Brackets Are Here, Jon Rothstein, PMT Death Match + Justin Fields Traded To The Steelers

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Speaker 1 On today's Pardon My Take, we have our brackets. March Madness is finally here, and we're going to break it all down.
Someone in the selection committee is a real pervert.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk about that. We have John Rossin on the show, as is tradition.
He is going to break down all the regions, tell us some fun nuggets.

Speaker 1 We also have to talk to him about potentially losing friends and a wife and kids over March Madness. We sleep in May.

Speaker 3 Problems at home.

Speaker 1 Problems at home. We got who's back of the week.
Justin Fields has been traded. We're going to actually talk about that after John Rostein.

Speaker 1 So, anyone who wants some thoughts on that, we also had some other moves in the NFL that we will discuss.

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Speaker 1 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 No place to hang out on washing.

Speaker 1 And then I can't blame all on the sun.

Speaker 1 Oh no, we're gonna rock it down to electric avenue.

Speaker 1 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna rock it down to electric.

Speaker 3 It's part of my take, presented by Marshall Sports.

Speaker 1 Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. Use code TAKE right now.
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Today is Monday, March 18th, and we have our brackets.

Speaker 3 My brackets busted.

Speaker 1 We have our brackets, and someone in that committee is a real sick pervert.

Speaker 1 I actually think it's probably someone that Hank knows because he's been smiling ear to ear since the brackets have been announced.

Speaker 1 The pardon-my take region, it wasn't just that they had to put me versus PFT, Wisconsin versus James Madison in the first round. They also put Vermont and Duke in the same quadrant.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Hank,

Speaker 3 famous graduate of Duke University, Henry Lockwood, famous graduate of Vermont, Jake Marsh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That is actually the, we'll get to our game, but the worst part about what they did to us is not just the two of us because we can survive anything.

Speaker 1 We're stronger than steel, stronger than iron. We can survive anything.

Speaker 1 It's the fact that the winner of our game will then go up against either Hank and Duke or Jake and Vermont, and they both will be like, we don't really care as our teams, like one of our teams loses to those fucking bumps.

Speaker 3 I've seen this movie before. Here's what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 Splitting us apart. apart.

Speaker 3 Here's what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 It's going to be, it doesn't matter who wins between me and Big Cat. Yeah.
Because Jake Marsh is going to be using the second round.

Speaker 1 And he's going to say, I just, I'm actually kind of rooting for James Madison or Wisconsin. Yeah, I want Vermont to win, but I want you guys to be happy.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Oh, yeah.
He's going to have a smile on his face when he shakes her hand. Hey, sorry.
Sorry, I just beat you. I'm the best in the office again.

Speaker 3 Despite the fact that this is perverted and it's sick and it's disgusting, and there's somebody that's listening to part of my take right now in some college ivory tower. Oh, they're all loving it.

Speaker 3 Some athletic director, and he's silently jacking his dick off, just listening to us in pain. Slow stroke.
I want that person to know that they're a pervert.

Speaker 3 But that's actually not the sickest thing they did. The sickest thing they did was put UVA in.
Yeah. That's disgusting.
UVA, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Speaker 1 Let's give some shout-outs to the people who got

Speaker 1 the people who got snubbed. The bubbles burst.
It was a crazy weekend of basketball. Saturday, you saw basically the bubbles shrink and shrink and shrink because NC State won, beat North Carolina.

Speaker 1 They weren't going to get in. New Mexico won the Mountain West.
They probably weren't going to get in. Temple beat FAU, and then it became a Temple UAB.
One of those teams was not going to get in.

Speaker 1 And the bubble just got smaller and smaller and smaller.

Speaker 1 And the loser, the big loser was the Big East, who ended up getting three teams in, which is crazy because they're the second-ranked conference. Some people are saying...

Speaker 1 Our friend Frank Fleming is saying that because the Big East is broadcasted on Fox and the Mountain West is broadcasted on CBS, what is the tournament broadcast on?

Speaker 3 That would be on CBS, Big Cast.

Speaker 1 Interesting. Also, we have another theory.
Max, could you please share it?

Speaker 6 The committee is anti-Italian.

Speaker 3 Wait, fuck. Anti-Italian.

Speaker 6 Anti-Italian American discrimination.

Speaker 3 This is an example of anti-Italian.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 Why is it going against the?

Speaker 3 The Big East is Italian. It's an Italian league.

Speaker 1 I actually agree with that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I agree with that.

Speaker 3 You got some Catholic schools. You got New York schools.

Speaker 1 You got

Speaker 3 Providence, Petino, yeah.

Speaker 6 You got Petino, and then you got legends like Roly Massimino, great Italian,

Speaker 1 Jim Boheim, Carneseca,

Speaker 1 Patrick Ewing,

Speaker 1 John Thompson,

Speaker 1 the most famous Italians you can find out. Italian League.
Yeah, Jeff. Italian League.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you got Patrick Ewing, the first Italian-American coach of Georgetown University.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Kyle Neptune, ends in a vowel, Italian.

Speaker 3 Jay Wright looks like he could be Italian.

Speaker 1 J-Wright is Italian. He's honestly Italian.

Speaker 3 He's not Italian, but he got there as quick as he could.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. The suits are Italian.
It was, though. The Big East got screwed.

Speaker 1 St. John's wasn't even in last four out.
Yeah. Seton Hall, who beat UConn, the number one overall seed, wasn't in.
Providence

Speaker 1 didn't get in.

Speaker 3 It's bullshit. Yeah, it's kind of crazy, too, when you look at what the NCAA did by inventing the net ranking.

Speaker 3 That's an NCAA official, or was it NCAA evaluation tool to determine what teams are better? It's their own metric that they invented that they claim to rely on.

Speaker 3 Like they did this and they did it so that they could have some data to show people when they complained about bubble teams.

Speaker 7 Right.

Speaker 3 And they invented a whole new formula and then they just threw it out the window when it came time to decide on which teams were in.

Speaker 3 It's ridiculous, but it's also very funny that they just created as a distraction like, hey, maybe this will shut, make people shut the fuck up for a while. Right.

Speaker 3 And then we'll just put in the teams that we it's if Oppenheimer had spent those like four years inventing the atomic bomb and then Harry Truman just surrenders right afterwards.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Before they drop it. Like it's so dumb what they did.

Speaker 3 Do they have an explanation?

Speaker 1 Well, so the here was one. So Matt Norlander, who works for CBS, talked to the committee.
They said

Speaker 1 Q1, New Mexico would have been out if it didn't win the Mountain West. Also, Q1 wins were why Michigan State got a nine, which was pretty shocking.

Speaker 1 Also said the Mountain West wins mostly came in conference. That's why so many teams seeded that low.
So there's two competing things. Mountain West teams are like

Speaker 1 our league got seeded low, and Big East fans are like, but you got six in and we got three in. It's bullshit.

Speaker 1 I think it's quad one wins is what they're looking at, but that also doesn't make sense because Michigan State had three quad one wins. I think Providence had six.
So it really was no rhyme or reason.

Speaker 1 And then you have Duquesne, who got an 11 seed, who I'm pretty sure they were just, the committee got lazy and they're like, whoever wins this game is going to get an 11 seed.

Speaker 1 There's no reason James Madison shouldn't have gotten an 11 seed over

Speaker 1 better than Duquesne. They got James Madison got a 12.
Duquesne got an 11. It's just crazy.
Duquesne got the same seed as, like,

Speaker 1 hold on, I got to find it.

Speaker 3 It's almost like they just looked at the name of the school. Oh, Duquesne.
Yeah, that feels like an 11 seed to me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Put him in there. All right.
So New Mexico, who they admit was on the bubble, is number 22 in net, and they have the same seed as Duquesne, who was 83 in net.

Speaker 1 And Oregon, who is 59, and NC State, who is 63.

Speaker 1 They really, this might be the first year where the arguments about how the

Speaker 1 bracketologists, the committee did it is all valid. Like it feels like they just kind of winged this thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Both in seeding and who they left out. Obviously the bubble getting so tight.

Speaker 1 You know, Virginia, that should have just been an easy, like, do we want to watch more Virginia?

Speaker 3 It's so funny that not only did they take a team that they knew would piss people off

Speaker 3 because they might not have been deserving to get in, but also that they picked the one team in in America that would piss the most people off because now we all have to watch a Virginia standalone game.

Speaker 1 Standalone game. Also, just one last thing about Michigan State, who I thought should have been in, but when you put the resume up,

Speaker 1 you could definitely poke some holes in it.

Speaker 1 When they went to, when they were revealing the bracket on CBS, they asked about Michigan State, and someone said, it might have been Clark Kellogg, was like, they're playing really well, even though they haven't won a game.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
They're competing. They're won games.
They haven't won games, but they're playing really well.

Speaker 3 So it's awesome just having a bracket in your hands, holding the bracket, looking at it, smelling it when it comes out of the printer and it's still warm. Everything about a bracket I love.

Speaker 3 It's the best.

Speaker 3 I just went with my balls. I did a balls first pick, and I think I'm going to keep this bracket.
I think I'm going to trust my initial reaction on the bracket.

Speaker 1 Who do you have

Speaker 1 in the 12-5 matchup?

Speaker 3 12-5 matchup in the South?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I have the J.M.U. Dukes.
I have James Madison winning two games. And Hank, by the way, this is the time, if there was ever a time, you versus Jake, Duke versus Vermont, they are the cat amounts.

Speaker 3 If you lose to Vermont, you should get a cat.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 3 Hank is.

Speaker 1 Hank has, this is going to, this is, pardon my take, civil war in this quadrant, and Hank does not give a fuck.

Speaker 3 And we knew it was happening.

Speaker 9 I do have, I filled out a bracket as well. There's one

Speaker 9 matchup missing. Wisconsin.
JMU, I want to give you guys the floor. Maybe try and pitch me.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll pitch you. It's hell for me because I just bought back into this Wisconsin team.
They played their balls off in the conference tournament. I mean, I've watched every single Wisconsin game.

Speaker 1 They were playing very bad basketball in February. They fought hard.

Speaker 1 They beat the refs? They beat the refs on Saturday. They played toe-to-toe with Illinois.
Illinois is really good. They have two guys that just you can't stop.

Speaker 1 So I was like feeling excited. I was like, this is a team that I talked about it in January.
They have the makings, every piece that's needed for a run.

Speaker 1 JMU is a problem. They're really fucking good.
And they score the basketball. They score the basketball.
They shoot the three. Wisconsin doesn't defend the three.

Speaker 1 I'm just hoping that height and scoring down low can work.

Speaker 1 But it's a lose-lose for me because if Wisconsin beats JMU, they're the favorites. They're the five-seed.
And if we lose, it's like, ha ha. This one's going to probably hurt.

Speaker 1 It won't hurt as bad as 2015 because nothing will. But it will hurt very, very bad.

Speaker 9 What about like Sweet 16, 2016, or elite date, Florida?

Speaker 1 That hurt very bad. Probably won't hurt as much as that because it's the first round.
It's the first round.

Speaker 9 It's Kentucky.

Speaker 1 Won't hurt. So it would be number four.
It would be number four on Wisconsin basketball losses.

Speaker 3 But gets right.

Speaker 3 That's funny. Yeah, Wisconsin is supposed to win this game.
We're the underdogs for a reason, as we should be.

Speaker 3 But, Hank, to make my case, this will actually, I'm not sure if this is going to make the case for me or against me.

Speaker 1 I think I'm going to be there.

Speaker 3 So it's about 15 minutes away from where the wedding is going to be. It's like the universe lining up for me.
I'm going to go there straight from the wedding. It's a black tie wedding, too.

Speaker 3 It's a Haitian black tie wedding. And I'm going to go 12 minutes down the road, go to Barclays.
That might actually work against us.

Speaker 3 Because if you look at the history of Barstool and the teams that we root for, Breaking Hearts, if there's somebody there in person, that person usually loses, right?

Speaker 3 Maybe not from your perspective as a Patriots fan, but for most everybody else. It's like, this does feel like it's going to be...

Speaker 3 We are underdogs and we are playing with house money, but it does feel like it will be more heartbreaking for me if I were to be there in person to watch it lose.

Speaker 1 Okay, but counterpoint, hold on, don't fill it out yet. Counterpoint.

Speaker 1 I just can visualize I'm going to be streaming, me just at, people love to watch me die on streams, the numbers spiking as the game gets worse and worse, and then the like, you know, every 10 minutes, a clip coming out of happy PFT, not on mushrooms, but looking like he might be on mushrooms.

Speaker 3 I haven't said I'm not going to take mushrooms.

Speaker 1 Okay, so he might be on mushrooms, happy PFT while everyone just watches me die. Now, the last thing I'll say in defense of Wisconsin,

Speaker 1 this will 100% be the trendiest 12-5 upset.

Speaker 1 Everyone's going to pick JMU. I was looking at the matchup because I was like, I'm nervous.
I was looking at Ken Pom, Bart Torvik, trying to find it, texting all my friends who make power ratings.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a very difficult game for Wisconsin to win because I think James Madison is very good and they were criminally underseeded. But

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 got to be taller. Just got to be taller.
And AJ Store has just got to be awesome. James Hepburn.

Speaker 3 You mean AJ Score?

Speaker 1 AJ Score.

Speaker 1 And Max Klesmet has to get his groin replaced.

Speaker 3 It's going to come down to... This is actually the perfect litmus test for rest versus rust.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That's it. Hank, do you believe in rest or rust?

Speaker 1 We're playing good ball right now. We're playing good ball right now.

Speaker 3 Jamie's had a lot of time to recover.

Speaker 1 What did you put in there?

Speaker 1 Well, well, here's the other thing, too, is you would love for me to die against Duke.

Speaker 9 So that is correct. I'm thinking about the vibes.
I don't want to get lashed out on in person on Friday. Oh, true.
I can't look for Wisconsin with you because PFT won't be there.

Speaker 9 And then you're going to convince yourself that you're going to get revenge for 2015 and lose to Duke, which will be the best content case. So I wrote Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Okay. It's really Jamie against the world.
Again, they did this.

Speaker 1 Someone did this on purpose. Yeah.
Someone did this on purpose. I said it on Monday.

Speaker 1 I was like, I'm not trying to be a narcissist, but remember when we had standalone games, Bears versus Commanders, Bears versus Patriots?

Speaker 1 Like, someone in the universe is like, how can we squeeze it out of them and try to break them up via sport? Thank you. It's good for the show.
It's good for the show.

Speaker 3 You know what, Hank, you're one of them. You're one of the perverts out there.
You probably put a phone call in.

