Jon Rothstein, Brackets Revealed & Tom Brady Cucks Selection Sunday

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Speaker 1 On today's part of my take,

Speaker 1 we have John Rosteen in studio. Brackets are here.
We're very excited. We're going to talk about March Madness, fill out our brackets, break it all down.
We also have Who's Back of the Week.

Speaker 1 A certain someone decided to steal the spotlight right after the brackets were introduced. Tom Brady, so we'll talk about that.
We have Billy's final four.

Speaker 1 Final four for quarterbacks in the 2022 draft. I actually, Kenny Pickett texted me and was like, I heard I'm in some type of bracket for Billy football.

Speaker 1 And I was like, yep, no pressure, but he's listening. No pressure.
Don't change it, but he's listening.

Speaker 3 Hey, this is Rhea from Chicks in the Office. And this season, we're heading home for the holidays with Abercrombie and Fitch.
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Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 work to be done

Speaker 1 No place to hang out or washing

Speaker 1 And then I can't blame all of the sun Oh no, we're gonna rock it down to Elite Trick Avenue

Speaker 1 And then we'll take it higher

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna rock it down to Elite Trick Avenue It's part of my take presented by Marshal Sports

Speaker 1 Welcome to part of my take presented by visible go to visible.com right now. Visible has a single line plan for as low as $25 a month with unlimited data, talk, text, and hotspot.
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Speaker 1 Plus, it's powered by Verizon. Today is

Speaker 1 Monday, March 14th, and Tom Brady has cucked our brackets.

Speaker 4 Tom Brady,

Speaker 4 of all the dramatic things that I've ever seen, Tom Brady fucked over the kids. He fucked the kids today.

Speaker 1 We're going to do Bradley. Let's just do Tom Brady.
Just kiss him on the lips. He's back.

Speaker 1 He's back right before free agency starts.

Speaker 1 If you think that Tom Brady ruined Brackett Sunday, which he kind of did at the end there because the brackets came out and then he dropped the bomb that he's coming back for a 23rd season.

Speaker 1 His retirement lasted like 40 days.

Speaker 1 If you think it's bad for us because all we want to do is talk about brackets, let me just give a little perspective for everyone in the world right now. You ready for this perspective?

Speaker 1 There's a gentleman who

Speaker 1 not just 12 hours ago paid $518,000

Speaker 1 for at an auction for Tom Brady's final touchdown in the NFL pass. Wow.
$518,000

Speaker 1 Tom Brady's final touchdown pass on ESPN. So

Speaker 4 I was just thinking a couple hours ago, that guy that sold the ball back to the Bucs. You remember the one where they stole it back from him in the stands?

Speaker 1 That was his like, whatever, 600 through?

Speaker 4 Yeah, the one that surpassed the records. Yeah, that's true.
That guy probably feels pretty good about where he's at right now. Compared to this guy.

Speaker 4 Compared to this guy, because, geez, the Bucs fucked him over. Everyone's getting fucked over by Tom Brady today.

Speaker 1 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 I personally can't believe that Tom Brady would ruin Coach K's retirement tour.

Speaker 1 The last bracket reveal. Losing tour.

Speaker 4 The last bracket reveal of Coach K's career by announcing his own retirement tour.

Speaker 1 Unbelievable. Well, he might play a 24th season.
We don't know. He's not an egomaniac like Coach K.
He's, you know, he hasn't fully said this is his last year.

Speaker 4 I mean, he's replaced Brett Favre now. Yeah.
I think that this is the most dramatic, like, retirement, unretirement. Am I going to do it? No, I'm not going to do it.
Yes, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 4 Yes, I'm going to come back.

Speaker 1 Hashtag Shefty was wrong. Which I get why he would do it right now because it's right before free agency starts.
The tampering or the legal tampering period starts on Monday.

Speaker 4 It starts tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so he's got to do this because he's probably, there's a lot. I think there's 20 plus free agents in the Bucks organization that probably want to come back.
You want to get them to come back.

Speaker 1 You want other free agents to come to Tampa Bay. So it all makes sense.
Just why did you have to do it right as we got our brackets?

Speaker 4 Well, let me ask you this, Big Cat.

Speaker 4 Do you think that the fact that Tom realized that he would have to share his induction ceremony into the Hall of Fame with Big Ben and all the Steelers fans that were going to bust in from out of town?

Speaker 4 Canton is basically a suburb of Pittsburgh. Tom Brady saw the writing on the wall.

Speaker 4 He's like, five years from now, I don't want to get my ceremony cucked by Big Ben, so I'll just cuck the kids instead.

Speaker 1 He got it back. Now I can just hope that maybe he retires with Aaron Rodgers and we get that.

Speaker 4 That'd be very funny. That would be great.

Speaker 1 But yeah, the guy who bought at auction Tom Brady's last touchdown, and now, what is it? It's a touchdown pass he threw in the playoffs and a loss to the Rams.

Speaker 1 That's such a nothing burger.

Speaker 4 So you have to wonder, like, what did happen with Tom Brady and his retirement? Like you said, 40 days. That's like, that's Lent, right? Moses.
Moses? Is it Moses?

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 4 No, I think Jesus stopped eating food for 40 days. Yeah.
Except for fish on Fridays. Correct.
I'm pretty sure is how it went.

Speaker 1 And Glenn Balls. Glennie Balls also does that.

Speaker 4 Tom Brady is gone for 40 days, and then he just realizes this retirement life isn't for me. He ran out of golf to play.
He ran out of courses to visit.

Speaker 1 Well, there's conspiracy theories out there that the Bucs refused to trade him. So now he's coming back to force their hand to eventually trade him.
I don't buy that.

Speaker 4 To the Commanders for Carson Wentz.

Speaker 1 He did say Tampa. He's playing in Tampa.
Our colleague Stephen Che is

Speaker 1 insufferable would be the word I would use. Insufferabler than usual.
Yeah, it's brutal to watch

Speaker 1 his face, and especially because he doesn't care. He's like the truest sense of a football guy that I don't even know if you knew that it was Brackett Sunday.

Speaker 4 No, definitely not.

Speaker 1 But either way, let's not let Tom Brady steal the brackets from us.

Speaker 4 I do have one of my own conspiracy theories about what's going to happen with Tom Brady coming back. Okay.
I think...

Speaker 4 So Pioli went on NFL Network today, and he was being very weird about whether or not Tom Brady is going to play for the team.

Speaker 4 Like, you would think that would be the easiest interview of all time for him. Like, we're super excited to have Tom Brady come back to the Bucs.

Speaker 1 Wait, Scott Pioli works on the Bucs now? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 I think it was Peoli.

Speaker 1 That's his old-time guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, anyway, so he was being very cryptic about whether or not Tom Brady was going to come back and play for the Bucs.

Speaker 4 You would think he would say, like, yes, Tom Brady, very excited.

Speaker 1 My theory.

Speaker 4 is that Tom Brady wants to play for the Raiders for McDaniels, who's now the head coach of the Raiders, his old offensive coordinator.

Speaker 1 But wouldn't he have.

Speaker 4 And how awesome would that division be in quarterbacks at that point?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that would be the dumbest move if Tom Brady could ever get away. I think Peoli works for the Bucks.
No, I would love it. He definitely doesn't.

Speaker 4 He doesn't?

Speaker 1 No, I think he works in TV.

Speaker 4 Well, what was Florio talking about then earlier?

Speaker 1 I don't know. Florio's.

Speaker 4 Florio was talking about Peoli.

Speaker 1 He fucks know what Florio. Florio was talking about.

Speaker 4 Well, okay, so Florio was talking about Peoli being very weird and cryptic on NFL network today

Speaker 4 about whether or not Tom Brady's going to play for them, like he knew something.

Speaker 1 Got it. In other words, got it.
Because I was to say,

Speaker 1 that would be the dumbest move of all time to go to the Raiders when he's now... I think he probably looked at it and was like, wait, everyone's in the AFC now.

Speaker 1 I just have to beat Aaron Rodgers, who chokes every time he's in the playoffs, and maybe Matthew Stafford, who, okay, yeah, they won the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 The Bucs.

Speaker 1 They're playing the Falcons, the Panthers, and the Saints who don't know what they're doing. I don't know.

Speaker 1 He probably was like, hey,

Speaker 1 I could just come back and I'll be in the playoffs guaranteed. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 I don't think that the way that it played out, it doesn't really surprise anybody that Tom's going to come back.

Speaker 1 He just didn't have the way there was tonight.

Speaker 4 The way that the retirement was set up and then taken back and then set up again, it seemed fishy at the time. He did thank Hank, though.
How does this impact his thank you message to you, Hank?

Speaker 1 It's exciting. It just gives him another chance.
Yeah, it does. It's double-checked.
Total redo. Total redo that he gets to do it for you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I just, I think the guy's just addicted to football and even 40 days of like, he probably went, this is exactly how he went. He went on a vacation for like three weeks.
He got back from vacation.

Speaker 1 He took his kids to school for maybe a week or two in a row. And he was like, wait,

Speaker 1 this is it now? And I think people want like they retire so they don't have to work out, but I'm sure he's like still working out and he's like still active. And he's like, wait, Alex Gross.

Speaker 1 Why am I still doing this if I'm not going to play when I can just play? Yeah, Alex Gross still showing up at his house at 5.45 in the morning and giving him deep tissue massages.

Speaker 1 Like, he's like, fuck it, I'm going to play. And again, it's like,

Speaker 1 he just rolls out and he's in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 Do you think that Tom Brady spent the last 40 days actually trying other foods besides

Speaker 4 the rare bison, like eating Buffalo heart?

Speaker 1 I think he's always on call. So he was like, even in retirement, he's like, I might come back at any time.
Like, he'll eat like that forever.

Speaker 4 It's going to be very funny to see Antonio Brown try to walk back everything that he said about him. He should come back.
And be like, let's come on. Let's get everybody back.

Speaker 1 The missing piece is just Gronk and getting Ali Marpet back, who I wouldn't be shocked. Tom Brady has that ability.

Speaker 1 But let's not let him steal everything. We can talk about him later on this week.
Let's talk about brackets.

Speaker 4 Oh, I thought you were going to get to Kirk Cousins.

Speaker 1 Feel this? Hear this?

Speaker 4 The bag king of this? The bag king of all time. Hear this?

Speaker 1 That's a bracket. There's nothing like printing out a bracket.
We have our brackets.

Speaker 1 Jake, you're going to be leaned on heavily here. I do want you to just give me real quick.

Speaker 1 I'm looking at the bracket.

Speaker 1 In the Midwest region, there's there's a team that I don't think they should be there they're my November preseed said they shouldn't have been they shouldn't be in this bracket this is what is going on the finale of this storyline Wisconsin has officially made the NCA a tournament okay so hashtag Jake was wrong yes

Speaker 1 we're gonna get to with Rostein about the brackets I there's just something about selection Sunday I know last year we had it but it was also still weird because there was you know the covet tournament the bubble tournament whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 1 Just seeing like the different regions and seeing the names get announced, it's just beautiful.

Speaker 1 It really feels like we're finally like, it's been exactly two years, we're finally back.

Speaker 4 I miss when they did it alphabetically. And they just went all over the map.
It made no sense whatsoever. Everybody was so pissed off.
This was a great bracket reveal.

Speaker 4 I thought that CBS did a phenomenal job

Speaker 4 showing me the regions. Yeah.
In fact, I think the only intro that they gave, I think it was Clark Kellogg saying, nobody wants to hear me talk, hear the teams. Yes.
That's beautiful. That's perfect.

Speaker 4 That's all you need to do. Looking through it,

Speaker 4 what are your knee-jerk reactions?

Speaker 4 I'll give you two knee-jerk reactions.

Speaker 4 One, they fuck Coach K. He specifically requested that he play his games in Chicago, in the Midwest.
They did not listen to him. They fucked him over.
They sent him out west.

Speaker 4 I think that the West is the toughest region right now.

Speaker 4 Oh, I think it's the East. No, I think the West is.
I think that there's landmines. I'm agree to disagree.
There's landmines in the West. And then I think that Wisconsin, as it stands right now,

Speaker 4 actually looks like they're going to go through the Midwest.

Speaker 1 Okay, I know what you're doing.

Speaker 4 I know I told you this before we recorded. And I've got a future on Wisconsin, too.
It's fine. It's fine.

Speaker 4 Would you not,

Speaker 4 would you disagree that if you were to pick any of the regions, the Midwest is probably right now the one that you would want Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Well, it's the most chaotic, and obviously they have a home game in Milwaukee. It's going to be the last game on Friday, so it was going to be.
fucked up and it's going to be great, electric.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, listen, I've been very honest honest about what I thought about this Wisconsin team. It's been an awesome season.

Speaker 1 I've enjoyed every second of the ride, except maybe the Nebraska and Michigan State game. If they can get to the 316, I'll be very, very happy.
I don't expect anything past that.

Speaker 1 It's all gravy past that. So when, if they lose in the first two games and people are like, they're frauds, I'm telling you right now,

Speaker 1 I don't expect a ton.

Speaker 1 I could be... What? I'm not going to let my hopes get up.
They got a great draw, but I'm not going to let my hopes get up. You've tweeted separate thoughts from what you just said.

Speaker 1 Then my hopes got up. Yeah, well, my hopes are up.
No, but

Speaker 1 I'm going to stay guarded because PFT's going to troll me. You're going to not

Speaker 1 be that. I'm not fucking joking.
Jake's going to be like, they're going to be down by fucking 15 to Colgate with the under four-minute mark in the second half.

Speaker 1 He's going to be like, they still got a chance. And I'm going to

Speaker 1 kill myself. I've got to go with four minutes left.
Yeah. Yeah, Jake's going to be

Speaker 1 realistic. You should change the story.
It's got to be triggered.

Speaker 4 You're pre-triggered about Wisconsin right now because I'm being honestly supportive. And I do think you said it yourself, like

Speaker 4 they have the best draw that you could have hoped for. Yes.

Speaker 1 Doesn't mean it's going to shake out.

Speaker 4 That's all I'm saying. I think that, here's what I'll say.

Speaker 4 If it's not Wisconsin that comes out of that region, I'm going to call whatever team comes out of that region possibly fraudulent because it is the chaos region.

Speaker 1 It is the chaos region.

Speaker 1 I just want to enjoy. my tournament experience.
And I feel like there's just so much, so many people just want to see me be miserable, and I will be miserable eventually.

Speaker 1 Let me have two games. Let me get to the next, let me get to the second weekend and then you can watch me die in a puddle.
Is that so much sense? See you looking past Colgate.

Speaker 1 No, I'm saying let me I'm actually doing the opposite. I think every game is tough and I would love to get to the second weekend.
Just I know there's a lot of people waiting to shit down my throat.

Speaker 1 Can you let me get

Speaker 1 let me let me get a little air before you shit down my throat.

Speaker 4 I think that Tennessee got fucked too. They did.
Tennessee got dry fucked. They're a three seed.
They should have been a two seed. Should have been one of the top two seeds.

Speaker 4 In my opinion, Duke fucked. Duke.
Yes, Duke fucked Tennessee. Tennessee should have that two seed.
They should be on the other side of the bracket.

Speaker 1 I would argue that I do think the East is the toughest region, and I would say I would probably rather be a three-seed in Tennessee's spot than a two-seed where Kentucky is. As weird as it sounds.

Speaker 1 If you wanted to switch, you have the team that just won the title last year. You have a team that went to the Final Four last year in UCLA.

Speaker 1 A Purdue team team that everyone had is like a one or a two seed till the end of the season. Murray State is no fucking slouch.
So I think Kentucky got a fucking shit. Gee Broteck just won the ACC.

