
NCAA Tournament W/ Mark Titus, Ryan FitzPatrick To WFT And The Bears Sign Andy Dalton
We start the show in a world where Big Cat doesn’t know Andy Dalton is about to be the Bears QB and PFT celebrates Ryan Fitzpatrick’s signing in Washington (4:04 - 23:33). Breaking Moos brings us the Dalton move and instant reaction (23:33 - 30:34). Hot seat/cool throne and Billy’s long awaited QB bracket (30:34 - 48:09). Mark Titus joins the show to break down the Bracket, Brad Stevens to Indiana, sleepers, how good Gonzaga is and Big Ten excuses just in case (48:09 - 105:51). We finish with FAQ’s.
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Full Transcript
Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
Hey, it's Rhea from Chicks in the Office. It's officially mini-skort season, and Abercrombie has the ones to go out in.
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And I'm excited to style their new Sienna Skort. It's a little more flirty and it's perfect for a date night.
Make plans to go out in Abercrombie, shop their newest arrivals in-store and online. On today's part of my take, we have Mark Titus.
Great talk with Mark Titus. Awesome to break down the bracket.
We talk about every team, pretty much every team. Sleepers, who's going to win? Probably Gonzaga.
We break it all down. Always fun to have him on.
We are going to do NFL free agency. A little programming note, you are going to listen to this show, and for the first 20 minutes or so, 15 minutes, I was living in a world where Andy Dalton wasn't the Bears quarterback, and then the news broke.
So you will find that out probably 25. You'll probably say to yourself, what are they talking about? Andy Dalton's the Bears quarterback.
Well, guess what? You get to hear the moment. It happened literally live on air.
So that's fun. We have FAQs, great set of FAQs, and Hot Seat Cool Throne.
Awesome Wednesday show coming up in a second. When your home system or appliance breaks down, American Home Shield will help fix or replace the covered item no matter its age.
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Okay, let's go. Bye! Boy!
Now in the street there is violence
And then I love to stop work to be done
No place to hang out or wash in
And then I can't lay all on the sun
Oh no
We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Thank you. And then I can't live all on the sun.
Oh, no. We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.
And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.
It's Pardon My Take presented by Barbscale Sports. Welcome to Pardon My Take presented by Manscaped.
Go right now to manscaped.com and put in promo code TAKE and get 20% off anything you see in the store plus free shipping. Today is Wednesday, March 17th.
We have NFL free agency. Feels good.
Hey, Big Cat, you know what day it is today? What? Oh, St. Patrick's Day.
Happy Fitzpatrick's Day to all those who celebrate. Oh, there it is.
It was the best night of my life last night.
And don't get me wrong.
I'm under no illusion that Ryan Fitzpatrick's going to come in and immediately turn the football team into Super Bowl contenders
because we already are Super Bowl contenders.
But he is the most fun quarterback that I could have hoped for besides Winston.
I wanted Jameis.
I did too.
But verbal meme, we have Jameis at home, Jameis at home, Ryan Fitzpatrick. It's the next best thing.
He makes every week fun. No matter what happens, he's going to have some games where he throws for five touchdowns.
He's going to have some games where he throws for five interceptions. He's going to run over to the smallest defense back on the field.
And most of all, I'm just excited that I get to actually root for him as a guy that has a vested interest in not just the Fitzmagic but he's on my team now now I feel like I have Fitzmagic inside me okay so with all that said do you feel a little bad that I'm just sitting here and I'm now I'm looking at Andy Dalton yeah you get the red rifle did you see that there was a report that the best options for the Bears are to convince Andrew Luck to come out of retirement or get Sam Darnold? You got a quarterback that, yeah, here's the only thing I'm worried about with Washington football team getting Ryan Fitzpatrick. I think, like happens wherever Ryan Fitzpatrick goes, they will now immediately be like, well, we got to draft a quarterback just so that we can put him in front of Ryan Fitzpatrick because that is Ryan Fitzpatrick's entire career is he goes to a team and they're like, well, we need someone who's ahead of him on the depth chart because you agree, Fitzpatrick, if he's the day one starter, he's not going to have the same magic.
Right. You need him to be looking over his shoulder or coming off the bench.
That's why we got a primer. We got Taylor Heineke, who I think is the ultimate Fitzpatrick primer, because he'll get in.
He's got a spark, but he's probably going to fuck things up. And so he's actually the perfect quarterback to team up with Fitzpatrick, to have somebody that we give a shot, a young guy, see what the little guy's got.
He goes out there, plays well for like a game, maybe a game and a half, then he starts screwing up. Boom.
Fitzmagic time to come out. Now, off the top of your head, how many playoff games do you think Ryan Fitzpatrick has played in? Zero.
Yeah, zero. Yeah, he hasn't been in the playoffs.
He's the best quarterback of all time to never make the playoffs, maybe. Archie Manning, I think, never made the playoffs.
I think that's true. Brandon Marshall never made the playoffs.
Yes, that's also true's also true i'm just i'm excited because it's like uh the best analogy i can make is you know that second semester of senior year in high school when everything's kind of set you don't really care but you have fun and you're like fuck it that's what this entire season is going to be for me because if we if we go anywhere hey that's awesome cool if not i get to just sit on my couch and drink beers and forget that i'm supposed to be doing work the whole time i'm i'm very pumped about this oh breaking moves oh no this is gonna be any don't no it's not it's not bad for you i'm just i have i've actually been not going on twitter yeah i've got shefter i'm scared to go on twitter because i know he's gonna do the annie dalton to the bear notification set up here um one of my of my favorite players of all time, good friend, personal, guy I root for always, LeBron James has just announced that he's going to become part owner of the Red Sox. What? Both he and Maverick Carter each joined Fenway Sports Group as partners, first and only black partners in FSG history.
I love it. Hank, you are now a LeBron stan.
We finally have our lebron stan podcast i mean you have to yes you have to be yeah i do i think you love the guy you are you've always loved you are right yeah you are lebron through and through i can't yeah space jam 2 is gonna be great uh 750 million dollar investment that's not that's not chump change no it's not that is not ashtray money. No.
That's not chump change.
No, it's not.
That is not ashtray money.
No.
It's not the...
Do you say ashtray?
Ashtray money.
It's not the Jay-Z Nets investment that he made.
It's not me and Swansea.
Yes.
No.
So he's like a vocal minority owner of the team.
Right.
You can't see...
O-word.
Governor.
He's a vocal minority governor of the team.
You don't... No, you can't see the O-word, big cat, remember? You're calling him a minority.
I didn't say that. So, yeah, let's go, Bronny, go.
Hopefully this means he wants Bronny to come play for the Celtics and he can do everything here to become a Boston guy. I don't know.
That's crazy. I don't know.
It's crazy. That's wild.
You're going to have to take some time to figure out exactly how to spin this. Credit to LeBron, though.
He now has the Indians, the Yankees, and the Red Sox. He should, statistically speaking, have a good chance of Liverpool, have a good chance of getting to the World Series, and the Dodgers, I assume.
Yeah, he's probably adopted that. Yeah, he was rooting for the Dodgers last year.
Yeah, so he's got, I mean, yeah, there's like a 15% chance that LeBron James, one of his teams he roots for, will win the World Series. So, Hank, you are fully on Team LeBron now.
You can't root against him. You absolutely cannot.
He's your owner. He owns you.
Literally. Power move by him.
You're baby Bron. I got to commend the guy.
He literally. That is awesome.
The town that he has the most beef with, he just went and bought one of their teams. I wouldn't say that LeBron's biggest beef is with Boston.
I'd say that Boston has a huge beef with LeBron. He literally started the Super Team to beat the Celtics.
I think that the beef is more on your side than it is on the LeBron's side. But if you had to ask LeBron what city that he has the most beef with, it would probably be that.
Because when he was young in his career, he could not beat the Celtics. It was like he's trying to go over that hump, win his first championship, who's in his way, the Celtics.
So it's like, you know. The only other ones that could be up there are like San Antonio.
The Mavericks. Yeah, like I don't know.
Golden State, Oakland. Yeah, but he didn't really.
Yeah. But he beat them.
Golden State, but yeah, he also beat them the last time. Well, no, they played again.
Yeah, I don't know. Also, could you have? I feel like everyone's just happy in the West Coast.
I also gotta think that the Boston fans are really...
For some reason, some Boston fans haven't
been the nicest to LeBron over the years, so that's probably
not you, so that's good.
Definitely not me. Bill Simmons is gonna have to
review all of his chants.
Are you just leaving me?
So am I now outnumbered?
Is it LeBron standing?
You've flirted with being a LeBron stand. I tried to be a LeBron stand.
And you're not. It was just too hard.
Okay, so we're good. He makes it very difficult.
So we still have a majority on the show. I still respect LeBron's greatness.
You're like in the Supreme Court when there's one judge that can go either way. Yeah.
So it's me versus Hank, and you can go either way. I'm the Joe Manchin of this podcast.
I'm a LeBron James. I'm a LeBron-trapreneur fan.
I feel like I've lost a friend. Like, this is...
No, this is great. No, this is...
I feel like I've lost a friend. I've been neutered.
Yes. I've been neutered.
I would say hating LeBron is probably 7% of your personality. Yeah.
I enjoy rooting against LeBron sometimes more than rooting for my own teams. Now it's been so hanged.
And now I can't do that.
Now it's the same thing.
What you are able to do now, though,
is you have a tremendous scapegoat in case things go very wrong.
Yeah, sell the team, LeBron.
Yeah, like if LeBron had...
Well, the Red Sox ownership already sucks.
Yeah, if he had been an O-word last year,
like when the whole Mookie Betts situation went down,
you would have 100% blamed him no matter what the facts were. So that's kind of useful to have somebody to point out and be like, that guy's the problem.
It's wild times. This is wild times.
All right. Well, that's great breaking news.
I hope he buys every team that Hank likes. Oh, man.
FaZe Clan. Duke.
Duke. That look, Bronny's in FaZe Clan.
Oh, yeah, that's true. That's tough, Hank.
All right, so to go back to NFL free agency. So your analogy of the end of high school, second semester.
Senioritis. Senioritis.
So I'll go on an analogy for what the Bears are doing in free agency. The Bears are the guy who goes out to a bar and tries to hook up with girls and then instead just gets a big pizza and sits on his couch and be like I could have fucking hit that like you see that chick she was giving me the eyes I probably could have smashed but I just wanted to have a boys night and eat some pizza every quarterback that signs the Bears are like well we talked to him we talked to Jameis Winston we talked to Ben Roethlisberger no you didn't you had no chance You're fucking sitting with your fat ass on the couch, eating pizza at 3 a.m., watching
like ETV, and you're going to fall asleep and feel like a schmuck and an asshole, and
that's you, Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy.
All right, cowards.
So I think you can also put into there the Russell Wilson thing, it's just a victory
for them to be mentioned.
Your buddies are like, yeah, you could have that chick.
And you're like, yeah, I know I could.
And then you go home and you jack off to porn, which is Andrew Luck, who's just out there,
We're just... your buddies are like yeah you could have that chick and you're like yeah I know I could and then you go home and you jack off to porn which is Andrew Luck who's just like out there just watching the film yeah the fantasy of what you could have it's disgusting it's gonna be any dull you still could get Russell Wilson can I give you some advice Big Cat? no let me give you some advice I'm gonna threaten Schefter I'm gonna fucking kill you the Russell Wilson tweet.
I'm saying I think you're going about that wrong. I think instead of saying do the Russell Wilson tweet, you have to say announce Russell Wilson to the Bears because that presumes it's already done.
So you might be able to trick him. No, I just want to just announce it.
That's what I'm saying. It's a tweet.
Do the tweet. Announce it.
That's what the kids are saying. You got to announce it.
I will. I don don't want to say that I'll kill Adam Schefter if he doesn't do the tweet.
Good. Good.
I'm glad that you don't want to say that. I did not say it.
If you wanted to say it. Do the fucking tweet, Schefter.
You know. Fucking P-boy.
I actually feel bad. I wouldn't kill Schefter.
I actually love him. I feel bad for other NFC East teams to have to now root against Ryan Fitzpatrick.
If it was on the other foot and let's say the Philadelphia Eagles signed Ryan Fitzpatrick, who would actually probably be the perfect fit in that situation with Jalen Hurts and just kind of like switch them in and out, going back and forth from your tongue to your clit. I would hate rooting against the guy.
It'd be tough for me as a football team, football fan to do that. So my condolences as a Washington football team fan.
I'm sorry. I thought you rooted for the entire NFC East.
I do. I root for the beast.
Yeah. But I'm just saying like I would not want to root in a head to head matchup.
I would not want to root against Ryan Fitzpatrick. Hank, Patriots, Belichick spending spree.
Very atypical. People are trying to figure it out.
Julian Edelman just dropped this one on the timeline. It's pretty good.
Boston Tea Party, but just TE. Oh.
Oh, TE. Got it, because they signed Jonu Smith and Hunter Henry.
So this is genius on a macro level by Belichick, simply because he has earned the right that no matter what he does, people will be like, well, that's genius. So he knows that he can just sign a bunch of people, and everyone will be like, wow, what is Belichick seeing that no one else sees? Yeah, some people can just say classic Belichick to everything the Patriots do, and they sound smart.
Right, and it could be smart, because I do think there is an element of what the Patriots are doing where the cap went down. Not a lot of teams have cap space.
You've got an ability to take advantage of the market. I totally see that part.
It also could be Belichick's like, we sucked last year and Tom Brady won a Super Bowl, and I don't want that to happen again, so I'm going to sign a bunch of dudes. Right, and like people say, it sucks to play here.
It's not fun. We don't pay people.