Speaker 1 But even if it was just 12-5, I would be like, okay, that's kind of a quid sip. The fact that Duke's there, sitting there against some sick fuck

Speaker 1 is just, oh. I know.
I wish maybe it would have been great if it was just like, and Villanova's in the tournament, Duke versus.

Speaker 3 That would have rocked. All right, so we unveiled Hank's pick for that game.
On Wednesday's show, we'll unveil Max's pick for that game. Yeah.
And then on Friday, we'll unveil Memes' pick.

Speaker 3 And then next Monday. And the much anticipated Memes pick.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Next Monday, I'll unveil my pick.
But yeah, the brackets out. I'm just so excited.
I'm so excited for college basketball. It is is my favorite.
I mean, conference.

Speaker 1 We should talk about conference tournament week because it was incredible.

Speaker 1 I reached that point where I think last night I was up again at like 12 o'clock at night watching R-U-T, Arlington boys struggle with

Speaker 1 who are they playing? Grand Canyon. But it's just these five days, I've just had nothing but basketball in my brain.
I don't even know. I just need to see a ball be bouncing at all times.

Speaker 3 Yeah, hearing the squeaks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and there was just so many crazy games. I mean, the fact that NC State, that was one of the craziest runs, five games, five days, and to beat Virginia when Virginia should have fouled

Speaker 1 on a bank-in three-pointer and then kind of low-key throttle NC. Like, they were up that entire game.
It was crazy. And then we had, like, every tournament had its own weird thing happen.

Speaker 1 Kentucky losing in the first round, Tennessee losing in the first round, Bama getting smoked.

Speaker 3 SEC was a bloodbath.

Speaker 1 Wait, I can't say that. You could say it.
Okay. SEC was blackbathed.
It was a B-bath.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Beebath.

Speaker 1 Houston getting absolutely trucked by Iowa State.

Speaker 1 Wisconsin beating Purdue was the happiest I've been in a while for any of my sports teams.

Speaker 3 That was a crazy game, too. Yeah.
And the big pain for me is I like this Badgers team. They're so fun to watch.
Especially where they're shooting the ball well.

Speaker 1 No, they have fun guys. They're not the typical, like, slow-it-down Virginia.
Let's just fucking, you know, go 30 seconds just passing the ball around and then get a, you know, a good layup.

Speaker 3 It's very hard for me to root against a guy named Chucky. I can't be like, God damn it, Chucky.
I fucking hate you. No, it's like, that's Chucky.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But so, and then Pac-12 had craziness.

Speaker 1 Like, and then, you know, every single conference, it felt like the only conference that went chalk was the Big East, and UConn just marches on, just dominating everyone.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I feel like this is a big setup for UConn to just destroy people again. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So who would you say, because I was going to say that NC State to me feels like America's team or America's sweetheart.

Speaker 3 America's sweetheart. Because DJ Burns can't root against that guy, just throwing his ass into people.
He looks like Escalade. He's the new model of an Escalade.

Speaker 3 And he's just mowing people down with his ass. And then the fact that he's such a silky, smooth passer, too, watching a big dude that can pass like that is so fun.

Speaker 3 NC State feels like the team that most of America has fallen in love with.

Speaker 3 But besides them,

Speaker 3 who would you put as like the sentimental favorites?

Speaker 1 Sentimental favorites. Good question.
But can I just say one thing about NC State and where they're seated in the bracket?

Speaker 1 I know that we're just going off vibes and everything, but I was thinking about it. You have Houston and Tennessee futures.
I do. I have Kentucky, UNC, and Yukon futures.

Speaker 1 If Kentucky wins their first game and Texas Tech wins their first game, I was just thinking about how I'm just going to watch that game and Patrick Mahomes is going to be standing behind the bench and just another future gone by Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's going to somehow come in and drop 30. Yeah.
And it's like, God damn it, this guy.

Speaker 1 All right. Team of, or America's team of America's sweetheart.
America's sweetheart. That's a great.
I mean, you usually don't find out until you get that upset, but hmm. Based off vibes.

Speaker 3 Will Wade McNeese?

Speaker 6 We also need Big Sexy Merch for sure.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah.

Speaker 3 He's got to be our guy.

Speaker 1 Does he have his best?

Speaker 3 Does he have a nickname yet?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 6 I've heard Escalade Memes just keeps calling him Big Sexy.

Speaker 3 The Cyber Truck.

Speaker 1 The Cyber Truck.

Speaker 6 We can workshop something, but I've already,

Speaker 1 we need to

Speaker 3 make a deal there. Yeah.
You're the perfect person to ask about that is coming on the show, actually. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was Indiana State who didn't get in. I feel bad for Indiana State.
It fucking sucks because they were so fun to watch this year.

Speaker 1 That definitely would have been the team that everyone was rooting for and pulling for.

Speaker 3 Oh, I've got another America sweetheart, but they're going to get bounced in the first round. Okay.
Long Beach State. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Because their coach, Dan Bunsen, he and the university mutually agreed to part ways after after this season. Essentially, he was fired.

Speaker 3 But they're like, hey, you can stick around and you can coach for the tournament. Then they just won their conference tournament.
So he's still their coach.

Speaker 1 And Dan Munson's a legend coach.

Speaker 1 If you want to actually draw the line of when did Gonzaga become Gonzaga? It's Dan Munson. Yeah.
He was the coach of Gonzaga. He was assistant coach for a really long time.

Speaker 1 Then their head coach when they made their very first deep run where everyone was like, what is this school? Where is it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, him, they fired him and he was like, yeah, I'll keep coaching him for this conference tournament.

Speaker 3 You're fired. He's like, Okay, can I still coach the team?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and they came back, they were down. I was watching that game, they were down like 10 in the second half and came back and won that game.

Speaker 3 He said afterwards that Jim Harbaugh is full of shit when he says, Who's got better than us? Nobody. He's like, Yeah, I do.
I do. My life's pretty sweet.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So, like, a guy who's fired being that happy about his life, which I guess is still to coach basketball, um, it's hard not to root for that guy.

Speaker 3 By the way, if they, if they win, if they beat Arizona in the first round, is he coaching for his job? Like, could they rehire him?

Speaker 1 They should rehire him. Another one, Keats, NC State's State's coach, all-time, all-time coaching for your job.

Speaker 1 He had a line in his contract that if he ever wins the ACC tournament in a contract year, he gets an automatic two-year extension.

Speaker 1 So he got an automatic two-year extension on Saturday night just by winning that game. That's cool.

Speaker 1 And he was on the hot seat. Like, they were able to fire him, and he just kicks in, and he just got all these bonuses.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll give you one other team that I think could be the capture America's heart. Alabama.

Speaker 1 Sanford. Sanford's playing Kansas, 13-4.

Speaker 1 Kansas has been trending downwards. They've had a lot of injuries.
They got bounced quickly in the first round against Cincy in the Big 12 tournament. Sanford plays so fast, they chuck.

Speaker 1 And that's the type of team that everyone falls in love with. Just a bunch of undersized guys who hit threes and play at a crazy pace.
So Sanford could be that team.

Speaker 1 And Kansas is like, you always got to look, what's the story?

Speaker 1 Even though Kansas is down, it's like 10 years from now, if Sanford beat Kansas, everyone will be like, wow, remember when Sanford beat Kansas? Yeah. It's Kansas.

Speaker 3 They lost to a school named Sanford.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 If you're looking at the Jake Marsh storyline Super Bowl, I see one in the second round.

Speaker 3 Tennessee, Texas.

Speaker 3 Rick Barnes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love that. I really wish the committee had done Purdue versus St.
Peter's in the first round. Yeah, me too.
That would have been great. But yeah, this bracket looks great.

Speaker 1 All right, so do you guys want to do a quick quick final four that we can then

Speaker 1 adjust at a later date? Yes. All right, do you have yours, Hank? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Okay, give it to me.

Speaker 9 Yukon, Arizona, Kentucky, Gonzaga.

Speaker 9 Yukon, Kentucky rematch

Speaker 9 for Amoza, 2014.

Speaker 9 Kentucky wins the national championship.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 3 I have

Speaker 3 Yukon, Arizona, Houston, Tennessee.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I have, this is my first glance. I haven't even done it all throughout.

Speaker 1 I think it's going to be the storyline revenge factor. It's going to be Yukon, North Carolina, Marquette, and Creighton.

Speaker 1 And everyone's going to be like, why did you leave out half, you know, the entire Big East? Three out of four of the final four teams are Big East teams.

Speaker 3 Counterpoint, do you know what network this is going to be played on? Oh, yeah, CBS. And what network is the Big East played on? Fox.

Speaker 1 Fox. Something to think about.
Shit. That's not going to happen.
It would be very

Speaker 1 San Diego State, Colorado State.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it would be great if that did happen. It would be a big fuck you seeding committee.

Speaker 1 I'm rooting for that, I think. I would love to just see the.

Speaker 1 I just like whenever the committee gets embarrassed, whether it be college football, whether it be college basketball, committees are bullshit.

Speaker 1 And I'm convinced that all of these committees can be, the job of the committees can be done better by like

Speaker 1 75% of the fans. Or AI.
Just anyone who's been paying attention.

Speaker 1 I know for a fact, I know college basketball guys who are way more informed about college basketball and who's good and who's bad than this stupid committee.

Speaker 3 Yeah, committees exist just so that one person doesn't get blamed for stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then they're like when somebody says, oh, you know, I have to take this to the board and get the board's approval on it.

Speaker 3 No, it's just having a board or having a committee is very useful so that you can be like, no, it's this nebulous entities problem that you got fucked over. There's no one person that a St.

Speaker 3 John's fan can call up on the phone and be like, fuck you.

Speaker 3 That's all we want is fans. Like, give me somebody to tell us the fuck off.
Yeah, give us a hotline. Yeah, establish an open hotline.

Speaker 3 We should do that for voicemails.

Speaker 3 Maybe for Wednesday's show.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 What was that segment we used to do? We should bring that back for March Madness.

Speaker 1 Was it like when your

Speaker 1 dad texts you?

Speaker 3 Parental advisory.

Speaker 1 Parental advisory.

Speaker 3 Yeah, pissed off parents.

Speaker 1 and then we had another one where we used a hashtag that was good.

Speaker 1 That people would tweet us, higher education, no, no, no, people tweet us that they were mad, and we would read them off and they were great.

Speaker 3 It might just be like mad online, yeah.

Speaker 1 We got to bring that back because that was great to hear from the fans when they have like they feel like they're hurt, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 So, if you are, if you are an aggrieved party, if you feel like you've been wronged by the committee, just tweet at us hashtag mad online.

Speaker 3 Yeah, let us know why, let us know what school they fucked over, and we will read the best ones. Yeah, um,

Speaker 1 they, the end of the CBS show, they thank the committee.

Speaker 1 Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 It's a bunch of dudes sitting in women, probably sitting in like business casual attire in a Sheridan conference room eating like lukewarm spinach artichoke dip and just sitting there being like, oh, this team looks pretty good.

Speaker 3 Thank you for your service. You spent six hours today, and it's probably, I don't know if it's spent art dip or if it's like just cold cut sandwiches.

Speaker 1 It's just gross food.

Speaker 3 You had to eat dry sandwiches for a day. You had to eat a turkey club that didn't have almost any mayonnaise on it at all.
Like a very dry sandwich. Thank you for your service.

Speaker 3 You basically served overseas in Iraq.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you just, you keep standing up and looking at the cookies again, being like, oh, is this oatmeal raisin? Then sitting back, I'll have half.

Speaker 1 And then you have another half, then you have another half. You've had seven cookies, dude.
They probably... Who put duquesne at number 11?

Speaker 3 They brought in the pitcher filled with water in like the metal vase, and it was probably filled to the top too far.

Speaker 3 When you poured it into your little stimmed glass, it probably spilled a little bit on the white tablecloth that was housing all the craft services. So it was a tough day for everybody.

Speaker 1 That fucking one idiot who's been accidentally drinking decaf for the whole day, and he's like halfway through. He's like, fuck, this is decaf?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it probably took him like 10 minutes to get the PowerPoint set up. He didn't have the right connection cable.

Speaker 1 They're morons. So no thank you to the committee.
You guys did some bad jobs. Bad jobs.
I actually am more, like I said, the bubble got burst by everyone.

Speaker 1 Like, this was the craziest conference conference tournament week. I'm more mad about the seeding.
I think they did some really bad shit with the seeding and fucked over some teams.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's literally what it comes up. In terms of the teams that got left out, I think you just

Speaker 3 have to look at the ACC and then you look at the Big East teams that got left out and be like, which team, like Clemson was, what, a sixth seed?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they stink.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, Clemson's a sixth seed.
Joe Girard's going to get absolutely eaten alive by New Mexico. They play fast.
Yeah, also. Fastball.

Speaker 3 This is also a very funny time of year because I'm very bad at gambling. I'm on a historically bad run right now.

Speaker 3 But I also think that I'm smart enough to pick Colorado to win a play-in game and then pick Colorado to win their second-round game over Marquette.

Speaker 1 I already bet Colorado. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I feel

Speaker 3 we're smart. We're sharp.
Yeah, no, it's fine.

Speaker 1 You got to get into it. So

Speaker 1 what else we got for the bracket? Anything else, Hank?

Speaker 1 Duke, are you going to be a Duke fan?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I like how you just decided that right now. Sure.

Speaker 9 I mean, I don't have a college basketball team, so they're the closest thing I got.

Speaker 1 Duke went out sad. Yeah.

Speaker 9 I mean, this team is not good.

Speaker 1 Sad. Who do they lose to again?

Speaker 1 NC State. Oh, yeah, NC State.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 My brain is just melted with basketball. You

Speaker 1 asked me what happened, and I'm just like,

Speaker 1 I think, I don't know. Well, Max, you have any other thoughts? Villanova.

Speaker 9 Oh, how mad would you have been if Wisconsin had lost at the refs?

Speaker 1 Oh, it was Zach Eady? Yeah. Very mad.
I mean, anyone who watch

Speaker 1 everyone who roots for a Big Ten team should be thankful that that was the last time we have to watch a Big Ten ref crew ref Zach Eady. I still think Purdue is a very good team.

Speaker 1 They're better than they were last year.

Speaker 1 But it's just maddening watching a seven-foot guy get treated like he's a five-foot guy and with kid gloves. And every single time he gets touched, there's a whistle.
He's barreling over people.

Speaker 1 It's nuts. So I was, that was, that felt really good.
That was a very fun wind app.