Speaker 1 So that would be the solace for Tennessee fans. If you had to switch, you would probably have switched with Kentucky.

Speaker 1 I would rather be a three where I'm at in the south than a two in the east where Kentucky is. Also, Coach K,

Speaker 1 I love they put him out west. It's like he's just going coast to coast in his losing tour.
I want him to get to the Sweet 16 so we can let fans out west get an experience. You know, he did it.

Speaker 1 He did it in Durham

Speaker 1 for his last game against UNC. He came up to Brooklyn, gave everyone in New York a nice little taste of the losing tour.
Now he's going to go all the way out to the West Coast, San Francisco.

Speaker 1 Your last chance to see Coach K lose. It's going to be great.

Speaker 4 I feel bad for Jake, too, because Jake, his catamounts, they have the must-bus in the first round.

Speaker 4 Your old friend.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Verb. Your game.

Speaker 5 My brain and our handshake. It's just screwed up.

Speaker 1 Wait, what?

Speaker 4 Your brain and your handshake.

Speaker 1 My brain. Oh, your handshake with Musk.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Got it. Your hug.
It wasn't a handshake. Whatever.

Speaker 1 Your hug with Musk.

Speaker 1 What's the brain? What's the verbal mean?

Speaker 5 Just like, that's what my brain looks like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can see it.

Speaker 1 Okay, got it. Got it.
Got it. That makes sense.
Got it.

Speaker 4 Got it. Yeah.
No, that's.

Speaker 4 See, that's what I'm saying. I think I just like the coaches

Speaker 1 in the West.

Speaker 4 You got Konzaga, number one. See, then

Speaker 1 you got Hurley.

Speaker 4 You've got the Musk Bus, you've got Nate Oates that brings a lot of stuff with him.

Speaker 4 Penny, you've got Penny up there. Yeah,

Speaker 4 that is the bracket of coaches.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, what else?

Speaker 4 Izzo, everyone knows he's automatic in March.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's true.

Speaker 1 We have the Foster Lawyer revenge game. That's one of the storylines.
Davidson's

Speaker 1 Kay and Izzo. It would be great for Izzo to take him out one last time.

Speaker 1 The Mr. Michigan basketball player of 2018, Foster Lure, who played for Michigan State, transferred this past spring and now stars for Davidson.
So we've got that little storyline.

Speaker 4 I got a question for you, Big Cat.

Speaker 4 Have we forgotten about Villanova?

Speaker 1 No, I actually have him in my Final Four. So I definitely have not forgotten about Vanilla.

Speaker 4 I think Wii is in the Royal Wii. America has forgotten about the Cats.

Speaker 1 I have not. I have definitely not.
I think

Speaker 1 they're definitely prime. They have everything set except for maybe depth, which you could say is overrated as long as you stay out of foul foul trouble.

Speaker 4 I think the first time that Glaspia plays in this tournament, you're going to get a lot of people that haven't seen him playing. What, Jake?

Speaker 1 You added an extra A on Glaspia.

Speaker 4 Oh, that's cut. Yeah, I was thinking of the fullback.
But the first time he plays in the tournament, you're going to get a lot of people being like, oh, this guy's back again?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, because he tore his ACL last year and he's been around for forever.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, I like how Jake smugly laughed at the minor mispronunciation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they win the big East. We also have,

Speaker 1 if you have not been online in the last three days, this podcast has a new love affair with a certain point guard from UAB. His name is Jordan Walker, but he goes by the nickname Jelly.

Speaker 1 We pretty much, it just started with a random live bet on Friday where we had the whole room live bet UAB in the first five minutes of the game. They went to three overtimes.
He scored 40.

Speaker 1 We then bet him again on Saturday night. He's a lot of people.
Drilling them to overtime. Williams, yeah,

Speaker 4 on his shoulders because he had all his big men foul out. So it was the jelly show.
I think at the start of the first overtime, Jerry was like, oh, this kid's just going to shoot over and over again.

Speaker 4 We're like, yep, that is what we want, and it's going to be awesome. And he just came out there gunning.

Speaker 1 He's the perfect March Madness guy. Like, there is certain guys.
I always think of, like, when you think of the perfect March Madness story, it's like Wally Zerbiak when he went to the Sweet 16.

Speaker 1 The guy who takes his team to a certain level just by being awesome and being unafraid, and that is Jelly Walker. So shout out Jelly Walker, UAB.
We are UAB fans now,

Speaker 1 and Andy Kennedy, their coach. So

Speaker 1 let's hope they beat Houston.

Speaker 4 They got a tough first-round matchup. If I were to look at which five-seed would I want Jelly going up against, it probably would not have been the Cougs.

Speaker 4 But I still think Jelly's going to do it. We're Team Jelly fans.
Of course. We can't go against Jelly.
He was too much fun to watch. Matthew Jello Vedova is what people are calling him.

Speaker 4 That's like taking over.

Speaker 1 Jersey Jelly. He is from Jersey.

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 we have a new love affair. What other, Jake, give us your other big picture

Speaker 1 things. Duke got lucky.
I think Duke.

Speaker 1 That was an awesome game, by the way, in Brooklyn.

Speaker 5 The thing with Duke, yes.

Speaker 1 Virginia Tech.

Speaker 5 Kator just started six for six from three.

Speaker 1 Coach Kay assaulted John Shire.

Speaker 4 He did. He slapped him.

Speaker 1 He did. He did, Hank.
You weren't watching if you missed that. I saw it.
He assaulted it. Yeah, it was not assault.
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 Duke has to beat Gonzaga twice to go to the Final Four this season.

Speaker 4 It's tough to do.

Speaker 1 Oh, this season. Yes, revenge game.

Speaker 5 That is a revenge game for Gonzaga.

Speaker 1 You think they're going to get to the Elite Eight? Assuming

Speaker 1 talk.

Speaker 4 I think I'm going to take Texas.

Speaker 5 I think Gonzaga beats Duke in the Elite Eight.

Speaker 1 Okay. I think they're going to lose

Speaker 1 maybe to C.S. Fullerton.

Speaker 5 That was a great game last night, the championship game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, how do you not get a shot off? Yeah, that was crazy. Princeton had the same thing happen.
Not getting a shot off at the end is one of the worst feelings.

Speaker 1 I got, Duke, if you want to hear my Duke thoughts, it's going to be a Coach K revenge tour of its own, Duke vs. UConn, Elite Eight.
Oh,

Speaker 1 Final Four. Oh, okay.
Play the hits.

Speaker 1 NCAA knows what they're doing. So Duke takes down Michigan State and then takes down UConn.

Speaker 1 Takes down Michigan State, takes down UConn, takes down Kentucky. And then has to go to Kentucky, Final Four, and then B2

Speaker 1 for the championship. Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 I think the NCAA rigged the South region has a lot of hot teams. You have the one, two, three, and five all won their conference tournament.
They all have momentum.

Speaker 1 What does that mean? But also maybe

Speaker 1 not rested. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they got first rust.

Speaker 4 Yeah, their legs are weak. Yeah.
What does it mean? I don't know. What do you think it means?

Speaker 5 I mean, those are all teams that obviously had momentum, but now it's going to kind of cancel out because they're all bunched together.

Speaker 4 So, Jake, let me ask you, in the first four, if you had to pick one of those teams to win two games, who would it be?

Speaker 5 I think Indiana's got a chip on their shoulder to restore

Speaker 5 blue blood dominance.

Speaker 4 That's just the storyline that you're rooting for, yeah.

Speaker 4 I like the pants, too.

Speaker 1 Love the warm-ups. Yeah, it's a person.

Speaker 4 I am personally going to be boycotting.

Speaker 4 I haven't figured out which one of these games to boycott, but in solidarity with Tennessee, with Volunteer Nation, I'm going to boycott one of the first four games of this year's tournament.

Speaker 1 You can't do, you know, it's easy. It's Texas Southern.

Speaker 4 Okay, I'm out. Yeah, the Texas Southern.

Speaker 1 Brian is Peter Kiss. Yeah, leading score in the country.
They might be in Air Force. They're hockey as fuck ever.
Yeah. Like, of all time.
They might be in Aaron.

Speaker 1 One other thing I just want to quickly say, Tony Reali said this, but I agree. He said the 16 seeds having to play the play-in game is unbecoming to the tournament.

Speaker 1 They won their conference, let them in, leave the players for that at-large. That is kind of bullshit.
If you win your conference tournament,

Speaker 1 you get an ad-large bid.

Speaker 1 You have to play on on Tuesday. Yeah, those playing games don't really feel.
I like that they expanded the field just because it's more teams, more fun, whatever.

Speaker 1 Remember, UCLA went to the final four from it last year. So you can't say that those teams aren't going to do anything.
But it should be the bigger conference teams that don't hate anything.

Speaker 1 I hate how they do.

Speaker 1 I'll expand on that point. I also hate how they have good lower conference teams matched up in the first round.
I think that's bullshit. Like, I think Murray State playing San Francisco is stupid.

Speaker 4 They should split those up. They should split those up.

Speaker 1 I like to see, you like to see the power five or power six in college basketball go against the smaller schools. That's what makes March Madness fun.
So

Speaker 1 I hate when they do that.

Speaker 4 All right, so let's go around the room. Let's see what the final fours are.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll start. Gonzaga, Kentucky, Villanova, and Kansas is my final four.
Two ones and two twos.

Speaker 5 Jake, I actually have three of the same four as big time.

Speaker 1 Wait.

Speaker 1 My bracket is busted. Probably.
No, I'm just kidding. Everyone's bracket sucks.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Gonzaga, Kentucky, Villanova, Iowa.

Speaker 1 Ooh,

Speaker 1 the hot hands.

Speaker 5 Hottest team in the country right now.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Hank. Duke, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Tennessee.

Speaker 1 I had Wisconsin-Iowa Elite Eight Big Ten matchup.

Speaker 1 I did strategically fill out my Wisconsin bracket in terms of content that I desire. Right.

Speaker 1 That's a perfect

Speaker 1 factor that in, yeah. Right, right, right, right, right, right.
Bubba, did you fill out a bracket?

Speaker 5 I have Yukon, Nova, Iowa, and Kentucky.

Speaker 1 Ooh, okay. Spicy.
Billy?

Speaker 6 I got Purdue, Arizona, Gonzaga, and Iowa.

Speaker 1 Okay, and then PFT?

Speaker 4 I got Gonzaga, UCLA, Nova, Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 So Gonzaga's going to make their first Final Four. We all have them.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Not me.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you guys, the Duke haters in the room, what, like, and it's not going to happen, so I'm going to enjoy it as it strings along, but

Speaker 1 where could Coach K lose that's the most enjoyable for every single round? But, like, pick a round. Every round.

Speaker 1 Every single round. If he lost in the first round, it'd be incredible.

Speaker 1 If he lost to Coach K, it'd be incredible. If he lost to Texas Tech, it'd be incredible.
If he lost to Gonzaga, it'd be incredible. I actually think...
Kentucky, incredible.

Speaker 4 I think maybe the best way for him to lose...

Speaker 1 Because if he loses to Izzo, my answer is firm.

Speaker 4 If he loses to Izzo, there's going to be a big hug fest, and it'll be like, okay, two gladiators going at it one last time. That's going to suck.

Speaker 4 If he loses to Davidson against a bunch of players that wanted to go to Duke that he didn't recruit, that would be awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I'm sticking with my answer. Every single round.
Fullerton. Every single round.
Fullerton would be incredible.

Speaker 5 I mean, he's lost pickup sets twice before, Mercer.

Speaker 1 Yep. He's been coaching for 60 years, Jake.

Speaker 5 That's twice in the last decade.

Speaker 1 Twice in the last decade.

Speaker 4 Actually, no, I take it back. I take it all back.
The best place for Coach K to lose in this bracket would be against Vermont and then Jake giving Hank a power handshake afterwards.

Speaker 1 Great games. Yes.

Speaker 4 Nothing to be ashamed of, Hank. Coach K fought hard.

Speaker 4 Wish you could have won, too.

Speaker 1 I also wouldn't hate if Memphis beat them in the Elite Eight and every Duke fan was like Memphis cheats and they pay their recruits just ignoring like Zion Williamson and every recruit in Duke history.

Speaker 1 That would be very delicious. Should we do a

Speaker 1 clarity? Oh, no, it's every round for me, though. The answer is as long as he loses, every single round.

Speaker 1 I will make that day my favorite day.

Speaker 4 Should we do a part of my take contest?

Speaker 1 Nah.

Speaker 4 Loser has to drive to New Orleans. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Nah.

Speaker 1 I'm just so excited to have a bracket, even though I ripped it. Now I can't read it.

Speaker 4 What about you guys? You guys want to do a contest?

Speaker 1 What contest would you like to do? I don't know.

Speaker 4 Contests are just fun.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 I agree. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 do you want to do a bracket? Like, do you want to.

Speaker 4 Maybe we announce it on Wednesday's show. Okay.
Send us your ideas of good punishments. And we'll pick one of those.

Speaker 1 And then, but what are we going to do? A bracket? And who has the least amount of points? Yeah.

Speaker 5 But then people can just take 16 seeds if they want to do the punishment.

Speaker 1 Correct. Good point, Jamie.

Speaker 4 Nobody would do that.

Speaker 1 Good point.

Speaker 5 PFT is going to have Georgia State and Brian in his final four.

Speaker 1 They'd be like, I like how they're going to be.

Speaker 4 I like the Bulldogs.

Speaker 1 What can you say?

Speaker 1 If Brian wins.

Speaker 5 Against Wright State, you have him beating Arizona?

Speaker 1 Money line.

Speaker 1 I will be taking that. I'm just so excited for Thursday.
And Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday, really.

Speaker 4 And Vikad has to wait the whole time.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's the worst time. The worst possible.
I actually said it on the drive over. I was like,

Speaker 1 if they give us the last game on Friday, I'm going to be so upset because all the energy you use on Thursday and Friday and then to have to wait for your team to play.

Speaker 1 The perfect time for your team to play in the tournament is Thursday at like 4 o'clock. Because you get like a little game, a few games under your belt.

Speaker 1 And then if you can win that game, you get to watch a day and a half of basketball with just like not a care in the world.

Speaker 4 I would like Thursday the first evening game because you get like a little preparation.

Speaker 1 Well, not the first.

Speaker 1 That one's not a real game. The game they start like like basically when everyone's still eating dinner that's always like they'll do like a one verse 16 so the one that's at like seven

Speaker 4 that's at like seven o'clock because you get enough time it's not going to sneak up on you it could sneak up on you if it was at the end of the of the afternoon games on thursday um i'm yeah i'm just pumped too pumped to see a practical joker show up on my tv pumped for um like going to the gym in the morning and the tvs are still left on tnt or whatever and they're playing the worst television shows ever created at nine o'clock in the morning just the whole whole environment.

Speaker 4 I love March.

Speaker 1 Yeah, March is the best. All right, should we do who's back?

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Speaker 1 Code audio at checkout. And then we have Billy's final four on the other side of John Rossine.
Shout out Kelly Martin, by the way, for booking that, right? Shout out to you. No, no, no.

Speaker 4 We wanted to make sure that Big Mike got a shout out on that one.

Speaker 1 She got us John Rossine.

Speaker 1 That's a fact. So everybody

Speaker 1 say thank you.

Speaker 1 Who's back?

Speaker 1 Deshaun Watson. Yes.
Obviously, a lot of stuff stuff going on, but I shouldn't have said it that way. Yes.
And with, so his, he was not, there were no charges filed.

Speaker 1 There's no criminal charges that were found. Careful, Shefty.
And then Schefter ate the trash hard.