Boom. Pay everyone.
Something changed this offseason with Belichick, and it might be a long, like not the exact same thing, but kind of how Nick Saban, his best friend, switched up how he did things after he saw that, you know, he was going to get passed by some people. Belichick saw that what was happening by not having Tom Brady and by not spending money wasn't working, so he was going like full in the other direction.
He's going, I'm going to spend more than anybody else. I'm going to change things up entirely.
Or maybe he just watched, like he got into a weird youtube rabbit hole this offseason thinks that like money isn't real anymore well it's like fuck it isn't there something where it's like there's going to be a new tv deal and once that gets signed that the caps can go way up so comparatively speaking there's going to be crazier deals in the next two seasons so these deals that look like a lot now are going to seem not that big after a couple years pass yeah and the fact that most teams don't have money to spend right now. They do.
So he knows that there's a deflated market so you can get someone for cheaper than they would be in a regular year where everyone has money. It will also be great if he can turn Nelson Aguilar into a great wide receiver just because Philly fans will just be so miserable about it.
Yeah. you think Edelman wants to stick around now? Or do you think he – if you were to inject truth serum into Julian Edelman and be like, where do you want to play next year? New England or Tampa Bay? I mean, obviously Tampa Bay.
That's a good question. And they re-signed Gronk too.
Yeah. They're trying to re-sign everybody.
I think Shaq Barrett. So, yeah, they are going to bring everyone back.
Playoff Lenny. There are rumors about him coming to New England.
Playoff Lenny. I saw Seahawks as well in the mix for Playoff Lenny.
The Raiders make no sense. They have now dismantled their entire offensive line, which is exactly what Derek Carr needs.
Yeah, this is, again, the perfect analogy for Derek Carr is, what's his name, Littlefinger from Game of Thrones. Is it Littlefinger? Sick Game of Thrones.
No. Who's the guy that got his dick cut off? Reek.
Reek. Yeah.
So he's Reek. So now John Gruden.
Theon Greyjoy. Yeah.
So now John Gruden is entering the phase of his career where he's like I'm just going to punish him because for some reason John Gruden hates Derek Carr. He's like I'm not going to give you any protection whatsoever and just get you killed for a little bit.
I think the hook is going to be pretty quick for Mariotta to get in next year. I think Gruden should be, the hook should be quick for him, but it won't be.
No. He still has like $70 million left.
What are the Raiders going to do next year? They'll probably go like 4-1 and then finish the season 6-10. Yeah.
Like they always do at this point with Gruden. Other news, Jameis in New Orleans, which is huge.
I just hope he gets full starting duty and it's not like a back and forth with Taysom Hill. I assume he will be the starter.
It's going to be like an open competition in the camp, but I think based on what we've seen, Jameis Winston is probably a better quarterback than Taysom Hill. I'm so excited.
I still like watching Taysom Hill just run downhill into a linebacker. Yes.
That's always fun to do. But Jameis should get that starting job.
I wish that his contract had been like infinity dollars for 50 years and one year guaranteed. All years voidable.
Yeah, all years voidable. But yeah, I'm excited for Jameis to potentially get a fair shot in New Orleans.
And then Joe Thune went to the Chiefs, so that's big for Patrick Mahomes. Everyone's making a big deal about, obviously, they had to cut their fantastic tackles, but those guys were also injured, and I think everyone expected that.
But that will be like, if the Chiefs can figure out a way to fix their offensive line, we'll just snap our fingers and be like, oh, yeah, remember the Chiefs are unstoppable. Dan Orlovsky already said they're going to go undefeated next year.
Yeah. So Dan knows 17-0 if he's dyslexic.
Yeah. He'll get that.
And this is a great quote. So we are amateur capologists.
We're trying to get better at studying the cap on this show. No, we're not.
But the Ravens general manager, Eric DaCosta, had a very good description, I think, that we might be able to learn from. He said, at some point, if you're hungry and you have an ice cream cake, you might eat a big piece, which leaves less ice cream cake for everyone else.
So that makes sense to me, right? Yeah, but then what about when you want to cut, when you want more ice cream cake, you can stick your finger down someone's throat and have them throw up some of the ice cream cake and then send them on their way, and then people can eat that. Yeah, you can do that.
You can get somebody else's barf. Right.
And then import. That's what the Bears are doing at the quarterback situation.
I think we understand, like Eric DaCostaa i think we understand how uh pie works how ice cream pie yeah right well but i think the part that everyone struggles with actually you know what i saw the perfect tweet someone someone said i can't remember who said it but the way to look at every single contract in the nfl is it's a two-year deal every contract is a two-year deal no matter how many how many dollars they threw out there, how many years they threw out there, everyone just signs a two-year deal, and then they can cut you. Except for coaches.
Yeah, but that's how you... If you look at every contract like that, it all kind of makes sense.
It's a two-year deal, and then everything else after that, they can either eat some cap and get rid of you, and get rid of you with no repercussions. Everything is a two-year deal.
Just go go with that and it makes everything a lot easier to understand just a little pro tip if you are looking to explain anything to us just say it's like an ice cream cake at the very least we'll pretend that it makes sense oh yeah now i get it yeah i have totally makes sense yeah absolutely i've definitely had an ice cream cake before uh all right let's do hot seat cool throne then we will have our good friend Mark Titus on the show. By the way, we also on Friday, we're going to have Stanford Steve with some gambling picks.
So you got to make sure that you listen for that. I think we'll probably drop it a little early so that people can actually get the gambling picks and also Blake Griffin so that people can listen to the show before the tournament starts.
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Breaking, breaking, breaking.
I'm still recording.
Breaking news.
Former Cowboys quarterback Andy Dalton is signing a one-year $10 million deal with a chance to earn another $3 million incentives with the Chicago Bears,
per sources.
$10 million, one year, Andy Dalton to the Bears.
Big Cat, your instant reaction.
Fuck!
Wait, that actually just happened? Literally right now. Wait, what? What the fuck? Yep.
Fuck everything. The Bears suck.
This is just stupid. Red rifle, baby.
God damn it. He didn't do the Russ tweet.
The orange. Fuck that.
Cancel everything. He's gonna look good.
The Bears suck. The Bears orange.
You know what? This is all destiny because that one time I said that Andy Dalton was better than Jay Cutler
and that Jay Cutler didn't talk to me for five years.
We're going to find out.
Fuck all this.
We're going to find out.
It is going to pop with that orange.
You're right, Billy.
Okay, so that actually a little behind-the-scenes magic.
PFT broke the Andy Dalton news to me right as I was standing up,
right as we were finishing the show, and I had to run and jump on a phone call.
I did the phone call. I didn't leave the office because I got even more mad.
So here is the less knee-jerk, more mad reaction. Positive vibes only, though, Big Cat.
Start out, say something nice about Andy Dalton. I saved his luggage once.
He's not Nick Foles. That is correct.
I don't think. Physically, he's a different person than Nick Foles is.
Actually, let me. I'm going to counter.
He is Nick Foles. Disagree.
Nick Foles might be better. Nick Foles.
Actually, big cat. This could be a good thing because I don't think they're going to start Nick Foles.
They know Nick F is not Andy Dalton So they're not going to start Nick Foles They're going to start Andy Dalton this year Now when is Nick Foles at his very best? As a backup But he was and then he was bad You got Nick Foles a Mario Kart mushroom By getting Andy Dalton on the team We're in the trust tree So I'm going tell you the worst part about this. Everyone listened to the first part of the show where I was like, I hope we don't sign Andy Dalton.
The Bears are just going around. They're the guy sitting with the pizza.
I did the analogy, the coward analogy. I did all that.
Deep down in the back of my head, I was like, I think the Bears aren't signing Andy Dalton because they got something in the works with Russell Wilson. Wrong.
Every time the Bears have the chance to possibly do a franchise-altering move, they find a way not to do it. Every time they figure out there's a chance, and maybe the Russell Wilson was never a real chance.
Schefter reported that the Seahawks were like, we're not trading him, so shut up. Deshaun Watson, they're not taking calls.
I get all that. The Bears are just destined to never have a quarterback.
And on top of all of this, you can say to me that, okay, the plan is not Nick Foles and Andy Dalton to be the starters all year. They're going to draft someone.
But Nick Foles and Andy Dalton are just good enough to keep you out of the top five of the draft. And you know what? Now that I've even said this, I've worked this through my brain, it doesn't matter if the Bears have a top draft pick because we had a top draft pick and we drafted Mitch Trubisky.
Mitchell. I hate, I hate, it just sucks the salt.
It sucks all the fun out of it. I don't want to be here.
Because this is the one signing that you guys could make that it essentially ruins the next 10 months of your life. And you know that it's going to happen.
Is there any part of you at all that's like, Andy could do this. I'm excited to see anything Andy Dalton does.
Yes. Big part of me.
Absolutely. I already tweeted the clip of him firing up the boys in the tunnel.
I've told myself, hey, Andy Dalton had that year where everything worked perfectly. The problem is the Bears now have two guys that are what we always talk about, the everything else has to be perfect guys.
Everything else has to be perfect guys for Andy Dalton and Nick Foles to succeed. And not everything's perfect.
The offensive line still has problems. And guess what? If you're a defensive player, if shocked if cool mac just retired i wouldn't i wouldn't like blame him yeah if he's like really you're gonna have not it's tough to be my quarterback it's tough to have this to look forward to for the future stay woke i don't think that i think there's a good chance that russell wilson never even wanted to leave seattle he this might have all just been one giant joke on the bears from the get-go where russell wilson's like whatises would you like to go? I mean, we should have known it.
He's like, Russ, where do you want to go play? And he's like, I'd like to be the quarterback for the Bears or the Jets. I think he was just fucking with you this entire time.
He probably was. And you know what? The worst part about it was I was going to – I was literally going to become like a Jesus freak for Russell Wilson.
I was ready. I was ready to just show up, do this podcast, say lame cliches.
You're going to suck down fake water. And everyone would be like, why did you change it? He's like, no, I just love my car.
I mean, that's how much it means to me. Your summertime attire is not far away from Russell Wilson chic.
Yes. The Hawaiian shirts, light colored jeans.
I was going to do that. Sneakers, yeah.
It's a good look. It's a sick fit.
What do you think? Let's just end here because I actually am like, this is going to do that sneakers yeah i just don't look it's a sick fit what do you think and let's just end here because i actually am like this is gonna ruin my night this is gonna ruin my favorite week of the year do you think ryan pace and matt nagy like do you think when they sit there all the lights are off in house hall it's just it's just ryan pace's office matt Nagy's grabbing his suitcase or whatever the fuck he's got,
his clipboard. He's walking out after a long, hard day of work, and he stops
by Ryan Pace's office, and he
sits down, and they rehash, and they're like,
man, we're nailing this. Like, we're
fucking, we're crushing this. I think they're talking
themselves into it. I think what happened was
they reached a point where they're like,
I think Russell Wilson's not going to come here,
and then they said, you know what? We want guys that want to be here. We want guys that want to be in Chicago.
No more Russell Wilson. Andy Dalton, would you like $12 million? And he was like, yes, sirs.
Okay, good. He wants to be here.
That's a guy that wants to be a bear. And so they're like, yes, we did a good job because we could have tried to keep pursuing a guy that didn't want to be here.
And so, yeah, I think at the end of the day, they did something. They executed a transaction.
I don't like that they're making me hate Andy Dalton because Andy Dalton's a nice guy. Like, he's a nice guy, but I have no choice.
The Bears have made me hate nice guys. Like, I didn't want to.
Like, they do this. They're just so incompetent and so fucking stupid.
and they're going to do a press conference tomorrow or the next day and be like, oh, well, we think that Andy gives us a good shot at winning. We've got a great quarterback competition.
Competition breeds. The iron sharpens iron, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Competition, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fuck you, Matt Nagy, you bald fuck.
And Ryan Pace, your's not even that good i actually i actually didn't mean it when i said his hair was good you don't mean that no i mean it what if they trade up please what if they trade up and they do the same thing they did to glennon this time around would you be like yeah that makes sense good whatever let's just get a high pick quarterback in here sure yeah if they got mac jones somehow like i would be all in i just i have a feeling that they think this is the move like this is going to be we're going to go into the season and maybe we'll catch lightning in the bottle you know what they are they're running the bears the way i gamble like maybe today i'll get hot guess what i have never gotten hot they're saying hey maybe today the signing is going work. It's not.
It's just not. It's tough because they got like Diet Kirk Cousins to come in.
They're looking at the Vikings and they're like, you know what? If we can go with their model and get a Kirk Cousins type guy in here, then maybe we can make the playoffs occasionally. They honestly should trade for Kirk Cousins.
They should trade for Kirk Cousins. They should trade for Alex Smith.
Collect them all. Just collect them all.
Just get all the quarterbacks that we know can't do anything of substance, but are good enough to just look the part a few weeks of the year. Yep.
Get them in there. Get all the guys that we remember that are on the end of their trajectories.
Get Blaine Gabbert in there. Ryan Mallett.
All our old friends. Brandon Whedon.
Alright, let's do
Hot Seat, Cool Throne.
I'm just sad. Alright,
Hot Seat, Cool Throne. Bill, you want to start?
Yeah. Hot Seat.
Looking good. Let me see the shirt.
Lemmy. I like it.
Oh, I thought it was a
Dan Terra shirt. Yeah, I want that.
Yeah, I think what we're going to do with the
Dan Terra shirts, my plan for
the future of the line is just like, we're going to take all the best classic rock album covers of all time and just incorporate Dan Campbell. Well, I mean, we need to do Dantalica because that is his favorite band.