Speaker 3 It is fun because the refs feel bad for Zach Edie. Right.
Which is really strange for a guy that he's that physically imposing. And you're like, oh, poor Zach Eady.

Speaker 3 He doesn't look like he's having any fun out there.

Speaker 1 They did it to Michigan State the night before, too. It was just egregious call after egregious call.
I had one last thing. Max,

Speaker 1 you were never even close to the bubble.

Speaker 6 You keep saying that. That's not true.

Speaker 3 No, you kind of wasted her time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like you wasted all that anger, and you weren't even close to

Speaker 6 the bucket. If Villanova beats Marquette, then beats Providence and is in the Big East final and loses to UConn, they are 1,000% in.
That would be six quad one wins.

Speaker 1 I don't think so.

Speaker 3 A thousand percent. We know how the committee feels about Italians, Max.
And what network is the Big East on?

Speaker 1 It's true.

Speaker 6 And the whole quad one thing is bullshit. Like

Speaker 6 Michigan State got that seating because of their quad one wins.

Speaker 1 They have three of them.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Seton Hall has more. St.
John's has more.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I thought Michigan State should be in.

Speaker 1 Seton Hall had five quad one wins. I know, and they beat UConn.
Yeah. It's crazy.
And Max, you were never close to close. Providence wasn't close.

Speaker 1 Was Providence even the last four out? Were they last four out? No, they were not last four out. They weren't last four out.
And they went away

Speaker 1 further than you in the Big East tournament.

Speaker 6 But we were ahead of, we already beat them twice. We were ahead of them going into the Big East tournament.

Speaker 1 So last four out was Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Indiana State, and Pitt. You were not even, you wasted our time.

Speaker 6 But if they beat Marquette and then beat Providence to get to the Big East final, they're 1,000% in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 6 I don't think so. I don't know why you say that.

Speaker 1 I don't think so because you weren't even close.

Speaker 3 Did you call him Frank?

Speaker 1 You weren't even close.

Speaker 6 But yes, you're saying that because they lost.

Speaker 6 That would have got them to 20 wins with six quad one games.

Speaker 1 Mm-mm.

Speaker 6 Actually, I don't know if Providence would have been quad one.

Speaker 9 Justice for Pug.

Speaker 1 Justice for Pug. Justice for Pug.
Oh, yeah. So we should say that it's another Fleming curse,

Speaker 1 a crazy stat. John Fanta put this out there.

Speaker 1 For the first time in 45-year history, the Big East Conference, a team went over five games, over 500 in conference play and did not make the NCAA tournament. That team is Seton Hall.

Speaker 1 Damn, that's tough. That is tough.
That is very tough. It's just the bubble.
The bubble went crazy. It was all those teams just stealing bids.
I mean, the A-10 had every single team being upset.

Speaker 1 But yeah, we have a bracket, and I'm very excited about the bracket.

Speaker 3 I love my bracket. My bracket's perfect, and it's 100% correct, and nothing ever bad is going to happen to it.

Speaker 1 Who do you think Purdue's going to lose to?

Speaker 3 I think they lose to TCU.

Speaker 1 Sanford.

Speaker 1 Sanford's in the Elite Eight.

Speaker 1 I think.

Speaker 3 I just, I picked some of these teams because I want to see these storylines develop. Like, I want to see Will Wade win two games.
Yeah. I want to see McNeese beat Kansas.

Speaker 1 Samford, also, everyone needs to know that you have to fill out your bracket. You have to have a really strong conviction about one crazy upset and then have that team lose by 30.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then your entire bracket's going to... You guys are highlighter guys, right?

Speaker 3 I go back and forth,

Speaker 3 depending on the year. Highlighter.

Speaker 3 I don't have a device that I need to use every single year.

Speaker 1 I go with a flow. Oh, highlighter for sure, right, Hank? Yeah.
Oh, always highlighter. Right, Max?

Speaker 1 Circle.

Speaker 7 You circle?

Speaker 1 Circle and then you fucking weirdo.

Speaker 6 And then put a line through it.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You got to be able to do both.
Yeah. If I have a highlighter for me, I'm a highlighter guy.
If I got a pen, guess what? It's big time.

Speaker 6 I want it to be as quick as possible, and I don't always have a highlighter close by.

Speaker 1 I will always have a pen. Yep, yeah.
All right.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll get more into the bracket with John Rossin, and we also are going to have Titus on on Wednesday where we dive really deep in, have more crystallized thoughts.

Speaker 1 Let's do who's back of the week.

Speaker 1 By the way, I mentioned at the top, we're going to talk Justin Fields after John Rossine. Got a lot of thoughts on that.
He was traded, so we're not ignoring it.

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Speaker 1 Okay, Hank.

Speaker 1 My who's back of the week? My who's back of the week is Black Dick.

Speaker 1 Okay, good, good.

Speaker 9 Grady Dick and Anthony Black did a jersey swap at the end of their game on Sunday.

Speaker 3 That's pretty cool.

Speaker 9 It's like when Chris

Speaker 3 used to always stand next to Fletcher Cox, so it would say Long Cox. And then one time Jalen Hurts got there, it said Long Cox Hurts.
That was awesome. Yeah.
Just guy stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 9 Always makes me laugh. Nothing like a good jersey swap.
My loose back to the beginning, Scotty Scheffler.

Speaker 1 This guy is good. He's a problem.

Speaker 1 He is a big problem.

Speaker 9 Another comeback victory at the Players. Repeat champion at the Players.

Speaker 3 Fifth major.

Speaker 9 Fifth major. Wyndham Clark

Speaker 9 had a putt to tie, force a playoff, went inside the cup, rolled around, popped back out.

Speaker 3 Did a 180-degree loop, came out. I may have bet on Wyndham Clark to win.
That was a tough loss.

Speaker 1 That was crazy.

Speaker 3 It was wild. Yeah, it was really close going down the stretch there.
It was like Brian Harmon, Shoffley. Is Shauffley ever going to win anything? He just doesn't like to win.

Speaker 1 Zonder.

Speaker 3 The only thing Xander does, his name is always at the top of the leaderboard on Saturday. It's always right next to Patrick Cantley.
It's always like Cantley Shoffley.

Speaker 9 I think he's like 0 for 9, and he's been in the final group nine times. Oof.

Speaker 9 Maybe it's 0 for his last nine because he's he's won a couple times, but. Can't break through.
Can't break through. Tough.

Speaker 3 What about a Xander is it where you're a kid and your name is Alexander and you decide to go by Xander instead of Alex?

Speaker 9 I think some kids are named Xander. Yeah, Zonder.

Speaker 1 Zonder is Jimmy Tatro in his show.

Speaker 3 I don't think his name is Alexander. That would be wild.
You think his name is just Xander?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think it might be Xander.
I think people do Xander now. I mean, people do all kinds of things.

Speaker 3 No, his name's Alexander. Of course it's Alexander.
Oh. That's what Xander is short for.

Speaker 1 I didn't know Alexander. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 You thought just Xander was a name?

Speaker 1 I think people do do name Xander. Yeah, why don't you just go Alex? Yeah, Alex.

Speaker 3 That's what I'm saying. If your name is Alexander and you choose to go by Xander, that tells me all you need to know.

Speaker 1 He should go by Alex until he wins a tournament. Yeah.
Well, he's won tournaments.

Speaker 1 No, but he wins one since he's been choking. Does he choke?

Speaker 9 You could call today a choke.

Speaker 1 Also, Max Homa did not hit a person. He hit a tree.
Yeah. He was very clear about that.
Is that on the record?

Speaker 3 Although I wish he had hit the person. Yeah.
I wish, because the person was standing right in front of him when he was trying to hit a shot.

Speaker 3 That's Darwinism.

Speaker 1 He said afterwards, he's like, yeah, I asked them to move. And then they just kept on inching closer.

Speaker 3 The post-match press conference with Max was so funny because they asked him about that situation. And he had this smile on his face.
And he kept holding himself back.

Speaker 3 And if I'm running it through the Max Homa Truth Translator, he wanted to say so badly, like, I wish that it hit the guy. Like, it's his fault for being there.
Yes. He should not have been there.

Speaker 3 That's his problem, not my problem. You should ask him about that.
Yeah. But the video made it look like it just whopped him in the head.

Speaker 3 And I was hoping that he got hit in the head, but not bad enough to cause a serious injury, just enough to teach him a lesson.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 So Maxie and I hit a person. I thought he killed the guy.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, there's no way that hits him in the head. It doesn't seriously injure him.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's a person, like it hits the thing, and then you hear somebody scream like half a second later.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That would have been.

Speaker 3 I kind of wish that it happened. Yeah.
For me.

Speaker 1 Okay, PFT, your who's back.

Speaker 3 My who's back of the week

Speaker 3 is the Titanic.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 I think we pitched this on the show to

Speaker 3 Damon John from Shark Tank like five years ago. But it's been my dream to one day recreate the Titanic.

Speaker 3 And by that, I mean build the exact same ship again, have it leave from the same port on the same day of the year, have it sail the exact same route as the original Titanic. I like it.

Speaker 3 And have the exact same number of lifeboats on it. Have tickets cost the same that they did back in the day.

Speaker 9 The three richest guys in the world on there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, adjusted for inflation. And then just see if you can make it.
I guarantee you that would sell out. People like thrill seekers out there.
There's a bunch of Titanic freaks out there.

Speaker 3 We saw it with the sub that imploded. Yep.
Like people get legit obsessed with the Titanic. I would love to have it be like stowage class where it costs like $5 for a ticket.
You sell $1,000 of those.

Speaker 3 And then you have other suites up top that cost $250,000 where rich people get to go. Just recreate it 100%.
But

Speaker 3 there's an Australian billionaire named Clive Palmer. And he is planning on building the exact replica of the Titanic, and he wants to set sail in 2027.

Speaker 3 I hope he does it at the same time of year. Do it.
Just run the whole thing back. See what can happen.
Well, there's no ice caps anymore, right? Maybe, maybe by then.

Speaker 1 We fucked up that iceberg.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we did. That iceberg is non-existent.

Speaker 1 Global warming.

Speaker 1 Titanic,

Speaker 1 kind of a little bit of a bitch-made boat when you think about it. Obviously, because it got destroyed, but have you ever seen the pictures of the Titanic versus like a modern-day cruise?

Speaker 3 It's not as big as that.

Speaker 1 That shit is a fucking joke.

Speaker 9 And Bezos probably has a boat picture.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Titanic was mid at best. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So they should make this a bigger boat.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's what I'm saying.
Like, if you remake the Titanic, everyone's going to look at it and be like, that's it?

Speaker 1 Because in our heads, they're like, biggest boat ever.

Speaker 3 For that one day, like on the same day of the journey that the Titanic hit the iceberg, they should just have the captain blindfolded. Yeah.
It's like we're going straight ahead. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Can you imagine what a thrill that would be to be on that boat?

Speaker 1 I want this thing to sink so bad. It would rock.
Especially a billionaire named Clive.

Speaker 3 It would rock so hard

Speaker 3 if it sank. I'm rooting for it to sink.

Speaker 1 He might be building this just to blow it up and be like, it sunk. Yeah.

Speaker 3 This might be a Michael Bay movie. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, my Who's Back Week. I have two.
One is,

Speaker 1 I should have said this during the brackets, but this is the funniest time of the year in terms of non-sports fans versus sports fans because I think in NFL season, if you aren't a football fan, I think most non-football fans at least respect it.

Speaker 1 Like, we know that's big. Like, we know the NFL is big.

Speaker 3 The NFL is king.

Speaker 1 There are people who just like will never watch a college basketball game just out of principle.

Speaker 1 And I saw this one guy tweet, you're a sick individual if you've been watching college basketball all week. It's like, no, this is the best.

Speaker 1 But it's always a funny divide because you have people who, like, obviously not listeners to this show, but you have people who are just like, this is just another week for them while we are just going to go to war.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I love it. Yeah, it is.
It's really strange.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I get it. I get into whatever big sport is happening at that time.
That's how my calendar is sinking. Right.
Of course.

Speaker 1 But you know what I mean? Like, when you meet someone who doesn't watch the NFL, they're like, oh, yeah, well, I watch Super Bowl. Yeah.
And Rothstein.

Speaker 1 But when you meet people who don't watch college basketball, they're like, what is going on?

Speaker 3 But I feel like during bracket week, that kind of transcends office.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 you get the office office going on.

Speaker 3 But conference championship week, you're right. There's a lot of people out there that like March, like college basketball does not start until the bracket.
Right.

Speaker 1 It's more about conference championship week. They don't understand, like, wait, you've been watching basketball every day for the last five days?

Speaker 3 It's the exact opposite of Joe Lennardy's schedule.

Speaker 1 All right, so that was my segue because my brother who's back is Joe Lennarty, who's now no longer back because it's golf season. Joe Lennardy,

Speaker 1 I thought I liked this guy. Have we had him on?

Speaker 3 I don't think so. I think, you know what? He reached out to us maybe, maybe year two of part of my take.

Speaker 3 And I think we were going to put him on the show, but he was like, the thing is, I'm actually like swamped until the third week of March so I can come on the third week of March.

Speaker 3 And then we were like, wait a second, what the fuck are we going to talk to Joe Lennarty about during the NCAA tournament? Right. Like, his job is done by then.

Speaker 1 He doesn't even, he doesn't even, I don't think he watches the NCAA tournament. He was also getting community noted because he was putting in like wins.

Speaker 1 He had Virginia winning against NC State, they didn't. Yeah.
He had Illinois losing to Nebraska. They didn't.

Speaker 1 But Joe Lennarty on Friday night, after making Virginia the winner, tweeted danger time for UVA and Good Night for Me. Joe Lennardy has to work three weeks a year.

Speaker 1 And he said good night at 10.57 during conference championship week on Friday night when there was like six games left.

Speaker 1 What is up with this guy?

Speaker 3 I think he hates brackets.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because he also said.

Speaker 3 I think Joe Lennardy is trapped in his own personal hell. Like the one thing that he has to do all day, every day, he hates doing, which is watching college basketball.

Speaker 1 Right. And he was the first to do it.
And everyone respects him. And ESPN employs him.
But like a million people do brackets now.

Speaker 1 Shout out bracket matrix that compiles it all he had you know a couple hours before uh the brackets came out he said two hours actually two days until golf season he's just so excited to be done with this stuff and then he also said uh this is grumpy time for him right now it was like right before the brackets come out he's as grumpy as it gets what is up with this guy does he not bro you gotta love what you do yeah it's like if if hank's job was to read all the time that's what he's treating this like i was shocked.

