition in the sports podcasting world. Yeah, Lou Holt.
LeBron James has started his own podcast with JJ Redick called Mind the Game. You'll never guess this, but their first episode, you ready for this? Are you sitting down? You sitting down? I'm down.
They were drinking wine. Oh, really? Yeah.
Good for them. that's just what average guys do when they podcast i would i would actually listen to lebron james podcast if the topic every day was who's the goat mj or lebron yeah and they just broke it down in a different way every single time topic one who's the goat topic two remember when you gave your five-year-old daughter wine yeah topic three you remember when you showed your penis on national television yeah now i would forget that people forget about lebron just slashed us all flashing america including youngsters yeah well they started as asking a very simple question what makes a great basketball player what was the answer i don't know i'm just reading the synopsis okay being six foot eight being able to shoot the ball in the hoop wine yeah yeah they had two bottles of wine on the table.
Okay. Yeah, my cool throne is baseball.
Happy opening day. We talked about it with Stanford Steve a little bit, but we have opening day in South Korea between the Dodgers and the Padres at 6.30 a.m.
Eastern time. Way to stay relevant, baseball.
Hey, it's not going against March Madness. Kind of is.
But it's not. The timing.
It's in the spirit of it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a crazy move.
What do you say, Max? I need to add this. Did you see Jose Alvarado? No.
He's a pitcher for the Phillies. He's a larger man.
They asked about the power coming from his legs and if that helps him with his velocity. And he talked about how he's a big grizzly bear and then he said i'm fucking fat or fuck i fucked i fucked it up well you're fat too so yeah wait he he goes wait come on i just had it up i just had it up come on max yeah so 605 a.m eastern dodgers padres in south korea in other baseball news did anybody see Chapman's Instagram post that he put up a couple days ago? He likes his mom's breasts.
He likes his mom's breasts a lot. Yeah.
Isn't that just nature? Way more. Well, usually you grow out of that, like, what, 37 years ago? How old is he? He's older, and he, yeah.
36 years. Yeah, usually you would grow out of that 35 years ago.
He was honking him. really into his mom's boobs yeah um that is the source of life he was fondling it was a weird dude it was very strange that weird weird dude that might have been the weirdest like self-promoted instagram video of all time yeah maybe it's cultural i dude is that what happens in cuba i don't know i'm just trying to help him out he did win a world series for me uh max give us the quote bro i feel like a fat boy you know like i'm fucking fat can you send me that clip please yeah it's the best he's awesome yeah uh okay good, cool thrones, guys.
Let's get to our interview with Mark Titus. We're going to break down the whole bracket before we do that.
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Okay, here he is, our good friend, Mark Titus. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, one of our favorite long-time recurring guests, eight years running.
I think he was first on the show, I believe it was March of 2016. Mine had been March of 2016.
Yeah, it was. I was guest number like three or four.
Three or four.

It is Mark Titus.

Everybody was like, who the fuck is this guest?

Yeah.

This podcast sucks now.

Our co-worker.

Just kidding, Mark.

He's been with us now at Barstool for almost over a year.

Over a year.

Over a year.

First year review.

You got to work better.

You got to work harder.

I got to work.

I got to do more work.

You suck.

You're actually on a pip.

No, I said this last time I was here.

I love it um it it took a little while being a new guy here does suck i will say that i'll be completely honest um because i was under a microscope that i didn't necessarily think i would be under you sort of get like a you get like a reality check of how not important you are too when you sign on to work here because i i don't think i'm the biggest guy in sports media by any stretch of the imagination but i felt like when i came here i had like sort of some sort of reputation or i had some sort of people kind of knew me a little bit um but then i got to barstool and there was just a lot i realized i'm being introduced to a completely different audience of people they like, who the fuck is this guy? A lot of, he's only here because he's Dan's friend and, you know, which is true. Yeah.
But also like we became friends because I was doing some shit before I got the bar. Yes.
So that part was, I was not anticipating that, but I love it here. And I think year one was awesome.
Yeah. What do you have for year one was awesome as well you have anything big for year two face tattoo i'm getting a face tattoo i think face tattoos this is the golden era of face tattoos um they're everywhere a lot of celebrities have them and i just feel like maybe that's what i need to shake it up yeah i've noticed that there's there's a lot more people like if you're a moderately successful like punk musician now or like a pop punk guy you're getting teardrop tattoos yeah we need to put something in place where we monitor if you have a teardrop tattoo you should have killed somebody that's what i thought it meant like yeah people are just doing it to now people just do it because they're depressed do you remember when mike tyson got the face tattoo oh yeah freaked out about it ever and now i mean if you watch the grammys like half the people there have face tattoos if you're if you're an artist or an mma fighter and you don't have at least neck you're like what have you been doing yeah so yeah but at year one i thought went great uh also you know i'm so happy you've been here uh and and joined us i i pitched you hard what it was like two years ago i was doing my cow sitting in your living room uh being like you gotta come you gotta join uh and part of that was just that when we get to this week of the calendar uh i didn't want to have to text you being like hey can you come on the show i wanted to just be able to be like hey can you come on the show and just walk five feet and come on the show let me text my bosses make sure it's okay yeah so this is good yeah yeah so i'm i'm i'm way more prepared i will say for this for this year's NCAA tournament that was that was probably the hardest part is like the second I signed on it made a lot of sense for me to get hired right before the NCAA tournament because it's the you know it's my big time I guess but uh having like my first real assignment here to be in the gambling cave with you and Dave and everybody else when I really didn't know I know Dave like a little bit but like when I was in there, I had met Dave like three times in my life, and suddenly he's like screaming at me about picks.
Yeah, it was – Welcome to Barstool. Welcome to Barstool.
Just sit here and be perfect. Yeah, don't get anything wrong.
We essentially put you into Navy SEALs buds training, where it's like the first day they drown you and bring you back to life. You're like, all right, now you've got to go lay in the 50-degree ocean.
That is how college basketball guys recruit is you show all the big-tittied women and all the gear and all the money. And then the second you're on campus, you're like, get on the line.
We're running suicides. That's how it kind of felt for me was like, you're selling me on this dream in Chicago and this fantasy factory and all that.
And I'm like, yeah, dude, yeah, I'll sign right here. And I sign and you're like, go sit next to Big Ev.
Yeah, treadmill. Yeah, go have Dave yell at you and Big Ev was yelling at me.
And I was like, where the fuck am I? We were just sending you links daily to smoke shows and guests that asses. And then you signed up here.
You're like, okay, now you have to sit on a couch directly next to Mincy. Yeah.
We hardened you. Yeah, let Mincy breathe on you for a while.
I'll be better prepared this year. Who was your final four last year? Not good.
I had Bama winning it, which wasn't – Bama made the Sweet 16. I can't remember who else I had.
I had Bama winning it is all I really remember, and then they lost to San Diego State. But I don't remember last year's bracket being that bad.
As far as embarrassments go, I wasn't Jake Marsh, who has two years in a row now picked the –

had his national championship – champion lose on –

And who's your national champion this year?

North Carolina.

So shout out to the Howard Wagner winner.

Howard Wagner.

I actually – I mean, we could just dive into it,

and we could start with the West.

Yeah.