Speaker 1 He said, this is why Deshaun Watson, from the beginning, welcomed a police investigation. He felt he knew that the truth would come out.

Speaker 1 And today, a grand jury did not charge him of any of the criminal complaints.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and then he followed it up a couple hours later by saying this was a very good idea.

Speaker 1 Yeah, after the internet dunked him for like three hours.

Speaker 4 So he just got shit on by everybody with a Twitter account. And then he said, this was a poorly worded tweet.

Speaker 4 After consulting with people that know more about the legal process, I would like to update it.

Speaker 4 How little did Schefter know about the legal process to just have like a bare minimum? I've seen the wire one time all the way through.

Speaker 4 I know that a grand jury is just like, They either charge you with a crime or they don't think they have enough evidence to charge you with a crime. Yeah.

Speaker 4 They should declare people innocent though.

Speaker 1 I did see.

Speaker 4 If you can prove innocence, there should be a third thing that they add to it. He was found innocent of all charges.

Speaker 1 I did see one reply that made me laugh. You're like, I would have loved to see Schefter's tweet after OJ was OJ cut off.

Speaker 4 Yeah, this is why OJ welcomed the gloves being brought into the courtroom.

Speaker 1 He was nowhere near the apartment that night. Yeah, Shefty.
He also has been wrong about Tom Brady. I think that retroactively, he loses that scoop, right? Yeah, he was being real.

Speaker 1 He was really being very core the other day, too. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Very coy.

Speaker 1 Very coy. But people are saying Steelers, the Saints have reached out, the Panthers.
I've heard Seahawks, Seahawks. Good culture fan reply.
Steelers. Yeah.
Steelers would be just perfect.

Speaker 1 Jameis and Deshaun is Steelers. Steelers fans can easily take care of that.

Speaker 4 So there was a time back in like 2015, 2014, I went up to a Steelers preseason game when they signed Mike Vick to be the backup.

Speaker 4 And there was a lady standing outside the stadium holding a post for a Steelers fan. And at the top was a picture of Big Ben.
At the bottom was Mike Vick.

Speaker 4 It said, hey, Steelers, this is what a real quarterback looks like

Speaker 4 with an arrow pointing to Big Ben protesting Michael Vick being on the team. I love it.

Speaker 1 Also, Big Ben also had no criminal charges, but still got suspended. Innocent.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 He was found. So this is what

Speaker 4 I've got legal investigation.

Speaker 1 There's been plenty of examples of not like people not getting charged. Right.
But still getting suspended. Right, correct.
Correct.

Speaker 1 Oh, we forgot to.

Speaker 1 Hasn't it felt like 100 years since we've last been in studio? Kleomac did get traded. Yes.

Speaker 1 So, and I'm people, that was one of those situations where people wanted me to be mad, but I wasn't because the Bears need to re they need to fix everything.

Speaker 1 They need to tear it all down, build it back up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I wasn't mad because I don't know what the point of going like seven and ten with Kleomac is.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just probably the only

Speaker 4 reason you should be mad. They probably should have done this a year ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, and people, people were mad because the

Speaker 1 haul wasn't great. You know, it was a second and a sixth, but it was more about the salary.
Also, I think that's more just like on name.

Speaker 1 Khalil Mack is probably going to be great for the Chargers for a year or two. He's getting older.
He's been injured a lot. That's just the reality of it.

Speaker 1 Like, it's a guy who's 31 with a lot of money on his salary, who's been injured for essentially three years, like off and on. You're not going to get a ransom for him.

Speaker 4 Right. It's like people don't understand that football players are depreciating assets.
Correct.

Speaker 4 So just because you paid X and Y for Khalil Mack three years ago doesn't mean that you should expect to get that.

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 4 But unless it's a quarterback

Speaker 4 that goes out of the division for two first-round picks, then if you get him hypothetically for like two third-round picks, that's a steal.

Speaker 1 L-M-A-O-O.

Speaker 1 Also, Amari Cooper to the Browns. Yeah, which I...
That doesn't. Amari Cooper is firmly, in my mind, a guy who just is perpetually not as good as his hype.
He's a Heisman candidate. And he's truly

Speaker 1 a total mind bender with age because he's 27. And I thought he was like 35.

Speaker 4 27? Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's 37. Holy shit.
He's 27, dude.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was like, man.

Speaker 1 He's a mind-bender.

Speaker 4 Well, he's been around a little bit.

Speaker 1 He's been around for a long time. He was fourth pick in the draft.
He's good. He's just not...
He's a guy who you will forever want to be a clear-cut number one, and he will never be that.

Speaker 4 So when they made the trade, I was like, this is actually, I like like the combination of Amari Cooper and Jarvis Landry in Cleveland.

Speaker 4 And then the next tweet after that from Schefter was, they're giving Landry permission to seek a trade elsewhere. Yes.
And it's like, well, okay, so I guess Cooper is your number one.

Speaker 1 Someone told me a stat that we'll have to check. Jake, you could check it.
Amari Cooper and Calvin Ridley are the exact same age, and they never played together in Alabama.

Speaker 1 Someone said that in my replies. That's a reply guy thing that we'll have to check.
But they're both 27. But yeah, Amari Cooper being 27 makes no sense.

Speaker 4 You could also make the argument, though, that having Amari Cooper on your roster makes whoever the number two receiver is better than Amari Cooper.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He elevates the next guy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And again, he's not bad. It's just, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're always wanting Amari Cooper to be the guy, and I don't think he ever will be the guy.
I mean, CeeDee Lamb's better than him.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 And you could say, like, Gallup had

Speaker 4 been better than him recently, too.

Speaker 1 Although that one is weird, because I think there was some Cowboys fans like, yeah, Michael Gallup said, didn't he, he tore his ACL like second to last week of the season? Yeah. It felt like.

Speaker 1 It was whatever I made that future on the Cowboys. He tore it like four hours later.

Speaker 4 I forgot. I forgot that Gallup.
I need to do a reset on NFL News. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Amari Cooper 12 through 14 and Calvin Ridley 15 through 17.

Speaker 1 Same age. Never played together.
That's wild. In Alabama.
That's truly wild.

Speaker 4 So the fact that Ridley

Speaker 4 got suspended for gambling on football. If Amari Cooper got suspended for like when I hear it's Ridley, I'm like, that's a young kid.
He's got a lot to learn.

Speaker 4 If Cooper had gotten suspended for gambling on football, I'd be like, that fucking dumbass should know better.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he knows better. He's been around forever.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a truly mind-bending stat of the day. All right, PFT, your who's back.

Speaker 4 My who's back of the week is Pete Davidson.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Skeet Davidson is back.

Speaker 4 Got into a little text battle with Kanye West. And then hit him with the ultimate walk-off.
There's no coming back from this. I am in bed with your wife.

Speaker 1 Brutal.

Speaker 4 I'm in bed with your wife. There's nothing that you can say to that.
Yeah. There's absolutely like you can't come back with your mom.

Speaker 4 That's boss level come back. Yeah.
So thoughts and prayers to kind of with the picture. With the picture.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the over-the-top part is like the picture of him in bed.

Speaker 4 But there was no picture of Kim in the picture.

Speaker 1 You'd assume she's there in bed with him.

Speaker 4 You would assume.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Now, that's a tough one to come back from.
I don't know how he does that.

Speaker 1 All right, my who's back is Russell Westbrook Slander.

Speaker 1 We had Westbrook and him asking people not to say Westbrook. Well, we had one further this weekend.
So a high school in Illinois just won the state title. One of the best teams ever.

Speaker 1 They only lost, they won every game in Illinois. They only lost to Bronny's team in like a game that they played on ESPN2.
Glenbard West, they won the state title.

Speaker 1 They were playing Bowling Brook a couple days ago. The coach of Bowling Brook said, I'd rather be playing the Lakers than Glenbard West.

Speaker 1 We could back off Russell Westbrook, let him shoot, and get some rebounds. There's not a guy on the Glenbard West roster we can do that to.

Speaker 1 High school coach said that. That's brutal.
Brutal. A brutal bird.

Speaker 4 The thing is, like, for all the complaining that he's doing about Russell Westbrook, which

Speaker 1 I understand. That's his mother and his father's name.
I know.

Speaker 4 That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 Yes, in theory, it actually makes complete sense.

Speaker 4 If you take us out of the sports bubble that we grow up in and that we just have a common understanding of like, yeah, if you come into my team stadium, I'm going to make fun of you. Right.

Speaker 4 You would never say that to somebody like in person walking down the street. But like if you completely remove yourself from that environment, it makes a little bit of sense in a bubble.

Speaker 4 But he could just stop shooting the ball. Right.
He should just not shoot the ball.

Speaker 1 But just to have like high school coaches start roasting being like, I'd rather, it's easier to game plan for Russell Westbrook.

Speaker 4 Oh, by the way, did you see the t-shirts that they were selling in Philadelphia? Awesome. Awesome.

Speaker 4 When the Nets came back there, it was just a picture of a penis with Ben Simmons' face on it and just said, I think it's his complete dickhead. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And they were just selling it outside the stadium and families were walking by and be like, you got that in the youth small for that kid?

Speaker 1 20 bucks. I love Philly.
And then they got 40 pieced. Yeah, they did.
They get 40 pieced. And the guy who dresses a full baby, who's had a pacifier, Philly is the best.

Speaker 1 It really, there is no city in America that can just turn the hate up to that level. And they're already turning on Harden.
It's beautiful. Are they? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like it's a one game? Yeah.

Speaker 1 They have 40 pieces.

Speaker 4 Wait, Hank, who is turning on Hardin?

Speaker 1 Everyone I follow from. I'm up to date with the Philly people.
They're not happy with it. Hank is true.
He's like

Speaker 1 what people thought Russia did to our elections, Hank is doing to Philly. The disinformation to tear them apart.
It's true. Chaos in Philly.

Speaker 4 Hank, you should just start funneling this info to Billy and have Billy act as one of your liaisons to amplify your message.

Speaker 1 Hank's got a bunch of burners that he's just replying to everyone's tweets. Harden's stats.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Harden doesn't even like it in Philly.
I saw him out.

Speaker 1 Well, they got 40 pieces and then he was out at the club. Like, that's what happened.

Speaker 4 Well, that's what James Harden does.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Right.
That's how he deals.

Speaker 4 It was truly, it was a playoff performance from him. He went, what, three for 12?

Speaker 4 He had 11 points. And then afterwards, he goes out to a strip club.

Speaker 1 That's playoff Jay. Also, speaking of NBA, Kyrie's move today was awesome.

Speaker 1 Showing up to the game in Brooklyn with no mask, sitting on the sideline and basically making a mockery of the entire New York City mandate, which makes no sense.

Speaker 1 That Kyrie Irving can't play, but he can sit, and he was also in the locker room. He's allowed in the locker room.
He's allowed on the sideline. He's not allowed on the floor.

Speaker 4 It is dumb. The only thing that would be maybe dumber, even though I'm not even sure this would be dumber, if they let him play.

Speaker 4 if he kept a mask on but put the mask like under his chin because i've seen some of those leagues where you have to have a mask on the court, but it doesn't have to be over your mouth or nose.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 I made the mistake of tweeting about it, and it was my mentions were just, it's like a moth to a flame. You just got to everyone that wants to talk about COVID.

Speaker 4 You got to do what I do when I tweet about Miley Cyrus and just turn off replies whenever you mention anything that has to do with the mask.

Speaker 1 Well, it was such an innocuous comment. I was like, this is stupid.
This is stupid that Kyrie can be there and he can't play.

Speaker 1 And I think what's happening now is since COVID is slowly escaping the psyche and it's not really talked about anymore, there's a group of people online who just, they've spent so much time, so much of their energy the last year and a half talking about COVID that now that there's not a lot of tweets to reply to, if you just put one out there, they all just come rushing to that tweet.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It was like 400 replies in like 15 minutes.

Speaker 4 Did the Nets win with Kyrie or did they win because of Kyrie? They're not telling you the right stats in the papers, folks.

Speaker 1 Oh, man. These people, we need to,

Speaker 1 we should actually do a test and see if Billy can be a lightning rod and tweet about COVID and see how many replies he can get.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Billy, you're now our clearinghouse for our most problematic takes. Because if you tweet them out, everyone's just like, oh,

Speaker 4 Billy's dumb. Billy's like Calvin Ridley.
He doesn't know any better.

Speaker 1 I want to test that theory. I want to have you tweet a COVID take this week and see how many replies you can get.
Just to see how many people swarm to it because they have nothing else to talk about.

Speaker 1 All right, Billy, your who's back.

Speaker 6 My who's back in the week is Falconry.

Speaker 6 In Japan, there is now a huge movement. There's a bunch of crows that have been damaging their solar panels, taking stones and cracking their solar panels.
So there's been a huge

Speaker 6 boom in falconry. So they have a bunch of guys who are taking falcons out and like hunting down crows that are damaging the solar panels.

Speaker 6 So it's good to see like age-old traditions sort of come back to be repurposed in new ways.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I like it.

Speaker 4 There's no modern replacement for a falcon, for a bird of prey. You could try to get a drone, but it doesn't have talons.
It doesn't get hungry.

Speaker 1 How do crows attack a solar panel?

Speaker 6 They're like dropping stones on the solar panels.

Speaker 1 Oh, like the coordinated attack. Yeah, I think they're big, uh, you know.
There was also that viral tweet of the guy who was on a plane, and there was falconry people sitting next to him. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 6 Like, the Saudi princes all have them.

Speaker 1 And it's,

Speaker 1 I've said this before many years ago, but like, what happens if the plane goes down?

Speaker 4 Do they let them out?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You got to open the door. Right?

Speaker 1 Because they'll show you. I i don't think they uh

Speaker 1 i don't think they would think that quickly i would i would hope so if there's

Speaker 4 a falcon yeah if there's a bird on

Speaker 4 it's like if you're in a submarine and if you got an aquarium you smash it real quick right let them free you know um you know how they capture the falcons like if you want to get into how they get them out yeah they just sack mount ryan you couldn't you couldn't walk the the air pressure i think would suck everybody out yeah yeah like how would you i think the bird would

Speaker 1 have to disguise out there yeah like and the plane is spiraling down to the front. We got some falcons on this plane.
Let them out.

Speaker 1 Standing up? Yeah, get them out.

Speaker 4 I think there are protocols. If you're a flight attendant and you notice a bird getting onto the plane, you say to yourself, okay, in the event of a crash, I'm sending this guy home.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we're letting him out.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Something to think about.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you know how you get into falconry? If you acquire your first falcon, you don't just go out and buy one at the falcon store or from a pet store.

Speaker 1 Don't tell me you got to fuck it.

Speaker 4 No, you have to go out into nature and set up a trap and capture it in the wild yourself. They won't just give you, if you want to be a falconer, you have to like.

Speaker 1 It's like avatar. Yeah, learn it.

Speaker 4 Which I haven't seen. I like it.

Speaker 1 I like that. You just got to go catch your own falcon.
Avatar is like a combination of catching and fucking. Yeah.
And then it's yours.

Speaker 4 They link the same thing.

Speaker 6 I think that's how they do it, right? The avatars, they link their head piece, their hair pieces.

Speaker 1 They haven't seen them. Their braids, yeah.

Speaker 4 They braid up.

Speaker 1 Jake, your who's back?

Speaker 5 Who's back? It's the NIT.

Speaker 1 Oh, I was going to say, if this isn't college basketball related, I'm going to be very upset.

Speaker 5 The NIT and CBI brackets are out. I'm filling out both brackets because why not? My final four for the NIT.
Iona.

Speaker 5 You can go to the garden.

Speaker 1 Oklahoma, a little hot.