Speaker 3 And he might not even watch the games this week. I don't know.
His job is done. Like,

Speaker 3 Joe Lenardi's usefulness runs out at exactly this time every single week.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's over. Yeah.
And Max was here on Friday night. We were just, we're like, what do you mean good night? I was furious.
What do you mean, good night?

Speaker 1 Your job is to watch the games and decide the bracket for us. You are going to sleep.
We had...

Speaker 1 Max, when he tweeted that, I think you and I both stayed up for another five hours. Yeah, I mean, the Arlington game was unbelievable.
It went forever and it was incredible.

Speaker 6 Yeah, New Mexico and Colorado hadn't even tipped off yet, and they were both bubble teams. Good night?

Speaker 6 How are you supposed to make a judgment on who should be in and who should be out if you won't even watch the games on championship weekend? Careful, Max.

Speaker 3 Careful, Max. He's an Italian.

Speaker 1 We were literally

Speaker 1 on CBS. We were just screaming.
What do you mean, good night? You can't go to sleep.

Speaker 7 This is your job.

Speaker 1 It's five days a year that he has to stay up that late.

Speaker 3 Yeah, what he needs to realize is that with one snap of the fingers, that freak Steve Cornacki could step into his job and do it better.

Speaker 1 I've always been a Jerry Palm guy myself. That fucking piece he has on his head just rocks.

Speaker 1 He just goes out there with authority. You're like, dude, what are you wearing?

Speaker 3 I like Charlie Cream. I'm on the Cream team.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So let's normalize other guys.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think, so I was thinking about the upcoming college football season. I think Blake, his line is going to be he's going to be a bracketologist for football because nobody's doing that yet.

Speaker 3 He's going to be the first. Yeah.

Speaker 1 As long as Lenardi's not doing it.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 He hates his job.

Speaker 1 Good night.

Speaker 1 You don't fucking say good night to us at 10.57 on Friday night of Conference Championship Week? What do you mean good night?

Speaker 3 Yeah, well,

Speaker 3 it was midnight on the East Coast.

Speaker 1 This was after he had put Virginia as a win.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's tough. Tough night for him.
Real tough.

Speaker 1 Okay, Jake is still

Speaker 1 taping with Titus. We can ask him his who's back when he gets back here.
Let's get to John Rostein, talk a little more college basketball.

Speaker 1 Also, got to talk some tweets with John Rosteen because he's had a bunch recently that have had us say, huh?

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Speaker 1 Okay, here he is, John Rostein.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest, recurring guest. It is John Rosstein.
You can find him on CBS Sports. You can hear his podcast, College Hoops Today.

Speaker 1 It is a tradition, unlike any other. We have John Rostein to break down his regions, talk brackets.

Speaker 1 But before we do that, John, how are you feeling after Shaka Smart just outed you for being a serial texter to him on national television for people who missed?

Speaker 1 John asked him about Tyler Kolick and whether he'd be playing. And Shaka said, should I answer this now or should I wait till you text me every single morning?

Speaker 1 How are you feeling?

Speaker 11 You know, hey, look, I hope that, Kat, everybody who meets me, and I think probably most people feel this. I feel I'm one of the most relentless people that they've met in the history of their life.

Speaker 11 Look, nothing was given to me. Nothing obviously was put in front of me and said, okay, take this.
This is yours.

Speaker 11 So the only way I know how to live life is to go through every life each and every day like I've accomplished nothing.

Speaker 11 And the way in life to accomplish everything is to wake up each and every day believing that you accomplish nothing. Oh.

Speaker 1 Every day is a gift.

Speaker 1 Every person told me that.

Speaker 1 Wait, so every day you wake up and you're like, I have not texted Shaka Smart ever in my life. Essentially.

Speaker 11 No, I was following up with him this past week, obviously, about Kolek's injury news. And we spoke before the Big East tournament.
He said, there's no news right now.

Speaker 11 I'll let you know if that changes and so on and so forth. But I can never

Speaker 11 go through

Speaker 11 life feeling like I could have done more in my vocation and in my effort. So what I mean by that is, you know,

Speaker 11 I believe it was it, Salvador Dali, who said, have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it.
We're getting deep and philosophical here on the first question, but why not? We're close.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I I like that.

Speaker 11 I think the way you have to look at it is I could never live with myself. I've had like, well, I could have done X, Y, or Z to be better, and I didn't do that.

Speaker 11 So now I look at things and I say, you know what? I have to always make sure that I'm stretching things out as much as I can, giving my best effort.

Speaker 11 And if the chips don't fall in your favor, the chips don't fall in your favor. You're never going to be able to be on top of everything, but you can never not give your best effort in life.

Speaker 11 As you know, from one of our favorite movies that we share together, one of most Sylvester Stallone's most underrated movies, Over the Top, The World Meets Nobody Halfway.

Speaker 3 Yes, and you do not, you live that. You live that mantra.
And sometimes to your personal life's detriment, because I was made aware of this tweet of yours a couple hours ago.

Speaker 3 I wanted to follow up, make sure that you're doing okay personally. Because I believe this was Friday, you tweeted, problems at home.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Been so dialed in that my wife took our six-month-old girl with her to a work trip on the west coast. I hope they come back, but if they don't, dying on your sword is worth it when UConn St.

Speaker 3 John's John's is 24 hours away at MSG. Remember, life is about choices.
So are you single?

Speaker 3 Is this the like, look out, ladies, John Rossstein, ready to get back at it?

Speaker 11 No, but the truth of the matter is this. My wife, you know, I've got a really busy stretch, as you guys know.
I was doing TV tonight. I had to do my own podcast.
I'm on with you guys.

Speaker 11 I have more TV in the morning. Then I'm flying out to Dayton.
for the first four, and then I'm going to another site from there. But she was like, all right, I get it that this is March.

Speaker 11 Every month is March for me because I have a job too and I have my own career. And she's like, you know what?

Speaker 11 I'm putting the baby to sleep and I'm sleeping in a different room tonight because I don't want to hear about these brackets. I'll watch the game socially, but that's it.
And I go, that's fine.

Speaker 11 So March season drives a rift, I think, you know, in the house a little bit.

Speaker 11 Like people don't understand that like it's a really big deal that Duquesne hasn't been to the tournament since 77, which is the same year that Star Wars first did theaters. But I have learned this.

Speaker 11 And you guys tell me if I'm wrong. Nobody is perfect, not even my wife, who I love to pieces.
But at the end of the day, you are who you are in life. And at this point, you guys know me well enough.

Speaker 11 I'm not changing. So if I, for years, have felt that the most underrated rivalry was St.
John's UConn, and it was untapped because St.

Speaker 11 John's, who didn't make the NCAA tournament, hasn't won an NCAA tournament game since 2000 when Mike Jarvis

Speaker 11 led St. John's over Northern Arizona and Tucson when Northern Arizona had a very dangerous center named Dan McClintock.

Speaker 11 I am not going to back down on the fact that I was still waiting to see if St.

Speaker 11 John's could get to Friday night at the Biggies tournament to play UConn, who, again, has become a team that is operating on a Calhoun level under Dan Hurley.

Speaker 1 Yes. No, hey, listen, we have busy seasons, football season.
We have a lot of stuff that pulls us in different directions. So we understand.
I wanted to follow up on one other.

Speaker 1 We had your back on the other tweet where you said you lost a friend because you didn't go to their engagement party.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you heard what we said on our show, but we said engagement parties are bullshit. A guy should never be like, I can't believe you didn't come to my engagement party.

Speaker 1 That's point John Rostein. You made the right choice.

Speaker 11 But also, and you guys know this, when you do what we do, you don't say no to work.

Speaker 11 You don't say no that, you know, when you have opportunities, because especially, and you guys know this, when you're starting out, if you say no, you may never get another opportunity.

Speaker 11 So this guy, who, again, was a pseudo-friend, I would say, when I went to college, he was like, you know, friendly, like, you know, hey, do you want to go to a nick game or whatever?

Speaker 11 You know, kind of like friendly. But then, like, when I started, you know, having more opportunities in my career, he's like, hey, my brother really wants to get in a talk radio.

Speaker 11 Can we come by and see the station? And it's like a friend of convenience. And you get invited to the wedding and you're happy that, you know, your pseudo friend is having success.

Speaker 11 But when you're not going to say, no, I'm coming.

Speaker 11 I'm not, I'm going to come to your engagement party instead of going to a Final Four when Butler was playing VCU and UConn was playing Kentucky and Shabazz Napier and Jeremy Lamb were freshmen at UConn.

Speaker 3 Right. And that friend's name, Jonathan Bosco.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Look where it ended up.

Speaker 11 Who's Jonathan Bosco?

Speaker 3 Oh, you can put it together with a last name.

Speaker 1 Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 11 That's all you, BFP. I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, we had your back. All right, so let's get into it.
Let's dive into it. I know you always like to put names on the

Speaker 1 bracket on the regions. So we're just going to hand it to you.

Speaker 1 You drive. We'll insert ourselves here and there with questions, but let's rip it off.

Speaker 11 All right, well, let's start now in the top left right now, which is the East Region. Yukon is the one seed, And I look at the makeup of the coaches in this region as having such fiery personalities.

Speaker 11 Dan Hurley is your one seed. TJ Otzelberger is the two.
He looks like he could step in an octagon and fight Ken Shamrock right now.

Speaker 11 Brad Underwood at three is a coach who keeps a treadmill in the gym at practice. And if a player isn't playing well, he makes sure they gets on and obviously hits the treadmill.

Speaker 11 Duquesne is Pittsburgh tough at 11. Auburn, one of the toughest teams in the country, one of the hardest playing players in the country in KD Johnson.

Speaker 11 San Diego State is also a very hard-playing time, far hard-playing team at the five-seed.

Speaker 11 I see ruthless, hard-nosed, competitive teams in this region, and I see the region of gladiators led by the coach of the one-seed, in my opinion, the favorite in the NCAA tournament, Dan Hurley.

Speaker 11 And Dan Hurley probably, in his own mind, feels like he's a little bit like Russell Crowe and Gladiator in this NCAA tournament, brother to a famous point guard, son of a famous father.

Speaker 11 And even though he won a national championship last year, he will have his vengeance in this tournament or the next.

Speaker 1 Okay, I like that. I like that.
The gladiator region. So

Speaker 1 can you tell us what just missed for this region? Because, or how quickly do you come up with the names? And was there anything you were workshopping? Because I'd love to see the drafts.

Speaker 1 I'd love to see what was like, ah, this was so close. But, you know, Iowa State doesn't really fit this or BYU doesn't really make sense here.

Speaker 1 So was there a name that you were toying with before you came up with Gladiator?

Speaker 11 Well, I was looking up and down, obviously,

Speaker 11 this region, and I was just saying, oh my God, like, you know, Iowa State is so tough, and Dan Hurley's such a personality. And, you know, we have Bruce Perlu, such a personality, and so fiery.

Speaker 11 And then you have, obviously, you know, the Brad Underwood stuff. He's such a personality.
And Duquesne and Pittsburgh is such a story.

Speaker 11 For them to get there for the first time since 77, I almost went with the region of Hutzpa.

Speaker 1 Ooh. Okay, I like this.

Speaker 1 I need whatever

Speaker 1 is on the drawing or in the drafts for each one of these regions. I like that.

Speaker 11 So it was almost the Region of Chutzpah, but I went with the Region of Gladiators because I think you have the Dan Hurley element of, again, even though he won a national title.

Speaker 11 brother to a famous point guard, son of a famous coach, and even though he won a national title, he will seek his vengeance in this tournament or the next.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I also think in your flowchart, it really helps if it can line up with a movie that would fit right in at like 2 p.m. on a a Saturday afternoon.
It hasn't been airing on TNT.

Speaker 1 It came out at least 20 years or more. Yes.

Speaker 11 Gladiator came out in 2000.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's 20 years or more.

Speaker 11 That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Who do you have coming out of this region?

Speaker 11 I've got UConn, guys. I mean, UConn is going to be playing, and I've been talking about this for weeks, in situations where UConn is not going to have to get on a plane to go to a Final Four.

Speaker 11 Stores to Brooklyn, win two games there, back to stores, win two games in Boston. But I will say this: if Auburn

Speaker 11 can find its way to Boston there in the Sweet 16, I think UConn against Auburn in that Sweet 16 in Boston has a chance to be one of the best games of the entire tournament.

Speaker 11 I don't know if you remember this Cat or PFT. They played a couple of years ago in the first round of the Battle for Atlantis, and it was one of the best games that we had that season.

Speaker 11 That's that Cat. I think it was Thanksgiving Eve.

Speaker 1 It was, I was at the park in Brooklyn with my kid.

Speaker 1 I think I had two kids.

Speaker 1 I was with my son, and it was like, what, two overtimes? And I had a lot of money on that game. Was it two overtimes?

Speaker 11 That was, I think, two overtimes.

Speaker 1 Yes, it was two overtime. I remember it well.
I remember it well. That was a great game.

Speaker 3 So there's a lot of conference champions in this bracket.

Speaker 3 Do you put any stock into them fading out of the tournament?

Speaker 11 There's two sides to that. You know, I mean, we look at what happened, obviously, with Purdue in the past.
We've seen it work both ways. It's obviously great momentum for some teams.

Speaker 11 UConn in 2011 won five in five days with Kemble Walker and then won six games in the NCAA tournament. I think there's some of that.

Speaker 11 I also think that, you know, you look at the bottom of this region, you've got, I think, you know, the 2-3 seed is massive. I mean, Iowa State on Sunday, I had forecasted as my fourth number one seed.

Speaker 11 And Illinois is a team that I felt for about a month could be a dark horse Final Four team. So I'm looking at the scenario at the bottom of that region as being a dynamite, dynamite region here.

Speaker 3 So who did you have dropping out if you had Iowa State as number one seed?

Speaker 11 I had North Carolina dropping out.

Speaker 1 Huh. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 1 North Carolina dropping out.

Speaker 3 I saw a lot of people online said that. I'm not saying this, but I saw a lot of people online saying that you were a moron for that.
Would you like to defend yourself against those people?

Speaker 11 I don't look at my mentions. I haven't looked at my mentions since 2017.
That's smart.

Speaker 1 That's smart. That's smart.
What about the people that say Duquesne was lazily seeded because it seems like the committee basically said whoever wins VCU, Duquesne. Right.
Who the 11th seed?

Speaker 1 VCU would make more sense as 11th seed. Oh, shit.
We already filled out our whole bracket. We'll just put in Duquesne when they clearly are the weakest of the 11 seeds resume-wise.