I actually think that that is the most chaotic and ripe for upset region because I mean the region of drama? Yeah, the region of drama because it's L.A. It's over Rusty.
Yeah, Rusty. But we kind of caught him.
It's L.A. Yeah.
And that's it. It seemed like he had predetermined that one.
But I was looking through the bracket because it's always like Sunday night, we just give our instant reactions, then you have a couple days to digest it and I'd spend the basically Monday through Wednesday filling my head with stats and a whole plan on how I'm going to gamble on Thursday and Friday and then the minute the games tip I throw it all out the window but that West region I don't I actually think it's the region of teams I don't trust right I don't trust the sink, which you just mentioned, they have been playing some of the worst ball possible down the stretch. Arizona, they throw out clunkers left and right, and if you slow them down, it's like they can't run the half court.
I don't – Baylor, they turn the ball over, and they're like chaotic. Baylor can look awesome one day, and then it can look like they don't know how to play basketball the next and North Carolina is probably the weakest of the four one seeds so they definitely are yeah and and Bama yeah like you said they they don't guard anybody I don't think Baylor guards anybody Dayton is is a is an interesting team in terms of like they were ranked at certain points in this season they have Deron Holmes who's one of the best players in the country but they're actually as as a team not really putting it together St.
Mary's is interesting but like the way they play so slow and I don't know if they have the top end talent to really go on over like that I think St. Mary's can win a few games in this tournament but when it comes to the Jimmys and Joes versus the X's and O's type thing like I don't they have the horses, really.
Can I throw out one crazy thing in this West? Go ahead. Michigan State.
I know. It's hard not to.
Because they are. I feel like if we're going to have the Izzo conversation that we have every year, it's like his team's not that good, but they overperform in March.
And they also – so you guys were doing your bracket show, so you weren't able to watch the CBS bracket reveal, but we were joking about it. They showed Michigan State, and someone was like, they're playing really good ball, they're just not winning games.
Yeah. And so, like, you do have to win the game, but that also – they are that, like, kind of lurking team where if they could put it all together and start making shots for once, who the fuck knows? Yeah, my problem with this Michigan State team is I think the teams in the past, the Michigan State teams in the past that have had those runs, that have not necessarily been seeded high, but have – like last year's team was a 7th seed.
They make the Sweet 16, right? And they didn't make the Elite 8. Yeah, they made the Sweet 16.
They lost to Kansas State in the Garden. Yeah, that's right.
But they beat Marquette, who was a very good team last year. They beat Marquette in the second round, and it sort of felt like we got a little taste of Izzo in March.
Every other team, I felt like there have been stretches through the season where Michigan State has shown the promise, and then they just put it together in March. I don't feel like this year's team has really ever shown that.
There's been no point in watching Michigan State this year where I'm like, this feels like a team that can go on a run in March. That's the biggest difference is they felt disjointed the entire season, starting with when they lost to the Dukes to open the season.
Yeah, I remember that game. It's very funny looking at this Michigan State team because if you look at the Ken Palm and the Bart Torvik, they're analytically a top 25 team, but you're right.
They never had that one stretch where you're like, ooh, Michigan State, watch out for them. They had a couple – did they beat – no, they didn't beat Purdue, did they? They beat Illinois at home.
They beat Illinois, that's right. That was their big one.
And then they beat Penn State and Michigan after that, which neither one of those teams are all that great. And then they turned around and lost three in a row.
So when you see them at their best, yes, it wouldn't shock. If you get Michigan State at their best, they can hang with anybody.
I mean, we saw it in the Big Ten tournament. They were right there with Purdue.
But I haven't seen consistent, and obviously to go on runs in in the NCAA tournament you have to string together multiple good games I haven't really seen that for Michigan State this year so um I don't know I but it is it is his own march and as much as like Izzo haters want to say he's won one national title and it's been a while since he's been to a final four and all that it's not that Izzo goes to the final four every year it's that you have situations like last year, they had no business beating Marquette. Marquette was very much a better team than Michigan State.
On that night, you thought the seeds were flipped around. Izzo's really good at that.
He doesn't always have the best team, but it does seem like every time March rolls around, that is the best version that Michigan State can possibly be. I just think that this year's team, their best version isn't really that good.
It's a great way to go through life, though. If you can somehow reach a point where you chronically set the bar very low for yourself and then outperform those expectations, then people are always happy with you.
And people are like, oh, you're a great coach. Good job.
That is pretty much what he's doing. Yeah, he's doing a great job of that.
coach big story in the region of uh of drama um long beach state dan monster yes so i'm obsessed with this story because he same he got fired and then he's like yeah can i still coach they're like yeah i guess i guess you can still coach even though you're fired and he just keeps winning and my i hope that if if they can somehow pull off the upset if arizona has i'll put it this. It's not necessarily like if Arizona has a bad night.
If Long Beach State – because they play really fast. They're like one of the fastest-paced teams.
But they just don't score that much. But if they – And that's also really bad to go against Arizona.
Arizona, if you want to play fast with Arizona, Arizona will just out Arizona. They love that.
I think the over-under is like 160, 163, something like that. But if they can make shots, if they can score, and they beat Arizona, you have to hire that guy, right? You have to rehire.
You have to rehire Dan Munson. Yeah.
Jake's storyline, I don't know if you – we didn't talk about this on Sunday. Dan Munson was the head coach of Gonzaga.
He should never have left. He hired – I think he technically hired Tommy Lloyd, but Lloyd never coached with him because he left for Minnesota.
Which was a failure. Then Mark Few takes over, and then Tommy Lloyd becomes Mark Few.
Yeah, there's an alternate world where Dan Munson just stays at Gonzaga because he kind of was the start of Gonzaga. Right.
And then left for Minnesota, and then that failed, and then Gonzaga just continued to be Gonzaga. Yeah arizona last year lost to princeton and jake and i have talked about it a lot it's like the the biggest upset in college or in march madness history that nobody remembers because it happened on the same day as purdue losing yeah but arizona it is interesting because they they feel like a program under tommy lloyd that has they've racked up a ton of wins there's there's a lot of promise in the program, but they are sort of – they have underperformed in the NCAA tournament the last few years.
With the Final Four being in Arizona, they are in a region that's wide open. There aren't a lot of West Coast – I mean, you look at the top seeds.
It's Baylor's, I guess, in Texas, but Bama and Carolina. Like, there aren't – when they play in – if they get to the Sweet 16, they're playing in L.A., they're probably going to have some home court advantage.
It does feel like a great draw for Arizona, but they can't get out of their own way. Yeah.
And both this particular team and them under Tommy Lloyd the last few years, they are the kings of beating themselves. So I don't think they're going to lose to Long Beach, but who the hell knows what's going to happen with Arizona because they were number one in the country at one point this year.
Yeah, I would love to see Long Beach win, but I think it's going to be a blowout. I think Arizona's going to crush them.
This is, though, if you're filling out your bracket, I feel like this is the region that you take a shot. Yeah.
Because I think it's going to be a mess no what. So it's like, there's going to be very few people who get this portion of the bracket

correct that you might as well take the shot.

I completely agree.

I think this is the,

if there's a double digit seed,

if there's a six or higher seed,

whatever,

whatever your line is where you're like,

that's crazy.

I can't believe they're in the final four.

I think it's coming out of the West,

which is why I got really crazy with my bracket.

I picked Arizona to make the final four.

Love it.

A lot of people think one seat. I was going to.
Yeah. What do you think about New Mexico? I like New Mexico.
New Mexico's good. They play defense.
They like to run, too. They have the story, which I don't know how much that matters, but the pedigree of Patino and Mashburn, I love that.
Yeah. I love the idea of that.
It is so weird, though, because the Mountain West, as you know, Dan,

we never trusted the Mountain West for years and years.

Rightfully so.

I don't think the Mountain West even had a good tournament last year,

but San Diego State made the national championship.

Correct.

So, like, as a conference, I think it was one team had a good run,

and that's all it really takes is now all of a sudden the Mountain West

has six teams in, and I like all of them, and I think they're all very good.

No, yeah, the Mountain West usually is just they're bad in the tournament, as you can fact. And then San Diego State kind of corrected that for them.
But remember we had – I think it was two years ago when the Mountain West had four teams in and they were out by like 3 o'clock on Thursday. Yeah, yeah.
I was like, what the fuck just happened? I remember – was Colorado State like Michigan? I remember there was like a – David Roddy, who's like a fucking fucking bowling ball. Love him.
I love that Colorado State team. And I think they were playing Michigan in the first round.
It was like a 6-11 game. And I was like, that's an upset.
That's an obvious. Michigan beat the fuck out of them if I remember right.
Maybe it was a close game. But every time I talk myself into Mountain West teams, they let me down.
But New Mexico, I think, has a great draw. I mean, Clemson came out of the gates hot.
They have P.J. Hall, who's a great player, and obviously they have a good team.
But they're not playing their best basketball right now, and New Mexico kind of is. Baylor, I don't think, really guards that well.
So, yeah, I think New Mexico has a great draw for sure. I have them going to the Sweet 16 out of that pod.
What about your champion last year, Alabama? They are definitively worse than they were last year, so that gives me pause. They don't guard anybody.
Like, they're very – So soft at the rim. Florida was getting layup after layup after layup on them.
And it's not that they don't guard anybody. It's that they're okay with not guarding anybody.
I think that rubs me the wrong way. It's not like they're a team that...
Like Kentucky doesn't really guard anybody, but it sort of feels like John Calipari's losing his mind over that, and he's trying everything to get them to guard. Oh, he's got tweaks, by the way.
I saw that. He said he's got some tweaks.
He's got some tweaks. I think Cal looks at his team and is like, we have to figure this defense out.
He just can't quite fully do it.

Nate Oates is like, fuck it.

I like my team.

We're just going to outscore everybody,

which I would like a lot more in a seven-game series.

I don't like it in a one-and-done series.