Speaker 5 They were a little hot this year.

Speaker 1 Blasting. Tenny Graves.
Tenner Groves. Groves.

Speaker 5 BYU out of the WCC. And then Wake Forest.
Wake Forest had the coach of the year and the player of the year of the ACC, and they missed it. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Not even.

Speaker 1 Maybe the saddest part about the

Speaker 1 March Madness is the amount we think about first four in, first four out, and then when they announce the bracket, they'll show for one second like these teams just barely missed, and then we'll just completely erase that from our brain.

Speaker 1 Be like,

Speaker 1 Dayton, Xavier, who the fuck cares? Like, they have this whole they're pleading, and like, I, you know, our good friend Casey Smith is saying, like, Texas AM deserved to be in.

Speaker 1 I, they are completely escaped from my memory. I got a bracket now, right? So I do feel a little bad for them.

Speaker 5 And Usually there's one team that's like, oh, they got screwed. There was no like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, text CNM, like, you thought they did enough with that run.

Speaker 5 But that's my NIT file.

Speaker 1 They don't care about conference attorneys. Jay, they don't.
We got to get you

Speaker 4 in touch with NIT Stu. He's that guy that I was talking about a couple weeks ago, the guy that's obsessed with the NIT.
He's already got his predictions out right now. He's got the Who's.
Okay.

Speaker 4 He's got the Who's right now. James Reich.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Virginia is a sixth seed at Mississippi State.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Slapping in the face.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I don't know know if I couldn't confirm this. I don't know if there's a third-place game or not.
They had it last year.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, there usually is, right?

Speaker 5 Yeah, but it's back at the garden. So I don't know if that's a good thing.

Speaker 1 No, there was at the garden, I want to say. Really? Yeah, I want to say that.
I think they cut it and they brought it back. I don't know.
Do you have any news from your dilemma from your Fire Fest?

Speaker 1 Guys, are we waiting?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 I am credentialed for the 2022 Firefest.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes. Let's go, Jake.
And what about us?

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 5 I'm the only one who got approved.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 no man left behind. Why is that? What do you reckon that is? Interesting.

Speaker 5 Well, first off, I put in the request before I talked about it on the show.

Speaker 1 For all of us? For all of us?

Speaker 5 For me and

Speaker 5 my co-hosts.

Speaker 1 Both of them? That would be all of us in this room.

Speaker 1 I thought we were a family. Love families.
We are family. LeBron says.
But like more like cousins.

Speaker 5 So you are my family.

Speaker 1 Bench Bob is your brothers.

Speaker 1 We're Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram. You just traded us away.
Never.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, that's how it feels right now, LeBron.

Speaker 1 Jake?

Speaker 5 I feel bad.

Speaker 1 That's fine. That's enough.

Speaker 1 That's all we want.

Speaker 4 I just wanted Jake to have bad bad.

Speaker 1 I'm excited.

Speaker 4 Did you feel bad so that we could be like, no, don't feel bad. Don't feel bad.

Speaker 5 It's going to be a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 I also, who's back? Like,

Speaker 1 I have to do an adjustment.

Speaker 1 Being a gambler and being around Jake is oil and water because this guy has optimism through the roof. But it is realistic offense.

Speaker 1 If they're down for four minutes left, like you still are alive. I don't know.

Speaker 4 There was a game, I think it was on Friday night, and it was coming down to the end, and a lot of us had the over on it.

Speaker 4 And the guy went up for a dunk, and it got stuck between the rim and the backboard. And everybody was like, fuck, because we needed points.
And Jake stands up.

Speaker 1 He's like, it's a wedgie. Yeah.
Because Jake loves

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 4 And he loves seeing a wedgie. It was like seeing a Scorigami in the wild.
By the way, do we have Skorigami for the tournament? I doubt it.

Speaker 1 There's just so many tournament games for sure. Sounds like there should be one.

Speaker 1 Oh, and I'd like to retract.

Speaker 4 Retraction. Notice NIT Stu does not have the who's winning.
That was somebody else he quote tweeted. His bracket challenge link is coming shortly.
He's polishing up his Google form right now.

Speaker 4 Follow NIT underscore Stu on Twitter. He's the only person that cares this much about the NIT.
I love it.

Speaker 5 I love it. So I'm excited for the final four.
Thank you guys for the support.

Speaker 1 Yes. And how's your optimism going to be when we're gambling?

Speaker 5 It's whatever you want me. Tell me right now.

Speaker 1 No, I want you to be yourself. I'm going to be upset at you, but I want you to be yourself.

Speaker 5 Okay, but one time maybe you'll win a game.

Speaker 1 But I'll say this for Jake.

Speaker 1 Come on, Jake. Credit to Jake.
Credit to Jake. He knows that what's said in between the lines is not real feelings.
Right. So you are good with that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 When I'm like, fuck you, Jake, stop being so optimistic. You know that in 30 minutes, I'll be fine.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we're good. We're all.
I'm excited to beat Jake.

Speaker 4 Look at all these blogs that Ray Friday Stew has done about the

Speaker 4 potential bracket in the last four days i saw that st.

Speaker 1 john's requested a home game and then they never didn't even make the nit that was that's pretty embarrassing he goes by joe stunardi love it perfect he's he's probably been around so long he like remembers when the nit was the tournament was the tournament that's always the best when your dads tell you you know the ncaa tournament the real one used to be the name yeah yeah it's more prestigious yeah um

Speaker 1 what was that

Speaker 1 someone's find my phone thing it's not me it was billy it was billy Billy. All right, let's do John Rostein.

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Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on one of our favorite guests, one of our favorite times times of the year.

Speaker 1 It is Brackett Sunday. We have the man, the myth, the legend, John Rossin in studio.
He's got his bracket. He just took his bracket out of his suit coat pocket.
That's right. We're ready to roll.

Speaker 1 This is March.

Speaker 5 This is March.

Speaker 1 The month before April. Whoa, I wanted to ask, before we get into the bracket, thoughts on Tom Brady?

Speaker 5 With the Patriots? No.

Speaker 1 He unretired.

Speaker 5 I thought he was always a Patriot. He's on the box.

Speaker 1 No, he's on the Bucks. And the year before.

Speaker 5 He just unretired. When did he go to Tampa Bay?

Speaker 1 Two years ago. A couple years ago.

Speaker 4 Then he retired like a month ago.

Speaker 5 Was this before or after Tim Clue stepped down at Iona?

Speaker 1 It was after.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 That was right around the same time.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's probably why you missed it, actually.

Speaker 5 Yeah, man, because I mean, when you go to the NCA tournament six times in nine years out of the Mac, that's pretty impressive. I know.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. I didn't know that about that.

Speaker 5 He unretired. So he played in Tampa, and now he's going to play for the...

Speaker 1 No, he's back in Tampa. He unretired.
He stole Bracket Sunday from everyone. Okay, well, not from me.

Speaker 5 I had no idea that he was in Tampa in the first place.

Speaker 1 Okay, so there you go. That's perfect.
All right, so.

Speaker 4 Well, there's another piece of big news that I feel like we should address today just by the way that the universe works via happenstance.

Speaker 4 Bar Coastal closed down today.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a somber day.

Speaker 5 It's a sad day. My wife was there all day paying homage in a pardon my take sweatshirt.

Speaker 1 Love it. That's so good.

Speaker 5 And just, you know, it kind of felt like, honestly, the last episode of Cheers from what I gather. It's just like everything was shutting down.
So many memories, so many good times.

Speaker 5 You know, that bar, we rented out the day after our wedding, which, you know, I invited you guys to. You had other things going on.

Speaker 1 It was busy here.

Speaker 5 It happens.

Speaker 4 What do you think about maybe the prospect of buying the place?

Speaker 4 What if we just teamed up?

Speaker 1 The three of us? Yeah. What would we name it? Big cats? No, bar coastal?

Speaker 4 I think we just keep it bar coastal.

Speaker 4 You don't stray away from what works, right?

Speaker 5 Yeah, fair enough. I mean, if you guys want to put down, you know, the down payment, I'll get you the rest later.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you sent us a picture of your wife in a part of my take sweatshirt this morning. That's right.

Speaker 5 Texted us. Yeah, she wanted to, she said, just to tell them that, you know, I'm supporting the brand because you're going on the show.

Speaker 1 She was. And

Speaker 4 she's nice. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 She's an attractive woman. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 5 I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, with all due respect.

Speaker 5 No, I appreciate it. You know, and she'll be the first to tell you that, you know, she knows that she has, obviously, you know, her things, that she has stuff.

Speaker 5 But I came up with a one-liner on Twitter for her, too. Okay.
Alana Rose, credit and forget it.

Speaker 1 Credit and forget it? Yeah.

Speaker 1 What does that mean?

Speaker 5 Well, I mean, you know, fair enough. Everybody likes their nice things, but, you know, I just, you know, have to teach her that sometimes.
Credit and forget it.

Speaker 1 Got it.

Speaker 5 But because of her, who is, you know, my best friend, I love her to pieces, she has planned, and you guys will be excited about this, a massive, massive trip to Europe this summer.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 5 So I'm no longer going to be able to go into places socially.

Speaker 5 Like, you know, when I'm watching the NFL because I only watch it socially, I'm no longer going to be able to go into places and say, you know, I've never played golf.

Speaker 5 I've never had a glass of wine, I've never had a cup of coffee, and I've never been to Europe because as of right now, we're going to Europe in July.

Speaker 1 Okay, so we've got to get to two of those things in a second, but give us the quick itinerary. Where are you going in Europe? Quick itinerary.

Speaker 5 Well, we have friends.

Speaker 1 Is there anything like this? Knowing you, you're going to be like, well,

Speaker 1 you know, Coach Cow's taking the team to Rome.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I thought about that. Yeah, I know you're talking about that.

Speaker 5 Especially with the timing. It's like late July, early August.
Like, I've talked about that. So

Speaker 5 we have some friends who are getting married like an hour outside of Paris in July. Okay.
So we're going to go to Paris for a couple days and go to that wedding.

Speaker 5 Then we've got a couple of stops in Italy, which I'm really excited about for the food. So there's a restaurant that we're going to go to.
We're going to Italy.

Speaker 5 We're going to Rome, Portofino, and also the Amalfi Coast. Now, there is a restaurant in Portofino, Puni, P-U-N-Y.
It's a three-course restaurant. And one of the options is a

Speaker 5 pasta with lasagna sheets, tomato sauce, and pesto. Denzel Washington went to this restaurant

Speaker 5 and had this pasta for all three courses. So when I heard that, I was like, that's a bucket list thing.
I have to go to this restaurant in Puerto Fino and have

Speaker 5 all three courses of that pasta. And then we're going to go to Minkinos and Santorini after that.
Wow.

Speaker 4 You're not going to switch it up, though, in the courses? Like, try maybe something besides that? Potentially.

Speaker 5 I haven't been there yet. I'll text you.

Speaker 5 I just got international service actually on my cell phone for the first time. Really? Like, for a long time, like, Canada was anything north of the George Washington Bridge.
Yeah, now

Speaker 4 what if there's like a highly tattered prospect

Speaker 4 over there?

Speaker 5 Well, that's why I made sure that I had international service so that I could be on my toes for this trip.

Speaker 1 You're still going to be kind of working?

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah, I never shut it off. Right.
Never shut it off. Right.
Never shut it off.

Speaker 1 Even though we sleep in May.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I say we sleep in May, but that doesn't mean you don't sleep with your phone.

Speaker 1 Right. So you're lying to the people.

Speaker 5 Well, I wouldn't say I'm lying. I would say after a while, like you realize you can get a little bit of a reprieve.
Because if I ever said we sleep in April, Bill, you go, what are you kidding?

Speaker 5 Maybe the National Championship Games on April 4th. But I have already do have the skeleton ready for my first Rothstein 45 of next season.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay.

Speaker 5 So, So, you know, we're going to amend it.

Speaker 1 Where's Wisconsin?

Speaker 5 Well, it's, you know, what's the next question?

Speaker 1 Oh, no. We're not in the, we weren't in Jake's bracket, so

Speaker 1 I love the doubters and haters. I welcome them.
We've got it.

Speaker 5 We've got to, we've got to prepare, though, for the transfer portal. We've got to prepare, you know, there's a million things.

Speaker 1 There's a lot going on. There's a lot.
All right, so.

Speaker 1 Who will be next year's Chris Vode? No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 he puts in some good menu. He's a decent bruiser.
Yeah, you need guys like that.

Speaker 5 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 He did a good job against Purdue at the game you're at. So the other fourth thing, so it was never been a tripped to Europe, never had a glass of wine, never had a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1 PFT, you brought something, didn't you?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I've got a few things. I've got

Speaker 4 actually a bottle of wine right here.

Speaker 1 Oh. I opened it.
Red or wife.

Speaker 4 I uncorked it just for you. It's a 2016.
It's a Bordeaux. It's very nice.
I splashed it all over myself when I was opening it with a knife.

Speaker 4 I was thinking that maybe we could share it.

Speaker 1 We could all have a small little glass.

Speaker 5 I've got to get on a plane in like six hours. I don't want to try it.

Speaker 4 That's fine. I'll be out of your system in like 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 What about a cup of coffee?

Speaker 5 I've never had a cup of coffee.

Speaker 2 You want a cup of coffee?

Speaker 5 Oh, God. This is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 So you got one of these right here?

Speaker 4 Memes brewed it himself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you're not ready for this right now, can I propose something? Sure.

Speaker 1 Why don't we make a bet on your final four? Whatever it may be, we'll get to that when we break it all down. And you're going to be in New Orleans.
We're going to be in New Orleans.

Speaker 1 I think that you can find the appropriate time that you could have both a cup of coffee and a glass of wine with us. Okay, fair enough.

Speaker 1 Okay, because I can sense you don't really want to do it right now at 11 p.m. at the end.
Yeah, no, I don't. Do Do you want a sip of the wine? Do you want to smell it? Just smell it.
I don't like it.

Speaker 1 Just smell it. Just smell it.
I don't like it. You don't like it?

Speaker 1 That's exactly what my two and a half-year-old son sounds like when I'm like, hey, do you want

Speaker 1 pretty much any food?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it smells like the Manashevitz I used to smell at Hebrew school.

Speaker 1 So wait,

Speaker 1 what do you drink when you go out?

Speaker 5 Just a beer? Vodka or beer. Tito?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so, all right.

Speaker 1 Let's get to it. Let's go through the bracket and then we'll figure out

Speaker 1 what we're going to do bet-wise.

Speaker 4 I was going to say, because when you're in Italy, you're gonna be at these world-class populations.

Speaker 1 Why can't they just have a Pironi?

Speaker 4 They're gonna give you wine, wine will be on the menu there.

Speaker 1 Billy's gonna drink that wine, right? Okay, watch him drink it. Um,

Speaker 1 all right, no more tricks, but I do want to, I want you to have a cup of coffee, okay?

Speaker 5 Why?

Speaker 1 Because I want to see what it does to you.

Speaker 5 I mean, I'm functioning fine without coffee for all this year, it's almost four decades.

Speaker 1 What about Red Bull? Do you drink Red Bull?

Speaker 5 Never, never Red Bull, never caffeine, try not to have caffeine, cocaine, not Ensign.

Speaker 4 Didn't make that either. Methamphetamines? No.

Speaker 1 Okay, well,

Speaker 1 we're going to figure it out.

Speaker 1 In New Orleans, I want to see you just a sip of coffee with us. A sip? I can do a sip.
Yeah, we'll do a sip of coffee with the fellas. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 5 I can do a sip of coffee. The wine, I don't think it's going to stick.
The coffee, I can maybe try.

Speaker 1 But we got a lot of basketball between now and New Orleans.