We'll do Dantalica. I want to do them with Iron Maiden with the Trooper.
That's going to be sweet. I can't wait to steal all those from the office.
Cool. Billy, you're looking good.
Thank you. Cargo.
Are you a Ravens fan today? No. You got the cargo camo pants.
I like that. We'll fix it after.
We'll fix it after. Go ahead.
Hot seat. The NFL.
Bill Belichick going nuts in free agency. Good point.
We didn't bring that up. We spent a couple hours talking about that.
Well, but anyway, he's going nuts. He is going nuts.
What's your take on that, Billy? I think he just knows that he's got money to spend. Classic Bill.
And he can absolutely utilize free agency. He can utilize money to acquire to acquire players.
Which he's never really done before.
I mean, if you saw that stat that our friend.
Warren Sharp, yep.
I did see that.
He's spent like $400 million in the last 15 years and like $150 in the last two days.
12 personnel.
Yeah.
Okay.
And your cool throne?
My cool throne is us because spring is coming.
Yeah.
Yeah. All right.
Good job, Billy. Shorts are back.
Shorts is coming. Yeah.
Yeah. All right.
Good job. Shorts.
Shorts. Yeah, Billy.
If you can't tell, Billy just walked in here from driving to work. So that's a really good think on your feet.
Yeah. That was.
I thrive on chaos. Yes.
Yes, you thrive on chaos. All right, Hank, you're who's back.
My hot seat is PFT Commentator.
Drake released three new songs last
week and they're now one, two, and three on
the Billboard. Oh, yeah, Billboard.
We all pay
attention to that. They're hot.
They're good. We use Spotify
now, Hank. We don't listen to radio.
I'm sure they're
in the top of those charts. They're one, two, and three on Spotify as well.
I don't think so. No, I'm sure they are.
They actually are.
Okay, well, a lot of people voted for Hitler
too, so. Whoa.
I'm just saying just because a lot of people like it. Shit.
Okay. Facts don't care about your feelings, Hank.
Also, Indiana fans hoping Brad Stevens is coming there on the hot seat. He officially said that he has no interest in going.
He's going. We'll talk to the tightest about this, because I'm sure he'll have some spudges.
But to me, Brad Stevens just kind of feels like the name out there that's more fun to talk about all the time than it is. Like the second he goes to Indiana, it's not fun anymore.
Yes. Yes.
No one goes from the pros to the college unless they are like shitty in the pros, which he's not. Jim Harbaugh? In basketball.
In basketball they don't do that? Patino, Calipari, sucked. Went back.
Larry Brown. Larry Brown.
Oh, sucked in the pros. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got you. Larry Brown.
Sucked. I think he got a – did he get a chip? Yeah, but then he went to the – he was – Fred Hoiberg.
Sucked. And my cool throw is UFC.
So UFC announced UFC 261 is going to be a sold out full crowd in Jacksonville.
It's a stacked card. It will be the first time
we watch sports with a full crowd.
What is that? I think
a month. Oh wow.
And people are going to jump
down Dana White's throat about this but I actually
agree with the location because
if you've swam
in that pool in Jacksonville Stadium
you've got antibodies for every vaccine
or every disease that's
ever been conjured up on planet Earth.
Usman Massival too. By the way
Thank you. am in that pool in Jacksonville Stadium, you've got antibodies for every vaccine or every disease that's ever been conjured up on planet Earth.
Usman Massivar, too. By the way,
the Indiana
Archie Miller, it's crazy how
quickly the perfect hire becomes
terrible, but
I read a report
a report, well, Fred Hoiberg was never
the perfect hire. I read a report
that it was all just basically
two boosters. Yes.
One booster
paid $10 million to get him out
Thank you. a report well fred hoibert was never the perfect hire uh i read a report that it was all just basically two boosters yes one booster paid paid 10 million dollars to get him out to buy him out and another booster was like i'll pay for whatever the new coaches i love that to get it but we should try and get a big booster on this show like how much money do you have to have i mean they're all like i want to pay 10 million dollars to have a fucking basketball coach not be the best hundreds.
Hundreds of million dollars. Boosters are essentially, if you are rich enough, you're super rich.
Like the Texas stuff too. Yeah, but you're not rich enough to own a team yourself.
So you basically kind of own a team by being a very influential booster who the second you don't like a coach, you can say, all right, get him out of here. I'll pay for it.
Yeah, you can think that you own the team, which is the best part of owning a team. You sort of do own part of it.
The guy who got Archie Miller fired, he is kind of an owner of the team because he essentially said he called him up and was like, I've seen enough of this shit. I'm sick of it.
$10 million. Get him out of here.
Right. I feel like I would like to be a small booster for a program, like just contribute a small amount of money, but enough for me to say, yeah, I am a booster, and then just go whichever way the wind blows.
So when all the big boosters want to coach out, I can be like, yeah, I want him out too, and then I'll get credit for kicking that guy out too. Yeah, getting to tell people that you have the power is way better than actually having any responsibility.
Booster life's got to be sweet, though. It has to be sweet.
All right, P pft all right uh my hot seat this week is going to be dan bilzerian dan bilzerian's on the hot seat uh because i've decided that i am going to get a six-pack and a beard and uh and just take my shirt off all summer and i'm going to live at the beach this is going to be the summer of the beach for me you can't grow beard i well actually six pack actually you went with beard first well actually technically in theory feasible well here's the thing about you could you could grow your facial hair for the rest of your life and it would nick gave me a supplement earlier today and the supplement i forget what it's called it's called like man the fuck up so it sounds like a legit medical product um and it's supposed to just grow facial hair on dudes that can't grow facial hair i i'll support anything in your endeavor of your midlife crisis thank you yes it's been going on for a while thank you yeah i'm gonna struggling living at the beach just constantly changing i'm gonna get it look i'm gonna get a jeep wrangler yeah no i'll it's gonna be you'll get through it like eventually you'll just be like hey i am in my late 30s yeah like oh this is this is just how time works, but I, you'll get through it. Like eventually you'll just be like, Hey, I am in my late thirties.
Yeah.
Like, Oh, this is, this is just how time works, but not yet.
But I'm not going to push you there, but not yet.
No, I'm not going to push you there.
Yeah.
Billy.
Can one of you guys get on TRT or HGH already?
I'm, I told you I want testosterone.
I have low T.
Yeah.
I just told you I took a supplement called band the fuck up.
If you put something in front of me, I will take it.
Okay.
I told you I will task myself getting you guys testosterone. I told you I wanted some.
TRT. Okay.
Why'd you look in the camera? Do you have an ad? Are you selling side ads? No. You definitely have a side ad.
He just looked at the camera like, TRT. Super Male Vitality Clinic in Hoxatucket, New Jersey.
What's your cool throw? My cool throw is old people. Old people, because Sister Jean...
Of which you are one. Sister Jean is back.
Sister Jean's going to the tournament. I'm not old.
I'm 36. I'm 36, and that's fine.
But I do... I get carded every time I order a beer.
Yeah. Sister Jean is going to the tournament.
So, I don't know how smart of an idea this is. I like the fact that we're going to get to talk about Sister Jean more.
It's just a drive during what's sister gene's life going to be like during quarantine it's just a drive she's gonna be i don't sit in her room watching prices right all day long i don't think she even has to quarantine you don't think so no because she's a god because oh she's a fan she's probably going as a fan i think she's going with the team though oh i'm well no because if she hasn't already, the team's already there. Yeah, I think they took her, I think, today to Indianapolis.
I mean, her life is probably quarantined.
Yeah, but...
She's over 100, right?
Like, nothing has changed.
How old is Sister Jane?
She just changed the location.
She's 106.
She's 106?
She's 101.
She was born in 1919.
Damn, dude.
Good for her.
That's when Babe Ruth got... No, no, no no the baby was what that was 1918 my bad uh that's crazy she is good for her still kicking good for her all right my hot seat is uh me because the antifa cat is back uh the picture that looks exactly like me it's a bad look i understand it's a bad a bad look.
Did you see Antifa cat? Because Billy, I need you like buff cat exists. That is Billy getting me testosterone in 10 years of hard work and diet and not eating any carbs.
Antifa cat is like four days of eating wings, which I'll do this weekend. I will be in a scarf.
I'll be in Antifa cat. That's how that's how unfair the sliding scale is.
It didn't help that he had the exact same type of facial hair, like the beard that was maybe three days without shaving, and just the look of despair in his eyes that you get after an 0-8 night gambling. After Andy Dalton.
Yeah, that is big cat post Andy Dalton. Post no Russell Wilson.
Fuck. And then I had vampire Peter Schrager next to me, so that was interesting too.
That's right. Yeah.
And then my cool throne. Bill you kind of stole it.
It is all of us because I just want to just take a moment here and just say that I was coming into work today and I realized March Madness really is just the best thing of all time. It's just the best thing of all time.
Spring coinciding with March Madness, St. Patrick's Day.
Just everything feels like it has been restored. There's nothing like this weekend we're going to have, and there's nothing like that first few days of spring.
We've also got a false start. Winter came back.
But the first few days of spring, just embrace just embrace it just enjoy it i did throw my phone against the wall today because i got an alert from weather saying snow should expect to start falling in the next 15 minutes i was like fuck you i wore shorts last week yeah no i know the false start always sucks and then i looked at so last night i looked at chicago weather we're gonna be in chicago this weekend uh for march madness and i pulled up the app i was like maybe it'll be 60 in Chicago that's not how no weather works it turns out so but yeah spring is here listen this weekend's gonna be so fun it really is like four days non-stop of college basketball I just filled myself with so much information I can't wait to just go against everything I'm trying to learn and I always like I do I on college basketball all year long, and I do, like, have a pretty good grasp of what's going on, but it still does not matter. I still will just, it will be, Friday night will be a train wreck.
A train wreck. But that's okay.
Have you guys noticed that the bracket industrial complex isn't really cranking them out like they used to? By that I mean, like, the brackets where it's like fast food brackets. Brackets are the best.
I'm so out on those. I'm so out on those.
I know. I'm saying it's been done and done and done every single year, and they just haven't done it.
Was there a meeting? I hope there was because I'm over it. I don't care.
I don't want to look at it. The only bracket I wanted to see was Billy's quarterback bracket, which I think he finished today.
Billy? Yeah. So, first one is Trevor Lawrence versus Sam Ellinger.
Okay. And that was one seed versus the last seed.
What's the last seed? Sam Ellinger. No, but what is the number? Does the bracket exist? I don't think there's...
It's the mental bracket. No, no, no.
It's 12.'s 12. You have 10 more quarterbacks to name right now.
It's a mental bracket. Is it each region? There's 12 in each region? No, no, no.
Actually, there should just be two quarterbacks. The one seed, Trevor Lawrence, and the 12 seed, Sam Ellinger.
And that's for the championship. And Sam Ellinger upset.
There's a big upset. Sam Ellinger upset.
Then we have Sam Ellinger versus This bracket does just exist in Billy's brain. I like this.
I like this. I'm back in.
Justin Fields, who won his play-in, which was a play-in game between Justin Fields and? No, Justin Fields beat the NDSU kid, Trey Lance. And then Justin Fields beats Sam Ellinger, and he's in the championship.
Wait, what happened on the other side of the play-in? Well,? On the other side we have the Texas A&M quarterback Mond Kellen Mond Kenny Football and he played Zach Wilson? Yes I shouldn't have given you that There's no chance that's what it was Zach Wilson won Yes. I shouldn't have given you that.
Yeah, played Zach Wilson. There's no chance that's what it was.
Zach Wilson won. Okay.
And then he played... Mack Jones? Mack Jones.
Mack Jones won. Against who? Mack Jones had a bye.
Because he won the national championship. Yeah, right, right.
That's totally fair. And then Mac Jones plays Justin Fields.
No, wait.
Mac Jones beat Zach Wilson?
Yes.
Okay, so it's Mac Jones versus Justin Fields in the final.
Right.
Wait, and who won?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Should we wait to put out the winner?
Yes.
What about Ian Book?
Did Ian Book compete or did he have COVID?
Ian Book was the buy.
No, no, COVID.
He got COVID.
He's playing in the COVID tournament. Against Jack Cohn.
Yes. No, he's transferred Notre Dame now.
Oh, really? Yeah. Hell yeah.
Oh, he did grad year. Jackie Heisman.
Oh, man. That was stressful.
I feel stressed out looking at you. That was a great bracket.
I got an exam at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
I'm very stressed. Oh, man.
It's tough. When you're listening to this and it's 9 a.m.
I can't wait until you graduate college and figure out what excuse you're going to use when college is gone. Oh, I'm going to have no excuse.
Right. But you will have an excuse because you're Billy.
No, no, no. The excuse will be gone.
You'll be like, whoa. How did he do so much work? How did he do so well when he had excuses? That's what you're going to say.
And you're going to appreciate me. So you just graded yourself as well? Yes.
Real talk, Billy. That was impressive.
That was. That's the best thing that you've done in a long time.
Thank you. It's an awesome.
We clipped that, Liam. I want the whole bracket out so people can vote on it.
We'll vote on it, right? Yep. There'll be an element.
If you want to make your own bracket. In the program behind the bracket, you did program a voting element, right? In the coding? No.
Well, this was through the – well, that depends on if it was Yahoo or ESPN bracket that you would fill out out billy you have the complete bracket right so you guys can make your own bracket i just seeded them yep and we'll figure it out just write them down do draw a bracket on here and take a picture of it and then blog the picture yeah okay all right ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working nah neither has ariat ariat work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions so you can take any job out there and always deliver. Check out Ariat in your local workwear retailer or visit Ariat.com slash work to get 10% off your first order when you sign up for email.