But they are – it's hard to match Alabama.

I mean, they get up and down.

Everybody on the floor has a green light.

If you catch them on the right night, you think you're seeing the best team in college basketball. But I just don't – they don't have the top end – they don't have a Brandon Miller.
Their best player is Mark Sears, who's a good player. I don't know how many NBA minutes he'll even get in his career.
So, like, that's what worries me about Bama is I don't think they have the top end talent and they don't have the defense. So St.
Mary's, Alabama, second round upset alert? Yeah, it could be i mean that is that is about as much of a stylistic clash as you can get in college basketball so uh yeah if st mary's can slow it down and frustrate alabama does st mary's have an australian player this year i can get behind they have to they always have to right i need an aussie that i need to be like i'm obsessed with that guy yeah they always do uh all right so and then and then the the opposite of the west going to the east the most loaded what did rostin call that one uh that's the region of gladiators gladiators uh you know why because he likes the movie gladiator yeah yeah that is it is a crazy region because you have the number one overall seat in yukon and then you have like if you if you look at just analytically speaking like Auburn Illinois and Iowa State are all top 15 teams all grouped in that bracket obviously UConn doesn't have to play all of them because Illinois and Iowa State would eventually meet before that but they got a tough like UConn got a tough draw I'm not saying I mean UConn's better than everyone but they got a tough draw and everyone's looking at it being like Auburn's playing great ball. Illinois has two guys that everyone is going to have a problem with in Damask and Terrence Shannon, and Iowa State just whooped the fuck out of Houston.
Yeah, all four of them won their conference tournaments. Where are we on that? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think it's a bad thing.
Yeah. I think it's not as bad as as people want to make it this is my favorite time of year because everyone tries to find the key recipe yeah to uh like the the the famous one is everyone's like you know top 20 in offensive efficiency top 20 in defensive efficiency on ken pom that's the only teams that have ever won a title a lot of the times people are tweeting that uh using the end of the yeah after they just won a national championship run yeah so of course they're top 20 because they literally just won six games against tournament teams yeah and if you look at it in the past there's been many many outliers like that that have not met both of those i've even seen people throwing out like top 40 and top 22 just well what happens changing it all these ways.
There's no key to it. You want a team that's good on offense and defense, but if you think there's a formula, there isn't.
Yeah, you figure out the formula based on the past and then someone wins it that doesn't fit the formula and instead of just being like, all these formulas are stupid, you say, okay, well let's just tweak the formula and let's throw them in them in with the mix and then the formula and then there's always the formula and everyone's like uh you know there'll be like 20 out of the last 21 just because 2014 yukon doesn't meet any formula yeah yeah exactly and you're like but wait they just won that they won the title instead of going well maybe the formulas don't matter you said you just put a little asterisk like maryland in 02 i remember was the no McDonald's All-Americans. And as Maryland was going through in 02, it was like, I don't know if you can win a national championship if you don't have a McDonald's All-American.
And then they did, and then everyone's like, okay, so maybe you can. All right, so we got that.
New formula. To Gary Williams, just break basketball.
And we've seen that with coaches too where it's like Jay Wright can't get over the hump, and then he does. And it's like, jay right you're now one of the good coaches we'll add you to the mix now we trust jay right in march tony bennett you're the new guy that can't do it okay now we now we trust you okay even even the 12 15 where or 12 5 matchup where everyone's like you got to have a bunch of 12s since 2015 uh the 12s are 9 and 23 against five right and then if you look at the 6-11, 11 seeds are 17 and 15 against 6 seeds.
That's the new 12-5. But it's just all these things that we try to put in our head and it really, like, they're all just, like, shape-shifted for your, here's the perfect bracket.
And 11 seed is just a really good 12 seed. Yeah.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Except Duquesne. Yeah.
Except Duquesne. Yeah.
They should not be there. This year they're all bid stealers, all four 11 seeds.
Yeah. Just penciled them in there.
What's funny about this is you can twist it any way you want. Like if UConn loses and they lose to like a conference champion, you can be like championship fatigue for UConn.
And then if they win, then you can be like, okay, well, no, actually winning your conference championship is good. Right.
It puts you on a roll. So the bottom line is we're not going to learn anything about that debate from this region because we're going to have one conference champion that comes out of it.
The rest are going to lose. Yeah, or UConn wins the national championship.
The rest of the teams that won their conference tournament lose their first game. But because UConn won the national championship, the conclusion is winning conference tournaments is a good thing because we're ignoring the rest of the crop that like it made them tired or, you know, I'm trying to find Bruce Pearl cried at the end of the SEC tournament.
He was he was weeping. Maybe maybe that was too much emotion.
I'm trying to find the stat. I saw a stat where it's like the the conference champion is it really doesn't matter if you win or not.
The only thing that actually matters is if you lost in the first round of your conference. Yeah, right.
That's the only – That's the indicator. If you lose the first game, you won't win the national championship.
Right. That's the indicator.
So it's like – and I saw a stat where it's basically like the final four is usually made up of teams that either won it, their conference championship, or at least were in the semifinal or final. Last year I went galaxy brain, and I thought I really had something.
Boy, I was so convinced that I thought if you're a crazy coach, you can't win a national championship. I thought if you're like a coach known for being insane on the sidelines, and my rationale, because I went back and I looked through all the coaches, like Bob Knight won some, but that was so long ago that it didn't factor into modern college basketball.
And I was like, there must something too when when the pressure is high the mo it's a tie game at the under four timeout all the there's nerves setting in and guys are all over you need a calming influence in the huddle you can't have a guy who's like spastic and yelling at guys and motherfucking guys you need a guy that's caught and then dan hurley won the national championship right that's because his dad was sitting behind him telling him when to use timeouts yeah the one thing you could say about UConn is it has been 10 years since the number one overall seed has won the national title and 20 years since we've had a back-to-back yeah so that would be the only thing or about 20 years but still UConn can do it all like they can do it all 10 years was wait wait 10 years who won the last who was the last number one overall seed uh let's see it was probably Kentucky right Anthony Davis oh yeah you met Over 10 years. Yeah, yeah, over 10 years? Who was the last number one overall seed? Let's see.
It was probably Kentucky, right? Anthony Davis? Oh, yeah. You met over 10 years.
Yeah, over 10 years. I was like, yeah, UConn 2014 was not.
Yeah, it was probably. Or who won 2013? Well, Louisville won, but they didn't.
Yeah, Louisville with the asterisk. Yeah, I mean, like 09 North Carolina, we went into the tournament.
They were so clearly a cut above everybody else. And you're like, but it's March.
You never know. You never know.
And then they beat the fuck out of everybody. They killed everyone.
So this region, are you just going UConn? Yeah, I do think the UConn-Auburn game could get really good. The reason UConn, beyond just the simplistic they are the best team, the reason you trust UConn in March and what they have demonstrated throughout the season is that UConn has a plan A, they have a plan B, they have a plan C, they have a plan D.
They can beat you in all sorts of ways. And you don't have to look any further than just the Marquette game and the Big East Championship when they couldn't hit a shot to start the game.
And they still play great defense. They still – UConn fans will say it's Tristan Newton, and I agree with them.
But also you could conceivably – just like you could last year with UConn, you could have a debate about who the best player on the team is because it depends on certain factors of certain games and all that. And for that reason,'s why you believe in UConn it's not it's not just that they are beating everybody and it's not just like you look at their record and you're like oh they won it last year they're the number one let's just go with them uh when you think about how these games will shake will shake out Auburn Janai Broome's a great player and Auburn plays great defense and maybe that turns into a rock fight we we can trust UConn in that game.
If UConn meets Illinois in the Elite Eight and Illinois wants to get up and down and they have Terrence Shannon and Marcus DeMask are hitting everything, I can trust UConn in that game. And that's the reason I really, really like UConn is that they can adjust to whatever the game becomes.
And Auburn, they kind of dispelled it with the SEC tournament,

but the big bugaboo about Auburn going into the SEC tournament

was a way they were not as good.

Right.

And they will be playing if they play UConn in the Sweet 16.

It will be in Boston.

UConn does have basically a home game.

This isn't me being an Auburn hater.

This is just trying to really take everything into account.

Their run to the SEC championship, they didn't have to play the other top the other top teams so auburn looked great on the run to sec championship but it wasn't like they went through tennessee and kentucky and bama to do it um which doesn't take anything away from them it's just a little bit of context where it's like all right is that is that part of it too because illinois illinois looks awesome. And Illinois was down 10 every game they played in the Big Ten tournament and came back and went.
Terrence Shannon, Jr., is like the best scorer in the country right now. He's on a tear.
But I didn't realize that Illinois has not beaten a currently ranked team all season. Like Illinois, yeah, that gave me pause.
They lost both games to Purdue.