Speaker 1 And actually, a lot of 12 seeds have better resumes.

Speaker 11 Well, look at this right now for a sec, guys. The 11 seeds.
Duquesne, bid stealer out of the A10. New Mexico, we learned later, was a bid stealer out of the Mountain West.

Speaker 11 I thought New Mexico should have been in regardless. NC State, bid stealer out of the ACC.
And Oregon, the 11th seed in the Midwest, bottom right, was a bid stealer.

Speaker 11 So it almost feels like the 11th seat slots all just went to the bid stealers. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Interesting.
That might be what happened.

Speaker 1 Okay, so,

Speaker 1 well,

Speaker 3 if you haven't read your notifications or your mentions in 2017, did you ever think that maybe there's like a young John Rothstein out there that wakes up every day and tweets at you and is trying to interact with you in the same way you're dealing with coaches?

Speaker 3 And they're just pounding their head against the wall. They're just trying to make a name for themselves, John.

Speaker 11 I have an email. He can reach out to you guys or Hank or Jake, and I'll get in touch with him.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 11 Anything to help to help younger people achieve their passion like we've been fortunate enough to do.

Speaker 3 Okay. So any upsets coming out of this in the first two rounds?

Speaker 11 I've got Duquesne beating BYU. So that's a little bit of an upset.

Speaker 11 And it's not an upset I'm going to take here, but I mean, in terms of the seed, but I think considering how poorly Florida Atlantic played losing the Temple, I think a lot of people are going to fade Florida Atlantic.

Speaker 11 I think Northwestern, you guys know this being in Chicago, is severely, severely limited after losing Ty Berry to a season-ending injury.

Speaker 11 And Northwestern has also been without Matthew Nicholson, who has been a stalwart inside for them during this two-year run. He has been out for

Speaker 11 a number of games. I'm going to take Florida Atlantic to beat Northwestern.

Speaker 11 I've talked, obviously, for a long time about Auburn because I love Auburn, and I don't really love the matchup for Yale, but James Jones has a good ball club at Yale.

Speaker 11 I think Auburn is too deep for that. But my upset in this region is Duquesne beating BYU in an 11-6.
I think we have to remember this, and you guys get this.

Speaker 11 BYU, for the most part, was a team that it was recruited to play in the West Coast Conference. And now you have a team in Duquesne who just won the Atlantic 10.

Speaker 11 There is not the conference gap that there probably would be in your normal 6-11 when you have a bid stealer.

Speaker 11 So I'm taking Duquesne right there, but I've got UConn, Auburn, Illinois, Iowa State in my Sweet 16, the region of Gladiators, and I've got UConn over Illinois in the Elite Eight. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
Next region.

Speaker 1 Wherever you want to go.

Speaker 11 Bottom left, we'll stay on the left side of the bracket.

Speaker 11 The West region, which is played in Los Angeles, and because it's played in Los Angeles, it should fittingly be called the region of drama.

Speaker 11 now why is it the region of drama well let's look right now who the one seed is north carolina obviously two years ago played for a national championship lost to kansas had the dramatic

Speaker 11 season last year where it missed the ncaa tournament now it has done a complete 180.

Speaker 11 but who is the two seed arizona and that means if the seeds hold in Southern California and it's a 1-2, we would have Caleb Love going up against his former team for the right to go to the Final Four.

Speaker 11 That is the region of drama. Now, you look at the other characteristics of this region.

Speaker 11 You've got drama with New Mexico, a team that had to play well at the Mountain West tournament after losing the Air Force in obviously a very, very brutal loss a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 11 You also have drama with St. Mary's.
Randy Bennett's club starts eight and six. Then it goes.
He rips the WCC like a chainsaw through butter. It gets a five seed.

Speaker 11 It wins the WCC regular season and also tournament titles. St.

Speaker 11 Mary's has not been to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament since 2010 with Omar Samhan, Mickey McConnell, Matthew Delavadova when they beat Richmond and Villanova back to back in Providence.

Speaker 11 And then you got Tom Izzo in this region as well, who, again, is always, you know, a great quote, always opinionated. He's a very dramatic guy.

Speaker 11 But the big headline for the region of drama is the potential North Carolina, Arizona Caleb Love against the Tarios matchup in the Elite Eight in the West region, therefore the region of drama.

Speaker 3 Okay. How much longer do you think Izzo is going to stick around?

Speaker 11 Oh, I don't see him not coaching. I don't think Tom Izzo could not coach.

Speaker 11 He almost, I think Izzo in some ways enjoys the adversity more than the actual success because the adversity then forces you to have the truly brutal practice the next day and getting back to respectability.

Speaker 1 So what missed the cut in this region? What were we thinking about when we saw this?

Speaker 11 This region, as soon as I saw that it was being played in Los Angeles, and as soon as I saw there was a chance that Arizona could play North Carolina in the Elite Eight, I said, hands down, this is the region of drama.

Speaker 11 There's nothing else to talk about. It's so dramatic.
And again, life is not obviously a movie, but this would feel like a movie if we have Caleb Love against North Carolina going up against R.J.

Speaker 11 Davis and Baycott, guys he went to the national championship game with two years ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so hold on. That feels like kind of like the selection committee screwed up by just like, oh, we'll just put Duquesne in at the 11th seed.
When you found out that it was going to be L.A., what?

Speaker 1 Like, when did they announce the sights? Like a year ago? Was that always going to be the drama?

Speaker 11 In L.A.? Yeah. No, but the matchup, the

Speaker 11 matchup, you know, I want to just make sure.

Speaker 1 I want to make sure you're not, you know, we're not like, you could maybe tell us what the regions are next year based on where they're being played.

Speaker 11 I'm not there yet, right?

Speaker 11 I'm taking it one year at a time.

Speaker 3 So if we're looking at this like a movie, who's the good guy, though? Is Caleb Love the good guy or is it his teammates and then Caleb Love walks out the door on him?

Speaker 11 Caleb Love is, I think, has gotten a bad rap. I think Caleb Love is perceived to be the bad guy, but he's not.
I went to Arizona and spent some time with him the preseason. Wonderful guy.

Speaker 11 He's had a great year, Pac-12 player of the year, played like an all-American. I just think that it would be compelling, compelling theater if that's the case.

Speaker 11 I mean, look, both of these teams got to go through really good teams to get to that point. I'll say this, guys.
I'm looking looking at North Carolina.

Speaker 11 Now, the game will be played in Charlotte, but whoever North Carolina gets, Mississippi State or Michigan State in that round of 32 game, that is a bear of a game to get to the Sweet 16.

Speaker 11 Now, I think America is going to be taking Michigan State in this game because of Tom Izzo. That's what people from the periphery do.
I am going with Mississippi State.

Speaker 11 I am going with Chris Jams, the dentist, who will give you a root canal without the Novocaine when he gets the chance. Guys, let's look at Chris Janz here in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 11 New Mexico State, he beat UConn two years ago. Last year, got Mississippi State to the NCAA tournament, lost on the last possession in the first quarter to pit.
Now he's back.

Speaker 11 The dentist doing work, Kat.

Speaker 3 I like it. Sounds like a very good dentist, though.
It sounds like just a torturer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like it. All right.

Speaker 11 Let's pause him. He's really good defensive coach, PSC.

Speaker 1 Yeah, although their defense hasn't been as good as it was last year.

Speaker 11 Fair enough. Fair enough.
I mean, I guess, you know, he took some tweaks out. But again, a little bit better offensively.

Speaker 11 The guy you want to keep an eye on for Mississippi State, a guy who I think could be a real star, as again, people who are coming from the periphery is Josh Hubbard, 5'10 freshman from Mississippi State.

Speaker 11 Believe he scored over 4,000 points in high school.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.

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Speaker 1 Where are we going next?

Speaker 11 Let's go to the top right,

Speaker 11 the south region, the region of firepower. And I'm looking at this region and I'm seeing elite perimeters and elite scoring power.

Speaker 11 Houston obviously didn't play well against Iowa State in the Big 12 tournament title game. Tremendous four guard sets, tremendous guard play, tremendous firepower.

Speaker 11 You know about Nebraska with Fred Hoiberg. We love Kaysay Tomanaga.
Another player I think could captivate the country in spurts with his ability to shoot.

Speaker 11 Nebraska, by the way, has never won an NCAA tournament game. So that's on the line for them.

Speaker 11 They go against Texas AM, who has that dynamite backboard for Buzz Williams with Wade Taylor IV and Tyrese Radford, and they can really, really score. That's a dynamite first-round game.

Speaker 11 And guys, I'm going to be at that game, you know, doing sidelines in Memphis. We got then Wisconsin, the best offensive team of the Grey Guard era with AJ Store against James Madison.

Speaker 11 That's going to be a trendy 12-5.

Speaker 11 And then you got Duke against Vermont. Duke is Duke.
I know Kat doesn't want to hear that. We've got Kentucky, the best scoring team of the Calipari era.

Speaker 11 And then if you look at the bottom right in the region of firepower, you've got Florida, who, again, they lost their center.

Speaker 11 Micah Handlogged into an injury on Sunday, a leg injury against Auburn, but they're going to probably go in against the winner of Colorado Boise State.

Speaker 11 Colorado, a potent offensive team, and then Marquette's the two. Chaka Smart, as you know, saying on CBS Sports Network that they're planning on Tyler Kohla coming back.

Speaker 11 There is major, major firepower in that region. I have loved Florida's ability to score the ball throughout.

Speaker 11 Obviously, this season, they're a little bit different now up front without hand logged in, but you look at the offensive capabilities of the teams in this region. It is exquisite.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, PFT and I obviously were going up against each other in the first round.
Then you got Jake and Hank going up against each other. This is going to be a fun region.

Speaker 3 Yeah, can you give us a pick for JMU, Wisconsin? I know you said people on the periphery, people on the outside, trendy 12-5 pick for JMU. Does that mean that you're going Wisconsin?

Speaker 11 I'm going to take Wisconsin. I like Wisconsin to play Duke in a rematch of the 2015 national title game at the Barclay Center.
I've got Houston. And then obviously, I think A ⁇ M beats Nebraska.

Speaker 11 I love the way A ⁇ M is playing, even though they lost a little early. Nebraska, again, never won an NCAA tournament game.
I'll take Texas Tech over NC State, Kentucky over Oakland.

Speaker 11 I got Florida playing Marquette. I would take Florida over Marquette.

Speaker 11 That's a little bit, you know, I'm going to break it open a little bit there. Then I'm going to have Kentucky, Florida in the Sweet 16 and SEC game.
I'm going to take

Speaker 11 Wisconsin to beat Duke. Oh.

Speaker 11 And then I'm going to take Houston to play Wisconsin. And I've got Houston beating Kentucky in the Elite Eight in the region of firepower.
Okay.

Speaker 1 How about this?

Speaker 3 If JMU beats Wisconsin, can JMU get a John Rothsteinism? Can you come up with something for Harrisonburg?

Speaker 11 Well, I can't force Rothsteinisms. Rothsteinisms are things that can't be forced.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but if they beat Wisconsin, if they shock the world, if these JMU Dukes,

Speaker 1 I beat the Badgers.

Speaker 11 I don't have a Rothsteinism for Kansas, Kentucky, Gonzaga. I mean, they've done a little bit more than JMU.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 what was your last Rothsteinism that you came up with?

Speaker 11 I'd have to go back and look at things in the lab, but, you know, one of the things that, you know, got a lot of play today was the Keith Danbrought one because nobody for a long time cared about Duquesne.

Speaker 11 When Keith Danbrot took Duquesne's job, I called it Mission Impossible. And then the Duquesne.
Duquesne, like a count, you know, tweeted today, mission accomplished.

Speaker 11 Oh, because Duquesne hadn't been to the hat.

Speaker 1 I like that.

Speaker 11 Duquesne hasn't been to the tournament since 77, so Mission Impossible got accomplished. But yeah,

Speaker 11 I don't just come up with them and throw it out. Everybody, you know, it's like, oh, I want a tag on, I don't want to tag on.
It's like it's not that easy.

Speaker 1 What about just hand those out?

Speaker 3 Harrisonburg, more than just meth.

Speaker 1 What about that? You like that one?

Speaker 1 That means no.

Speaker 3 I think that would be Harrisonburg, the Las Vegas of Central Virginia.

Speaker 11 That's not what I've heard about Harrisonburg.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, my friend, you have not spent time at Finnegan's Cove when they get the SIGs inside and the jello shots going.

Speaker 11 Fair enough.

Speaker 11 I have a feeling that you might have had enough for me during your tenure there. How long was it?

Speaker 3 Four years. Exactly four years.
Thanks, John.

Speaker 1 That was a really mean question. Yeah.

Speaker 11 I just wanted to check.

Speaker 1 All right. right so what about the last one midwest

Speaker 11 well the midwest region is the region of tension oh okay now why is it the region of tension well your one seed is purdue your two seed is tennessee

Speaker 11 who has not

Speaker 11 been past the sweet 16 under rick barnes your fourth seed is kansas who again did not have both Kevin McCuller and Hunter Dickinson available for the Big 12 tournament.

Speaker 11 There's a lot of tension in this region right now. And I also think,

Speaker 11 you know, when you look at the one seeds, guys, I think the path for Purdue, and I know you have to obviously take this with a grain of salt because nothing is easy for Purdue in March.

Speaker 11 I think the path for Purdue is very favorable to at least get to the Elite Eight. The first two games are at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

Speaker 11 You're going to play the winner of Utah State and TCU second. And then if you win there, your five and your four are Gonzaga, which is the most vulnerable Gonzaga team we've had since 2016.

Speaker 11 Then you have Kansas, who we discussed without McCullough, without Dickinson, potentially in the big, well, they didn't play in the Big 12 tournament, but they're obviously very wounded.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's not a great Kansas team, even if those two players play. I'd be shocked if Purdue doesn't get to the Elite Eight.

Speaker 11 I know that's saying a lot considering the way things have gone in the NCAA tournament. And then the bottom,

Speaker 11 I'm looking at Creighton being an underrated team. I think they lost early in the Big East tournament.
That changed things.

Speaker 11 And then also, if Texas wins and Tennessee wins, we could have a game in the round of 32. Rick Barnes against his old school and against his former assistant, Rodney Terre.

Speaker 1 Okay, so what was region of tension?

Speaker 1 Was there anything else that we were going to name this region?

Speaker 11 When I saw Purdue

Speaker 11 and Tennessee together, it was either the region of tension or the region of pressure. But I thought tension was better.
So that a little bit more.