And weather whatever in Ariat Work Gear. And now here he is, Mark Titus.
Okay, we now welcome on our very, very good friend from Fox Sports. It is Mark Titus.
You can go listen to the Titus and Tate podcast. Ready for this? I'm going to give you a nice little plug.
The Titus and Tate podcast has the best intro music outside of electric Avenue. And if you haven't heard it, you got to go listen and hear it because it pumps me up all the time when I hear the technical foul, technical foul.
It's a, uh, it's a nephew Kyle original. I think.
Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I'm kidding.
I really don't know. I don't know where the song came from.
I love that. Did he ever try to put like any bars over it? I know that he raps.
He probably did. Like I, I legitimately have no idea when, when we started the podcast, I pitched a, uh, an eighties hair metal rock song, um, as the intro and Kyle and Tate both looked at me like, what is the, like, they, they, they're very into, uh, not that kind of stuff.
So, um, I gotta, I don't know where the song came from. They, they dug dug it out i don't know if they made it or what but um yeah we'll take that it's the best and uh i i think i can say this because we have met nephew kyle when we're out for grit week but uh i still just laugh about nephew kyle having uh the one shining podcast tattoo on his leg not or is it on his leg yeah it's on his leg not understanding arm it's on his forearm not understanding that in the media world people don't just stay at companies forever yeah yeah not everyone's related and so you have a job for life at one place great tattoo all right but yeah but that makes us love him you know like that's that's what if he didn't do that sort of thing that's a ride or die guy wouldn't love him as much yeah hank has a goldfish on his leg, so we can relate.
We know that. All right, let's talk some March Madness.
The biggest story about this bracket is that next year we'll be looking at one and Brad Stevens will be coaching Indiana. Let's do it.
Big Cat, you're speaking my language. I have been very uh with brad stevens i i've reached the point where i no longer know what where i stand where reality and the meme world have come together it is all merged into one i have mean my mean myself into believing that this is a possible thing um i'm watching press conferences that i'd never cared to watch before i'm uh on message boards in ways that I never thought I would be.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm talking myself into it.
And it doesn't matter if it's real or not. I think it's just like the state of the world.
We're coming out of a pandemic. We didn't have an NCAA tournament last year.
I don't see the harm in wanting to believe in something. You know? I don't see the harm in that.
So his wife is actually from Indiana, right? It's true. Wait, but here's the harm.
PFT actually has made this point, and I agree with him.
If Brad Stevens goes to Indiana, there goes all of our jokes.
That is true.
I don't know what – I think we shut it down.
I mean, yeah, that's a great point.
I think I shut down my Twitter account.
Yeah, it's like – I picked up the mantle from Trill Ballins when he left Twitter,
and I was like, I'll take care of this myself, Trill,
because we were both kind of leading the charge. But Trill was doing it better than I was, so I kind of stepped back.
And then Trill got off Twitter, obviously, so I was like, I guess I got to keep it alive. And, yeah, Brad takes the job, then it's over.
It's like Heath Ledger in The Joker circa 2008. 1997.
1997, when he says, I'm like a dog chasing an ambulance. I don't know what I would do if I caught it.
Or chasing a car. Whatever it is.
I'm sure John Rossin will clear me up on that one. But yeah, if he goes to Indiana, I don't think that's going to be that fun.
It's just going to be like, oh, yeah, Brad Stevens is a coach at Indiana now. What do we do? We just kind of look at each other.
We're like, I guess we'll go home now. Yeah.
But it will be funny to go back on twitter and see like trill back in 2012 2013 being like i'm hearing that brad stevens is going to go to indiana there's gonna be like all these uh they already knew accounts like retweeting this guy baby holy shit this guy had some insight if i remember right trills trills bit too is he'd always misspelled brad ste it would be like Brand Steffens or something. I'm hearing Brand Steffens.
When it comes to the actual job at Indiana, I think you and I might differ on this one. I don't think that it's that great of a job.
People talk about the Indiana job like you're the king of the world once you get there. It's the pinnacle of like it's the best job that you can have in America regardless of profession profession i don't think that it's that good of a job anymore i uh i i see why you would think that um i think uh the reason people are excited about brad going to iu is that uh listen i don't actually think it's going to happen in all honesty i don't think it's going to happen i do think there's more it's greater than a zero percent chance i think the people that are like he would never do this uh they're just as stupid as guys like me that are trying to meme it into existence i think it's somewhere in the middle i think like indiana is gonna like if indiana offers him like a 10-year contract for to doubles a salary of course he's gonna be like all right i'll think about it and then call him back and say never mind but he's gonna he's gonna consider it surely it would be stupid not to um but the reason it's the reason like it gets beaten down that he's from ind Indiana is because I say this as a guy who grew up in the town next to where Brad grew up.
He was from Zionsville. I'm from Brownsburg.
They're right next to each other. The culture of Indiana basketball just seeps into you.
And I'm talking about the university. It's like whether you're a fan of IU or not, it is it.
is it is it it is like the the pinnacle it's one of the programs it's like Indiana Kentucky I'd say North Carolina and Kansas those are the four that like if you grow up in those states you can't escape it you'll never escape it whether you're a fan of it or not um and there's almost like a sense of obligation to like I feel guilty I already start thinking I live in LA now LA now, obviously. I've already started thinking.
Yeah. I don't know if you heard.
I couldn't tell from your Instagram. I, I have already started thinking as a man who is not married, who does not have kids.
I, I, I start thinking like, if I have a family, do I need to move back to Indiana so my kids can grow up and play in Hoosier hysteria? And I don't know. You feel the draw.
It's real. So in that regard, I think Indiana is still a great job for people from Indiana.
Now, like the idea of like getting a Jay Wright, for example, or Tony Bennett, who didn't grow up there, like, yeah, that's absurd. They're not going to leave to go back to Indiana.
But I don't know, if you grew up there, it's one of those deals. It's just like, it's a cultural thing.
They have unlimited money, it sounds like sounds like like the way the athletic director is talking is like they'll pay whatever it takes to get whoever they want um and i don't know the fan base is rabid you're always going to have great recruits yeah that's the thing that's the yeah people bring up nebraska football uh like that's kind of the analogy people seem to make between indiana and nebraska but indiana the state of indiana is still pumping out like five stars every year. So, I mean, I don't know.
Yeah. I still see it as a big, I still see it as a very, uh, a job that everyone would should want.
Maybe not like you said, a J right or someone like that, but they do have the homegrown talent. And that's like step one to succeeding in college sports is, can you just basically show up, do the press conference and be conference and be like hey we're gonna lock down the border and we'll compete yeah the analogy I would use to to believe and there might be a slim sliver of hope of rad going to IU is when Roy left Kansas to go to North Carolina where uh he was in a sit not Kansas is not the Boston Celtics like I'm not saying it's the exact same but like Roy Williams was playing in the national championship game in 2003 um he had obviously a great program at Kansas Kansas is one of the blue bloods but there's something in Roy Williams I was like I have to go back home I have to do this for Dean Smith I have to and I think like Indiana fans have convinced themselves that that same thing is just ruminating in Brad Stevens mind that like who cares if I do this in Boston it doesn I accomplish in my career matters unless it happens in Indiana because that's just how people in Indiana think.
It's like that's the only basketball state that matters. And Shaka Smart's going to do the same thing with Wisconsin, and I'm excited for that.
Absolutely. I'm actually rooting.
Tony's going to do it. Tony Bennett, I'm rooting against Texas in the tournament just so I'm like, hey, maybe if he gets bounced early, because there was definitely some smoke around Shaka this year and they've had a very good year but I was like maybe maybe this could work and he could go to Madison and that would actually change everything if I remember right it came on the show at the beginning of the season you asked me about Texas and I said they were going to be uh they were high expectations but they were going to just flound the kind of like the season that they're having is sort of what I expected.
But they got really good. I'm starting to believe in them, too.
You believe in them, Dan? A little bit. I do.
I the only thing is they don't. They're really good.
Like when I watch them, they're really good. That that that Big 12 championship game, Oklahoma State was playing unbelievable basketball and Texas really kind of had that in hand for the majority of the game.
I just think that they play good defense, and I don't know, Shaka, maybe it's one of those things, it's kind of like when you see Wichita State, who is garbage, by the way, in the tournament, and you say to yourself, well, Wichita State, who knows? Shaka, something about him in a tournament setting, you're like, yeah, he could do it, Why not? He's done it before, right? That's all that matters. Yeah.
That's a big thing with college basketball is if you've done it before, people believe in you. If you've never done it, nobody believes in you.
And it's a sport where, as our friend John Rothstein says, the unexpected becomes the ordinary. And yet we go into every tournament and we're like, there's no way that this team, there's no way Baylor could go to a Final Four.
They've never done it before. I don't trust them.
They're going to choke. But the last two tournaments, a 16 seed beat a one seed.
And then Virginia won the national title, which was never going to happen because Tony Bennett's style doesn't work. And then the tournament was canceled.
I mean, those are like the last three things that have happened. people will still say this year like there's no way it could happen because uh that just that just doesn't ever happen you know to answer your real question about text so I think they're like that that they're in that group of teams that they don't do anything exceptional but they do both things okay so it's like you if they can just do both those okay things a little bit better in a tournament setting who knows the thing I love about texas is they they have experienced guards who are a little crazy in the good way like they they they have guys that uh i was in asheville during the uh the maui invitational which like you want to talk about a bummer is like seeing maui invitational branding all over asheville north carolina um and and texas was playing there and and so like i got up close and like i was of the few people in the arena because it was a bubble situation and uh I say that to say like the Texas guards like Matt Coleman and Courtney Ramey especially uh they're kind of crazy like before before the tip of every game they're like talking to themselves and hyping themselves up and like you know I don't know how else to explain it but they're like they're they are they're out of their minds in the best way that you want a basketball player to be.
And I love that idea of them in March just like going crazy. I don't know.
Yeah. It works for me.
How much stock do you put in momentum going into the tournament? Because there's one team in particular that I feel like all the casuals out there, of which I am not one, it's like a perfect storm of people circulating around this one team because they have the momentum. That's Georgetown.
So they won the tournament, right? They won the Big East tournament. And then they've got Patrick Ewing as their head coach.
They love Patrick Ewing. They love a guy that goes back as alma mater.
He's their coach. Takes a mantle from all the John Thompsons, builds on the program.
They've got a cute dog that rides a skateboard across the court. And they've just got one of names where like you remember when you hear Georgetown you're like yeah I remember when they were good uh you know old school like tough hard nose no blood no foul basketball I feel like a lot of people are doing that plus it's they're they're the 12 seed so everyone also knows like a 12 always beats a five so but I feel like all those people are kind of way off base when it comes to this Georgetown team, because I don't think that this Georgetown team is actually any good at all.
No, they're not, they're not good, but they, they won, they won the big East term. You got to give them props for that.
Yeah. If you squint enough, the Georgetown looks like the Georgetown of old Patrick Ewing looks like John Thompson in the right, you know, like it feels very similar.
The, the, the big guy, the big imposing figure on the sidelines. The other thing we're getting in their favor, they're playing Colorado, Pac-12 team.
So this is old Big East versus Pac-12. We're going to get a definitive answer on the softness of the West Coast versus the toughness of the East Coast.
The thing that scares me about Georgetown is that they seem, not that they shouldn't celebrate winning the Big winning the biggest tournament but that seems like that seems like it feels like they might be happy to be here you know and it feels like they won the big east that was like their crowning achievement this is the trophy they're going to put in their trophy case um i don't when the 12-5 upsets typically happen the 12 is usually uh it's usually a situation like winthrop and villanova where it's a small school that's that's and they just didn't play the hardest schedule, so they get a 12 seed. I don't really love to believe in 12 seeds that are power conference schools.
I don't know, but I also did not think Georgetown was going to win a single game in the Big East tournament, and they won four in a row, so what the hell do I know? And the other 12-5 that I think everyone has circled is the Creighton UCSB because Creighton is the other side of momentum where they've completely fallen on their face. Obviously, they had the P word that Doug McDermott dropped, senior.
Doug McDermott, senior. Let me just throw that out there.
UCSB, everyone's picking. I'm always worried with 12-5.
I just listen to the 12s that everyone loves,, and I'm like, how is that going to work? Like Creighton's going to come out and beat them by 100 probably. Yeah, I don't think UCSB is going to win.
Like UCSB has won a ton of games, and they're really good. But one of the things that's weird about this season that's different from typical seasons, when you look at like the mid-majors that are winning games, they, a lot of these teams are not playing.
They, they, mid majors typically never play awesome schedules, but they usually like play like a handful of like power conference teams in the non-conference because of COVID. There are a lot of teams like Colgate's the most extreme example.
They played, they played like five teams. Yes.
And, and you look up and you're like, all right, you're 14 and one, you're almost undefeated. But at the same time, like, what does this mean? Anything? I have no idea.
There's no data points. Uh, that's, what's terrifying me about this year is like, like UCSB as a team that I would look at under normal circumstances and say, I might believe in you, but this year their schedule is really bad.
They want a lot of games. They're good.
But, uh, I don't, it would not surprise me at all. If Creighton just like blows the doors off them, especially how good Creighton could be when they're good.
Yeah, this is not a fun time. This is the worst part of my job.
This is by far the worst part of my job. It's like this week trying to predict what's going to happen.
I don't know. So I just want to note when Mark says that Colgate has played like four teams, he's not joking.
Their regular season, they played Army four times. They played Boston University four times.
They played Holy Cross four times. That was their entire regular season.