They lose both games to Purdue.

The teams they beat, like, Wisconsin's good, but it's not. But they weren't ranked when they beat us.

Yeah, and have we seen Illinois go on a – I think they played Arizona.

Arizona beat them.

They beat FAU, but FAU – and at the time it felt like something,

but FAU hasn't had a great year.

They didn't play Arizona.

That was last year.

Oh, they beat –

They beat Tennessee – or they lost to Tennessee.

Tennessee.

And they lost to Marquette as well.

Yeah, they lost to Tennessee Tennessee's and they lost to Marquette as well yeah so yeah they lost at home to Marquette um can you dumb it down a little bit for us are they frauds are you saying they're fraudulent uh yeah why not okay cool fraud yeah sure that's that's uh that's what we want to say yeah I it's it's but but that's the that's the context you need those because you're like like Illinois won the Big Ten so they must have beaten, they're the best team in the Big Ten and I guess technically they are but I would feel a lot more comfortable about Illinois if part of their path to the Big Ten title was they beat Purdue by like 10, you know. Yeah, our friend Tom Franelli was mad about their seeding.
He actually texted me, Big Cat and Hank, that he was mad online. He said that in 2021, Illinois won the Big Ten, is a one seed, and got Loyola in the second round.
Loyola was ranked ninth by Ken Palm. We know what happened.
2022, Illinois was a four seed, got the three seed Houston in the second round. Houston was ranked fourth by Ken Palm.
The fix was in. Now this year, Illinois is a three seed.
BYU is the sixth seed. Not only is BYU 16th in Ken Palm, but they've admitted that BYU is a five seed,

but they had to bump it to a six because it can't play on Sunday.

And who do they decide to give BYU to?

That's right, Illinois.

The committee hates Illinois.

Does the committee hate Illinois?

Yeah, I mean, it's right there.

You just spelled it out.

Yeah, it's plain as day. They do kind of – Illinois has to get to the second weekend.

Like, Brad Underwood has been flirting with it they and they've had some really good teams they i feel like they got to make a little run here i cannot believe that they haven't been since 05 right that's one of the things that i even when i am reminded of it i have to take a second be like it's been since 2005 right they've been to the sweet 16 And they do have, like, I'm a big believer in the tournament, especially, like, if you can say definitively you have the best player on the court, like, those are the teams I will trust because it always comes down to end of game, who's going to get you a bucket, and Terrence Shannon should be the best player on the court for most of the games they play. Right.
BYU is a terrible matchup, though, because BYU has length. They are very well coached.
I would feel, if I was an Illinois fan, I'd be very frustrated by that. And like you said, the committee literally did say, we think BYU deserves a five seed, but we can't play them on Sunday.
That is very funny. That's crazy to me.
It's crazy that a school can just be like, yeah, we're not going to play on this day of the week. And the NCAA tournament committee is like, yeah, fair enough.
We'll just change your seat. Which I guess the only saving grace is Duquesne is definitely not an 11 seed.
So at least they kind of corrected it there. Where like they're almost playing a 5-12 matchup.
And I think they think that they're, I don't know if punishing is the right word, but it's like, all right, BYU, if you don't want to play on Sunday, we're going to knock you down a seed. We're not going to knock you up a seed.
And they think that that's the fix, and it kind of is for BYU, but it's unfair if you want to call it unfair. I do think that if you're a team that's really spending a lot of time trying to figure out if you've got a fair draw in the tournament, you're not a serious national title contender.
The attitude for the serious national title contenders are like,

fuck it, we'll play anybody anywhere.

We'll beat their ass.

Because the tournament turns into just such a random series

of who you end up playing against.

Yeah, and who's hot on the right day.

But I do feel for Illinois fans because BYU,

everybody they put on the floor is seemingly 6'5 or taller,

and they're all 26 years old.