Speaker 3 So, which of these teams is best equipped to handle tension?

Speaker 11 Well, if history tells you anything, it might not be any of them, but I would say Creighton.

Speaker 11 I think Creighton's the dark horse in this region. I'm going to take Creighton to get to the Elite Eight and lose to Purdue.

Speaker 11 I think that Purdue will exercise the demon, much like Virginia in 2019 after losing the UNBC and get to a final four.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
So your final four, and then maybe give us your national champion.

Speaker 11 I am am going to go with UConn out of the region of gladiators. I'm going to go with Arizona out of the region of drama.

Speaker 11 I'm going to go with Houston out of the region of firepower, and then Purdue out of the region of tension. And I like UConn over Purdue, clinging against ED, a battle of the Titans in the title game.

Speaker 11 And UConn, led by Dan Hurley, as we said, brother to a famous point guard, son of a famous coach, getting his vengeance in this tournament or the next, becoming the first back-to-back national champion since Florida in 2006 and 2007.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 3 Do you have any comment about the Big East getting fucked over?

Speaker 11 Well,

Speaker 11 the thing is this, and Murphy's Law sometimes happens with the NCAA tournament in terms of the bubble situation.

Speaker 11 The Big East started championship week with seven teams in play for the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 11 Now, the thing was, the Big East, all season long had a number of teams in play, but so many teams were tied up with with the bubble so there were only three teams all year long

Speaker 11 that separated themselves and we had a murphy's law type situation for bubble teams now what do i mean by that if florida atlantic won the ac tournament

Speaker 11 we would have seen one bid open up because they are an at-large team if dayton won the a10 tournament we would have seen an at-large bid open up because Dayton was already projected as an at-large team.

Speaker 11 So that's two bids right right there. And then if NC State didn't win the ACC tournament,

Speaker 11 we would have seen that large bid open up.

Speaker 11 And then if Oregon didn't win the Pac-12 tournament, we would have seen that large bid open up. That's four.
And then we found out tonight, if New Mexico didn't win

Speaker 11 the Mountain West tournament, we would have seen that large bid open up. That's five.
bids and five spots for other teams where the biggies surely would have been represented. I thought that St.

Speaker 11 John's would have been a little bit closer to the cut line. They weren't among the first four out for the selection committee from what we saw earlier tonight.

Speaker 11 But obviously, you have three Big East teams in Creighton, Marquette, and Yukon that are all good enough to go to a Final Four.

Speaker 11 But the Big East right now, with its lowest number of teams in the NCAA tournament since 1993.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. And now, if all five of those hadn't opened up, would Villanova have been one of the last four out then?

Speaker 11 Probably would.

Speaker 11 The first four out or the last four out?

Speaker 1 No, last four out.

Speaker 1 Like, it would have been first four out, so they would have been the

Speaker 1 eighth team out. Like, where would they have bumped up if we had had no bubbles burst? Like, could we have had at least last four out?

Speaker 11 I think so.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right, so they would have eight.
Yeah, so they were like, if we had had, if the, if the committee had just said, you know what, this is an awesome year. Let's do 78 teams.

Speaker 1 Would Villanova have been in?

Speaker 11 Potentially.

Speaker 3 Potentially. Let's do a little thought experiment, though.
If St. John's had gotten in, what seed would they have been?

Speaker 11 They would have been in Dayton in the first four.

Speaker 3 The first four instead of UVA.

Speaker 11 Yeah, Virginia was the team. When I did, you know, I do a bracket projection every day during championship week.
So when I did my bracket projection today, I did not have Virginia in the field.

Speaker 11 Now, what we learned, and I talked to Bubba Cunningham about this, who obviously is a part of the committee, you know, is that the committee really valued teams who didn't have any bad losses.

Speaker 11 Now, if you look at the metrics for both Virginia and Colorado, not too many impressive wins. Virginia beat Florida, one at Clemson.

Speaker 11 Colorado beat Washington State twice, but they didn't have any quad three or four losses. So the committee really took that into consideration.
Now, Texas A ⁇ M.

Speaker 11 had a weird resume, had five quad three losses, but Texas A ⁇ M beat Iowa State, who's a two-seed, beat Tennessee, who's a two-seed, beat Kentucky twice, who's a three-seed, and also beat

Speaker 11 Todd Golden in Florida, who's a seven-seed.

Speaker 1 Hmm. Okay.

Speaker 1 John, what does

Speaker 1 I? We haven't had you on since you had the birth of your child. What does fatherhood look like for John Rossi? And how's it going?

Speaker 11 I appreciate you asking. Every day is a bygame.
That's the best way I can say it. It feels like you're down eight at the under-12 timeout every single day.
You know, you know it.

Speaker 11 There is nothing in the world like, you know, being a father and, you know, having obviously a child and the way it makes you feel complete as a family.

Speaker 11 But you also feel like you're in a bye game against Matt Langel and Colgate and they're drilling threes and there's nothing that you can do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No, that's a great way to put it.
I often say the same thing.

Speaker 1 So what's your schedule? You're going to Dayton. Do you know where you're going after Dayton?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I'm going to be in Dayton. I'm actually having some TV to do tomorrow morning.
I'm going to do CBS this morning's tomorrow or CBS mornings tomorrow morning.

Speaker 11 And then I'm doing, I'm flying to Dayton. We're going to do the first four Tuesday, Wednesday.
Then after the games, I'm going to be going to Memphis for the Friday, Sunday.

Speaker 11 So Friday, Sunday is going to be Houston, Longwood, Nebraska, AM, and then Clemson, New Mexico, Baylor, Colgate.

Speaker 11 And then I'll be back in studio on CBS Sports Network for the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight. And then we'll be at the final four in Phoenix.

Speaker 3 Are you going to go take a dip in the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid in their tank that they got there?

Speaker 11 What's the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid? I've ever heard? Oh, my friend.

Speaker 3 It's the most magical place on earth.

Speaker 11 No, I mean, I'm pretty singularly focused until April 9th.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was going to ask you, what's your take on Justin Fields being traded to the Steelers?

Speaker 11 What position does he play?

Speaker 1 He's a quarterback.

Speaker 11 For what team?

Speaker 3 Well, he was in Paris. Now he's on the Steelers.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 Okay, yeah. I mean, I really haven't followed the Steelers since like Neil O'Donnell.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 3 What about did you watch the Super Bowl?

Speaker 11 We had a party, yeah.

Speaker 1 And what'd you think?

Speaker 11 Mahomes played, right?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 11 And they play Andy Reid was the coach. Yeah.
Who was the other team that played against?

Speaker 3 Taylor Swift. No, the 49ers.

Speaker 11 Right. And that's not Jeff Garcia, is it? Nope.
Nope.

Speaker 3 Not anymore.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 Close.

Speaker 11 Wasn't it Brock Purdy? Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 11 Yeah, okay, yeah. I was kind of just socializing because

Speaker 11 the college basketball game was over. I think I worked the seat in all Villanova game that day, and I just kind of was just talking to people.
I didn't really have an interest in the game.

Speaker 1 I would like you to maybe

Speaker 1 you're relentless. We started this interview.
You're saying you're relentless.

Speaker 1 I have a long-standing thought that there should be a college basketball game after the Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday. Everyone's looking for something to bet after they lose their Super Bowl bets.

Speaker 1 Can we get that into someone's head and be like, hey, let's schedule a game. Let's play a game.

Speaker 11 Well, I think one thing we should do, and you tell me, because you know you say you're always looking for, you know, stuff like that, you know, for additional ways to, you know, obviously have

Speaker 1 sports. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 I think that, and you know, I'm all about standalone games in college basketball. I think, you know, a certain league should play a five o'clock game on like a Friday afternoon.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 You happy, like a happy hour thing. And I also think that like certain leagues, maybe not the highest profile leagues, should play 10 a.m.
games on Sunday, on Saturday morning.

Speaker 11 So it's a standalone game and not have any, not have any tension and get things going quicker.

Speaker 1 I like that. We also came up with an idea that you should pitch to people because this one has legs.
PFT and I don't think that they should expand the tournament.

Speaker 11 No, no, we should not expand the tournament under any circumstances. And it aggravates me, not you guys, but that people think that it's a good idea.

Speaker 11 Jeff Goldblum said in The Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, that taking dinosaurs off this island was the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.

Speaker 11 Expanding the tournament might be worse.

Speaker 1 Okay, so not an expansion of the tournament, but if on selection Sunday we have the eight teams that would be potentially on the bubble, in the bubble, in the tournament.

Speaker 1 So, you know, Boise State, Colorado, Virginia, Colorado State, all we're in. Oklahoma Seton Hall, Indiana State, and Pitt, we have them all in the same location.

Speaker 1 The minute we have the bracket, we have those eight teams play to see who gets the last four spots. Well,

Speaker 11 I think that's a good idea. It's expanding the tournament.

Speaker 11 I have also said this.

Speaker 11 I love where we're at right now with the amount of teams in the NCAA tournament. I feel that if you're an automatic qualifier and you win your league, you should be in the round of 64.

Speaker 11 And I have said that repeatedly. So I would like it.
And I love, I've worked the first four in Dayton. It's great.
If the last eight at-large teams someday could be the teams in Dayton.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 11 So if you're looking at it right now, let's look at, we know the matchups in Dayton, the last eight at-large large teams, the 11 seeds were not obviously

Speaker 11 the,

Speaker 11 were not at large teams. They were automatic qualifiers.
So the last date at large teams were Nevada

Speaker 11 and then,

Speaker 11 let's see.

Speaker 1 Boise State, Colorado.

Speaker 11 Well, Boise State, Colorado, and then Virginia, Colorado State. But also, so that's four.
Nevada is five. Drake was an AQ.
So if you had Nevada, Michigan State, AM,

Speaker 11 and then TCU or Northwestern in Dayton, and then you let obviously the 16s play in the round of 64, I think that would be an incredible way if we could ever do that to really draw people in.

Speaker 1 I like that. I like that.

Speaker 11 And not to say that people aren't obviously excited or whatever. And look, the first four is great.
We had Fairleigh Dickinson last year, who wound up beating Purdue.

Speaker 11 And Fairleigh Dickinson was a treat to watch. But I feel if you are a mid-major team that wins your league, you deserve to be in the round of 64.

Speaker 11 And those last last eight at-larges should start off the tournament in Dayton.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and the first four is great because usually a team makes a run. I mean, we had UCLA go all the way to the final four.
Like, there's

Speaker 11 10 out of the last 11 years, a team in the first four has won a game in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 3 So who's that team going to be this year?

Speaker 11 I think the team to watch in the first four.

Speaker 11 Let's see. That's a great question.

Speaker 3 Also, do you have a name for the first four? You should give a name to that.

Speaker 11 The first four. I would say the team most likely to win an NCAA tournament game this year out of the first four is the Boise State Colorado winner.
I love Florida.

Speaker 11 That's a really, really tough round of 64 game because Colorado, if you think about it, guys, KJ Simpson,

Speaker 11 potent player. I think if Colorado was better, he would have been an all-American candidate.
Potent player. Cody Williams is a projected lottery pick.

Speaker 11 Tristan DaSilva is going to play basketball professionally. Also, Eddie Lampkin, if you remember, guys, is on the TCU team who almost beat Arizona two years ago when they had Ben Matherin.

Speaker 11 He went for 20 and 14.

Speaker 11 Florida is going to have its hands full with either Colorado State or Boise. Boise playing in its third straight NCAA tournament under Leon Rice.
And

Speaker 11 another storyline here, guys, which I wrote about from my daily newsletter tomorrow, one of the big takeaways is the Mountain West got no respect. Four double-digit seeds out of the Mountain West.

Speaker 11 I mean, Nevada, the two teams in the first four, and then also New Mexico as 10s and 11 seats. I mean, as a wise man once said, wasn't personal.
It was strictly business.

Speaker 1 But they did get respected the fact that they got six teams in. And the big A Scouts.

Speaker 11 That's real question, and that should be celebrated. But the Mountain West, like, I felt like all week, I said, hey, if the Mountain West gets six teams in, that's great.
You should celebrate it.

Speaker 11 The Mountain West has something to prove in this NCAA tournament. You were slighted.
People don't respect you on the committee.

Speaker 1 Give it up for Chicago.

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Speaker 1 Last question for you, John. We haven't talked to you in a while.
How was Europe?

Speaker 11 Europe was incredible.

Speaker 1 really better

Speaker 1 than you

Speaker 11 you're uh i mean when shaka was there and it was breante weber at the top of the press i mean it was tough really tough to kind of take that over anything else just because i mean you know you had the ban you had the havoc you had the pressure there's a clip if you guys can find it it was in 2013 breante weber stripped alex barlow on butler and threw down a ridiculous jam and just punched the air and like it made you like seriously like want to find a picket fence to start doing push-ups on because it was so crazy but europe was great i think we stayed not the i think the trip was long cat like we were there for 18 days we had a couple of we had a couple of friends get married about three hours outside of paris so we went to paris first we hung out with them for a little bit it was incredible the bread the scene paris is an incredible city we then went to three stops in italy you were right about the food both of you in terms of it being incredible i mean i have i have it too we talk about bucket list items the show searching for italy with stantucci to me is one of my favorite shows because i'm such a food fan like that to me

Speaker 11 would be i think a tremendous guest for you guys to have stantucci on part of my take because this guy's just housing food throughout italy and he doesn't gain any weight but we went to

Speaker 11 We went to Puerto Fino. We went to Rome.
We went to the Amalpe Coast. There's now direct flights from the Amalfi Coast to New York.
Then we went to Greece last.

Speaker 3 Nice. Nice.
Yeah. So are you willing to take back your statement, don't waste calories on pizza outside the Eastern time zone?

Speaker 11 Not in terms of the United States.

Speaker 3 But pizza in Italy.

Speaker 1 You can do that.

Speaker 11 I can do that. I leaned into the Italy trip, but the bread in France was the thing that really blew my mind.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 11 the bread in France. And the thing is, this,

Speaker 11 you guys know how much I love food, but in France, you can be content with a beer and a great loaf of bread and like some butter. Yes,

Speaker 11 so content.

Speaker 3 Yeah, paris france the seagull center you got to pick one

Speaker 11 the a 10 i mean aside from a you know rare thing like this year they've kind of become a one-bid league so i'd probably take paris over the seagulls wow you've changed john rostein sold out damn okay

Speaker 11 sorry to tell you that all right it's not it's not really i don't think it's real i don't think it's really anything to do with paris it's just an indictment on the atlantic 10 it never should have went from 16 to 18 league games yeah went from 16 to 18 league games guys after the 14th season think about this for a sec in 2013, the Atlantic 10 had five teams in the NCAA tournament, five.