And then in the conference tournament, they played BU again, and then they added Bucknell and Loyola, Maryland. It's the craziest schedule to look at and be like, wait, they actually literally only played five total teams this entire this entire so when Clark Kellogg sees him come up against Arkansas and he starts just giggling because he can't stop thinking about how great that game is going to be and how up tempo it's going to be it's actually a pretty small sample size of defenses that that Colgate offense has played against yes yes it's it's like like Moses Moody is 10,000 times better than any player colgate has seen this season and sometimes that matters that's what's yeah it's never fun like trying to uh figure out what the hell is going to happen in this tournament but trying to suss stuff like that out for this tournament also like trying to remember who's on who's coming off of a covet pause who who got like better in a co some teams like got better when they went on pause and they came back and they're like somehow better some teams are worse um I I can't keep track of it all I nice but I I don't know I'm I'm I'm I'm I don't know I've learned a lot from Big Cat you've helped me a lot today and is like watching you fire off your picks and being wrong over and over and still having the courage to step up it's terrible just be like I think this is gonna happen it's I cry every time I'm going down with the ship.
I cry every time I put out. I have a burner person now who puts out all my picks because I can't.
I shut off the replies. I couldn't.
The negative energy was all encompassing when people were just like, loser, loser, loser. Like, yep, you're right.
They're all losers. This is a haters paradise this week for college basketball media haters.
They're licking their lips just waiting to see brackets. They're taking receipts left and right, and we've got to keep our head on a swivel as media types.
You know what, though? To me, it's the man in the arena speech. I'm out there firing picks.
You want to tell me that afterwards that was the dumbest pick ever? I'm out there. I'm stepping up to the plate.
I'm fucking firing off picks. Man in the arena.
Put a jersey on. Come meet me and try to do better.
That's LeBron's speech, right? Yeah, LeBron. Yeah, LeBron actually said that.
Teddy Roosevelt stole it from LeBron afterwards. That is by far my favorite speech that any coach can ever give.
It's usually after they just lose. It's just basically saying, you know what? We're not losers because at least we tried.
We tried hard. it's a participation trophy but it's a in speech form that you give yourself so i always love that i want to get you on record about virginia tech because i don't know if you saw this we got we got dragged we got caught for an old take three years that we had three years ago about virginia tech not being deserving of a 10 seed uh and so we want to get you in the us.
This will actually be good. So hopefully Virginia Tech's media department will clip all of this once you tell us how much they're going to lose by against Florida.
Well, this happened to me too, by the way. Michigan State did the exact same thing to me.
Took stuff out of context, stuffed it in my face. But whatever.
I said on our show leading up towards the end of the season the whole point i brought up on the show was that michigan state still had a path to the tournament i was like everyone's burying all these blue bloods they're saying duke's done kentucky's done at the time north carolina was done michigan state can't make the tournament i looked at their schedule and i was like oh my god they're gonna play like five top 10 team team or whatever it was i was, they have a loaded schedule down the stretch. They're not out of it yet.
But at the same time, I don't think they're going to be able to beat all these teams. So whatever.
And then they clipped the part that I said, I don't think they're going to be able to beat all these teams. And then shut up my face.
So we're all in this together. I saw that clip.
And so everyone's like, Michigan State had a video. You didn't say anything about it.
Michigan State's video said like work left to be done. Virginia Tech tweeted, thanks for doubting us.
It's like, yeah, I'm going to keep doubting you guys. You're a 10 seat.
Yeah, but it's good for the show though, right? It's great. It's great for the show.
Honestly, like we do stuff like that all the time to people. Like we'll probably take something you say way out of context in this show.
Remember the last time when spiking so we don't count that but yeah well we do that shit all the time and so i just charge you the game it's like you know i respect what you've done here virginia tech so wait how much did you say they were going to lose by again they i'm very scared this is this is a very dangerous trap because virginia tech if they win they're going to play ohio in the second round. So this would be doubly painful for me to just be like, Virginia Tech sucks.
Wait, I just said Virginia Tech. Yeah, you did it.
You can just clip that right there. We'll send that too.
Just clip that part. Wait, that's the entire cut of this interview we're taking.
Virginia Tech sucks. Okay, so let's talk about your Buckeyes real quick.
They just don't play defense. They don't.
Seriously, though, not think i i i have i have this thought and uh you're gonna you're gonna disagree and it's gonna break my heart but i genuinely think ohio state is the most fun team in the country because our offense is incredible we we we are so skilled we're very versatile every guy can can make threes and and put the ball on the floor and we're very very good offensively play no defense. We choke away leads.
And every game we're in seems to be close. How is that not exactly what you want out of a March Madness team as a neutral fan? Yeah, no, they have absolutely – and they have the big guy who I fucking love who is a mid-90s reliever through and through with the facial hair and the arm sleeve.
Kyle Young? Yeah, I love him. I agree with you that they are a fun team because every game is just like, they could be up 15, they could be down 15.
At some point, it's basically like watching Mario Kart. You know if you're at 8th, you'll get a lightning bolt and you'll be back in first soon.
Oral Roberts has a guard who leads the country in scoring and has had multiple 40-point point games this year that's who we play in the first round and uh i don't think we're going to lose clip that part by the way okay um i don't think we're going to lose but i think it's going to be an awesome game that's going to be worth watching and i you know even if we win by like 15 i think it's going to be fun to watch so that's my i i swear we're fun to watch yeah i totally agree with you i've watched uh many ohio state games this year and it's always been i mean the ohio state michigan game that they played uh before the big 10 tournament was one of the best games of the year by far like iowa gonzaga that one and i actually the lsu alabama sec championship game was up there as well let's go other side of the spectrum of fun wisconsin badgers are just brutal it's it's rare usually i'm used to it because it's like i know what the badgers do the only thing that i have talked myself into is that unc always does have trouble with virginia wisconsin's kind of a virginia light maybe that will be, maybe Wisconsin will hit their jump shots and turn, and turn Virginia or UNC over. And that's how we win.
Wisconsin feels like a loveless marriage to me. That's the way I would describe it is like, they, they all like are looking at each other.
They've been together for years and they're like, this just isn't working. But at the same time, like let's stay together for the kids and let's just see this thing and they're waiting for the kids to get out of high school is what they're waiting on and that's that's the end of the season that's that's that's going to come on friday when they lose to north carolina and then they're like all right we can all go our own ways now they they're best you know you realize your best win of the season's loyola no i know you beat sister jane no no that's your best win of the season we Louisville.
What? We beat Louisville, too. Louisville almost made the tournament.
The first four out in bubble. No, you're right, though.
It's a level. You're actually, that's a perfect analogy.
Like the Penn State game, to even go micro on it, the Penn State game was like having some sex and being like, oh, this used to be fun. And then Penn State came back, and you're like, oh, this is why we can never have sex because we end up fighting afterwards brad davison winning the game by calling timeout is like sticking a sticking a finger in your butt you're like oh i feel alive again and then you're like oh but at the same time i don't think that's enough to yeah you're right is that that's been is that the highlight you think brad davison it was so it was play by him.
Yeah. Is it the best timeout ever? It was a fucking great play.
And that's the thing. They'll do things like Trice will just hit a bunch of threes, or Brad Davidson will do – you're right.
It is – I think this is why – and I still am going to root for them. I hope that they win.
They all are nice guys, but it does feel like something like they've been together for too long. It just doesn't work.
It should work, and it doesn't work. Yeah, it's the team that – I mean, you remember last year they sucked, and then they got hot at the end of the season.
This is the team that sucked. What we're seeing is the team they were all along.
They were playing the best basketball in the Big Ten last year in the month of february like they beat the last game that i watched they beat indiana at indiana to win a share of the big 10 and i was like wow watch out for them and then that just disappeared i i think the most frustrating part about wisconsin this year is that they're not even interesting in how they're bad you know what i mean like even when they're bad it's not like i don't feel like i want to call people and talk about what's wrong with Wisconsin I don't feel like it's just it's just like it's sad I mean yeah it's just like ah I don't care enough to I don't care enough to care I can it's just I can tell because I have like a group text message with with my best friends from college and it's like as the season has gone along it's now just me and one other guy watching every game like everyone's like i got kids like i'm gonna opt like i don't need to watch wisconsin lose to iowa again like i'll just sit this out let me know when we're in the tournament mark i want to ask you about uh i want to get you on some some more records for some fraud takes here so all right i'm just gonna have you incriminate yourself if you please do. Let's begin.
You can only pick from teams seated one through five. Give me your top four fraud teams in the tournament.
Frauds one through five. All right, let me see.
Because fraud implies that you should be good. It's different from being a bum.
All right. Houston.
Houston's my number one fraud. Okay.
They're 24-3. Two of their losses were – One of their losses was to Wichita State.
They lost to East Carolina, I believe, and they lost to Tulsa. These are very bad losses.
Houston, I don't know. Houston, to me, is what people think Gonzaga is.
That's what I would say. When you think of Gonzaga as playing nobody, racking up a bunch of wins, and then probably going to flame out early in the tournament,
which is not Gonzaga anymore.
That was Gonzaga is that that's what I would say that when you think of Gonzaga as playing nobody racking up a bunch of wins and then probably going to flame out early in the tournament which is not Gonzaga anymore that was Gonzaga 15 years ago um that's what Houston is now I bet it might be good for Houston maybe maybe 15 years from now they'll be as good as Gonzaga is now I don't know it won't shock you I bet on Houston in that ECU game they were minus 18 it was like uh it was a random it was like a three o'clock game on a Thursday got to bet it. But you're right.
And the good thing that Houston does is they kick the shit out of bad teams. Like, that's, I think, Houston wins by 40.
And you're like, wow, Houston's incredible. But, okay, so what's your second one? So, Houston, the one thing about Houston, though, I will say, is they have a pretty – I like their draw in the sense of, like, West Virginia isn isn't I like the idea of West Virginia more than I actually like West Virginia because it's you hear that Bob Huggins has a team that can make shots and you're like oh my god that's unstoppable but then they they don't play great defense and they're kind of they've been losing a lot of games they shouldn't uh Syracuse San Diego like that whole region I like Houston going I don't know Houston might might surprise me and go to the lead eight, but I don't think it's because they're good.
I still won't think they're good. So don't back my face, Houston fans.
Are you thinking Rutgers has a chance in the second round? I actually do, yeah. I'm betting on Rutgers.
If Rutgers wins the second round game, I win a Bitcoin. Let me see who else is a fraud.
We'll throw Houston out there. Choo, choo, choo, choo.
Tennessee's been a little disappointing up and down. I think – I don't know if they're frauds, but, like, coming into the season, I felt like they were good enough to maybe make a Final Four run, and they've been just kind of blah.
Their offense sucks. Yeah.
Their offense is really bad. Their defense isn't – I mean, it's good, but it's not good enough to make up for how bad their offense is.
They have potential. Tennessee's a team that, like, you catch them on the right night, you're like, this team could be something.
But then, I don't know. Wait, so has this season – I don't love that they're – Has this season completely swung the pendulum where now it's like if we're re-litigating the Shaka Smart Rick Barnes situation? Like, if you're Texas, you'd rather have shock of smart now.
That's a great question. Would you rather have, Oh, I think, I think in the end you'd rather have shock of smart because it's just like, it was just one of the, it just, the Rick Barnes tenure at Texas just got to a point where I think that it was just stale.
And it was like, we, we don't care if we have the exact same amount of success. We just want to look at a different face on the sideline.
That's really where we've arrived as Texas fans. That's what shock was for them.
Relate to your sex life again, please. Missionary, just all missionary all the time.
And you're like, you know what? I think we both like to look at somebody else. Maybe look at the back of your head every now and again.
Yeah, yeah. That's pretty much all is basically doing what i mean to be fair i mean rick barnes with the final four so uh shocker still has he still has some work to do to catch what rick barnes did there but uh yeah i don't i don't know um i'm trying to think of other other frauds iowa vill villanova's got to be up there just because they don't have cal Gillespie anymore.
I don't trust Villanova without a point guard.
I don't know.
Iowa?
Iowa's interesting.
I think I believe in Iowa.
Really?
I think they're playing better defense.
I just want to believe in them.
I think if you don't pay attention, you think Iowa is Luka Garza and a bunch of slow white dudes that don't play defense
and just can shoot set shots. And it's kind of true, but not really anymore.
Like they play D. I think Joe Wieskamp is going to be an NBA player and he's Joe Wieskamp is basically the next Duncan Robinson that everybody's going to look up and be like, where did this guy come from? And everyone that's been paying attention knows that he does not miss.
And he's like six, eight and he's unbelievable but um I don't know I I could see
Iowa go they're not gonna make the final four because they're in Gonzaga's region but I could
see Iowa making a lead eight for sure I know what you're saying they are um like a you think like
oh classic Iowa team they're not playing any defense they play a little bit better but they
still don't aren't great defensively my problem is whenever Luca Garza and I I don't know if there
is that well USC would be that big guy and Mobley going up against Luca Garza. Like I think Mobley would eat him up.
Yeah, he would. But I think Garza, because part of Iowa's problems down the stretch, and they're not even problems.
I mean, you look at like who they're losing to. They're losing to Illinois and Michigan, and they're losing to great teams.
Garza is going to feast on big guys who aren't Kofi Coburn and Hunter Dickinson
and 7'4 and 300 pounds.
They're just chesting each other all game.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
He needs some undersized guys that he can – but Mobley's skinny,
so maybe that's good for Garza. Maybe he'll just throw his ass into him.
You can just say Micah Potter and Nate Reavers. Go ahead.
I know that's what you wanted to say right there. That's what I – it is.
I mean, Ohio State – they killed – Iowa killed Ohio State and Columbus not too long ago. We don't have any big guys, and Garza was killing us.