I actually don't know that, but that's how most BYU teams are. They have a big boy, too, on BYU.
They're a big guy. They got a DJ Burns-type dude that's a wrecking ball.
I love that. That's fun to watch.
Arizona State should be like, we are not allowed to play on Fridays because we party too much. That's our holiday.
I think they do. That's why they're not in the tournament.
Okay, so you have UConn coming out of this region. So UConn in Arizona is your left half of the bracket.
I took a shot at – I like the idea of Drake going on a run too. Yeah.
So I put – Drake's my Cinderella of this tournament. So I had – I crossed it out four different times, but I have Drake in my Elite Eight just because I felt like I should pick one team to one crazy team in the Elite Eight and Drake was my pick.
So Drake's my the Drake-Washington State game is one to watch in the first round. I think both teams are awesome and I think it's going to be a great game, but I think Drake playing Iowa State, if Drake can beat Washington State playing playing Iowa State and having the in-state thing going on, and they're going to have the, like you said earlier, Dan, they're going to have the best player on the floor in that game with Tucker DeVries.
So that's my team to watch. That's the team I believe in.
They have unfinished business. Last year they had Miami.
I don't want to say on the ropes, but they were up at halftime. They were up deep into the second half.
Let that slip away. Miami goes to the Final Four.
Tucker DeVries, their best player, was one for 13 in that game. I think they have unfinished business, and I like the idea of Drake going on a run.
Yeah, I do too. Isn't somebody at Drake related to somebody here at Barstool? Yeah, Connor Enright, the point guard, his brother Kyle.
What does he do here, Jake? He's part of Lisa's team on the live events side. Oh, yeah.
He's great. You remember last – No, I know Kyle.
Yeah, his brother Connor hit the game winner against Indiana State. Oh, shit.
Yeah, that was awesome. Okay, so Drake's or Cinderella.
What's the opposite of Cinderella? I guess that'd be – Purdue. Purdue, yeah.
That'd be what, like Wicked Stepmother? Wicked – yeah. Who's the Wicked Stepmother of this tournament? Actually, that sounds kind of hot.
Yeah, that does. So what is that, the team that fucks it up? Yeah.
The good team that's going to choke. Hmm.
Well, I mean, it would have to be Iowa State because I have them losing to Drake in the second round. I have North Carolina.
North Carolina, I think, is the most susceptible one seed. Yeah.
Because they are heavily reliant on Armando. They have two identities.
One is let Armando Baycott do everything for us, which is a problem because Armando Baycott is a big guy, and it's not 1971, and you can't really play through a guy like that anymore. And also he's just not that good.
He's more of like a rim runner. Someone said that in the gambling cave on Saturday.
They were like, are we sure Armando Baycott's that good? And I was like, well, he's been in college for six years, so I'd say probably not. Yeah, probably not.
He would have gone to the NBA. But you look up his run at North Carolina, and he's the all-time leading rebounder, and he's averaged all sorts of points, and you're like, he's kind of good, though.
But you don't want to run your offense through him. So this year, R.J.
Davis is having an incredible year, is going to be a first-team All-American. He's the reason they're one seed i think rj davis is awesome but rj davis is like 5 11 6 foot um and if if your whole offense is like we need rj davis to score 35 points i don't love the idea of that either so um i think they're the most susceptible one the problem with like picking them to lose is who's going to beat them i guess you could talk yourself yourself into Michigan State in the second round, whatever, but the West is kind of wide open.
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Alright, so Midwest. Purdue, number one seed.
Yep. I still don't trust Purdue, but I do think they have a pretty decent bracket.
Like, I'm not. The problem with that region is who do you trust in that region? It's a different problem from the West, which is the West, I just don't like the teams.
I like some of the jerseys. I like North Carolina.
I like Michigan State. I like Arizona's programs.
They can do it. They've done it before.
The Midwest, I like the teams. I like Purdue.
I like Tennessee. I like Creighton.
I like all three of those teams. If you can make a list of three teams that are known to never get over the hump in terms of going to the Final Four, it's those three teams.
Rossin called this the region of tension because every team is like, I hope we don't fuck this up. I'll tell you what.
Oregon, I keep going back to just because I think Dana Altman is one of the most underrated coaches in NCAA basketball. Fun fact, he's never lost a first-round game.
Yeah, he's got an incredible tournament record. He might be the new Tom Izzo in that every year it's like, Oregon's in the Sweet 16 again? You think he's dead and he's not dead.
Yeah, and they were dead. I mean, they were a bid stealer.
I also, people, this is another 12-5 where I feel like everyone's trying to get Gonzaga because they have a down year in terms of Gonzaga. I'm not falling into that trick.
I wanted to just bring up the funniest season for McNeese State. McNeese State non-conference schedule.
I don't know if you guys took a look at this let me just list a couple of these teams uh they beat biblical studies 96 55 they beat champion christian 110 to 46 uh they beat a school called late tourney uh l-e-t-o-u-r-n-e-a-u let I think it's Letourneau. Okay, so French.
They beat a French school, 81-49. And the big one that they absolutely dominated, they won a game 92-23 against Mississippi University for Women.
Oh, I love that. They have a men's team? Yeah.
When they show the score. Maybe not.
No, they do. They beat them by so much, it makes you think that maybe they played the women.
When they show the score, is it like Mississippi University of Women, parentheses, men? It's so funny, like just looking at this. I did a deep dive into that school.
It looks great. Yeah? I did a deep dive into the Mississippi women.
They started letting men in, I think, like 86. They go by the W now.
Honestly, a sick name for a school. Yeah.
That is cool. Yeah, they're the owls.
They got plenty of men's sports, though, because I thought maybe it could have been women. Dude, what an sick name for a school.
That is cool. They got plenty of men's sports though because I thought maybe it could have been women.
What an easy pitch for a recruit. Okay, you're not getting recruited by a premier program.
Do you want to come to my women's college? Just chicks everywhere? Odie the Owl. Mississippi University for Women.
I love that. Just a hilarious schedule for McNe State, but they do feel like one of the 12 teams that everyone's kind of picking.
Yeah, I don't... What you just pointed out, one, the schedule.
Two, I think Will Wade has one foot out the door already. I think Will Wade has spent a lot of...
He just signed a contract extension. He also was just on Wake Up Mincy.
That's true. Did Mincy ask him that? Are you leaving McNeese? I wonder if...
No, I don't know. It's so funny because you can get a contract extension and then your school feels happy about it.
But do you really feel happy? Yeah, if you're not – because I'm sure his – whatever the buyout, I'm sure, yeah, that doesn't – I don't think that McNeese can afford a huge buyout. Right, right.
So I don't think – Yeah, they're paying money to Mississippi University of Women for a buy game. Buy game.
But But, yeah, McNeese, they're not a good free throw shooting team, which I think that's important. If you're trying to pull off an upset in March Madness, when you're up by five with a minute left and the other team starts fouling, you've got to ice the game at the free throw line.
I don't trust them there. They also – I think Ken Palm, that was – I think I saw that on Ken Palm, that McNeese has one of the highest three-point attempt stick with me.
The teams that play McNeese shoot a ton of threes because McNeese lets them shoot threes. They have one of the highest ratios of shots that their defense gives up is threes.
Gonzaga shoots threes well. So like Gonzaga, the way McNeese plays defense is they're like go ahead, shoot threes on us.
We're going to trust that you're going to miss them. And they have through the season because they are playing women and they are playing biblical studies.
The ultimate bye game, B.I. But they're going to play a team in Gonzaga that's not going to miss three.
And Gonzaga, for having, like, a reputation for not being able to win in March somehow, Mark Few, just because he hasn't won a national title, Gonzaga hasn't lost a first-round game since 2008 when they lost to Steph Curry and Davidson. Yeah.
So, and I think that was like a 7-10 game, if I remember. I think Davidson was.
Yeah, they were a 10. Davidson was a 10.
Yeah, Davidson was a 10. Yeah.
So, that Gonzaga team, yeah, I don't know. Everyone's just kind of enamored with McNeese winning 30 games and Will Wade being the coach, and they can shoot threes well, but that's not the 12-5 that I'm looking at.
Yeah, the team that I love in this region, which, again, I fill myself with stats, and then they'll probably lose by 20 because Kansas will somehow become healthy, and Bill Self is an incredible coach. But I do love Samford and Bucky Ball where they just chuck threes and they have the opportunity to capture the hearts of America.
Just the way they play basketball. Yeah, that's a more attractive pick to me than McNeese.
But, yeah, it is interesting to have Kansas and Gonzaga right there in both teams. How lucky are both those programs? games? Because both these teams kind of suck for their standards, and they're still four and five seeds.
That pisses me off. Yeah, does that piss you off? It's like the worst team Bill Self's ever had, and it's four seed in the NCAA tournament.
Yeah. What about Tennessee? What about my volunteers? Tell me something good about my volunteers.
I love Tennessee. I hate that they lost in the first round of the conference tournament.
Yeah. they got the shit kicked out yeah i i if i was picking a team to get over the hump this season i it was tennessee like if there was if there was a breakthrough team uh you know the rick barnes and march thing um but matt painter and march like you have all those coaches that you're certain can't get it done in march and i had to pick one of them to buck that narrative.
It was going to be Rick Barnes because of Dalton Connect. I just don't love that they got their asses kicked in the first round of the conference.
Michigan or Mississippi State, I mean, that was a boat race. They beat the fuck out.
It wasn't ever close. Let's talk about that loss because is it something that you think is like a systemic problem with Tennessee? Did they get exposed? I think Dalton Connect is the most electric guy in college basketball, but I think Dalton Connect, I do worry if Dalton Connect understands what the score and the time is at any point in the game.
He feels like a guy that just has one thought going through his head and it's get buckets. He's kind of a stylistic clash to what the rest of tennessee's team's trying to do and i find that slightly like for most of the season i thought that was a good thing because that's what this team has needed to get over a hump is you need a guy that can go get you a bucket and tennessee hasn't had that for a while but sometimes you watch them and they feel very disjointed because of that because um they're not all on the same page they're not all cohesive don't connect does rule on offense he sucks defensively um and this is a team that's like a you know to play great defense as a team you do need five guys you can't just have like a couple guys that are are locked down guys in college basketball so i i i don't know i still try i have tennessee going to the final four still i still think they're going to come out of the region because uh i think that this is the year Rick Barnes breaks through.
But I'm way more concerned now than I was like a month ago for sure. Are you concerned at all? As a fan of Purdue losing, I know you love it when Purdue loses.
Are you concerned that you're not going to get that joy this year? They're going to lose at some point. The problem is I think they're going to probably – it feels the most likely scenario is like they lose in the Final Four and it's still a W for Purdue fans.
Yeah, that's a big dub. Yeah, they still get their W, but then the Purdue haters are trying to celebrate because they didn't win the national title.
But Purdue fans are like, we don't give a – they haven't been in a Final Four since 1980, and they've won 1,000 Big Ten championships since then. They've been the one seed all sorts of times, or been like a top three seed.
I don't remember what the Glenn Robinson years, what they were seeded. And they've been to a handful of lead eights.
I think this Purdue team is better. The reason for optimism, if you're a Purdue fan, is this team is definitively better than last year.
They are a better three-point shooting team. Last year's team wasn't a great three-point shooting team.
Lance Jones is a wrinkle on this year's team that makes them a lot better. My problem is they are the exact same style of basketball.
They play the exact same way as they played last year. And I just don't know how you can not learn from your mistakes last year, which is like every time you catch the ball, you're looking to post-feed Zach Eadie.
I don't understand how that's the way you're going about winning games in 2024. So that's my concern with Purdue is like they are the same team, but they are better.
So depending on which way you want to look at it, they're not going to lose to the 16. I think they're going to beat the 16.
I think they're going to get over the hump and beat the 16 seed this year. I like that.
Can you explain to me as an outsider because I'm not from the Midwest. You're from Indianaiana um you're intimately familiar with purdue and and the type of people that go there and the type of people that that university produces yeah there's a lot of hate towards like i know i know why dukes hated that they're like a natural national brand of hatred i know why a&m is weird i know how they're a cult and yeah we know that reputation but like what is it about purd Purdue that makes you hate them? They are humorless goobers.
They are- It's like 75% dudes. They have- 75% dudes.
That's not an actual stat, but I know it's close. It kind of is.
You walk around campus. It should be the Purdue University of Men.
Yeah. It's dudes everywhere.
They have the demeanor of nerds, but not the intelligence. They're nice.
Okay, yeah. That makes sense.
I get that. Yeah.
They're nice they're nice people like they're not they're not like i'm not like all these assholes but it's just yeah it's goobers they're goobers they're dorks they're they it's it's something that like i've had people that aren't from indiana i've i've taken them to west lafayette for purdue basketball games and i don't even i don't prime them for it i'm not like tell me your thoughts on the i sit back, let them go, and then I ask them, I'm like, what do you think about the Purdue people? And they're like, are they kind of – You know what it is? Like, is it? The best way I would describe it is they're kind of caught in no man's land where they're closer to, like, Northwestern than they realize. Yeah.
But their sports are better. Yeah.
And so – but they're not even close to, like, the party Big Ten schools, like Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana. So they're caught in this weird spot where they kind of don't have an identity.
They kind of don't, yeah. They also have an inferiority complex with a superiority complex at the same time.
Somehow it makes no sense. But they know they're going to fuck it up in March, but then they also puff their chest and they're like you hate zach edie because you're jealous and everyone's like i promise you i do not want if there's one thing i do not want from my basketball team is to watch this fucking bullshit every single night out uh on the basketball court they're like you're just jealous because he's he's kind of shack plus akeem and you're just jealous of it it's like we're not jealous i don't know it's know.
They're a tough breed to peg. I like the inferiority complex.
That's why they have that big-ass drum is overcompensating for something. That's why they get big players.
They might just have small dicks. And they also, the best thing they had going for them was the free hot dogs at Jake's, and that closed like five years ago.
That kind of ruined it. Because I've been to West Lafayette a few times, and I was like well they got a place that has free hot dogs that's you can you can have a good time in west lafayette but the good time you're having just makes you think of the other college campus you'd rather be on having an even better time right but neil armstrong right also yeah they got a lot of astronauts yeah they do have a shitload of astronauts all right last region the south region our south region, our region, bracket, you know, the torture quadrant.