Speaker 11 And then after that season, Temple left, Xavier and Butler left. And the next year, with the same crop of teams, pretty much what it has now, the league had six teams in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 11 Then after that year, all of a sudden the A10 thought it was a power conference. It went from 16 to 18.
League's never been the same since. You need that non-conference scheduling flexibility.

Speaker 11 It's the same flexibility that the WCC had that allowed Randy Bennett to schedule Colorado State and New Mexico. Two wins, obviously, that helped St.

Speaker 11 Mary's get in the position it's in right now, which is to be a five-seed in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 3 I do have one last question for you. So we were just talking before you came on about Long Beach, Long Beach State, and Dan Monson.

Speaker 11 Wild story.

Speaker 3 Is there any chance that he gets his job back if they win in the first round?

Speaker 11 It's as awkward of a situation as I've seen. You know, that would be incredible.
I think he made a comment about that.

Speaker 11 It's like he said it's like your girlfriend coming back and trying to get back together after you get famous. If somebody asked him if he would get his job back, you know,

Speaker 11 it's as bizarre a scenario as I've seen in 20 years doing this. But, you know, there is a tie-in to that first-round matchup.
Do you guys know it?

Speaker 1 When he was at Gonzaga?

Speaker 11 Dan Munson was the head coach at Gonzaga when Gonzaga went to the Elite 8 in 99, lost to UConn, Coach Calhoun's first Final Four, and he's playing Tommy Lloyd, a longtime Gonzaga assistant.

Speaker 3 I love the fact that he pulled a hank. They were like, hey, you're fired.
And he was like, like, yeah, can I just keep showing up for work?

Speaker 1 Okay, cool. The boys are playing for him.
Love it.

Speaker 11 They're playing for him, man. Yeah.
All right.

Speaker 1 Well, John, thank you as always. You're the best.

Speaker 1 Best time of year. And we'll be tuning in.
We'll be watching you in Dayton on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Speaker 11 Always great being with you guys. Love you dearly.
We sleep in May.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Bye, Josh, John.

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Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's talk some Justin Fields. Oh, by the way, I should have mentioned during bracket talk, we are running a bracket at Stella Blue Coffee.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is buy anything on stellbluecoffee.com, and you will get a link to join the bracket. Fill it out.

Speaker 1 If you win the bracket, you get a trip to Chicago HQ with two friends, and you get to spend the day with us, hanging out, playing ball, whatever you want to do. Also, the other, I think...

Speaker 1 places 2 through 11 will get a signed stell blue custom basketball so you're filling out brackets you got to drink coffee anyway we have mugs we have have hats. Everything.
StellblueCoffee.com.

Speaker 1 Just go buy anything between now and Thursday when the games tip, and you will get that link and you can join the bracket. Justin Fields.

Speaker 1 Justin Fields traded to Pittsburgh Steelers for a sixth rounder that could be a fourth rounder.

Speaker 3 Depending on playing time.

Speaker 1 Depending on playing time. So I'm going to give my,

Speaker 1 I think actually a very balanced take that people probably are not going to like because it's been a very polarizing subject.

Speaker 1 And I have a take that's, I'm going to give you my honest take that's balanced, and I feel is

Speaker 1 how I feel.

Speaker 1 The Bears failed Justin Fields. It sucks that this is the way it ended.

Speaker 1 They set him up in a really bad spot in the fact that they drafted him with a coach that was already on the hot seat. They were planning on sitting him that first year.

Speaker 1 And then remember, they decided, hey, let's start him against the Browns, one of the best defensive, one of the best pass rushes in the game, and this will be fun.

Speaker 1 And he got sacked like nine times and threw for 27 yards, and we were off and running. Year two, the team was actively tanking.
They had one of the worst defenses I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 They had 10-game stretch at the end of the season where they let up 25 or more points, and six out of 10 of those games, they let up 30 or more points.

Speaker 1 And then year three, this year, they were basically like, be so good, Justin Fields, that we will keep you.

Speaker 1 Go out and do it with an OC that doesn't really know how to use you. Could Justin Fields have played better? Yes.

Speaker 1 But I also think he was set up to fail, and I'm really sad about that because I like Justin Fields as a guy. And I think if you listen to anyone in that locker room, they love him as a leader.

Speaker 1 It sucks that a guy that was so exciting and I had so much hope for was failed by the organization.

Speaker 1 So I thought that they had to trade him, and I'm happy that he was traded just because Caleb Williams is the future, and you couldn't have done the Justin Fields-Caleb Williams thing at the same time.

Speaker 1 And if if you had kept him, maybe you could have gotten more from him when quarterbacks get injured, but that would have been a disaster for Caleb Williams.

Speaker 1 You would have basically done to Caleb Williams what you did to Justin Fields and set him up for failure. So at least they're learning from these mistakes.
Also, shout out Ryan Poles and the Bears.

Speaker 1 They did say they were going to do right by Justin Fields, and by all accounts, they did because they had a few different suitors. And I think Patriots fans are like, why didn't we get Justin Fields?

Speaker 1 Eagles fans are like, why didn't we get Justin Fields? I think Justin Fields was like, I want to go to a place where I can play.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so when you look at what Ryan Poles did, I think you can definitely say that the Bears did not get everything they could have gotten for Justin Fields. Correct.

Speaker 3 So a legitimate criticism of Ryan Poles would be to say, your job is to do what's best for your team, the Chicago Bears.

Speaker 3 And in this case, it looks like he wanted to keep his word to Justin Fields and do right by him more than he wanted to maximize trade value for Justin Fields.

Speaker 3 So you might say that he made a mistake doing that, but I also think that this is, in his mind, at least like a long-term play for becoming known as a GM that will do something nice for a player as a way to thank them for what they've done in that city.

Speaker 3 So like it could, it could, I guess, make Chicago a slightly more attractive.

Speaker 3 If it's between the Bears and a team that's in a situation like the Bears and you have a history that's been built up of doing right by your players, that could nudge a free agent or two over the edge.

Speaker 1 And Ryan Poles is probably admitting that the Bears failed him, and it wasn't Ryan Poles' failure. Like, let's be honest, because it was, remember, Justin Fields wasn't drafted by Ryan Poles.

Speaker 1 Ryan Poles shows up in year two of Justin Fields. He inherits Justin Fields.

Speaker 1 Ryan Poles' job is to basically completely strip this thing down and build it back up, which he has been doing an incredible job of.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, Justin Fields wasn't in that plan, other than Justin Fields playing so well in year three that they had to have him.

Speaker 1 And then the contract part is a big part of this because everyone, I think, was saying, well,

Speaker 1 all you got was a sixth, maybe a fourth.

Speaker 1 The Steelers have to decide whether they want to pick up the fifth-year option in like three months.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so I think a big part of this was that Fields, his value ended up being so low because GMs don't want to have to make a hard decision.

Speaker 1 Before he plays a snap, you have to decide if you want to keep him.

Speaker 3 Which is extremely relatable. Like, oh, I'm going to trade like a third-round pick for this guy, and it's just going to make me have to make a big decision soon.

Speaker 3 No, my big decision is trading for the guy. I don't want to have to double down on doing work.
Right. So that's a, I understand that.
If you're Russell Wilson, I saw he reacted.

Speaker 3 What he say, like this QB room is about to be lit, Justin?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I hope Justin Fields beats him out. I think he's better than Russell Wilson right now.

Speaker 3 I think he might be like for the future. He definitely is.
And then Kenny Pickett is out of Pittsburgh, too. Yeah.
So Kenny did not react well, apparently, to the Russ signing.

Speaker 3 I guess

Speaker 3 reading the writing on the wall, it just seems like Russ is now anointed as the guy.

Speaker 3 They told Russ.

Speaker 1 No, Justin Fields is. I think they said Justin Fields is going to to be the starter.

Speaker 3 Did they? No. I think Schefter said something.
No, I think he said the opposite. I think he said

Speaker 3 Russ is going to be the star.

Speaker 1 Oh, Russ is going to be the starter. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. So, like, Kenny wanted out because I think they told Kenny, like, this is our guy for the next season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or he's the presumptive starter.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And so Kenny's like, no, I got to get out of here.

Speaker 1 0-8, breaking moves.

Speaker 1 Villanova gets a one seat in the NIT.

Speaker 3 Let's go, Max.

Speaker 1 Max. Yeah, it's a big.

Speaker 6 VCU is a tough draw, though. You know what?

Speaker 3 You know what, Max?

Speaker 3 People forget that the NIT was the original national championship tournament. It's a very prestigious tournament.

Speaker 1 Max, win it.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm sure the boys are going to be fired up.

Speaker 3 Got to be. Very fired up.

Speaker 1 Okay, that was our Villanova talk.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 Kenny, I mean, he was an Eagles fan growing up. I hope he has a long career.
We like Kenny.

Speaker 1 And now he's in a good...

Speaker 1 Everyone seems to be going to stable places. Like, it was unstable for Kenny in Pittsburgh.
Now it's stable in Philadelphia. He's not the starter, but he knows his role.

Speaker 1 Justin Fields was unstable in Chicago. We failed him.
Now he's going to a stable organization in Pittsburgh, which I think he's going to end up. Like, I think he'll probably win the job.

Speaker 1 I know they said Russ is the starter, but I... Once you watch Justin Fields versus Russ, it's going to be apparent.

Speaker 3 George Pickens is not going to like Russell Wilson. No.
He's not going to like him at all.

Speaker 1 So I had one last thing about the Justin Fields thing, and this is where, because it was very tumultuous the last two months on Bears' Twitter and Bears, you know, seeing people on the street.

Speaker 1 There's Justin Fields camp. There's the Caleb Williams camp.
I've been in the Caleb Williams camp just out of the logic of

Speaker 1 Ryan Poles set this whole thing up to be, to get that one pick and to get a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal when you have already invested in some other parts of your roster.

Speaker 1 And that's the window. Ryan Poles is doing, he's correcting everything that was wrong for Justin Fields because like I said, Justin Fields stepped into a disaster situation with no defense.

Speaker 1 They obviously got DJ Moore later, but they like very little offensive talent to throw to.

Speaker 1 Ryan Poles is now doing the reverse, where I think that Caleb Williams might be set up better than any number one pick ever.

Speaker 1 And I know that sounds crazy because it's still the Bears, but remember, it's not often that you get a number one pick as a 7-10 team. The defense is good.
He has a legitimate number one.

Speaker 1 He now has a legitimate number two in Keenan Allen. He has a top 10 tight end in Cole Komet.
He's got a running game.

Speaker 1 Like, this is finally, outside of the coach maybe being on the hot seat, this is finally, you've set up

Speaker 1 your future franchise quarterback to walk into a situation that he can succeed in.

Speaker 1 And that is why every Bears fan should be very happy that Ryan Poles is the GM and that he made this move to trade Justin Fields. And we turn the page and we go to the next one.

Speaker 1 Now, everyone's telling me Caleb Williams is going to be a bust. I get it.
He sucks. Nail paint, whatever.
I don't care. I think he's really good and he's set up in a perfect way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like Andrew Luck. Andrew Luck went to a two-win Colts team.
Trevor Lawrence went to a terrible team.

Speaker 6 Wasn't that the

Speaker 1 Peyton got hurt that year? Yeah, Peyton got hurt that year. Did they even win two wins? Did they have two wins? I don't even know.

Speaker 3 We can probably look at them. We can see what the best record was for any team.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's picked number one. All these teams, like Bryce Young, has gone into the worst situation.
Like,

Speaker 1 there's, you can go, Trevor Lawrence was in a bad situation.

Speaker 1 All these number one picks, Baker Mayfield, they haven't been put on teams that's seven and ten that have pieces around them that are legitimate and oh i forgot to mention we also have the ninth pick so that's another thing that's going to help caleb williams whether it be a pass catcher or defensive player i don't know i just think that ryan pulls has set this up where it now is the question is calend if caleb williams is great the bears will have a

Speaker 3 definite window to win a lot of football it's a very funny thing that we do to uh to first overall picks we're like congratulations you're going to the shittiest team hope you're good enough to overcome how bad this team is.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 1 Will you be?

Speaker 3 Baker, will you be good enough to overcome the Brownzing of it all or not?

Speaker 3 Urban Meyer is going to kick half your roster, Trevor. I hope you're good enough to overcome him ditching your team after Thursday night games and fingering co-eds buttholes.
Right. Good luck.

Speaker 1 Like, no offense to you guys, but would you not say that the Bears are in a better situation for

Speaker 1 a QB taken in the first round than the Commanders in the PG?

Speaker 3 I think our ownership is strong. I think the ownership in DC.
Our ownership's about to be dead. But yeah.

Speaker 1 Shout out Virginia. She's still kicking.
But like this,

Speaker 1 he's set up better than the number one pick has probably ever been set.

Speaker 3 I think they should build around Tyson Bajant.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's got to be at least a few out there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's got to be some Tyson Bagent heads out there.

Speaker 1 It's walking around.

Speaker 1 That was an arm wrestler. I'm excited about this.

Speaker 1 If you go through Ryan Pohl's and what he has done, he gets so much heat for Chase Claypool, which was a mistake, but he also cut bait on that mistake, which was, you know, some GMs are stubborn like that.

Speaker 1 Everything else he has done, Montez Sweat, DJ Moore, you know, getting the Carolina number one, all these things, beefing up the defense, not going crazy on free agency, getting in a good cap spot.

Speaker 1 He's been great. And so why wouldn't you trust him? And why wouldn't you trust his evaluation of Caleb Williams? And I'm very, very excited for the future of the Bears.

Speaker 1 And again, sad Justin Fields, but I think we have a very, very bright future. So you shouldn't be.

Speaker 1 It was tumultuous. People were at each other's necks.

Speaker 3 Yeah, this is, it's one of the great controversies of all time. And it's something that you'll be doing a post-mortem on for the next probably six years.

Speaker 1 Well, Chicago, we don't deal well with quarterback controversies. Josh McCown was had a strong camp to start over Jay Cutler.

Speaker 3 Listen, I'm still obsessed with the Kirk Cousins RG3 debate from 10 years ago.

Speaker 3 You have not yet begun to see the end of this fight.

Speaker 3 We also had Tyreek Hill in the news again. Oh, the Tyreek Hill headline.
Mad Lib.

Speaker 3 Dolphins, Tyreek Hill, bullied wife, smashed face with unlit cigar, police report says.