So, yeah, I don't know. I do believe in Iowa, and I understand why people won't want to, but I think it wouldn't surprise me if you looked up and they are one of the last standing Big Ten teams, even though they feel like they're a level or two below the upper tier of the Big Ten.
So what about Michigan? You didn't mention Michigan under your fraud watch team, but all the talk has been about Alabama or it's been about Texas. That's the Harry and Izzy's bracket, the Harry and Izzy's region.
So with Michigan, like, yeah, they're a little banged up, but they are still at one seed, but no one's talking about them. Yeah, Michigan, I think the reason no one's talking about Michigan would be Isaiah Livers, obviously.
We don't know if he's going to be – it doesn't seem like he's going to be able to play in the tournament, which really sucks.
Also, I think the wind has kind of been taken out of Michigan's sails
the way they ended the season.
They won the Big Ten.
I am not putting an asterisk on the Big Ten, but at the same time,
I'm going out of my way to say I'm not putting an asterisk on the Big Ten
because Michigan won two fewer games than Illinois. They got their asses handed to them by Illinois, even when Livers was playing.
They turned around and lose at Michigan State. So there were already some warning signs that maybe Michigan had peaked a little too soon, or maybe they weren't quite as good.
Because there was a stretch during the season where people were talking about Michigan being better than Gonzaga. You'd see see people on TV.
They're like, is Michigan actually the best team in college basketball? And I was scratching my head. Like, I mean, Gonzaga is beating everybody by 20.
So I would probably say until they don't beat teams by 20, they're probably still the best. So Michigan's just kind of come back down to earth and Illinois is kind of taking that mantle as like the hot, sexy big 10 team.
So I think that's kind of what's going on there. I don't know i don't know what to make of michigan because uh they they still have a really good team even if livers doesn't play a second this tournament they're good enough to win a national title it's just uh they're certainly not gonna be the same team without them so we're kind of waiting to see what they're gonna look like without them i think that's i think that's the problem though livers is like their ceiling is national title with livers without them it's a totally different it's they're still a very good team but yeah like his ability to to get shots and like he adds that element that every team needs i just i think they're a totally different team without him now and he's a guy that like you're not necessarily keen on in your scouting report because you're focused on hunter dickinson or you're focused on franz wagner um i mean livers it's not to say he's not one of the best players obviously but uh part of it is just like the trickle down effect of like when you have like five guys that can score and then that gets put and suddenly it's like four guys that can score now the defense can focus on they have one less guy to worry about that you throw out there you like Michigan's throwing out these uh other big dudes like you know johns or austin davis or whatever might get more minutes and um stuff just starts
shifting around and then suddenly because like that that would be a lot of liver livers would
get a ton of open looks just and you just like knock down threes because you're focused so much
on hunter dickinson and now maybe the guy taking those shots isn't isaiah livers and it's someone
you know lower on the pecking order who's not as good and uh that's where it really is going to
matter but i don't know michigan's still really good and uh i i wouldn't be surprised but it's
Thank you. and it's someone lower on the pecking order who's not as good.
That's where it really is going to matter. But, I don't know, Michigan's still really good.
I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know. I got to wait and see what happens in the first couple games before I start talking myself back into Michigan.
All right, so I didn't really talk shit. I just kept on bumping Gonzaga down on my top ten just to get people talking.
I knew the whole time I was basically old take exposing myself because I know Gonzaga is by far and away the best team this year.
What is the like scenario where they do get knocked out?
Cause I,
I don't,
I see them going to the final four and I guess you could make the argument
that in the final four,
if there's all,
if it's four really good teams, no, like, you you know cinderella yeah of course anyone could beat anyone you know iowa actually did play gonzaga really well in that game in whatever it was december but what is the scenario where gonzaga gets bounced or is it not is there no scenario they're they're gonna win it i mean i i think they're not breaking a sweat to they lead eight. And even then, they're probably going to play.
You know, it looks like they're going to play Iowa or Kansas the way if the bracket stays true to form. They've already beat both those teams, beat them rather easily.
I don't know. That doesn't always necessarily mean anything, by the way.
I mean, in 2016, I think it was, Oklahoma beat the hell out of Villanova early in the season. They did aatch, they did a rematch in the final four and Villanova beat the brakes off them.
So who the hell knows, but the way Gonzaga loses, I mean, I'm trying to think of ways they get tripped up Creighton maybe in the, the, the sweet 16, like it's just an up and down, you know, like they're both great offensively and Creighton, they just match shot for shot. And Gonzaga's like, we're fine.
And then they miss a couple shots and Creighton, because Creighton has scores. Creighton can fill it up when they get hot.
So maybe, but that's not going to happen. They don't play, Gonzaga does let their foot off the gas defensively.
They don't have necessarily a rim protector. Like Drew, they don't have a guy that's like swatting shots shots.
If you can penetrate on them, which is easier said than done, maybe that's it. But I don't know, man.
They're good. They're very good.
And I am not a Gonzaga fan. I'm not trying to stick my chest out and say, this team's definitely going to go undefeated.
I don't care. If they lose, it's not going to break my heart.
I just feel like it's my duty to give people a PSA that if you think Gonzaga is justaga is just like every other gonzaga team in your mind you're a moron i do think that yeah like this is not 2006 gonzaga this isn't even 2013 2017 this team would be the 2017 team that was two minutes away from a national title by the way this team would beat them by like 10 15 probably i think like they're so much better they're so so good they have four. This is all you need to say.
This is how you would phrase it. They had four guys that were top five at their position in the country this year.
Four of their starting five were on the finalist list for their position in the country, in the entire country. And I think two or three of them are going to win their award.
It it's disgusting they're very good i i think it is gonzaga versus the field and every time i say that people are people like come back at me as though i'm a moron and they're like yeah but kentucky lost and i'm like yeah i didn't say they're not going to lose kentucky in 2015 lost i didn't say it's not going to lose i just i agree you, though. Gonzaga, they're so much better than everyone.
And they do have, like, their bracket, which you should do for the team that is the number one overall seed, should have an easier bracket. The only team I would say that I'll throw out there, Kansas was playing really good basketball before they got shit down with COVID.
Now, they would meet Gonzaga in the Elite Eight, so it would be the unstoppable force versus the immovable object in Kansas playing really good basketball, but Bill Self being in the Elite Eight, which means he will pee down his leg. But that would be the only team I could see.
I mean, I guess I'm just shitting on Iowa here, whatever. Old habits die hard.
But I do think people forgot about Kansas and that they were playing a lot better down the stretch. And then the COVID thing in the Big 12 tournament kind of stole that from them.
Yeah. Kansas also was victim to all the talk about the blue blood sucking.
And like every time Kentucky would lose a game, it's like Kansas and North Carolina and everyone else would have to wear it because everyone wanted to talk about how bad the blue bloods are. And Kansas fans are like, no, hang on.
We're not you know like we're not we're not winning eight games this year we're still a decent team we're just not as good as we were last year uh yeah i i in all honesty i gonzaga i i see them not even breaking a sweat so i would not be surprised if gonzaga even has i mean if if this is 2018 villanova all over again i wouldn't be surprised at all if. And again, I'm not telling everybody like, it's not bravado.
That's just like, it's, I don't know. I, I, I, everyone's been wanting to make it interesting all season.
Every time a big 10 team wins three or four games in a row, we're like this team could maybe challenge Gonzaga. I don't know.
We'll see. And then they fall off a cliff and then a new big team, big 10 team rises up.
But yeah, they're, they're, they're but here's my question to you dan as as a big 10 guy we were both big 10 guys um do you feel the pressure given how good the big 10 is this year because uh this feels like a season that gonzaga has to win the national title or people will never shut up about it like they'll they'll say you you can never you'll never win a national title if you don't win it this year i feel like the same is true the big 10 with how how often everyone talked about how dominant the big 10 is we have four teams in the top 10 at all times we have and the whole tournament's taking place in big 10 country we have to win the title too right yeah so i guess my answer to that would be i do feel the pressure but i also know at the end of the day if the Big Ten gets eliminated in a terrible fashion I'll just answer to that would be I do feel the pressure, but I also know at the end of the day, if the Big Ten gets eliminated in a terrible fashion,
I'll just go to my trusty, tried, true method of deflect and ignore.
So I'll just figure out a way to spin it, deflect and ignore,
figure out, hey, Gonzaga.
Oh, you know what?
Here we go.
They beat each other up all season.
I got one right now.
Gonzaga's best player, Jalen Suggs, right?
Mm-hmm.
Where's he from?
Ooh, good point.
Minnesota.
Great point.
Big Ten country.
Great point.
There you go.
See, I do this for a living.
That's a Big Ten win.
If Gonzaga wins, that's a Big Ten win.
That's just Richard Pitino's fault for not getting him.
We can't be – Richard Pitino's not in the Big Ten anymore,
so we can't be held accountable for the fact that there was an incompetent
Thank you. Richard Pitino's fault for not getting him.
We can't be... Richard Pitino's not in the Big Ten anymore, so we can't be held accountable for the fact that there was an incompetent coach that couldn't keep Jalen Suggs in-state in the Big Ten.
He wasn't Big Ten strong. Exactly.
So this is Richard Pitino's fault. No one else.
And guess what? We've already rid ourselves from Richard Pitino. He's at New Mexico now.
So there's the spin zone. Boom.
It's easy as that. That's a great point.
I like that. It just feels inevitable to me that Gonzaga is going to beat a Big Ten team in the title game.
And I don't know what Big Ten team it's going to be, but Ohio State's on the right side of the bracket for that to happen. So I'm crossing my fingers.
But that's what we do. We do it better than any conference in the country.
No conference in the country is as good at losing title games as Big Ten. Yeah, you know what actually is going to happen? The real way it will happen is that Gonzaga beats Iowa in the Elite Eight, beats Michigan in the Final Four, and beats Illinois in the Championship.
Yeah. And it's like a clean sweep of the Big Ten, and I'm sitting there like, I don't even like college basketball.
What are you guys talking about in the NBA playoffs? It's Gonzaga and three Big Ten teams, yeah, in the Final Four. And Gonzaga wins both games by 20.
It was like, damn it. You said they've got four players that are in the top five of their position.
How many Mr. Basketballs do they have? That's a great point, too.
How many Indiana Mr. Basketball? How many guys who grew up playing? How many guys won Indiana State high school basketball titles? Right.
I feel like everyone's a mr basketball it's like saying somebody oh he was a golden gloves fighter when you talk about it everyone everyone is also a number one recruit of some sort because you could do number one recruit at your position number one in your state number one and whatever and yeah they go around a lot mr basket that's a good point how do you how does one or quarterback yeah win Mr. Basketball? I know a few states have it.
It's like Ohio has it, Indiana has it. There are a couple others too.
Illinois has it. I don't know.
I think you're just the best player in the state. I think that's pretty much it.
Yeah, ready for this? Jalen Suggs just looked it up. He won Mr.
Basketball and Mr. Football.
Yeah. And Richard Pitino couldn't keep him in state? This is a Big Ten title.
This is the most big – he's a football player. He's the most Big Ten player that's ever not played in the Big Ten.
I am now rooting for Gonzaga. I am officially a Gonzaga fan because they are part of the Big Ten.
Yeah, and also when Duke beat your beloved Wisconsin team in 2015, Tyus Jones is from Minnesota. Jaleel Okafor is from Chicago.
Yep. So there you go.
That one counted for us. Yeah, and guess what? Spokane, Washington being in the Big Ten makes just as much sense as fucking Rutgers.
Like, so who cares? They're in. That's a good point.
They're part of the Big Ten. That's a good point.
I'm in. Yeah, go ahead.
I want to get you on the record for a Wednesday night pick, or for a Thursday night pick. It's Mr.
Playing, the playing guru, Mark Titus. Yeah, they do call you that.
You know everything about the playing games. That would be a good brand, right? Like if you were the guy that – Yeah, that's you.
That is an untapped – that's a freebie for Jake, maybe. Maybe Jake Marsh takes this brain and runs with it where he's like, I am Mr.
Play-In. And, like, he just goes all in on, like, the – and then as soon as the play-in games are over, he wipes the sands.
He's like, have fun, everybody, with the rest of the tournament. I'm out.
My job is done here. How's your bracket? He has a play-in bracket on his wall.
He's a Tom Linardi of play-ins. My one seed's in the play-in games.
You're my – Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, the big one is O against Cronin. It's two big coaches, two big names.
Michigan State, UCLA. Give us your lock on the play-in game.
I like Michigan State. UCLA is free-falling.
They were pretty good a couple months ago, and that's never something you want to say about a team in March. I think – lock me in on Michigan State winning, especially because if I don't say Michigan State's going to win and they do win, I'll have it thrown back in my face.
Okay. And UCLA fans don't care.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, they – UCLA's finished – I think they're on four-game losing streak. They were ranked, and then they just kind of fell off the face of the earth, and they lost.
Yeah, so they got bounced by Oregon State, who that one still is shocking to me. Shout out to Beavs.
All right, any other, like, sneaky teams that you got on, you know, circled or whatever to break down and help people fill out their bracket? Yeah, I like Ohio. Ohio is a team I believe in, but I'm very biased.
The head coach at OU was an assistant at Ohio State when I was there, and he's awesome. And they have a dude, Jason Preston, who's going to be the best player on the floor against Virginia.
I know Virginia's favored, and Virginia, yeah, I picked that as an upset. I thought, what the hell? Virginia's coming off a COVID pause, and I think Ohio is going to have the best player on the floor in that game so um that's enough for me and and I love the head coach so I I really like Ohio uh I'm trying to think of who else um I don't know what to do with Oklahoma State because boy it it feels like the stars are aligning for something special to happen here with Kate Cunningham I don't know how much much you guys have watched this dude, but he is, he is every bit as good as he was made out to be.