Speaker 5 You know how much basketball we have between now and New Orleans? How much?

Speaker 1 64 games. 64 games.
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 Where do you want to start?

Speaker 1 You always break out the bracket in certain ways.

Speaker 5 Do you guys want to start top left and then we'll just work our way down? Is that what we're going to do?

Speaker 1 Well, Well, let's ask a couple questions before we get into the bracket. One, who got screwed?

Speaker 5 Texas AM.

Speaker 5 I thought that Texas AM, you know, should have been in the field. I thought the committee did a really, really good job.

Speaker 5 But I think when you look at what they've done the last couple days, and I know it's the totality of your resume, but I think having neutral site wins against teams the caliber of an Arkansas and an Auburn compared to everything else, I thought was pretty impressive.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, it's interesting, though, the one thing that, you know, I've kind of taken away in like over 15 years on this beat, every single year, you see the bubble get softer and softer.

Speaker 5 And, guys, I've been talking about this for years, and I think it's one thing that we need to look at. I'm leaving tomorrow for Dayton.

Speaker 5 I'm, you know, doing the first four this year, and I'm excited about it. But I firmly believe that the NCAA should allow all the automatic qualifiers to advance into the round of 64.

Speaker 5 And then the final eight at-large teams should be playing in Dayton. And then it gives us an opportunity to really jumpstart the tournament with four heavyweight showdowns.

Speaker 5 I mean, I look at the first one, I'm not just saying this because I'm obviously working the games, but Rutgers, Notre Dame is a fascinating matchup. Wyoming, Hunter Maldonado, Graham E.K.

Speaker 5 against Indiana. I mean, that is a fascinating matchup.
If you could add two more of those with the last four at-large teams, I think it would add a lot of pop to the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 1 I also made the point that I hate when

Speaker 1 the committee puts mid-majors, small schools against each other in the first round. Yeah.
I think that's terrible. I think it's bad for the sport.

Speaker 1 Murray State versus San Francisco is a great matchup, but I'd rather see them go up against a big dog.

Speaker 5 No doubt. And I think, too, the great thing about the first four, which you know I love, is standalone games.
Yep.

Speaker 5 And standalone games, you know, allow yourself to be showcased at, you know, a much different, different rate. So I think that's another thing we have to look forward to.

Speaker 5 And I think, though, one thing I will say is I think because of the matchups we have this year in the first four, the Bryant Wright State game is an underrated 16 versus 16. I'll tell you why.

Speaker 5 Bryant obviously has the nation's top scorer in Peter Kiss. Really interesting player.
And Wright State's in Dayton. It's near their campus.
So you almost have a pseudo-road game.

Speaker 5 Very rarely in a first four do you get that type of situation.

Speaker 1 What do you think, sidebar, Jared Grasso, where's he going to be coaching next year?

Speaker 5 Good question. I think without question, Jared has done one of the great rebuilding jobs in the Northeast.
I mean, guys, you know, Bryant was three wins when he took over. Three.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 5 And, you know, they went to the tournament title game last year and lost to Mount St. Mary's.
This year, they're obviously champions. You know, I think he's ready.

Speaker 5 You know, I don't know if he's ready to jump to a power conference, but, you know, if there's a conference, you know, in between, obviously, the NEC and, you know, in a multi-blit league in the Northeast, he's, you know, ready to do that.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I just know this from obviously being in the weeds, you know, obviously, you know, in college basketball, it's inside baseball, but he was the recruiting coordinator for those great teams at Iona that I mentioned earlier earlier with Tim Clues.

Speaker 4 Six out of nine years. Six out of nine years.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so like, you know, those teams that had Scott Machado, Mike Glover, Momo Jones, Sean Armand, A.J.

Speaker 5 English, David Lowry, those guys, he was the recruiting coordinator and top assistant for those teams.

Speaker 4 So side sidebar, our good friend, unfortunately, Tom Creen is no longer going to be the head coach at Georgia.

Speaker 4 What are the odds Tom Creen gets a head coaching job next year? Do you think he wants to still coach?

Speaker 5 You know, I don't know if Tom wants to coach. I think Tom could, Tom did a great job as a broadcaster in his year out for ESPN.

Speaker 1 Are you on the bubble now? Am I in the bubble? With Tom Creen now,

Speaker 1 he could get back into broadcast.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's a different role.

Speaker 1 He's a game analyst. He's a game analyst.

Speaker 5 I think he's a game analyst. Different role.
You know that. What I provide is a little bit different.
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 But, you know, I think if Tom wants to coach, I'm sure he could get another coaching job. I don't know if he could get a job in the caliber of Georgia, but I'm sure he could get another job.

Speaker 5 I think, too, guys, another thing that we're seeing throughout the landscape of college basketball is there is clear separation between the top six conferences, the five-power conferences, and the Big East, and the rest of the sport.

Speaker 5 And it's really the haves and the have-nots. And I think every single day that gap widens.
Now, do we have years where conferences are outliers? Absolutely.

Speaker 5 The Mountain West this year getting four teams in the NCAA tournament, and one of those teams is not New Mexico and not UNLV. Yeah.
That's amazing to me.

Speaker 5 The West Coast Conference having four teams in play, getting three teams in the NCAA tournament, that's a major, major kudos. But that's the exception.
It's not the rule.

Speaker 5 If Richmond doesn't win today on Sunday in the Atlantic 10 tournament title game, a 10. And the conference that had six bids eight years ago in 2014, that's a one-bid league.

Speaker 5 Side note, Chris Mooney, head coach of Richmond, dead ringer for Judge Reinhold and vice versa.

Speaker 5 Without question. Fast times.
Dead ringer. Fast times of Richmond High.

Speaker 5 Vice versa, though, for me. And, you know, I just think when you look at college basketball now, I think it's six leagues and it's everything else.

Speaker 4 So is this the end of the conversation of Gonzaga doesn't play in a real league? Like, we've been saying for years, Gonzaga, move to the Pac-12.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 Yeah. If you want to be taken seriously, but now they've got San Francisco, good team, right? Good team.
St. Mary's, fun team.
Keep Gonzaga. Yeah.

Speaker 5 St. Mary's is like, you know, is comparable to Wisconsin, big cat, honestly.
Like, they're similar style of play. No question.

Speaker 1 You're saying

Speaker 4 that coach for white guys? No, no.

Speaker 1 Slow it down. Play good defense.

Speaker 5 It's like death by a thousand paper cuts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, they had a good year this year, but it is a Mickey Mouse conference because Zaga needs to go to the Pac-12.

Speaker 1 All right, should we do it?

Speaker 5 Get into it. We're not talking about anything personal.
I haven't seen you in two years. Do you want to ask any other questions?

Speaker 5 I thought of you guys, though, because, you know, and you guys could appreciate this. I have this neighbor that's like Rico Bosco.
It's like gum on my shoe.

Speaker 1 And she's just always, she always complains.

Speaker 5 So I find out, I come home a couple of weeks ago, my wife's like, we have a problem. And I'm like, well, what's the issue?

Speaker 5 It's like, our neighbor wrote a letter to the board in our building that there is, you know, yelling and screaming and a loud TV like late at night and whatever.

Speaker 5 And it's like, if I wasn't in the studio and, like, you know, they're really threatening right now to continue to complain about what's going on.

Speaker 5 And I just responded and I said, Not enough people know the importance and the impact of the Mountain West being a 4-bit league.

Speaker 1 So, was it you yelling? Yes.

Speaker 5 I mean, what do you think, man? I mean, have you seen the Mountain West this year?

Speaker 5 David Roddy, Hunter Maldonado, San Diego State, Matt Bradley's a little bit like, you know, Tom Hankson castaways on an island on his own. I mean, where's Jordan Shackle when you need him?

Speaker 1 It was, you know, the Mountain West was crazy this year.

Speaker 5 Crazy, incredible crowds. And, you know, everybody.
Every game was tight. And like I said, when I think of the Mountain West cat in PFT, I think of 2013, nine years ago, five bids.

Speaker 5 UNLV, Anthony Bennett. Obviously, Steve Alfred had those teams in New Mexico.
Tony Snell, Alex Kirk, Cam Bairstow, Kendall Williams, Hugh Greenwood.

Speaker 5 Now, that team didn't go far in the NCAA tournament. They lost to Harvard.

Speaker 5 Remember, that was the year in 2013 when Harvard's two best players, Brandon Curry and Kyle Casey, had to withdraw from school.

Speaker 5 They put Siani Chambers into the starting lineup, and the rest is history. They went to the round of 32.

Speaker 1 Of course, who could forget?

Speaker 5 You know, when that happened, that was the Mountain West. And the Mountain West took a little hiatus, and it's back now.
And there's a crazy thing.

Speaker 5 The Mountain West, they've got obviously a television relationship with us at CBS. They got a relationship with Fox.
It has a better television deal than the Pac-12.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No, the Pac-12, not being able to watch the first two rounds of the Pac-12 tournament.
Brutal. It's insane.
Brutal.

Speaker 5 And the Pac-12 is a good league in terms of its brands. It hasn't had good representation in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 5 Like I was talking to somebody about this yesterday, there were more Pac-12 teams in the Sweet 16 last year than there are in the NCAA tournament this year. Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 Great run.

Speaker 4 Well, let's start there. So, Pac-12, Conference of Champions, is Bill Walden.
Did he just invent that?

Speaker 1 No, it's been around for a while. It's been around for a while, but I mean, he brought it back.

Speaker 4 He brought it back. He brought it back to the forefront.

Speaker 4 Who do you like out of that conference? Obviously, Arizona, great team, but I guess guess it's a leading question because I really want to know UCLA.

Speaker 4 Do they have it in them? Are they going to be able to make a run like they did?

Speaker 5 I think they're going to be able to make a run. I think things set up pretty well for UCLA.
So, should we go through?

Speaker 1 Yeah, let's go through.

Speaker 1 I should say, personal, on a personal level, this is a great moment for this show and for humanity because the last time you were in here was right when everything got canceled. You came in.

Speaker 1 We were all downtrodden. You said this two shall pass.
We are now two years past COVID.

Speaker 1 It feels like, you know, last year was fun, but it wasn't a real tournament. No.
Because you didn't have all the different sites and fans and everything.

Speaker 5 And I was there for 26 days in that bubble.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you were. You were doing hard work in the bubble.
And this now feels like we got it. We're back.

Speaker 5 This too shall pass. And this too has passed.
It has.

Speaker 1 Retweet that. Yes.

Speaker 5 Okay, right now? Well, if you want to, okay.

Speaker 1 This two shall pass. This too shall pass.
Hashtag John. Let's do it.
Top left. Go for it.

Speaker 5 Okay, well, I look at this region, the West region, and I see Gonzaga with Chet Holmgren. I see Duke having

Speaker 5 a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 Can I finish my Soire?

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Sorry.

Speaker 5 Guys, I read, I worked on this, okay, and you're in the card

Speaker 5 here. You're cutting me off.
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 We're excited about the bracket too. Go.

Speaker 5 Because I got to do the names. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I look at Gonzaga with Chet Holmgren. I see Duke having potentially five first-round picks, and they're starting five.
Notre Dame as Blake Wesley.

Speaker 5 Obviously, Memphis as Jalen Durren. The West Region is the region of prospects.

Speaker 1 Ooh,

Speaker 1 wait, so we're going to just cross this out. I like JD Note's in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 I see the region of prospects. So, obviously, Gonzaga moving on against Georgia State.
Boise State, Memphis to me, looks like the ultimate 50-50 game.

Speaker 5 I'm going to give a slight edge to Memphis just because of how Boise State has struggled offensively, especially we saw that yesterday against San Diego State. UConn against New Mexico State.

Speaker 5 New Mexico State has two capable scorers. Teddy Allen last year at Nebraska, you know, year before, or a couple years ago in Nebraska, also played, you know, West Virginia to start his career.

Speaker 5 Ser Jabari Rice, another another guard, obviously that's capable, but I've got UConn beating them, setting up a UConn, Arkansas round of 32 game, which could be one of the best games of the upcoming weekend.

Speaker 5 Alabama has been a feast or famine team all year long. They're going to play the winner of Rutgers, Notre Dame.
I look at what Rutgers did in the Big Ten. Obviously, they won a game at Wisconsin.

Speaker 5 Caleb McConnell did a great job on Johnny Day.

Speaker 1 Fair enough. I'm just giving you the context.
At the rack.

Speaker 5 Okay, I'm giving you the context. I got Rutgers beating Notre Dame and Rutgers beating Alabama.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm taking Rutgers twice. Steve Peichel pounding nails.
And then Mark Adams, though, he plays them. You know, the defense never rests.

Speaker 5 And I got Texas Tech over Montana State, coached by Danny Sprinkle. Then the Michigan State.

Speaker 1 Danny Sprinkle. That's the head coach's name.

Speaker 5 Michigan State against Davidson. The storyline within that game is this.
Foster lawyer, you know, started his career at Michigan State, and now he's at Davidson.

Speaker 5 You know, he has made significantly more three-point shots this year than he did the first three years of his college career.

Speaker 5 I've got a Michigan State Duke round of 32, which would be a dream game for television next weekend.

Speaker 5 So I got Duke moving on against Michigan State, Duke playing Texas Tech, then UConn beating Arkansas, hooking up with Gonzaga. UConn falls to Gonzaga.
Texas Tech falls to Duke.

Speaker 5 Will Duke beat Gonzaga in the regional final? They beat him once already. I'm going to take the Zags, and Coach K's career ends at the Chase Center.

Speaker 5 So Gonzaga over Duke in the regional final of the region of prospects.

Speaker 1 I love it. As long as Duke loses.
Yeah. Do you think this is kind of fun, what Coach K's doing, where he's like traveling around the country losing?

Speaker 5 I've got a feeling after what you just told me about what's the quarterback's name again?

Speaker 1 Tom Bray. Shut up.

Speaker 5 I started to think, what if he unretired?

Speaker 1 I would love it. Personally, I'm going to miss Coach K.

Speaker 1 He's been the greatest heel in my life. You think he's a heel? Oh, yeah.
I mean, Duke is one of those things where I don't trust anyone who doesn't have a strong opinion on them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You love him or you hate him.

Speaker 5 Right. I think here's an interesting thing because obviously he set the standard for college basketball.

Speaker 5 And like you said you know the probably the best coach of our generation i never said that what well all right fine you're still a little salty about 2000

Speaker 4 we when you look at what happened in the acc

Speaker 4 you compare them from when roy williams got to unc he straight up out competed coach k the results were better for the tar heels since that time you can't argue with it but you have to look at the final fours but you have to look at the championships

Speaker 5 four regular season acc titles it's not even close okay you have to look at the totality of the resume which i bring this point up And again, it's speculating on speculation, which I hate to do, but if Rick Betino never left Kentucky, and if Rick Betino was still at Kentucky, I mean, you think about that, I always think that he would be the one in terms of all-time wins, all-time national championships, everything.

Speaker 5 Because you think about it, this was the trajectory at Kentucky. 93, you go, 92, you lose on the Leitner shot.
93, you go to the final four, you lose in overtime to the Fab Five.

Speaker 5 94, you lose to Marquette in the second round. 95, you lose 74-61 to North Carolina in a regional final.
96, you win a national championship, 76-67 against Syracuse in the Meadowlands.

Speaker 5 97, you lose 84-79 to Arizona in Indianapolis in a national championship game, and then you take the Celtics job.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he would have been. Yeah.
He would have been an all-timer.

Speaker 4 But the fact remains that Roy Williams was a stronger head coach.

Speaker 5 Than Rick Petino?

Speaker 1 If you say that they're not going to be a good one. No, than Coach Kay.