I've looked through the Wisconsin-James Madison game in depth.

I think Wisconsin's fucked.

Stop it, big cat.

No, I have.

Here's the thing.

Wisconsin doesn't defend the three well, and James Madison likes to shoot threes.

And obviously, it's very reductive.

Reductive? Yeah, reductive. It might be reductive.
It might be like who makes – Disingenuous. Yeah, who makes their threes? Let me text Jay Billis and see if that was used correct.
Who makes their threes? Because Wisconsin – you know, the story of the Wisconsin season is the beginning of the season, November, December, January, they're making their threes. February, they just stopped making their threes.
Yeah. Went four and eight or whatever it was down the stretch.
Big Ten tournament, they started making their threes again, looked good again. If they don't make their threes, it's going to be a terrible, terrible night for me.
And I just think James Madison is a bad matchup. And I'm not saying that.
The only thing I could say, to be fair, is that James Madison has not played a lot of good teams. They've played three teams in the top 100 in Ken Palm.
They beat Michigan State, which Wisconsin beat twice. And then they lost to Appalachian State twice.
So that is the only thing I'm kind of hanging my hat on, but I'm being completely honest and unbiased that this is a bad matchup. Are they going to be playing a good team on Friday, I guess is the question.
Is Wisconsin a good team? Is Wisconsin a good team? Do we have to worry about them not playing a good team? Are we sure? I think AJ Store has to be to be a superhero yeah i think that's the formula i think wisconsin is obviously you'll be the best player on the court they're fine they are they have shown i mean you guys ranked what six at one point um friddle on jmu i'm worried about for you guys though i think this is i've been saying it all year about this season of college basketball it is the year of the cold ass white boy and if all over college basketball they're just white dudes that can light it up and it's not just it's not just that they score a lot it's not that they're just catch and shoot guys they uh they just got a little sauce to their game and uh Noah Friedle feels like one of those guys maybe you're gonna hate him so much if yeah you're gonna fucking hate you're gonna hate that guy I'm ready for I'm ready for torture they They drag me back in, but again, I'm looking at it in an unbiased way. If I had removed any rooting interest from this game, I would probably bet James Madison just because I think it's not a great matchup.
What's the funniest outcome for this show? Not just for this game, but for the Vermont Duke. The funniest outcome is Vermont beating Duke, Vermont beating JMU or Wisconsin.
And Jake says good game. Jake apologizes to us for winning.
Yeah, Jake shrugs his shoulders and he's good game. Oh, and then this is important too.
Also at the same time, Villanova finishing second in the NIT. Yeah, that would actually be the funniest possible outcome.
I think the sicko outcome is Wisconsin beating JMU and then Duke just like boat racing Wisconsin. That's what I picked.
We talked about this, Jake, on Sunday. That's a sicko outcome.
That's what I – I picked that in my bracket because I think between you two, PFT is far more excited about the game, and I think he has to suffer his pain, and then you start talking yourself into Wisconsin again, and then Duke just fucks you up, and then you're back to – and Kyle Filipowski like – It's a lose-lose for me no matter what. If Wisconsin loses in the first two rounds, no matter what, it's going to be pain for me.
Yeah. Like, no matter what.
But can you just imagine? I have allowed myself to wonder, like, what if we win two games? What if I get an entire week of just, like, watching highlights from the first two games, getting excited, buying in, winning the Sweet 16? It would be probably the most electric college sports moment of my life. That entire week.
Well, I asked Dan this on the Yak yesterday. What is the stakes of this game in terms of like – I feel like you guys are going to bring this game up.
Whoever wins is going to reference this forever. I don't think so.
But I don't get to. That's the problem.
I'm going to lose-lose. I don't think so because people try to divide me and Big Cat sometimes with things like this.
Hank, especially. There's a reason he's not on that couch right now.
But I think if Big Cat wins, if Wisconsin wins, I'm going to be upset. Okay.
But I'm still in the back of my head going to be like, well, that was awesome that we got to go dancing. That was cool.
I got to see the game. And probably the better team ended up winning.
And then if JMU wins, I'm going to be very happy about it, but I'm going to be more focused on just what an electric experience it was than to remind Big Cat of it. Unless Big Cat starts coming at me for Commander's Bears stuff, in which case I've always gotten that in my back pocket.
What could possibly be a bigger, this might actually divide us situation? Oh, a playoff game in the NFL would be way big. If you guys met in the be way you guys in the play way way way way it's also going to be helpful that i'm not going to be there i'm not going to be on the stream yeah so if we were both on the stream we'd probably say some things look at each other a certain way and then just know that it's on but it's a lose-lose for me because james madison is is the underdog it's a cool story they're fucking you know, their sports programs have been insane the last year.
And people, I mean, just being honest, people love to relish in my sadness. Yeah.
Like, they just are sick, sick fucks with that. That's why I think Duke beating you is the move.
Yeah. Because I think you're going to be way sadder.
The delayed sadness. Yeah, no.
For ultimate sadness, it is Duke over Wisconsin. And Kyle Filipowski has a couple dirty plays.
Yeah, trips some people. Yeah, like injures Chucky Hepburn somehow.
All right, so the rest of this bracket, I find myself believing in Marquette for some reason, and that's really just because I'm doing the – my bracket is basically like the Big East revenge bracket where I have my Final Four's all three Big East teams getting there. But I do like Kentucky, especially because Cal's doing his tweaks, which would be huge.
And Kentucky, you would say, if you had to play one game and you're like, all right, Kentucky, they have so many dudes, and Reed Shepard is electric, that they can beat anyone in the country because they have that style of play and they can make so many shots. They have so many guys who can get a bucket.
You fall in love with the guards. You can make their own offense and teams that have one of them.
You fall in love with like, like I look at like Northwestern, who's not really playing great basketball, but they have boo boo. And I'm like, if UConn plays Northwestern and boo boo, you know, they're not going to, but just kind of like I don't know man Boo Booey could score 45 points in that game and it could the guards that can make their own offense you fall in love with and you just do this time of year Kentucky has four of them Kentucky has fucking four of them on their roster which might be too many I don't know that might be part of their problem is you have Dillingham and reed shepherd coming off the bench when both those guys might be top five picks it's it's a crazy cal has like almost too much talent yeah how many balls are there on the court i think there's still one just one ball but remember he's got some tweaks he's got some tweaks though he's gonna roll the ball out there yeah uh no i i have kentucky in the elite eight i think i think this kentucky team is just too talented to to and it's such a it's such a high pressure year for cal and the program um what about the one seed here because i houston we know them we know what they do they play insane defense i i probably will take houston in the first round just because they were so bad against iowa state it feels like they're just going to punish the fuck out of the 16 seed.
And they rebound the fuck out of the ball, but their offense can go away at times. I actually think Texas A&M might be live.
They can get down and dirty and kind of grind it out and play low-possession games, because that's what I always look for with these upsets. What teams can play these low possession games where you can you know if you're if you're an inferior opponent you can basically make them have to execute in half court and things won't go as as well yeah and if you're talking to Selvin A&M Wade Taylor again is one of those guards that that can just go bananas in the tournament I think Houston though is my I don – Houston doesn't feel like an upset candidate to me because I think Houston is so good at just strangling inferior opponents.
Like when they're playing a team that's not as good as them, their defense is so fucking locked in that it's hard to – they're not – they don't really get upset. That's not how they lose.
The issue with Houston is more when they're playing another high-caliber team do they have the individual talent to rise to that level. I agree that when they play Longwood, they might win by 70.
When they play inferior teams, they just completely suffocate them. I have Houston win at all in my bracket.
Houston is my national champion. I probably think it should be UConn, but it's boring.
And Houston, for long stretches of the season, has looked like the best team in college basketball. They were the best team in the best conference.
Iowa State definitely humbled them, but I think Houston's defense gets all the headlines that not enough attention is paid to how good their offense actually is, and LJ Cryer and Emmanuel Sharp can both shoot. And the idea when you watch a Houston basketball game is like, this is disgusting, this is ugly, the ball's not going through the basket.
I don't think that's the case. I think they can score.
And I just don't think they're going to lose to inferior teams, and I don't think there are a lot of teams that are better than Houston. So I ended up picking them reluctantly as national champion, but I don't know.
I think they proved it this year that they belong. I mean, the tear they went through in the Big 12 is impressive in year one.
So I love Jamal Shed, too. I think he's the best defender.
He's a guy – if we're talking about, like, guards that can take over games, the antidote to that is having a guy like Jamal Shed that you can just put on that guard and say, shut that guy down, and he can do that for that reason I like Houston. I want to see Kentucky Houston in the That would be awesome.
Just like stylistically just completely opposite. Alright, I got one last question.
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promo code take all right so if you had to say your one first round upset we can go around the room who are you gonna take okay this is the also i wanted to note i had um again i'm just filling my head with all these uh stats and everything what was the stat i think it's if you're filling out your bracket since 2015 i think it's two for 32 12 and 13 seeds getting to the sweet 16 and one of those years was when oregon state was a 12 and they played a 13 so a lot of people will take the 13 and 12s to win a game just remember that statistically the last nine ten years getting to the sweet 16 is a little different. You're one upset, PFT.
To the Sweet 16? Yeah. No, or just the first round upset.
Oh, first round. What do I really like the first round? Oregon.
Yeah, I like Oregon. Although, they're like only a one-point dog, I think.
I got two. I got Oregon and New Mexico.
New Mexico is a favorite. Oh, they are.
Okay. I was just looking at scenes.
They're a two-point favorite.