I really enjoyed him. So I know they're a four seed, but that feels right.
I mean, like what was Carmelo in 2003? Weren't they like a three seed? And when he took him to the title game, I can't remember, but I, I agree with you there, especially because that Tennessee, Oregon state State game, like those – Oklahoma State should get to the Sweet 16. UConn is another one.
I remember I came on the show before the season, and you said, pick a team that's going to win the next try to stick and zag it. And you said, come on, have some fun.
Pick someone that's not ranked. And I said, well, keep an eye on UConn.
The stars are sort of aligning for UConn as well. I wanted them to win the Big East title.
If they won the Big East title, I would have picked UConn to win the national championship, I think. But Creighton got the better of them.
They had like three shots to tie the game at the end. They all missed.
Oh, wide open, too. Yeah, I know.
That was brutal. I like UConn's draw.
I do like Alabama. That's not a slight against Alabama, but I like a matchup.
But Maryland's going to be tough in the first round for UConn, so I don't know. Like I'm talking myself into UConn's draw I do like Alabama that's not a slight against Alabama but I like a matchup with but but Maryland's gonna be tough in the first round for UConn so I don't know like I'm I'm talking myself into UConn still having a shot here as as a dark horse I don't know I'm all over the place I really do like at the end of the day I just come back to Gonzaga and I'm like this is all it's just a fun distraction to give Gonzaga a trophy in three weeks so if Gonzaga if they didn't exist who would you pick uh oh if kentaga didn't exist who would i who would i pick we could just keep doing this till can i say can i say the winner can i say the winner of illinois oklahoma state in the sweet 16 i'd pick one of those two teams whoever wins that game if kentaga is going to lose i think whoever wins illinois oklahoma state i'm riding that in the sweet 16 do you um let me ask you this about ill quick because I find myself like you know Billy you have your hands on your pants yeah he does okay I literally just caught it in the corner of my eye he was scratching his he was scratching his penis um like it's always tough because when you play a big 10 scheduled you know you start to hate all the teams but handball watching IO and Kofi Cob like, they're, and I've always liked Brad Underwood, but Io is so much fun to watch, and I don't know, it's just, this isn't even a question, it's just fun to watch.
You find yourself being like, I don't hate them because I think he's so much fun to watch. I know, yeah, that was the most frustrating part, Ohio State losing the Big Ten title game in overtime, a very heartbreaking loss, the Buckeyes blow it down the stretch and I wasn't even really that mad because I was like this is great for Illinois and also just Illinois Illinois didn't win the Big Ten but they felt like they should have the regular season so I was like I I can't even really be that mad this team's pretty likable though I am a little worried though Big Cat that like they're they're the it feels almost they this has happened all season with the big 10 teams it happened to Ohio State it happened to Michigan it happened to Wisconsin when you guys beat Louisville I feel like Iowa had their moment where like where suddenly you look up and you're like oh my god we are we might be the best team in the country right now like we we play in the best conference we're kicking everyone's ass.
We are so good. And then every single one of them falls back down to earth.
And that's what I'm worried about with Illinois. You don't want to be feeling yourself too much.
Yeah. I don't know.
I don't know. Because that's bitten every other – it's ruined all of – I'm worried about a Big Ten bubble too.
I'm worried that all these teams in the Big Ten just beat each other and we're convinced that they're all like really good and i i don't know the bar has been set so high for the big 10 i don't know how we're going to top it we have to basically get three teams in the final four to for or else everyone's going to say you guys were overrated just just follow my lead i'll be the lead blocker i'll just come out with spin zones please but i like that answer the winner of illinois oklahoma state would win if you eliminatedaga. I like that answer.
I also feel like if your state touches a Big Ten state, then that should count as well because in theory, you are a target school. You could play in the Big Ten.
Right. You're a breeding ground.
You're breeding ground. Yeah, exactly.
You're Big Ten adjacent. You're a large ten.
Who do you got? You guys fill out your brackets. Who do you got? I probably will take Gonzaga.
Gonzaga's going to win it all. I agree with you.
Like, I don't. I just.
I think they are that good, and I do see, like, flaws in all the other teams. Like, we haven't even talked about Baylor.
And Baylor, they're a different team after COVID than they were before. And I don't know if they can, like, find what they had before COVID.
So, that's a big question mark to me i would say oh i like illinois but i i'm just taking illinois because i want to have something different not gonzaga in the final because i'm different i i don't have any confidence in my picks like in the in the first and second rounds being that much better than everybody else's picks that i'll just be able to take and zag right and chalk the rest of the way. I also just like, if there's a dominant big guy, I can talk myself into like, if that guy brings his A game every single game, he can't be stopped.
And that's what Coburn is. That sounds like a Rovell tweet of analytics of like, actually, you're better off not picking the team that everyone else is going to pick.
Don't say that. Don't say that.
Don't say that. It is true.
I mean, it's basically what we've been saying the whole time, which is we all think Gonzaga is going to win. Yeah.
But I'm actually, I'm saying I know that I suck at picking the earlier games. So I'm just going to, I want to bet on something different.
I'll put it this way. How about the value is better for Illinois.
They're like plus 700 to win the tournament. So I want to make more money game, I believe, tips off at noon 15 on Friday.
1215 Eastern, I believe. Over under 330 that you fire off the, well, there goes my bracket tweet.
I already did it. I already did it right when they announced the bracket.
I'm already done. I got it out of the way.
You got to get out of the way right away. That's the way to do it.
All right. I have one last question for you, Mark, because I can't believe we didn't even throw this out there.
I actually have a team. Oh, it's the Roback question.
Thank you, Liam. The Roback question brought to you.
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Put it a little cubby and says mark titus do not touch so you got that um it's good you're gonna you're gonna put it next to the uh the pmt shirt that i asked you for and that's on the way that's on the way don't worry about that that's on the mail okay i can't believe we didn't throw this out i have a dark horse i have a dark horse team okay that i want to throw out there they are technically, you know, Ken Palm has become the most popular guy in the world. Everyone is on that site.
You know, it doesn't feel like 10 years ago. Like, oh, I know Ken Palm.
Purdue does technically rank top 25 in offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency. They have those two tall guys.
they basically build them in a fucking factory where it's like every year they just have a new seven footer who's lanky and frustrates everyone's. Purdue is like, I don't know.
I mean, we shit on Purdue. Both of us shit on Purdue a lot, but Purdue.
Purdue is a great sleeper pick. Purdue.
They, they, I mean, you saw, if you watch the Ohio State game in the Big Ten tournament, the last game that Purdue played, they're down 18 at halftime. They don't give up.
They claw back into games. Like, they're very young, and they're so young, they almost, like, don't understand where out, when you're supposed to fold, you know? Like, you have no chance of winning this game, so stop playing, please.
stop playing please like they're like no we're just going to keep playing hard and look up and maybe it'll be close in the end uh travi on williams is awesome he's he's a great big dude uh he's they have shooters they have they have guys that can go one-on-one uh ivy was great he's he's he's a guy you can just throw the ball to and he's like all right i'll go get a bucket um and matt painter it's weird because like matt painter for a long time was a guy that like you didn't trust in the tournament and it's always interesting when uh narratives kind of flip on their head now like people i like matt painter's like the second best coach behind izzo probably in the big 10 you know and you know what it is yeah he basically won like a half a national title by playing virginia the toughest when they won a national title they have that banner actually Mackey Arena that says we played Virginia the toughest that no that's seriously that seriously counts like I think that no like Bo Ryan was was like I feel like people started respecting Bo Ryan when he played that Sean May UNC team in the Elite Eight right better than anyone else and everyone's like Ryan. So like a close loss can do something for your street cred.
I also think he's gotten less sweaty over the years. Matt Painter used to be like a top five college basketball sweat guy, like the old school Gary Williams type.
And now somehow, I don't know if – I don't want to say it's like a Prince Andrews, but he stops sweating. He doesn't sweat anymore.
And you look more presentable and people, I think, put more cloud in you. Also, we should make the note that the whole tournament's taking place in Indiana.
So I don't know what kind of advantage Purdue's going to have there. You have to think that the fans, whatever fans they allow in the building, Purdue's going to tip the scales in their favor.
They're going to probably play Baylor in the Sweet 16. As you said, Dan, Baylor has been a dominant team for most of the season, but since they've come back, their defense hasn't been awesome.
So who knows what that's going to look like. Purdue's a good pick.
Purdue's a good sleeper pick, I think. It's also, we're at the point now, we're taping this on Tuesday, but you basically spend all week just trying to find, like, ooh, what's the team, and you just outthink yourself.
It's like going back the gonzaga pick like you don't have to find some crazy upset maybe it's just gonzaga's really really good maybe the big 10 is really really good which i have my doubts as well but like sometimes you know it's a weird season but you just go with what the teams that have been consistent all year yeah alabama we didn't talk much about alabama and i said uconn uconn has a chance against alabama and i like uconn and all that but alabama is good enough to win a national title and i i you know i think alabama fans know that but uh they have the formula as well they they shoot basically nothing but threes and layups and they play unbelievable defense and uh you add all that up and that's pretty good too so i wanted to shout out alabama i didn't i didn't talk about them enough but i think that's it i think i think we hit the national champion somewhere in there i think we threw a wide net i think we talked about almost every team arkansas i think we can clip it up when all those other teams come at our next we can at least find the one clip where we're like i like this team and then we tweet that out we say suck it haters yeah you know i would like to see that a team that wins actually like take a clip of us talking about it and be like, thank you, pardon my take, and Mark Titus. Yeah, right.
You inspired us. Thank you for believing in us.
Yes. Arkansas.
We've got to say Arkansas. Arkansas.
Just throw that out there. They're my sleeper team.
Yeah. And also Kansas.
Let's just say the names. Texas.
I truly believe in West Virginia. Yep.
Oklahoma State. You know, Texas Tech.
We're not even going to say it. Guys, do not be shocked if Syracuse puts it all together and wins a few games.
Yep, yep, yep. I like that.
I think BYU can do it. Yeah, totally.
I've long been a believer in Coach Izzo as well. BYU has one of the old Purdue guys, Matt Harms.
That's right. Fucking annoying as shit.
And they just rescheduled him so they don't have to play a game on Sunday. There it is.
That's huge. That's big momentum for him.
I don't think Big Cat saying BYU has that guy who's fucking annoying as shit is going to make it into BYU. Yeah, fuck, I forgot what we were doing.
I literally just got triggered by big Purdue guys, and I couldn't stick to the script. I think Georgetown, you know, they got the pedigree.
That's right. They're hot.
That's right. Oh, man.
I think they did it. All right, well, hey, before I go, Billy, I want to shout out Billy.
I know this is old news in your guys' world, but for kicking Jose's ass, I bought the fight. I watched the whole fight all 10 seconds of it and um i don't know i i i want to admit that i bought the fight just to watch billy die and uh i just wanted to eat my words and tip my cap to billy and say well this is perfect because billy and true billy form just walked out of the room with no explanation that's so good we're gonna cut this part out so he actually doesn't know he, this is perfect.
Leave it in. He won't listen.
He has no idea. When Billy gets a genuine compliment, he's not here to receive it.
I literally only bought the fight because of Billy. I just wanted to see whether he died.
I was like, I'm curious to see if this kid can go at all. I love it.
It's like his dad turning back to Billy. I never tell you this, but I love you, son.
Oh, man. Incredible.
All right. Well, thank you, Mark.
We appreciate it. Tyson Tate, go listen to it.
They go into depth about everything in college basketball. Great time to listen.
They do everything. Oh, I want to give it.
I wanted to plug something else before I go. I'm hosting this 3X3 tournament at the Final Four.
And I'm not doing this because I want to plug plug it just because like i i genuinely think it's awesome and it's fun and uh i think people should watch it so uh you've gone dan you've seen it yeah it's fun yes all people do is jack threes or try to dunk on each other and um and i'm hosting that again this year and uh they they i don't know i wanted i wanted to plug that because i think uh people would enjoy watching that so there you go that's coming up in a few weeks. And it's one last time to see your favorite college players.
Ethan Happ was in it two years ago.
Yeah.
So it is a good time.
Anyway.
All right. You guys are the best.
Thanks for having me.
Brad Stevens.
Make it happen.
Love you, Titus.
See ya.
Hey, what's going on there, pal?
We saw you at the hockey game.
Do I know you guys?
I'm Ryan Whitney.
I got a drink named after me. Not a big deal.
Pink Whitney? That's what I thought. See you, fellas.
I invented the thing, you pigeon. Pink Whitney for legendary moments.
Okay, let's wrap up the show. We got FAQs.
I misspoke at the beginning. I said guys on chicks.
Let's just pretend these are all from girls. Yeah, let's pretend these are all from girls.
I also like the idea sometimes when we do something in the show where we say, we're going to do this today, and then we just don't do it. I imagine there's just one guy who's listening who's super high and just sits there staring at his phone like he said guys on chicks and there's no guys on chicks.
Those are the lost tapes. He tries to fast forward to the ending.
And actually, studies have shown that if you make a list of stuff to do at the beginning of your day it's better for your mind even if you don't do all of them so yeah we might say that we're going to do stuff sometime that's just for our own mental health yes okay hank why is big cat so bad at gambling and when is he going to talk himself into wisconsin making a run only to get crushed okay uh first i'll do the second question first i have talked myself into wisconsin making a run i actually get crushed. Okay.
First, I'll do the second question first. I have talked myself into Wisconsin making a run.