Speaker 5 It's 5-3. It's tough to make that argument.
And in 1991, Duke beat Kansas when Roy Williams was there 72-65 in the national championship game. 91.

Speaker 4 That's ancient history. I'm talking about when Roy Williams arrived at UNC.

Speaker 5 Okay, well, I mean, you have to count the Kansas part of his career.

Speaker 4 Well, that's because the Big 12 was legitimate, and he had to go through a gauntlet to get there.

Speaker 5 Fair enough. Should we go keep going down the road?

Speaker 4 Well, you kind of glossed over our darling Jake's catamounts against Arkansas.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, you know, Ryan Davis, Jake, no offense, but I mean, the Jalen Williams matchup is not advantageous.

Speaker 5 America's Player of the Year, two times. I know he's America's Player of the Year, but unfortunately, there is no Taylor Coppinrath.
There is no Tech and Sword. There's Ben Shungu.

Speaker 1 I know there is no Negum. Oh, let's go.
We got a Name Off.

Speaker 1 We got a Name Off.

Speaker 5 I mean, you're not telling me that people in, you know, Burlington are going to compare Finn Sullivan to Jermaine Mopagila in the company.

Speaker 1 Finn Sullivan can shoot. He can get hot.

Speaker 5 He can shoot, but he's going to be guarded by Devo Davis or J.T. Note.
Next region.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 5 Name off. All right.
I quote tweet every time you tweet, you know, Vermont basketball, very cool, Jake Marshall Future.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 5 Yeah. He's coming at me.
Him and Rico, you got to watch out for them.

Speaker 1 Well, Rico's gum on your shoe.

Speaker 5 It's incredible. I know.

Speaker 5 Rico, like, College, be like, bro, just want to tip you off with a scoop. I'm like thinking, like, is this realignment? Is this like something big?

Speaker 5 He's like, yo, I heard from, you know, a sauce with a sauce. There's going to be a lot more hook and holds this year.

Speaker 1 I was like, what does that do for me, Rico? He's a big rules guy. Yeah, big rules guy.
Huge rules guy. Big rules guy.
All right, East. The East.
I think East is the toughest.

Speaker 5 What do you think? I look at the East region and I look at the high seeds.

Speaker 5 Baylor defending national champion two seed Kentucky's Kentucky Purdue one of the great brands in the Big Ten Texas is Texas and UCLA and North Carolina also in the top half of that region this is the region of branding

Speaker 4 yeah I was gonna say Texas is Texas but that just means

Speaker 5 probably gonna lose in the first round Texas is holding Texas is Texas so I've got Baylor beating Norfolk State North Carolina against Marquette rematch of the 77 national title game Al McGuire's last game I got the Tar Heels moving on there and I've got St.

Speaker 5 Mary's beating Indiana. I like Indiana over Wyoming and Dayton.
I do too. UCLA obviously beating Akron.
And I'm going to take Virginia Tech over Texas. I like their body language a little bit more.

Speaker 1 Purdue. Oh, that's just strictly body language.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think that's a big thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when they shoot the ball against Duke, it went in a little bit. Yeah, their body language games.
I like their body language.

Speaker 5 I like their body language a little bit better right now.

Speaker 5 Murray State over San Francisco setting up an interesting game, Cat, because if it's Murray State against Kentucky and the state of Kentucky, that would be an incredible game.

Speaker 5 Kentucky would have nothing to gain from that game, but obviously have to play it other than going to the Sweet 16.

Speaker 4 Civil War. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Baylor,

Speaker 1 the two best college basketball schools in the state of Kentucky.

Speaker 1 Kentucky and Murray State.

Speaker 5 Because Louisville is in Louisville State right now.

Speaker 1 Well, I'm just saying. Kentucky and Murray State.
Fair.

Speaker 5 Baylor over UNC, UCLA over St. Mary's, Purdue over Virginia Tech, and then Kentucky.
I've got a UCLA-Kentucky regional final, and I got the cats moving on out of the region of branding.

Speaker 5 So I've got Gonzaga playing Kentucky right now.

Speaker 1 Wow, I like that for my futures. Okay, I got Kentucky and UCLA futures.

Speaker 5 Okay, like it.

Speaker 1 So that would be a nice game for me.

Speaker 5 Dig it. Now, top right, we're going to go and we're going to look at the south region.
Now, I look at the south region and I see Arizona.

Speaker 1 I don't like that that's top right, by the way. Okay.
The south should be in the bottom, should it not? Well, I mean, fair enough.

Speaker 4 Colorado is kind of in the middle.

Speaker 5 Colorado State.

Speaker 5 Well, I look at that region, guys, and I see Ben Matherin, okay, at Arizona, stud.

Speaker 5 I see Kofi Coburn, Illinois, stud. I see David Roddy.
I see Hunter Dickinson. I see Kennedy Chandler.
I see Colin Gillespie.

Speaker 5 This is the region of Star Power.

Speaker 1 Star Power.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Question on Arizona. Yeah.
Is Kerr going to play?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think he'll. In a walking boot.
No, I know. I believe Kerr Creases is going to play.
And honestly, I was so impressed that they were trailing UCLA without him and came back.

Speaker 5 Arizona is the most aesthetically pleasing team in college basketball. They're also the biggest team in college basketball.

Speaker 5 And even though UCLA beat them once at Pauly, Arizona still dominated them on the glass. I've got Arizona beating TCU.
I think TCU is underrated, and TCU beats Seton Hall.

Speaker 1 TCU is also a very big team. They got some lengths.

Speaker 5 Emmanuel Miller. No, Jamie Dixon's done a really good job there.

Speaker 4 When you say biggest team, do you mean height or do you mean

Speaker 4 length or strength?

Speaker 5 You know, kind of a combination of both, PFT. I mean, you know, Tubellis and obviously Coloco are tremendous up front.
Colloco's most improved player in the country.

Speaker 5 Balo, the transfer from Gonzaga, is also adding insurance upside. And, you know, Matherin and Terry are tough on the wings.

Speaker 1 I think I know where you're going with this. So Gonzaga versus Arizona, the student versus pupil.

Speaker 1 Championship game? Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 5 You're freaking trying to finish Godfather 2 before, you know, to get Fredo on the boat here.

Speaker 1 We've got Godfather 3. What?

Speaker 5 We don't pretend like that exists. Well, why are you bringing it up?

Speaker 1 That's one of the rules. Don't mess with the rules.

Speaker 5 So then I've got Illinois over Houston. Now, Arizona beat Illinois in early December in what was the first real statement that Arizona could be a national player this year under Tommy Lloyd.

Speaker 5 That rematch would be fascinating theater if we get it.

Speaker 1 That was at the United Center, right? Champaign. Oh, that wasn't Champagne.

Speaker 1 I bet that game I lost.

Speaker 5 I like that in the Sweet 16. I'm going to take Michigan in an 11 over 6 win over Colorado State.
Ugh.

Speaker 5 And I've got Tennessee marching on past Michigan. The world's going to pick Loyola to Chicago, but I think Ohio State is being criminally underrated.

Speaker 1 Well, Well, they've been limping. They've been limping.

Speaker 5 They're banged up, but Chris Holtman, more meticulous than a forensics officer, okay, is going to be dialed in. He's coached in a lot of NCAA tournament games.

Speaker 5 Drew Valentine hasn't coached in any NCAA tournament games. The world's picking loyal to Chicago.
I'm taking Ohio State to win one.

Speaker 5 Villanova, Tennessee in the Sweet 16, Arizona, Illinois. I've got Villanova marching on to hook up with Arizona in the regionals of the region of Star Power, and I got Arizona going to a Final Four.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay, so it's setting it up.
Okay.

Speaker 5 So I got Arizona, Gonzaga, Kentucky.

Speaker 5 Then I look at this region, bottom right, the Midwest.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait, real quick.

Speaker 4 In the star power region, there was one star that you left off. Who?

Speaker 1 Oh, Jelly Walker. What the hell? Jelly Walker.
How did you not bring up Jelly Walker?

Speaker 5 Well, he's a 12-seed right now.

Speaker 4 He's not a 12-seed.

Speaker 1 He's on a 12-seed.

Speaker 1 He's on a UAB.

Speaker 5 Well, I didn't want to get too much in the weeds because

Speaker 5 we're talking about it.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about UAB.

Speaker 1 That's our team now. Jay Benoit.
We bet him on Friday in the triple overtime thriller. We went back to the well with Jelly Walker on Saturday.
Can we get John water? We got water.

Speaker 1 We'll get you fresh water. Wait, so Jelly Walker, though, he's electric.

Speaker 5 He is electric. And it's ironic, you know, Andy Kennedy has leaned in and used the transfer portal really, I think, as aggressively as any coach so far, you know, at the mid-major level.

Speaker 5 And you look at their roster, guys. K.J.
Buffin came from Ole Miss. Trey Jemison came from Clemson.
Obviously, Jellyfield.

Speaker 1 K.J. Buffin's number five, who were motherfucking the other night.
What about Erdle? Ertl's

Speaker 1 a good player.

Speaker 5 He's made a ton of threes in the Conference USA tournament. Ertl's a good player, and this team, again, has played high majors this year.

Speaker 5 They played West Virginia, came up a little short, wasn't vintage West Virginia, but they won't be intimidated by Houston.

Speaker 1 You don't have them? You don't have Jelly Walker doing some crazy shit?

Speaker 5 Well, again, you know, am I going to bet on Jelly Walker? Am I going to bet on Kelvin Sampson to be in a situation?

Speaker 1 Jelly Walker is the answer. Okay, all right.

Speaker 5 Jelly Walker. You want to die on that hill? I'll send you a postcard.

Speaker 1 Oh, we will revisit this conversation.

Speaker 1 You will be converted to the jelly fam.

Speaker 4 If you don't know about us and hills that we've died on,

Speaker 4 there are a lot of them. There's an entire mountain range named after us in these points.

Speaker 5 Fair enough.

Speaker 1 Jelly fam will be coming for you, and we have receipts now. Yeah, we will.
We'll build this up, and we'll be playing it back.

Speaker 4 Just tell me, if you were to say hypothetically, do you think that UAB is going to lose by fewer than nine points? What would you say?

Speaker 5 Text me. I'll let you know.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 5 Hypothetically, interesting. Now, bottom right, I see a Kansas team that, for all intents and purposes, has played great down the stretch.

Speaker 5 But for as good as Ochai Baji is, I don't see one of Bill Self's best teams, most talented teams. I see a two-seeded Auburn that has had sporadic guard play all season.

Speaker 5 I see a Wisconsin team that has overachieved, won a share of the Big Ten regular season title, but also lost at home to Nebraska.

Speaker 1 Playing great basketball.

Speaker 5 And also lost early in the Big Ten tournament to a vulnerable Michigan State.

Speaker 1 Shawnee Davis' ankle.

Speaker 5 And then I see a Providence team that's 25-5, but was 11-2 this season in games decided by five points or less and was ambushed, destroyed, and powerbombed through a table like Eric Bischoff at the 1996 Great American Bash by Creighton at the Big East tournament.

Speaker 4 But isn't that a good thing if they're 11 and 2? I know what you're saying. Like 11-2, they play a lot of big closed games.

Speaker 1 Their record is not a good thing. I don't think the ceiling is very high for Providence.

Speaker 4 But isn't there something to be said about winning closed games repeatedly?

Speaker 5 That's why Ed Cooley to to me is the national coach of the year because he doesn't have an all-Big East first-team player on his team, and he's 25-5.

Speaker 5 That team, to me, like I'm looking at it, those are your top four seeds. This is the region of vulnerability.
And this is the region, the Midwest region.

Speaker 5 If you're going to go off the radar in your final four pick, this is the region to take it. So let's look at it.
I've got Kansas and Creighton hooking up in the round of 32.

Speaker 5 So I like Creighton over San Diego State. Iowa beating Richmond.
Interesting first-round game. And guys, I got to tell you,

Speaker 5 not enough people are looking at South Dakota State and Baylor Shireman, who really reminds me of Thomas Walkup, who used to play for Stephen F.

Speaker 5 Austin, who beat West Virginia in 2016 when Brad Hunderwood was the head coach. South Dakota State has not lost a game, okay, since early December.
They've won 30 games.

Speaker 5 They shoot just under 45% from three as a team. I'm taking South Dakota State over Providence.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 5 I've got Iowa State over LSU and Wisconsin advancing, USC over Auburn.

Speaker 1 I've got then Wisconsin over Auburn in the Elite 8. Whoa.

Speaker 5 And I've got Iowa beating South Dakota State and Kansas. And then I have an all-Big Ten regional final.

Speaker 5 And I've got Keegan Murray

Speaker 5 in Iowa going to the Final Four. Keegan Murray in the Big Ten tournament averaged 28-8.
Why aren't more people talking about Keegan Murray?

Speaker 5 as the best player in college basketball, at least from the perimeter spot. You know what?

Speaker 5 When you look at him and you split the Adam and you look at him number by number versus a guy like Jabari Smith, I'm not saying he's a better long-term prospect because that's not really my business, but right now, if you took Keegan Murray and put him on a blue blood, Michigan State, Duke, even Indiana or Ohio State, the perception would be different.

Speaker 1 Ohio State's not a blue blood.

Speaker 5 I mean, they're still a brand. But they're not a blue blood.
Fine. Kansas.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Kansas, Kentucky. Yes.

Speaker 5 But with a more well-known brand, Michigan, the perception would be different. Keegan Hurricane was 11 of 18 from three in the Big Ten tournament.
So I'm rolling the dice there.

Speaker 5 So I've got Iowa, Arizona, Gonzaga, Kentucky. I've got Arizona over Iowa and Gonzaga over Kentucky setting up teacher against student.

Speaker 5 Tommy Lloyd against Mark Phew. And for the first time since 1997, Tommy Lloyd in year one wins a national championship.

Speaker 5 Ben Matherin explodes in the NCAA tournament like a volcano, has the ability to captivate a country and captivate a nation, much like Dwayne Wade did 19 years ago at Marquette when he got 29, 11, and 11 against Kentucky in a regional final.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 4 So, okay, so you've got Gonzaga loot. That would be losing two national championships in a row.

Speaker 5 Two in a row and three since 2017.

Speaker 4 So, Lloyd, he's got deep ties to the Northwest, right?

Speaker 4 You think eventually he could get poached from Arizona if for whatever reason they're not going to be able to get away from the family.

Speaker 5 No, Arizona's a destination job.

Speaker 1 For him? Yes.

Speaker 4 Because I could see for him wanting to go back home.

Speaker 1 He helped build that program.

Speaker 5 No, I know, but

Speaker 5 he's doing it his own way. He's been very classy, too, because he inherited a really good team, and he's paid homage to Sean Miller, put the team together.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it's a good look for him. Yeah, Sean Miller did all the dirty work.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 So going back to the Midwestern, excuse me, the regional vulnerability, you've got...

Speaker 4 Wisconsin and Auburn, second round. Did you say that you have Wisconsin?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 4 216. You have Wisconsin beating Auburn in that game? Why? Why do you not trust Auburn?

Speaker 5 I think when you look at a team like Wisconsin, who can manage the pace, very underrated piece, and Chucky Hepburn is a very, very good freshman year.

Speaker 1 I just need Chucky to the heat checks that Chucky goes on sometimes, they're good, but they're also...

Speaker 5 No doubt. But Wisconsin, an extremely physical team, a team that, again, is not going to foul, doesn't really turn it over that much.

Speaker 1 And again, Auburn is the polar opposite.

Speaker 5 guys

Speaker 5 of the Auburn team that we saw go to the Final Four in 2019. That team with Jared Harper Harper and Bryce Brown was led and anchored by an electric, electric backcourt.