Looks like I'm sharp.

Yeah, you are.

Your advanced analytics works.

Nailed it.

I'll probably go with Drake, but I actually think Akron might be five somehow.

Is Drake a favorite?

Drake's not a favorite, I don't think.

Drake's a point underdog or something? I think so. I'll look it up.
Yeah, I mean, Drake would be my pick, too. I have him in the lead eight, so obviously I think Drake's going to win the first round.
I'll take Purdue over the 16th seed. Okay.
Okay. That's a big upset, yeah.
I think they do get over the hump. I like that one.
Grand Canyon is the 12 I'm slowly talking myself into. It's nothing against St.
Mary's.

It's just Grand Canyon is so fun, and Bryce Drew is an awesome guy.

I think he's a great coach, and it didn't work out at Vanderbilt,

but I think he's a – they have the pedigree too.

They came to the tournament last year,

and they're kind of building something in Grand Canyon.

They're on a long winning streak.

Do they have the longest winning streak, Jake?

Yeah, no, James Madison does. James Madison does, but they have.
They've been on a tear, Grand Canyon. They're on a long winning streak.
Do they have the longest winning streak, Jake? Yeah, no, James Madison does. James Madison does, but they've been on a tear, Grand Canyon has.
So, yeah, I'll pick Grand Canyon because if they can speed St. Mary's up, which is a big if, and everybody that plays St.
Mary's says that. But, yeah, I think Grand Canyon is a fun team.
Drake is a favorite, by the way. Drake is the favorite.
I was wrong. No, that means you were sharp.
Yeah, that means I was sharp, but that's not really an upset. That does bother me.
I know it shouldn't. I think it's something that I wish I could correct in my own brain when an 11 seed or a 10 seed is a favorite and wins, and everyone's like, the craziest upsets today.
Yeah. I feel like an absolute loser to be like, well, actually, they were favorites, but I i'm like dude they were favorites i think you can say that if somebody's like they shocked the world right then you can point out to them right they were favored like new mexico being a two-point favorite as an 11 seed and if they win that game everyone's gonna be like holy shit what a day and it it bought i hate myself yeah i hate you i hate myself for that i'm like when teams storm the court as favorites people are like well they're favorites why are they storming court yeah i have no problem with that yeah uh because i'm pro court storming at all times i can't undo well you can't undo the wiring in your brain i can't undo the wiring the the decades of watching the ncaa tournament and the team wearing white losing is yes that's an upset no matter what the spread says the team wearing the white jerseys if they lose that is an upset also you know what they should do i wish they would go back it's similar to the super bowl logos how they've ruined the super bowl logos because they made it so corporate go back to the weird courts i know like the iowa state game always is seared in my brain when they were playing in that weird orange and blue court the boise state yeah when they were when they were two seed and lost and i'm just like that.
Yeah. Those are the memories I want.
Jeff D. Lowe's a big proponent of that, I think.
I'm sure he is. Maybe not.
Jeff loves it. I actually hate the Corp.
Jeff loves all the weirdest parts of basketball that nobody else notices. Nobody else cares.
Yeah. So your final four, you said Houston, Tennessee, UConn, and- Arizona.
We have the same final four, Mark. Oh, really? You're fucked.
Let's go. You're fucked're fucked we have a perfect bracket i'm the biggest idiot on planet earth so am i though okay cool one a one b we have a perfect bracket i watch i think you watch too little college basketball i watch too much yeah right in the middle you're right in the middle somewhere a narrative got started that i don't watch college no i didn't say you don't i don't really understand like i okay i watch i watch probably five college basketball games a week during before.
No, I didn't mean for it to be a personal attack. I'm sorry if this is coming off as defensive against you.
You sound like a Purdue fan right now. You really are.
You can't take a joke? I've just had like three people tell me that in the last week. I was like, I don't know how much am I supposed to be watching.
Well, the problem is I watch too much. Yeah.
I mean, it's fair to say no one is coming to pft commenter for their bracket picks right correct yeah that's all i'm saying is you're not you're not a guy who watches a ton to where everyone's like i want to know what pft has to say i kind of am and i think it's we're on the bell curve i think the the guys who win are in the middle i've watched too much you've watched too little yeah i think that's the narrative that's just based on the fact that i watch an unhealthy amount of college sports yeah you watch a regular amount his his uh lock of the day when we were doing our parlay was what university of texas arlington yeah fucking against dude against who uh they were playing who are they playing i can't remember but it was such a great game fuck it was an awesome game oh tarleton tarleton yeah they won max and i were the morning watching them. That game rocked.
I'm so upset that I would have picked them to go to the Elite Eight if they won it. I think I had normal picks.
I had the Kentucky over. Hank had NC State.
And then Big Cat's like, you've got to watch this Tarleton game. The best.
And it hit. It hit.
The best. And you have Houston as your champion.
I have Houston over Arizona. I think Arizona beats UConn in Phoenix.enix the arizona fans are going crazy they're like holy fucking shit it's gonna have a little uh wisconsin 2015 vibes to it where they're like we did it celebrate and then they lose the national championship to houston okay okay i think they celebrate too soon yeah yeah i did celebrate too soon uh okay mark titus thank you as always thanks guys go check him, Mark Titus Podcast, The Yak.
He does it all. Let's get some madness.
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We got hashtag mad online to end the show today. Reminder, Friday we will have a show.
We have Stanford Steve who will give you Friday winners. So Stanford Steve is going to give us after Thursday we get our teeth kicked in.
Stanford Steve will be joining us on Friday to hopefully pick up the pieces for us. Hank.
All right, these are people mad about tournament stuff. Dan says, in 21, one-seat Illinois had to play an under-seeded in-state loyal team in round two.
22, they drew under-seeded Houston in round two. This year, not only do we play an under-seeded BYU in the second round, number 16, Ken Palm.
Oh, no. We didn't say, not only do we, but we didn't say but.
These are the Ken Palm ranks of the other teams in their region. One is UConn, four Auburn, five Iowa State, 16 BYU, 21 SDSU.
Yeah. So they got a bad draw.
We talked about this earlier because you actually texted that to me and Big Cat last night. By you, I mean Tom Fernelli sent that over.
So they make good points, and also the BYU thing is very funny. Yeah.
I like this one.

Hot take.