I actually did that this morning. We're taping this on Tuesday night.
I did that this morning. I said to myself, you know what? Roy Williams, he's not a good coach.
They're going to fucking turn the ball over. They're going to win.
They're going to hit their jump shots. So I've done that.
Yeah, I'm bad at gambling. What do you want me to say? Everyone's bad at gambling.
You're supposed to do it for entertainment. 1-800-GAMBLER if you have a problem.
I don't know. You know, I'll say this about Big Cat.
He's bad at gambling. Yeah.
You know, some people out there are like, Big Cat really stinks at gambling. And you know what? They're right.
But he's responsibly bad at gambling. Yeah.
I never give up. You are the worst responsible gambler that I know.
I'm fine with that. Here's the thing.
I think it's way worse to be bad at gambling and pretend you're good that's like a terrible person to be then i just tell it how it is like maybe every every once in a while i'll get hot and i'll tell you i'm hot but we all know where this is gonna end up it's gonna be me losing but guess what i have fun i enjoy it it's my number one hobby in life i love it i'll never stop doing it i fucking love it that's it i would say the gambling telling people your records it's a lot like height size so even if a guy can be six foot seven and the program will always say six eight or six nine on it if a guy is like the guys you got to watch out for are the ones who are like five foot eight and then they tell everybody that they're five foot ten it's like that's a red flag now you on the other hand you're like yeah if i were to extrapolate to height you're like i'm five eight but in reality you're five seven right which is a great person four eleven yeah i also just as a as a clue to everyone because i do think people like will sometimes be like oh i found this guy who's really hot the people who are really good at gambling they don't talk about it they don't exist out in the open so just know that when you get into it if you're tailing my picks i'm not good and at least i'm honest about that have you considered moving the pmt studio to another location i.e miami or another spot where the cost of living taxes aren't so ridiculously high i know there's a lot going on at the main studio in New York City as far as content, but the pandemic has shown you guys can still push out content regardless. Could be cool to have a secondary barstool location somewhere warm.
I did not write that question. Maybe in Situate, Massachusetts.
You wrote that question, Boston. Have you considered moving in LA? The answer is yes.
In fact, I was just having this conversation the other day
where if we were smart at the start of the COVID situation,
this year would have been perfect for us to just not be in New York City
for like an entire calendar year.
But we were like, who knows?
We didn't know that we were going to be out of the office
until August or September or however long it was.
So, yes, I think about it every single day of my life. I also have a child.
Yes. So I can't just, like, get up and move for the COVID thing.
Like, hey, let's just go to Miami and bro out. Would be tough.
Well, you could Skype in to me and Hank. Okay, got it.
Got it. Thank you.
Why and how did Big Cat start clapping to begin every show slash interview? That was actually Rundown. Yeah.
Because Hank used to make me clap on the Rundown, and then I, for some reason in my head, it's like Pavlov's Dogs, where I can't start taping anything until I clap. And it's, Hank told me, he broke my heart like three years ago.
He's like, you don't need to do that. But I still do it.
Right. Sometimes they'll come out with the slate.
If we're filming something, they'll slate it, and then the guy will walk off and I'll clap, right? And I'll fucking steal his job. Yeah, it was an A-Rod Corp thing.
It was like, we do the slate, and then make it good, and then you're like, alright, 3-2-1, clap. Yeah, I just, I have to clap.
I don't know. Something's wrong with me.
Hey guys, hope PFT's foot is all better. What's the worst injury anyone in the show has suffered in the pursuit of content? Oh, in the pursuit of content.
Buckled septum. I think Liam was coming to work when he broke his foot.
Yeah. Allegedly got hit by a car.
Yeah, he ran. I think Liam ran into the car.
I don't think the car hit him. You should see the car.
Yeah. He was fucked.
Billy almost died in the ring. Thank God he survived.
That's true. It's actually really tough when you get a paper cut and you have to blog and you have to type.
That's happened to me a few times. I did break a rib at Demolition Derby back in the day.
What? Yeah. No, you didn't.
Yes, I did. I had a fucking broken rib.
What? That's why I'm a rib expert, bro. I don't remember that.
I remember that because I had a broken rib. It might have been very badly bruised.
You remember Grit Week in California? When you nut tapped me? Yeah, that. He broke my balls.
That was not California. That was Indy.
That was outside the fountain. This was on the beach.
I tried to do the worm on the beach, and I broke my rib. You did.
You did hurt yourself very badly. No, I literally went to the hospital.
They x-rayed me. I actually had a fractured rib trying to do the worm on the beach because I didn't know.
Jesus. I had never done the worm before, so I was like, fuck, it looks easy.
I'll try. I didn't know that you land on your legs and then you ease your way down to your chest.
I just did a swan dive into the hard sand. I think I'm probably the only person that's broke a rib doing yoga.
Yeah. um sup fellas question for pft is your vision fucked up from wearing sunglasses all the time yeah absolutely 100 that's and i can blame everything wrong that i do in my bad vision too so like if i suck at war zone yeah my eyes suck because they're shielded from light all the time um but yeah absolutely when i take my glasses off after a show is over, I'm pretty much walking around like I'm blind.
Do you ever worry that our ears, too? Like, I've talked to people in the industry, and they're like, yeah, my hearing is shot because I've just had headphones on for... I never thought of that, but we're probably fucked in that regard, too.
That sounds like it's soft to me. That sounds like a soft excuse.
Oh, all right. Well, then I'll name the name Scott Van Pelt.
Yeah, that's soft, Scott. Scott doesn't even really wear earphones all the time.
Well, he did. He used to.
He used to do radio. Two hours a day, three hours a day? Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
That might be... How old is he? When's his birthday? Yeah, his birthday was last week, right? Yeah, 72.
He was born in 1919. How did the joke of PFT being in his 20s start? Because you're in a midlife crisis.
I'm not actually in a midlife crisis, but I don't feel like I'm 36. So when I turned 35, I was like, hey, no big deal.
I'm 35. But then for some reason, when I saw the six, I was just like,.
That's late thirties. That's old.
And I don't feel old. It started with Kevin Stefanski when we're saying he was 38.
It was like, that's old. And I was like, dude, we're, we're 36.
And you're like, well, I don't feel 36. Yeah.
I honestly went from there. I feel like I'm 28.
I really do. Honestly, I feel I'm, I'm 28.
I'm going to let you work through it. I'm 28.
When you said a couple weeks ago, and you were like, I can't wait to lose my credit card at a bar again. I'm like, hell yeah.
That's not something you should be doing at 36. L-I-V-I-N.
I'm still living, baby. I'm still living.
Listen, you can be big neg captive all you want. I'm going to be having a beach house.
I'm going to be tearing it up this summer. I'm not being negative.
I'm letting you go through it. I'm not putting a shirt on for the entire month of July.
I didn't say it. Because I have a six pack.
You're going to be able to grate cheese on my belly. I didn't say anything.
I'm taking TRT. I'm cool with you working yourself through it.
You're going to be in the XFL next year? When you wanted to wear a cowboy hat, I was like, do it. I didn't say a word after that.
No, no. Wait, I did not say what.
You were anti-cowboy hat. And then I said to you, I won't say a word.
And I did not say a single word every day when you came in the studio and then put on your cowboy hat.
Yeah.
And then took it off and then put it back on.
I got tons of cowboy hat.
I didn't say a fucking word.
I did not.
I'm going to let you work through whatever you got to work through.
Who schedules the interviews and how do you constantly have three solid interviews lined up week after week?
Joe Kelly.
Peggy.
And Peggy.
Wow.
Hank went straight for Peggy. We were going after Kelly and Peggy.
Wow, Hank went straight for Peggy.
Shout out Kelly and Peggy.
Kelly's going to put out her own old takes exposed on Hank.
Yeah, Peggy, Kelly, great guest booker.
It actually is the easiest part of our show,
or the part that's gotten easiest over the course of the last five years.
It used to suck.
Because we used to book every single guest ourselves.
It used to be the worst.
And then people would be like,
why are these guys texting me again?
Especially at the start.
We still do something. I mean, yeah, we still do guys texting me again? Especially at the start.
We still do some.
I mean, yeah, we still do.
Probably like 75, 25.
Yeah.
Can you guys do an episode or at least an extended segment where you all pretend to be slash mimic each other?
Like Big Cat would be Billy, Billy would be Jake, Jake would be PFT, PFT would be Hank, and Hank would be Big Cat.
Something along those lines where you did the SpongeBob table read or Breaking Bad scene read. Wait, I'm...
With all the voices. How does that go again? Big Cat would be Billy.
Billy would be Jake. Jake would be PFT, PFT would be Hank, Hank would be Big Cat.
Okay. Ready, go.
Hey, guys. Wait, what? Were you Jake? Oh, God.
Wait, who are you? I just shit myself, but I'm going to blame it on PFT. Wait, who's Billy? Who's Billy? Billy's Jake.
Oh, my God. That was...
Wow. That was really mean.
I don't really know how to do Jake voice. Bro, like, literally, I was in war mode.
I suck at video games, and my dog always has a boner. All right, let's go to the next question.
Wait, this next question. This is a quick way for us to all hate each other.
This next question is brought to you by StoolStreams. This is a quick way to hate each other.
Speaking of which, you should download the Play Bar Swap. Yes, do it.
Do it. Hey, Big Daddy Cat, P.F., Squee, and Honk.
Before every game retired NBA shooting guard Jason Terry of the... This is too much information.
He would sleep in his opponent's shorts. Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitalist said that he reportedly likes to try and have sex before and after every game.
Jason John used to try and break hitting slumps by wearing a golden thong to games. What pre or post show rituals do you all have that AWLs may not be aware of? The cookie.
We slap each other in the face like Marshall Henderson. And then stay in the hallway and just hit me harder.
Right as we finish. So we finish.
It varies because sometimes when it's like super late, we won't do it. But we all get together and we just do one quick kiss right in the middle.
So it's like a six way. It's gotten harder because it's six of us now.
So it's just a quick. And then we kiss and we say, see you guys tomorrow.
Yeah. Later, buddies.
We used to play light as a feather, stiff as a board before the show, too. That was fun.
Those were the days. Trust falls every day.
Yeah, we go on a two-week vacation every year together. Don't even joke.
Don't even say the V word. What's the deal with those camps? How come every business in America is like, you know what's going to make my salespeople better? I'm going to have them go take a zip line.
I think it's really they just want to give everyone. What's the old Rome thing? Feed them, what is it, bread and circus? It's bread and circus.
Yeah, they basically are like, we'll just feed them and throw free drinks at their ass, have them do a couple games, and they'll be like, wow, this job's really sick.
You know what's a great thing for your PR organization?
Just strap them into a belay for three hours once a year.
Last one, two-parter.
What is PFT's hair routine, and will he ever cut it?
And will Big Cat ever have any of the PMT crew babysit Little Cat?
They can.
Really?
Yeah.
Billy?
Maybe not Billy. What's the order power rank yeah pft one no jake might be one jake actually you yeah i agree i know cpr that's jake is one pfts two hank is three i was thinking about but hank is definitely.
I know CPR. Then there's a big drop-off to Bubba, who still can't stop getting hit by cars.
Then there's a huge drop-off to Billy. I'm the only one who could save his life.
Billy, you would have my son getting fucked by a chicken in like 20 minutes. True or false.
It's called character building. Yeah, right.
Exactly. What was the other part? My hair care routine? What's your hair routine? And will you ever cut it? I will cut it.
I need to... So I've actually fallen into a little bit of a rut here because it used to be when Danny Woodhead wins the Super Bowl, I'll cut the hair.
But then Danny is unfortunately, sadly, no longer in the NFL. And I've been searching for the next Danny.
Danny said Quentin Nelson. But that didn't really catch on for me because I'm not a big Quentin Nelson guy.
USA wins the World Cup. Ryan Fitzpatrick starts a playoff game.
No, that's... Wins a playoff game.
No, it starts a playoff game. No, wins a playoff game.
He's never been to the playoffs. If Ryan Fitzpatrick wins a playoff game, I will cut my hair.
How short? Shoulder. Shaggy.
No, you can do shoulder. Shaggy? Ear.
Okay. Yeah, lower than.
It would be weird if you went actual full cut. Yeah, like shoulder.
Shoulder. And my hair care routine is I wash it every couple days.
Yeah, shoulder. Yeah, that's about it.
I like that. Ryan Fitzpatrick wins a playoff game.
If he wins a playoff game, shoulder. For the football team? No, I think you get it forever.
This probably is last year. Yeah, but you get it forever.
You never say never with Ryan Fitzpatrick.
I'll say it with my chest. When Ryan
Fitzpatrick wins a playoff game, I will
cut my hair. I love it.
I love it.
Now we're all Ryan Fitzpatrick. Well, actually, no.
I like your long hair, though.
I don't know. Is that weird to say?
I like your hair, bro. We have a look
together. Yeah, I like your hair.
As a group.
You're an Antifa, and I look like I'm at Woodstock. And Hank can never shave his beard again.
Facts. Is that it? Facts.
Seahorses are the only fish with necks. 99.
8. Depending on what you think about eels.
27. Fuck.
I got to keep like... 55.
It's still alive.
I get to 100.
I love that qualification.
Because I do think about eels a lot.
All the time.
Well, it's like it's the only...
I'm never not thinking about eels.
Where does the body start and the neck begin?
It's like if a dog wore pants.
Like if you were to cut off an eel's head on a guillotine, where would it go?
The two things I think about the most in life are Ludor and eels.
Love you guys. Bye.
Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
Take on me Take me home
I'll be gone
And I'll be right back. Thank you.
Take me by me Take me home
I'll be gone
You know