Speaker 5 This Auburn team has a dynamite and unbelievable 4-5 with Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler.

Speaker 5 But the guard play right now, and we saw this against Texas AM in the SEC tournament, Zepp Jasper, Wendell Green, and KD Johnson were a combined 7 of 34 in the field from that game. Yeah.

Speaker 5 You know, leave a lot to be desired.

Speaker 1 All right. Here's what I'm going to say.
So you got Gonzaga versus Arizona in your championship game.

Speaker 1 I think if Gonzaga or Arizona, either or those two teams, aren't in New Orleans when we're in New Orleans, you got to drink a cup of coffee. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And what do we have to do if they're both there?

Speaker 4 I'll drink a glass of wine. Yeah.
I've never had one in my life.

Speaker 1 No, that just, you know, I'll go on a date with your wife. What? Easy, easy, bro.

Speaker 1 Easy, bro.

Speaker 1 All right, what do we have to do?

Speaker 1 I'll drink a hand grenade.

Speaker 5 No, I don't want you to. I like you too much.

Speaker 1 I'll drink two hand grenades.

Speaker 5 Come meet me up at the supply house. We'll have some sweet potato fries.
Okay. I love the sweet potato fries at the supply house.

Speaker 1 So we'll have to eat sweet potato fries if we lose. I like that, too.
Damn. You got us again, John Rossine.

Speaker 1 So, John,

Speaker 4 you know a lot of these coaches. You interact with a lot of them.

Speaker 4 Who's the one guy this year that's going to be the coach that makes a name for himself and everybody starts talking about him? They have some big jobs.

Speaker 1 Great question.

Speaker 5 You know, really good question. Thank you.
Thank you.

Speaker 5 I think,

Speaker 5 and he's not getting that much attention, I think, right now just because they're not in obviously a well-known league.

Speaker 5 But I think, you know, when you look at the resume of Eric Henderson at South Dakota State and the amount that he's won, like a lot of people, and this is, I know, again, in the weeds and very inside, you know, inside basketball, but last year, South Dakota State was expected to win the Summit League.

Speaker 5 Oral Roberts went from the Summit League. Max Acemus obviously blew up in the NCAA tournament, but in the regular season, that was the the best team.
Now you've got a team again.

Speaker 5 It's won 30 games going in the tournament, guys. 30 haven't lost since December.
I think Eric Henderson, if he can win this game against Providence, has got a real chance to move the needle.

Speaker 5 I also think the world of Lamont Parris, who is an assistant at Wisconsin for the final four runs in 14 and 15, he's the head coach of Chattanooga.

Speaker 5 He's got a very good nucleus, Malachi Smith, and also Silvio D'Souza, the Kansas transfer inside. So they're going to match up with Illinois.

Speaker 5 It's a tough, tough first-round matchup, but I look at him as being a guy as a 13-seed that can make a real name for himself.

Speaker 5 You know, Chattanooga has a tough draw there, but yeah, those are two guys I think that would have a chance. I'm looking elsewhere now around the bracket.

Speaker 5 I mean, Jeff Linder has done a great job at Wyoming. That's a standalone game and a standalone opportunity.

Speaker 5 You know, we have an interesting battle of up-and-coming coaches in the 7-10 game between Todd Golden of San Francisco and Matt McMahon of Murray State.

Speaker 5 James Jones, the head coach at Yale, who won the Ivy League this year, you you know, I don't think he's gotten the credit for what he's done at Yale. This is his third NCAA tournament.

Speaker 5 This is not, though, one of the best teams that he's had.

Speaker 1 He had a really good team a couple years ago.

Speaker 5 Really good team a couple years ago. Like, if this team had

Speaker 5 Paul Atkinson, who's at Notre Dame now, or Jordan Bruner, who was at Alabama, those kids came from Yale. If they had a guy like that up front to go with Azar Swain and Jalen

Speaker 5 Gabon in the backcourt, I would feel differently. But I think that, you know, the lack of size for Yale against Purdue is going to be really, really tough to overcome.

Speaker 1 How stressful is it now, like every year when you have to learn all new names? No, you just get used to it, man. Yeah, what do you do, though? Do you sit down and you just go over the roster?

Speaker 5 I think that the rosters change right now because of immediate eligibility with the transfer portal. That I just think you're constantly looking at teams in the offseason, what their lineup might be.

Speaker 5 And then once the season starts, I do stuff in the offseason where there's previews and you have like grids where you're like, well, this is what their lineup might be.

Speaker 5 And you just start working on it every day. It's a labor of love.

Speaker 4 What's the most recent name that you've learned?

Speaker 5 The most recent name that I've learned.

Speaker 5 That's a fascinating question.

Speaker 5 I mean, I'm always just absorbing. So, I mean, you know, I don't really.

Speaker 1 What team did you not have the most intel on that ended up in the bracket?

Speaker 5 I would say Wright State. I looked at a lot because I didn't expect them to be in the title game of the Horizon League.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I really started to learn more about Grant Pasilli and the guys on that team.

Speaker 5 And they're actually playing in Dayton against Bryant, which is interesting to me, like I said, because you've got the nation's leading scorer and Peter Kiss

Speaker 5 going against Wright State, who's obviously from nearby Dayton. So that is a different type of first four game, in my opinion, when you're looking at the 16 seeds.

Speaker 5 But guys, you know, I'll say it again. It's something that I think, you know, should be talked about more and more leading up to the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 5 It would be better if we see the final eight at-large teams in this NCAA tournament kicking things off. And if somebody is good enough to win an automatic qualifier, put them in the round of 64.

Speaker 5 Agreed.

Speaker 1 Agreed.

Speaker 5 Because again, what's the difference if we're looking at it right now and we're splitting the Adam a little bit? Like, what is the difference if we're going to see Delaware as a 14 versus a 15? Yeah.

Speaker 5 And they get bumped down a line.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I agree.

Speaker 4 Don't give these kids an asterisk next to their first seed parents.

Speaker 1 Yeah. After the dance.
No question. Let them play.
There's something about being a 16 seed and playing a one seed that's fun.

Speaker 5 And the dynamic of that has changed dramatically since UNBC. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, not really, because that was the only team that's ever won.

Speaker 5 No, No, but again, but you can't say, like, well, this has never happened.

Speaker 1 No, you're right. You're right.

Speaker 5 There's some validity there.

Speaker 1 It used to be like the teams that kept it close in the second half was like, oh, my God. What was it?

Speaker 1 Holy Cross and Kansas? What year was that?

Speaker 5 Well, there was also a Purdue-Weber State game, I want to say, in 96, and then Weber State lost to Purdue, and then Purdue lost to Georgia when Tubby Smith was the coach, who then lost to Syracuse 83-81 when John Wallace made a three in the final seconds.

Speaker 5 Syracuse went on to the final four and lost to Kentucky.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you said AM was the biggest stub, or the biggest, like, you know, what's going on here moment for you? What about Tennessee? I've been very angry about Tennessee getting a stubborn turn.

Speaker 5 With the seed? Yeah, I thought Tennessee, you know, probably should have been a two, and I could have seen Duke on the three line.

Speaker 5 I got to tell you, you know, I don't, obviously AM played well enough, and I thought it had, you know, made a case to get to the tournament, but just a brutal, brutal turn of events for Xavier.

Speaker 5 If they win that triple overtime game at Providence a couple weeks ago, they're in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 1 They really kind of flubbed at the end.

Speaker 1 It sucks because Buzz Williams, who we're friends with, he red-pilled his entire team. I don't know if you did you see that PFT? No.
He said after they beat Auburn, he's like,

Speaker 1 what do you attribute this to? And he's like, I have, you know, the Matrix. I've given my entire team the red pill.
Not realizing what it means online. Yeah, waiting for it.

Speaker 1 But he's like, I give them truth every day. And he has a shirt that says, like,

Speaker 1 every day we take the red pill.

Speaker 4 No, I like that.

Speaker 1 He should be in.

Speaker 4 Stop the steal. Get all the votes.

Speaker 5 Get him in.

Speaker 1 I hear you, bro.

Speaker 1 All right. So, who is the best coach in your mind in a power six conference that doesn't get talked about enough?

Speaker 5 Best coach in a power six. So we're saying like the big East.
I got to tell you, I've been incredibly, incredibly impressed with what Greg McDermott has done at Creighton.

Speaker 5 I knew he was obviously a great coach, done a long time, but guys, Ryan Nemhard was a special, special freshman for them.

Speaker 5 I went out and saw them practice, and I watched Nemhard at the FIBA U-19 World Cup in Latvia this past summer. And I mean, he was, I mean, he was freshman of the year in the Big East.

Speaker 5 I mean, you know, he was somebody you could see like eventually being an all-American player of the year. He breaks his wrist against St.

Speaker 5 John's a couple weeks ago, and Creighton still advances all the way to the Big East tournament, you know, title game. I mean, I've been blown away.

Speaker 5 And again, here's the thing, too, and Creighton is not, you know, with all due respect, a Blue Blood program. They went to the Sweet 16 last year and lost five starters.
Right.

Speaker 4 So they've got AOC.

Speaker 1 I was a little nervous when they showed Greg McDermott giving a speech in the locker room. Like, we shouldn't have a live mic on Greg McDermott in the locker room.
Gotcha.

Speaker 4 You didn't drop a P-word this time, did he?

Speaker 1 No, he did not.

Speaker 1 I like how John

Speaker 1 just goes.

Speaker 1 When he just dance around anything, this is not a conversation that I have on CBS.

Speaker 1 Not going to go there.

Speaker 4 All right, so who's the most, who's your favorite player to watch in this tournament? And why is it Jelly Walker?

Speaker 1 Yeah, seriously.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, I'm, you know, Ben Benedict Matherin.

Speaker 1 Okay. Benedict Matherin.
You're high on Arizona. You're high on South Dakota State.
You're high in Gonzaga. Yeah.
That's it.

Speaker 5 No, I wouldn't say that's it. I mean, I look at it.
I mean, I think, obviously, I've talked a lot about Matherin here. I mean, favorite player to watch.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I love all 68 teams.

Speaker 1 You love every player?

Speaker 1 I wish they could not play. You love every name.

Speaker 1 Jaime Haquez.

Speaker 5 Okay. Jaime Haque, and he's been playing great.

Speaker 1 Very fun to say.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, I was about to say, what's your favorite name to say? Zach Eady.

Speaker 5 Yao Ming of college basketball.

Speaker 1 Zach Eady, I feel bad for him. My take is I feel bad for him.
Why?

Speaker 1 He doesn't look like he's having any fun out there. He's so big, and it's like, it looks, he just gets banged on.
David Roddy. Yeah, David Roddy's fun.
Big body David Roddy. Yeah.

Speaker 5 You know, we've got a lot of respect for Colin Gillespie. Keegan Murray.
Yeah, Keegan Murray has just, I mean,

Speaker 5 Keegan Murray has just been.

Speaker 1 Are those the best brothers in the tournament?

Speaker 5 Iowa basketball, the family business. Well, I'm just saying.

Speaker 1 They got two sets. Wisconsin has a set.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Iowa's definitely better than Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Who else has brothers?

Speaker 4 We got any twins this year?

Speaker 5 Well, Keegan Murray and Chris Murray. Chris Murray is not like, you know, people, when they first heard that, you know, Keegan Murray's brother was playing Iowa.
It's like, oh, well, he just must be

Speaker 5 kind of throwing. No, he is a real, real dude.
And that guy completely changes them when he goes to a small ball five because he can stretch the defense from the five spot. Like, it's amazing to me.

Speaker 5 And again, this would

Speaker 5 question here in terms of a guy who doesn't get enough credit. I mean, how about Fran McCaffrey losing Luca Garza and Joe Weescamp? Yeah.
And now winning the Big Ten tournament.

Speaker 1 Pro-Hannon for the ninth year.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Well, he's 28.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's like Brad Davison when they're in the middle of the channel one more year after.

Speaker 5 And Kat, you know, and I think you look at it too, that COVID year is going to change, change college basketball over over the next couple of seasons because you know we're seeing you know that name image and likeness, which was long overdue.

Speaker 5 There's more of an incentive right now for kids to stay in school if they're not going to be first-round picks. So, I think one of the stories, guys, too, for this tournament and for this season is

Speaker 5 you look at college basketball, and there's never been more great players.

Speaker 5 You know, remember the year in 2006, well, it's J.J. Redding and Adam Morrison.
Remember, like, you know, a couple years ago, well, it's Obi Toppner, it's Luca Garza.

Speaker 5 Now, you've got 10, 12, 13, 14 really, really good players.

Speaker 4 So would you say that right now we're living in the golden age of college basketball?

Speaker 5 I wouldn't say that. I'd say

Speaker 1 there's a number of really, really good players.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but you would say that NIL is good for the sport. Yeah, no question.

Speaker 1 All right, so my last question is actually, I'm going to pass the torch here. Oh, no, we don't do that because it's a takeover of visible.
Thank you, Jake. The future.
He's doing a my bad.

Speaker 1 Jake Marsh, I'm going to let Jake Marsh end this interview with a question. Let you guys just kind of duel looking in the mirror.
Are you intimidated by Jake Marsh?

Speaker 5 No, I'm happy you introduced us, though. He's a great American.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think you are a little bit. He is the future.

Speaker 5 John, which double-digit seed do you think has the best chance to get to the Sweet 16?

Speaker 1 Ooh.

Speaker 5 Rutgers.

Speaker 1 Ooh. Okay.
Oh, that's a layman. What is it?

Speaker 5 All but one year a team has gone, or at least to the round of 32, 34.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. That's your question? Any others? Any others?

Speaker 5 The future. He's got to work on the present.

Speaker 1 Oh, geez. Oh, no.
Yikes.

Speaker 1 Yikes. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 He's just all over the place crushing me tonight. Ah, come on.
No, that's what John does.

Speaker 4 He wouldn't do that if he didn't feel a little bit threatened by you, Jake.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's got to put it as a compliment.

Speaker 5 That's fair.

Speaker 5 Any top four seeds lose in the first round?

Speaker 5 The round of 64? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good question.

Speaker 5 You said one already. You said South Dakota State.
Any others?

Speaker 5 You don't mean like the four number ones.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Top four seeds losing the first round. I'm not picking that.
I mean, I know you want me to say Vermont, don't you? Yeah, no, I would say your best chance for one of those upsets South Dakota State.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 4 I've got a dumb question. So, a lot of these schools that we talked about, especially in the Mountain West, they play at altitude, right? You always hear about altitude when it comes to football.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Players getting tired.
They can't handle it. They can't get their second wind.

Speaker 4 Does that also happen indoors when you're playing?

Speaker 5 The Colorado Utah trip in the Pac-12 back-to-back, people always say, Yeah, the altitude's crazy on that trip. That's the time you most hear it.
Those games back to back in the Pac-12.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 I'm just dumb, and I think, oh, the game's being played inside.

Speaker 1 It's probably not alpha. Fair enough.
We're all human. Yeah.
Oh, wow. He just called you.

Speaker 4 No, no, no. He's just alfing everybody.

Speaker 1 I'm not alving. I'm just angry.

Speaker 4 Oh, you alfinged Jake. You alpha me.
You said Big Cat can't date your wife. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's just very angry.

Speaker 5 I mean, I'm not asking to date your wife.

Speaker 1 Okay, well, that's fine. If you said it, I would have been like, okay, fine.
Go ahead. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I think it speaks volumes about a relationship.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we got a pineapple on the side.

Speaker 1 Should we swap? You want to swap?

Speaker 5 Well, why don't we do a double date first?