Speaker 3 So I'm glad that they clarified that it was unlit because the first time I saw this headline, it just read that he smashed a cigar into her face. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Which is bad, but it's way worse if the cigar is lit. Yeah.
This was an unlit cigar. Also, the term bullying your wife.

Speaker 3 What does that even mean?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't know what bullying means anymore.

Speaker 1 He really is mad libs every single time he's in the news.

Speaker 3 He's mad lips. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Tyreek Hill bullied wife, smashed face with unlit cigar.

Speaker 1 Unlit cigar.

Speaker 1 Hank, do you want to tell me that I was wrong and you were right about Justin Fields? You wanted him.

Speaker 9 I do want him. I think he's going to be good.

Speaker 1 Okay. I think the Steelers are going to be good.
I still think he could be the guy. I'm not giving up on that.
Yeah, I think the Steelers are set up.

Speaker 9 I think both quarterbacks are

Speaker 9 forgotten about, but I think both could be good. Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 not funny. I don't wish this, but like something happens, Caleb Williams maybe like has a minor injury.

Speaker 1 Do this, I'm knocking on wood.

Speaker 3 And then you trade back for Justin Fields, get him back in town. He knows the system.
A lot of people would like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of people would be pumped by that.

Speaker 9 Seems like from what I've seen from Chicago people, they're mad.

Speaker 1 People are mad because they, I think there's a feeling that Justin Fields was failed by the organization, which I agree with.

Speaker 1 But you can't be mad when you're given the circumstances of you have a decision you have to make on a fifth year and you have the roster set up perfectly right now to insert a rookie contract QB.

Speaker 1 like, it makes so much sense. If you want to win a Super Bowl, you got to do it with this rookie contract and everything else you got around him.
I just, it's a no-brainer in my mind.

Speaker 1 Also, shout out Ryan Poles for doing that when the entire city was drunk off their mind so that, you know,

Speaker 1 like people probably woke up on Sunday. They're like, what happened?

Speaker 3 Oh, there were definitely some riots that happened. Like, I would have loved to have been in a bar as the word of the trade trickled out.

Speaker 1 Trickled through.

Speaker 3 Just watch the instant reaction from the crowd.

Speaker 1 But definitely some blacked-out dudes who just, like, they were told, but they didn't find out till Sunday morning. Yeah, they forgot about it.
They woke up and they're like, what?

Speaker 3 Or they woke up, they're like, oh, shit, I had a crazy dream. Yeah.
We traded Justin Fields for a six pick. I think people are also upset, Hank, to your point, that people are mad.

Speaker 3 People are mad because it is a fleecing. Because they were told.
Yeah. They were told that the compensation was going to be what Sam Darnold's compensation.

Speaker 1 Who started that rumor? Who? Schefter? Was Schefter the one who said it was a one? There was someone else. No, no, Shafter.

Speaker 3 No, Schefter said on RPOD that the formula is out there for what Justin Fields is going to cost, and that's what Sam Darnold got, which was a second or a third or something like that.

Speaker 3 So people's expectations were too high. The market wasn't that strong.
So that's why people...

Speaker 1 Actually, like

Speaker 3 the Sam Howell trade, the Seahawks gave up more for Sam Howell than the Seelers did for Justin Fields.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I, at one point, was, oh, it was Mel. Mel said that it was going to be the eighth overall from the Falcons.
Fuck you, Mel. He fucked us.
Who the hell is Mel?

Speaker 1 I remember when that happened. I was like, this is awesome.
Maybe it's true. But in the last three weeks or so, I had come to grips.
And I even said it on Waddle and Sylvia.

Speaker 1 I was like, a fourth would be a dream. And it could still be a fourth, but like, that was, it felt like it was settling there.
And I had come to grips with it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, now you got to root for a Russell Wilson meltdown.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, I'm rooting for Justin Fields.
So

Speaker 1 we turned the page. It's better for the Bears franchise going forward to go with Kale Williams.
Kale Williams is going to be be so polarizing. God, people are going to hate him so much.

Speaker 1 Not even Bears fans. I'm saying like outside, they already hate him.
Max just tweeted. I'm getting so fired up for the NIT.

Speaker 3 We can watch him live tweet because he's not searching for Sidney Sweeney right now on the computer here. He's just cruising Twitter.

Speaker 1 Okay, Jake just walked back in. We've got to get his thoughts from him.
Also, Pug just walked in as well. Pug, quick before we get to Jake's thoughts, Seton Hall, give it to us.

Speaker 1 Seton Hall, give it to him.

Speaker 1 Seton Hall got screwed.

Speaker 3 Three teams out of the Big East is just blasphemy. I'm sad.
NIT is here.

Speaker 1 Pug. Okay.
Good take. All right.
Good take, Pug. Put that on a quote card.
Jake. Yes.
Go off.

Speaker 5 So much to break down. If you want to watch back on the Mark Titus show,

Speaker 5 we just filled out an entire bracket. Okay.
I'm not changing it.

Speaker 3 Wait, Jake, what's your favorite storyline? Because we did Jake's storyline prediction.

Speaker 5 Yeah, my favorite storyline is, well, obviously the number one is Purdue's Redemption. Okay.

Speaker 5 Can they do what Virginia did and win it all after losing to a 16?

Speaker 5 Another one is an Elite 8 matchup I have between UNC and Arizona. Arizona will be playing for the right to go to the Final Four in their home state.
It's in Phoenix.

Speaker 5 And also Caleb Love, one of their best players, a former North Carolina tar heel. You could see them battling for the Elite Eight.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 That's another one.

Speaker 5 And then UConn,

Speaker 5 the best chance for someone to repeat since the Florida Gators in 06-07.

Speaker 1 This is it. So what about the part of my take, bowl?

Speaker 5 I mean, that goes, I'm saying from a big picture turnout.

Speaker 1 You're talking about national media who don't listen to this podcast, who are listening to this podcast right now. Exactly.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 But yeah, the part of my take thing, we had our live bracket show, and when it said Wisconsin, James Madison, I was like, wow, that's crazy. But we kind of saw it coming.

Speaker 5 And then Duke Vermont right afterwards, all in the same pod. Congratulations to us because one of our teams are going to the Sweet 16.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so we predicted it.

Speaker 1 Vermont's going to go to the Sweet 16, and you're going going to be like, I'm actually rooting for you guys because I only called Vermont for two years, and like, I'm rooting for them, but I'm not rooting for them.

Speaker 1 But then you're going to definitely root for them. And then you're going to be like, oh, I feel so bad for you.
And then you're going to tweet like cat amounts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's going to just trigger all of us.

Speaker 7 I know it is.

Speaker 5 But I do have, I will say, I have JMU over UVM.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. Yeah.
All right. So fuck you.

Speaker 3 So you have Vermont pulling off the first round of episodes.

Speaker 1 But you've always had an anti-Wisconsin. Well, I was

Speaker 1 crazy.

Speaker 3 I like. No,

Speaker 3 listen, Jake is a college basketball expert. I've always said respect.
Is he an expert?

Speaker 1 He's an expert. He's an expert.

Speaker 3 He's an expert.

Speaker 1 Bracket sucks every year. Actually, Trump in this call.

Speaker 3 I really think that you know ball. Wait, wait.

Speaker 1 Who's your in your Final Four last year?

Speaker 9 Well, who's in the championship? Because they're going to be in the business.

Speaker 1 But who's in your Final Four last year?

Speaker 5 I don't know who my Final Four was, but two years in a row, my national champion has been eliminated on day one. Okay, yeah.
Two years ago.

Speaker 9 Did you intentionally pick someone that plays on Friday this year?

Speaker 5 Nope. I wasn't scared of it.
Because if it happens again, it would be equally as funny. Two years ago at Kentucky, they lost to St.
Peters on Thursday.

Speaker 5 Last year at Arizona, they lost to Princeton on Friday. This year, I have a team playing on Thursday.

Speaker 1 Wait, do the Final Four first. Don't just give us a national championship.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Auburn.

Speaker 5 North Carolina.

Speaker 5 Houston.

Speaker 1 Purdue.

Speaker 5 So three ones, and then Auburn stays.

Speaker 1 Dickie V, the Dickie V brackets. Three ones.

Speaker 5 Is that what Dickie V is?

Speaker 1 He always does three ones in like a two. Yeah, I know Auburn's not a two.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're what, a four? They're four.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 5 and then I have North Carolina versus Purdue. So you have the storyline of North Carolina winning it in the same stadium that they won it last time in 2017.

Speaker 3 You're such a storyline slut.

Speaker 5 I know I am. Gross.

Speaker 3 And then you have Purdue. This is a storyline.
You just open up your mouth.

Speaker 1 You have Auburn beating UConn. You glaze.

Speaker 5 I have Auburn beating UConn because the last few years, the number one overall seeds lost in the Sweet 16. I feel like everyone always has the number one overall seed going to the Final Four.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 3 What upset do you have? Big upset for the first time. So

Speaker 5 first round, I have no threes losing, but I have Charleston over Alabama and Vermont over Duke.

Speaker 5 And deep runs, I have Drake in the Elite Eight, and I have Florida in the Elite Eight.

Speaker 1 I don't hate the Drake call.

Speaker 5 Drake's really hot.

Speaker 1 I think Illinois and I.

Speaker 3 Well, as Dick is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you see that video, Jake? I did, yes. Oh, you did.
You saw Drake's cock.

Speaker 1 Wow. Sure.
I did not think that he would have.

Speaker 3 Is there a chance that Drake can play against South Carolina? That'd be awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Drake beats the Cox again.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 5 National Championship. Yeah.
But yeah, the top left region, the East, you have all the conference tournament champions, the top four seeds. Yukon, Auburn, Iowa State, Illinois.

Speaker 5 And I had a note, I had a reminder for myself. I rarely set reminders for myself.

Speaker 5 Last year, after the first weekend, I said, do not take more than one or two conference tournament champions going deep because everyone on the recency bias.

Speaker 5 So that's why I have UConn,

Speaker 5 Iowa State, and Illinois all not making the Elite Eight. Wow.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so that was that. And I had North Carolina winning the championship.

Speaker 3 Chick, why do you think they fucked over the Big East?

Speaker 5 I honestly don't know because in recent years they always threw over the smaller schools and they let everyone from the Mountain West in. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All six strong.

Speaker 3 Do you recognize those teams, Piquette? Which one? Mountain West team?

Speaker 1 No, I've never heard of them. No,

Speaker 1 what did Frank say? Hold on. I got to find Frank.

Speaker 1 He had a great tweet about the Mountain West.

Speaker 5 I kind of see what Frank's saying about the broadcast rights. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mountain West

Speaker 5 the CBS broadcasts the Mountain West. The tournament's on Turner.

Speaker 5 And the Big East is Fox. But yeah, so the biggest takeaways are: I have three ones he's in the Final Four.
However, I have Drake and Florida in the Elite Eight.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 What about you guys?

Speaker 3 I have a pretty chalk fun. I did two ones, two twos.
Yeah. I feel like I really mixed it up there.

Speaker 1 Yo, like mine, Jake. I went storylines.
Oh, Frank said, shh. So John Fantas said the Big East just announced that this year's entire conference tournament was a sellout.

Speaker 1 19,812 came to all five sessions. Frank said, shh, don't tell the committee they're busy watching Mountain West bore ball.

Speaker 1 Fucking got them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You'll love my final four because it's the storyline. It is UConn UNC Marquette Creighton.
Ooh. Three out of four, the Big East.

Speaker 1 All three Big East teams get to the Final Four and show the selection committee was very stupid. I love that.

Speaker 5 Also,

Speaker 1 I forgot what I was going to say. Okay.

Speaker 3 I also have Jamie going to the Sweet 16, Jake. I think that's a sharp pick on your part.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, the bottom right, the Midwest, it's all the teams that choke in the tournament. So one of them has to break through, right?

Speaker 5 Purdue and Tennessee, they always have like final four realistic expectations.

Speaker 1 Creighton and Kansas is there.

Speaker 5 No, but that's what I'm saying. Like, of course, Kansas or Gonzaga is going to end up winning the region

Speaker 5 because you can't really trust any other team. Yeah, although they kind of stick.

Speaker 1 But I have Purdue.

Speaker 5 Oh, I remember what I was going to say. Congratulations to the Howard Wagner winner on beating UNC because that will be my trend of my champion being out day one.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 So you should take Howard Wagner winner money line.

Speaker 3 All right, Jake, give us your first four. We actually didn't break down any of the first four.

Speaker 5 I have, because everyone despises Virginia, I have them not only beating Colorado State, I have them beating Texas and going to the round of 32.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're going to make us watch more of a.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's going to be such a great narrative game.

Speaker 1 Because if Virginia loses, it's like Virginia never should have been in. If Colorado State loses, it'd be like, Mountain West sucks.
Yeah. He should be in.

Speaker 1 We just basically get to decide what we want from that game. Yeah.

Speaker 5 But you can listen to the Mark Titus show for my full bracket, but those are the big takeaways.

Speaker 1 Okay. All right.
Well, good show, boys. We will have Mark Titus on on Wednesday to get deeper into brackets.
Best time of year.

Speaker 1 Let's do numbers. 12.

Speaker 1 18.

Speaker 1 40.

Speaker 9 But I feel like.

Speaker 1 3.

Speaker 1 I'll go 1 for Villanova.

Speaker 6 Once you'd know a 20.

Speaker 3 99 puck.

Speaker 1 If it's 60, I'm going to be. Damn bad.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, Shane, thanks for Keenan Allen, by the way. Thanks for Keenan Allen, by the way.
Thanks for Keenan Allen. You want to say anything about that? Appreciate it.
Shane was very upset at me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You want to say something, Shane?

Speaker 5 What were you saying?

Speaker 1 Thanks for Keenan Allen.

Speaker 1 Fuck you. Okay.

Speaker 1 23.

Speaker 5 MJ, North Carolina, my national champion.

Speaker 1 Oh, there it is. Love you guys.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for your love, okay?

Speaker 1 Oh, I'll be coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, I'll be coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Take me up

Speaker 1 me. I'll be growing.

Speaker 1 Needless to say, I've often said it's about beats down a little way.

Speaker 1 Slowly learning that life is okay. Say after me.

Speaker 1 It's so bad to be safe and sorry. It's so bad to be safe and sorry.
It's so bad to be safe and sorry.

Speaker 1 Take on me.

Speaker 1 Drink on me.

Speaker 1 I'll go young,

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 drink on me, take me

Speaker 1 out,

Speaker 1 drink on me, I'll give you

Speaker 1 all

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 table.