When non-at-large teams like NC State and Oregon make their conference tournament,

that conference should be the conference that loses a bid.

I like that.

So in this case, Virginia and Colorado out.

Yeah. I like that.

Good choice.

This is a good rule.

It also is very funny to me, which we haven't brought up because we've talked to Fanta

and Rothstein about the expansion of the tournament.

The tournament is already the whole country yeah because you can win your conference tournament yeah why why why don't people do when people say they want to expand be like dude it's expanded yeah no they all they're all in the very everyone's in the tournament also the very nature of the regular season right but everyone's in the tournament because you can win your conference tournament and then be in the tournament. Yeah, 96 is too much.
That's too many teams. We have a 336 team tournament or whatever the fuck it is.
Except that stupid rule with the D2 to D1 transition. That's the worst.
When teams win that, I feel like there's one every few years. Yeah, I agree with that.
Aramach last year. I agree with that.
You shouldn't take that away from teams if they they prove it but their tournament is expanded the whole country's in the tournament that's the beauty of the tournament everyone's mad about virginia but why is texas a comfortable seven seed while teams in the big 12 with similar records got left out or weren't even on the oklahoma oklahoma kansas state who just beat texas cincinnati oklahoma skins state i don't think had the resume. Oklahoma definitely did.
They were the first team out, and they got screwed, and it was because of all these bid stealers. It sucks, but should have won more games.
I also respect the guy from Oklahoma being mad, but their outlet for being mad is like, well, Texas shouldn't be seated as high. Right.
I like that. That's good.
A natural course of energy for you would be to be like, why the fuck is UVA in it? But because you're an Oklahoma fan, you're like, well, they gave Texas too much credit. They should be seated lower, which I like.
I appreciate that. And you kind of tried to get us off the scent there a little bit.
Cincy, I feel like, could have had a resume worthy, but Kansas State was, I mean, they were 19 and 14. Dallas says, I don't think Dayton deserved to get in the tournament.
Only two wins against teams in the tournament, and that was Longwood and Duquesne. Lost games in conference against Duquesne, Richmond, VCU, Loyola, and Mason.
Best wins against Cincy and St. John's? Makes no sense.
Ooh, I like this. The Dayton, I mean, this is another one, if we had had the first rule that was offered up, which I agree with, Dayton wouldn't be in because Duquesne would have taken their spot.
I'm fine with that. If you have a bid stealer in your conference tournament, it takes out one of your bids.
Yeah, Dayton, they should have won their tournament. Wait, but hold on.
But then by that, someone could have taken out like Creighton. Yeah, that would probably be a problem.
Like if Providence had won the tournament, Creighton would be out. I just think they should do a better job of picking which teams are in the tournament so as to not make me angry.
Yeah. Also, I hate to say it to the bubble people because I know that like an Oklahoma fan, a St.
John's fan, this is all you've been thinking about, no one gives a fuck once the bracket's out. Once we get our hands on the bracket, I don't...
Could you name a team that just missed the tournament three years ago? No chance. No chance.
It's more about... No chance.
It's not necessarily when I get my hands on the bracket, because you do have those two days to be angry. You can be mad Monday, Tuesday...
I'm just saying it's one of those angers that no one else cares about. No one's going to care about it.
No one's going to care about... I think Louisville may have been one of those teams.
In when? I'm still mad about that. Yeah, I'm furious about that.
Do you guys see Rick Pitino's suggestion for the selection committee? He said, have a great suggestion for Dan Gavitt, who's absolutely the best. I know three guys who are watching games all year and would be a great addition.
They won't just look at certain metrics. Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, and Coach K.
They need to be part of selections. Just get your friends involved.
Get the old guard back. Just trying to get them a job.
My suggestion is that it would be a real shame if there was a horse head in your bed when you woke up tomorrow. Yeah.
Okay. Good suggestion, Rick.
Big Cat, I also think UVA makes a difference in your theory. What do you mean? That nobody wants to watch UVA.
Oh, yeah. That part, yes.
That will add to the bubble. But they also got in the play-in, so I always...
But if they win tonight 50-46, everyone's going to be like, holy shit, we have to watch this fucking game. Well, like I said on Monday, it's the narrative game.
Because if they win tonight, then everyone's going to be like, the Mountain West shouldn't have six teams. And if they lose tonight, they'll be like, fuck it.
The thing that sucks to me is St. John's is more fun than Colorado State or UVA.
It's just a fact. They play a more fun brand of basketball.
Yes, we'll end with that. That should be the tiebreaker.
Just fun. Who do people want to watch? Yeah.
Will the Overhit. I threw away my Irish heritage on Sunday.
I drank red wine and ate Italian food in preparation for selection Sunday. I sat there watching my TV with a chicken parm only to see my savior not be in the tourney.
What they did to St. John's and Rick Pitino is criminal yeah i mean i would agree irish and italians are they're so much more alike than they like to admit yeah they don't like each other yeah but they're basically the same it's like baltimore and pittsburgh fans hitting each other it's like no you got you're the same person it's it's the old uh it's the famous christopher moltesanti when he was in the uh hospital bed and he's like i went to hell and They're like, what did it look like? They were like, it was a bar and it was St.
Patrick's Day. Every day was St.
Patrick's Day. And then the Irish person's like, I went to hell.
What was it? It was Columbus Day. Yeah.
Like it's, you are the same people. You should get along.
Yeah. Italians get, they don't have a party day.
Imagine if they did. Italians don't have a party day? Like St.
Patrick's Day? I feel like they just have every day.

Memorial Day?

Well, I mean, no one has a St. Patrick's Day.

DJs?

Biggie's tourney?

Biggie's tourney.

The start of the Biggie's tourney is Italian Heritage Day.

One of my favorite takes Max has ever had because it really, it doesn't make sense,

but it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I get it.

Yeah.

Makes perfect sense. Labor Day.
All the unions. R.P.
Jimmy Hoffa. Okay.
Good show, boys. Good luck to everyone on Thursday.
We'll see you on Friday morning, fresh off of 12 hours of watching college basketball. Fresh off winning.
Yeah. We're going to be the only podcast in America that has a perfect bracket on Friday.
I have to win tonight. All of our teams will survive day one.
You said it, Jake. Jake, I'm surprised you haven't done a who do you like in the first game, MSU.
Oh, I did that on the Titus show. Oh, okay, nice.
Have you done Barakatology? No. Good.
Stick to sports. I got really dangerous last year.
You love it when it's like – I didn't know Obama was Irish, by the way. That was a fun fact.
He is? Wait, what? Someone released a video. I guess when he was a president, he released that he was Irish, and then Irish people made a bunch of songs about him.
Oh. Huh.
Did not know that. You got to hear this song.
Hold on. Jake, you're big like when Arizona plays Kentucky, the Wildcats are going to win? No.
Just the MSU thing. But yeah, every president should fill out a bracket with Andy Katz.
That rules. It's very cool.
They make the best fucking song. There's no one as I'm going to win.
There's no one as Barack Obama. I would have loved Obama.
Only one Conor McGregor. And there's nobody better better And he's gonna knock out Floyd Mayweather So Floyd watch out The Irish are coming Talk all you want But you'll do nothing We may be saying that 3,000 times Yeah In Vegas You have to We got caught up We got caught up I would love to see Joe Biden fill out a bracket.
That would be, see if he can do it without falling down. How about this? Biden-IT.
Okay. We'll workshop it.
Yeah, yeah. All time, me and PFC.
CB Iden. Getting swept up in the moment and betting Conor McGregor.
And just being like, he fucking hung in there. He almost won it.
And then we watched it back sober. We're like, oh, Floyd was just messing with him the entire time.
We, with a straight face, bet McGregor against the best defensive boxer of all time. Yeah.
Sat next to the sniper from Saving Private Ryan. Barry Pepper.
Yeah. Great dude.
That's the level of celebrity we are. Barry Pepper.
We got our seats and we're like, okay, I'm cool with the Barry Pepper level. Yeah, I'm very cool with Barry Pepper.

He played Mickey Mantle.

Or Joe DiMaggio.

He killed like 70 Nazis in Saving Private Ryan.

He's a badass.

All right, numbers.

40.

3.

8.

20.

69.

29.

29.

93.

93.

Love you guys. Bye.
Thank you. Take me on I'll be gone You're the dirty Things that you say You're the light Just the way my love You're the things I've got to remember You're shying away I'll be coming for you anyway I'll be coming for you anyway I'll be coming for you anyway.
I'll be coming for you anyway. I'll be coming for you anyway.

Take on me.

Take me on.

I'll be gone.