Speaker 1 Oh, man. All right, John Rosteen, you are the best.
We love you. Love you, too.
Best time of year. Yeah.
Without a doubt, this or feast week?

Speaker 1 Oh, this. Not even close.
I love feast week.

Speaker 5 Let's just be happy that, you know, we have, you know, a real NCAA tournament. Like, you know, last year was great that we had one, but there's just so many good vibes right here.

Speaker 5 You know, we're going, you know, we're doing this right down the street from Madison Square Garden. By the way, remember a couple years ago when the Big Ten tournament was at the garden?

Speaker 1 Terrible.

Speaker 5 It was like the San Jannaro Feast being held in Milwaukee. It made no sense.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 5 It made no sense. No, I mean, it's just great that we have the pageantry back, everything that should be associated with the NCAA tournament.
Let's not take this for granted.

Speaker 5 It's the best three weeks in sports. There is no debate.
Dreams will be shattered. Dreams will obviously be made.
The unexpected will become the ordinary.

Speaker 1 This is March. Yes.

Speaker 1 All right. Thank you, John.
We love you. Thanks, John.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going to wrap up the show. We have Billy Football's final four of quarterbacks in the 2022 draft.
I know everyone's been eagerly waiting for the finale of this bracket.

Speaker 1 Before we do that, Billy, what was Kirk Cousins' contract? We alluded to it.

Speaker 4 He got, I want to say, $30 million. Actually, let's look it up so that we can get the numbers right.

Speaker 4 The bottom line is that Kirk Cousins will make, by the time this contract's over, almost $300 million.

Speaker 4 He'll end up making over $300 million in his entire career. You are expecting me to say something about negative right now about Kirk Cousins.
I will not do it.

Speaker 4 Kirk Cousins played the game the exact way

Speaker 4 that it should be played because the guy, I think he's exactly 500 for his career. He's not really won any notable games that you can think of.

Speaker 1 No, the only notable notable game you can think of Kirk Cousins winning was actually Case Keenum winning, the Minnesota Miracle.

Speaker 4 No, he also won the You Like That Game.

Speaker 1 Yes. But that's like the best part is like you think, oh, yeah, Kirk Cousins, of course.
The game against the Saints. Like, nope, that was Case Keenum.

Speaker 4 Yep. So

Speaker 4 he is the bad God.

Speaker 4 I take my hat off in respect of Kirk Cousins.

Speaker 1 Kirk Cousins will be a great, great

Speaker 1 hypothetical where you can be like, whose career would you rather have?

Speaker 1 And pick any quarterback that had like more success, but you forget that Kirk Cousins essentially every he basically like hit every good spot on monopoly board every time that something could have been good for him financially he knocked it out of the park.

Speaker 4 So I believe that Kirk Cousins whose career would you rather have Piquette Kirk Cousins or Aaron Rodgers?

Speaker 1 I mean, that's that, but you can't do Super Bowls. I would

Speaker 1 rather have Rodgers' career, although he doesn't have any friends or family, so maybe Kirk Cousins, right? Because at the end of the day, what's money?

Speaker 1 That's true, right? Like, what's

Speaker 1 you can't spend all your money.

Speaker 1 Who's he going to give it to?

Speaker 4 Well, that's the thing about Kirk Cousins, is what is he going to spend $300 million on? Yes, kids can have it.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Grills.
Yeah, you're right. I still think

Speaker 1 he can't spend the money.

Speaker 4 He's burying it in peanut butter jars in his backyard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and he's got like a sick fleet of minivans. All right, Billy, let's do it.

Speaker 6 So, where we left off was the final four.

Speaker 6 We have kenny pickett malik willis jack cohen and matt corral in our last uh final four so the first matchup is kenny pickett versus malik willis uh kenny pickett advances the finals over malik willis uh it's uh kenny pickett i mean it was just his fake slide like when you got a guy who knows the rules so well and just improvise like that you just gotta He's got to advance.

Speaker 1 He's kind of like you. Yeah.
You just improvise. He's got to improvise.
Yes. Billy.

Speaker 4 Stick on your feet.

Speaker 1 Your brain does a fake slide pretty frequently all the time yeah

Speaker 1 it's the truth i i'm happy you have kenny pig in the finals because there was a little pressure he is a friend of the program um was there that wasn't changed at all since you met him no no okay well there was there was something fake slide but that that's that's gonna be for the finals we'll talk about why okay you know we'll see what happens uh then we got jack cohen matt corral i'm gonna pick matt corral you know

Speaker 6 i think his durability might be an issue at the next level.

Speaker 6 He's hurt now, but I think one thing that pushed Jack Cohen ahead of Matt Corral was that Jack Cohen, like, popped his finger out, then he popped back in, then he threw a touchdown pass to win the game.

Speaker 6 So that's why he's in the finals.

Speaker 4 Wait, wait, I thought that you put Corral in the finals. No, no, Jack Cohen's in the finals.
I got very confused by the way that you set that up. Okay, so Cohen beats Corral.

Speaker 1 Cohen beats Corral.

Speaker 4 But what about the fact that Corral, everybody was saying, hey, don't play in this game, don't play in this game.

Speaker 4 And he wanted to be out there with his guys so badly that he went ahead and played in the bowl game. That should be a plus sign for him, right?

Speaker 6 I mean, it is, but like the visual of just seeing Jack Cohen pop his finger back in and then throw a game-winning touchdown is just legendary. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That is legendary.

Speaker 6 That's one of those things you can't beat.

Speaker 1 So you have Jack Cohen versus Kenny Pickett in your final. Would you say that you are officially a Bill Pollyan disciple? You're just like average white guys? No.
Okay. No.

Speaker 6 I think, honestly, I think Malik Willis is going to have a really good NFL career.

Speaker 4 As a wide receiver or quarterback?

Speaker 1 Quarterback. Okay, that was a good test.

Speaker 6 No, seriously, I think he's what they advertise him as he's Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson hybrid. He's got the arm of

Speaker 1 that. Yeah, that would honestly

Speaker 1 make him the best quarterback of all time.

Speaker 1 That is the sickest hybrid of all time. It'd be like, could you ever imagine if you made like a tiger mixed with a shark? They're like how awesome that would be.

Speaker 4 You should go see this band tonight. They're like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

Speaker 6 The thing is with Malik Willis is that we just started to hear the buzz now at the Combine.

Speaker 6 And, you know, I mean, a lot of guys were hearing about Malik Willis during the season, but he's only really coming to the forefront now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you'd have a great year at Liberty. Like, he had a good year the year before.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which actually you could say is kind of similar to Josh Allen. He had a better year the year before his junior year at Wyoming.

Speaker 4 So I told Khan's that I think that I wanted Malik Willis as a commander. Kahn's brought up the fact that he got into a fist fight against Army, so he punched the troops

Speaker 4 in that game. So that took him off Khan's big board.

Speaker 1 Sounds like he's a a rider.

Speaker 4 He is a rider for sure.

Speaker 6 Also, a lot of his improv stuff that he does during the game, like he could actually, you know, it's either going to translate and he's going to be like a Patrick Mahomes or it's not.

Speaker 1 That's one of those things.

Speaker 1 So like

Speaker 1 Hall of Fame or a bust. Exactly.
Yep. I like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, hey.

Speaker 5 One of those.

Speaker 1 What if he ends up being like Kirk Cousins, though? Then you'd be wrong.

Speaker 6 Well, remember that one time, who was I talking about? And I was saying, like, he's either going to be Tom Brady or he's he's going to be the Memphis quarterback.

Speaker 1 Paxton Lynch. Paxton Lynch.

Speaker 6 That was my Trevor Lawrence take. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's going to be Tom Brady or Paxton Lynch.

Speaker 1 No in-between. No in-between.
So there's a lot of in-between. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah. So now we're in the finals.
We've got Kenny Pickett, Jack Owen.

Speaker 1 Where is it being played?

Speaker 6 I think it's Orlando.

Speaker 1 In Orlando. Okay.

Speaker 1 Orlando. So we went from the first round was being played in your mind, and then the finals is in Orlando.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Okay.
Outdoors. Epcot.
What's the weather like?

Speaker 6 It's 68, breezy.

Speaker 1 Oh, is it that feel that they do like the Pee Weed National Championship at? Yeah. Okay, I like that.
Pop warning.

Speaker 4 Okay, but no rain.

Speaker 1 No rain. 68, breezy.

Speaker 4 68.

Speaker 1 What about humidity?

Speaker 6 Humidity is going to be hovered around 40%.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's not too bad.

Speaker 6 So it's, you know.

Speaker 1 Kind of a perfect day. Exactly.

Speaker 5 It's going to be one of those.

Speaker 4 So the final, should we save for today or tomorrow?

Speaker 1 No, no, no. Oh, no, I think we're ready.
It doesn't need to be done.

Speaker 4 I can't go another two days in the suspense.

Speaker 1 Guys, this weekend was torture for me because I was just thinking about this.

Speaker 6 So, unfortunately, Jack Cohen's Cinderella run is going to come to an end.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 And again, this has nothing to do with the fact that you met Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 1 No. And that we.
Well, you know what?

Speaker 1 I was going to dub him.

Speaker 6 I was going to dub him, but I asked Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 1 Come back to the real world. Right.
Not playing Fortnite.

Speaker 6 What were you going to do? Well, I was going to, I honestly, I had a serious doubt because of Kenny Pickett's glove usage.

Speaker 6 And I was like, I had to figure out because, you know, playing like my limited quarterback experience and, you know, like wearing a glove, gloves wear out quickly.

Speaker 6 Like, you can't, you can't have like, it's about consistency.

Speaker 6 If you have a sticky glove that becomes less sticky throughout a game or throughout a week, you know, you're going to have difference in variability when you throw the ball.

Speaker 1 Well, do you think it might be like basketball shoes, though? Like in the NBA, like they can, most guys, I think, wear new shoes every game.

Speaker 1 New gloves every game?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so that's what I asked him about.

Speaker 6 I said, hey, Kenny, so like, what's your philosophy on the gloves? Are you like wearing breaking in gloves? Like, where's your sweet spot on glove usage?

Speaker 6 And he says that he uses a new pair of gloves every game, every workout.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 6 that's what sold me. That's what sold me.
Wow. That's why I talked to him because that's consistency because that's the one thing when people are worried about gloves.

Speaker 6 It's like, you know, there's a lot of variability. Like when it's just your hand, it's pretty consistent.

Speaker 1 Your hand is your hand.

Speaker 6 Exactly.

Speaker 6 So, you know, he uses a new pair of gloves every game. So that's consistent.
He likes to throw with the sticky gloves.

Speaker 1 There's so many gloves. That's a lot of gloves that you're going through.

Speaker 4 OJ used gloves, too. The 50-50.

Speaker 4 But he was innocent. He welcomed the legal process to play out.

Speaker 1 Wait, so I think Kenny Pickett has, like, if Kenny Pickett goes on to be a Hall of Fame quarterback, think about how much money he can make by selling these gloves.

Speaker 1 Like, if he plays 200 games in the NFL. Yep.

Speaker 4 That's a lot of merchandise.

Speaker 1 That's a lot of gloves.

Speaker 4 The Giants and Eli Manning would kill for that type of tournament.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they might, maybe they should draft him.

Speaker 4 He's a natural fit for the Giants. They wouldn't have to lie about all the game-used merchandise.

Speaker 4 Also, he would have a lot of

Speaker 4 those playing cards that got put out there of featuring a real slice of Kenny Pickett's glove.

Speaker 1 Wait, so Kenny Pickett wins your draft,

Speaker 1 which just to remind everyone, Sam Ellinger won last year.

Speaker 1 But he loses this fuckable spiral draft.

Speaker 6 The thing is, I still can't get over

Speaker 1 the glove. Yeah.
I mean,

Speaker 6 I'm old-fashioned like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, makes sense.

Speaker 1 Okay, anything else we have? Anything else? Any other parting shots? We have Mark Titus on Wednesday and Mike Florio. Get excited.
Should be great. It's the best time.
It's the best week of the year.

Speaker 1 I'm dubbing it.

Speaker 4 It really is. I'm dubbing it.

Speaker 1 When you say quote Billy football, I'm dubbing it.

Speaker 4 When you say dubbing it, do you mean like putting a dub on it? I'm putting a dub on it. Are you saying like dub it as in medieval, I dub you and give you a new name?

Speaker 1 I'm dubbing it.

Speaker 4 Because you could say, like, I hereby dub Kenny Pickett

Speaker 4 the winner of this year's quarterback, bro.

Speaker 1 No, we're giving him a dub.

Speaker 6 Honestly, a dub is one of those things that can go either way. Now that they think about it, it's totally contextual.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's a dub.

Speaker 4 All right, congratulations to Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 1 And this week.

Speaker 4 I hope the Commanders, yeah, dubbing this week. Congratulations this week.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 I hope the Commanders draft you, Kenny.

Speaker 1 What do you got, Hank? 68. 68? For the number of teams? Wow, did you steal that from Jake? Was Jake the 18th?

Speaker 5 I was just about to say 68.

Speaker 1 You say 18 every time.

Speaker 5 No, they maybe changed it. They said I have to win it with a different team.

Speaker 1 Oh, well. 68? Yeah,

Speaker 4 are you a system player, Jake?

Speaker 1 Are you not right? That's the point of trying to get a game. I'll do 64.
Old school. Yeah.
Nope.

Speaker 5 65. Because remember, they had that one Tuesday

Speaker 1 playing game. No, but old school is 64.

Speaker 1 Do you want 65?

Speaker 1 No, I'll go to 25. That's what I've been riding with.
Whoa. What does that have to do with the tournament? Nothing.
Wow. Guess it's not that big of a week for Jake.
Jakes. Yeah, not at all.

Speaker 4 I'm going to go with 32 in honor of the NIT. There we go.

Speaker 1 66. Or 66.

Speaker 1 What about you, Billy?

Speaker 1 69. Oh, okay.
Got a ride.

Speaker 5 Yeah, the first team out is team 69. That was Dayton.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 That's ironic.

Speaker 1 49.

Speaker 1 Damn.

Speaker 4 That doesn't have anything to do with basketball.

Speaker 1 Nothing. 49ers.

Speaker 5 It's just a football number, which is

Speaker 1 maybe Tom Brady of the 49ers.

Speaker 4 That makes sense. Tom Brady.

Speaker 5 You know what's crazy?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 4 I dreamed about Leroy last night. And he's hardly ever in my dreams.
And at the end of when I interacted with him, he was like, okay, I got to go. I got some important stuff.

Speaker 4 And I was like, I don't know what's important.

Speaker 4 I just realized he had to go break the scoop on Tom Brady and Dog Heaven.

Speaker 1 He knew it was happening before anyone else. Shout out Leroy.

Speaker 4 Love you guys.

Speaker 6 Crows hate renewable energy.

Speaker 1 Is that true?

Speaker 4 They drop rocks on him.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 On what? The solar panels.

Speaker 4 Probably getting back at the windmills for murdering all their cousins. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Love you guys.

Speaker 1 Talking away.

Speaker 1 I'm the one

Speaker 1 to say I've changed anyway.

Speaker 1 Today's not my day to find you.

Speaker 1 Shy it away.

Speaker 1 I've been coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Shy it away.

Speaker 1 I've been coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me,

Speaker 1 take

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 Needless to say

Speaker 1 I'm all the same

Speaker 1 away

Speaker 1 Further than

Speaker 1 life is okay.

Speaker 1 Say up to me.

Speaker 1 It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Speaker 1 Say up to me.

Speaker 1 It's no better to be safe than sorry.

Speaker 1 Say

Speaker 1 come

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 I'll keep

Speaker 1 on.