1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Biggest storylines for Nebraska-Iowa in Sweet 16: March 25th, 2026, 12:00pm

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Watch to watch for in the third meeting on the hardwood between the Huskers and Hawkeyes. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. I Excel is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-Xcel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact,

Iexel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get Iexel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off Iexel membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America on 937 the ticket and the ticket FM.com, sponsored by the downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. This is one-on-one here with D.P. on 937, the ticket.

DP, of course, as a few of our folks here at 93-7, the ticket, traveling down to Houston so he cannot be on the airways here for this hour. But I'm Jake Bockman. Nick Wyman. In with me. Shout out to Rudy Gress the fourth for joining me in the past hour, though I'll have to admit, Nick, your shirt compared to his, we've just went from zero to 100 here,

and even more than 100, because it is the most beautiful shirt I think I've ever seen. Yeah, it's Sweet 16 Eve, have to wear it. My mom got it for me, actually. She's like, what size you want? I'm like, I'm taking it because it's like, it's memorabilia. Something I'll wear, you know, something, let's say,

Nebraska, let's say they never make it back to the Sweet 16. I'm not, I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm not, I'm just saying like, yeah, you don't want to take this chance for granted. So it's like you might as well have it.

I have a St. Peter's one from when they made it. And I walk in and Rudy's wearing a Texas orange, the burnt orange shirt. Hey, I mean, rightfully so, Texas does play Purdue.

You could have a sweet 16 Texas shirt if you wanted. I mean, there's one. I mean, on the Instability website, there's one for each team that's left in the field, the field of 16. But yeah,

I mean, yeah, Rudy, we're in Texas. I mean, at least he didn't wear it tomorrow. Well, I mean,

he's not here tomorrow, but we'll see Friday, what happens with Texas as well. So they're not a Cinderella. I hate when people say they're a Cinderella. I was like, oh, there's a Cinderella because they're at 11th. No, they're not a Cinderella. There is no true Cinderella in this tournament. Nebraska is probably the easiest, like, story to get behind. I wouldn't say Nebraska is even a Cinderella because they, you know,

all season they've been ranked in the top 15 for the most part. But Texas is not a Cinderella. I know some people are trying to push that agenda, but when you're in the SEC conference and you have the resources, is available for that program. And Texas has been, they've had NBA players. This isn't, you know, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, would it be a Cinderella, not Texas, Texas, Texas Tech. And so be it.

So, yeah, I mean, yeah, NCAA website, you can buy your Sweet 16 merchandise already. So Sweet 16 Eve is here. It feels, I mean, last week, Wednesday, we were pretty jittery because the tournament was about to gear up. And I have those same butterflies as I did waking up on probably tomorrow. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely, you know, nerves might be. be part of it, but for me, it's just cloud nine.

It's like, man, we're just, we just, this is just a new reality of Nebraska basketball. We get a Swiss sit in it, sit in the sweet 16. For those that aren't viewing here on, on, you probably figure it out. But he's got a sweet 16, Nebraska shirt. It says NCAA men's suite 16, Nebraska. Husters got the March Madness logo on there, 2026 as well. So you already celebrate, are you, you know, obviously you can still wear. I know the one question would be like, well, what if they get to the elite eight or final four?

I can get different shirts. The Elite 8, Sweet 16 Elite 8 logos, the same thing right here. Okay, there's also says Elite 8 on there. Sweet 16 Elite 8 because it's played in the same site. That's right. Final 4. I mean, hey, there might be more merch for that. And then championship, who knows?

Yeah. From there on out. So, yeah, it just continues. The story book season continues because we sat here. I mean, before the year flipped to January, it was like, okay, Nebraska continues to win. But Michigan State games coming up at the everyone January came around. And that was kind of the game where everybody kind of started to, buy it. I'd even go back to the Illinois game when

Jamarcus Lawrence hit that shot to win the game. Those were kind of the two games where it's like, okay, if they win these two games, Nebraska is a legit contender and they won both those games. And obviously it took some bumps in road down the stretch. But if you look at the bracket right now, Nebraska, their losses are teams who are in the Sweet 16 field, whether that be Purdue, Michigan, Illinois.

The only team that, in Iowa, the only team that they lost to this year that did not make the Sweet 16 was UCLA, who was down their leading score against Yukon and hung around for a bit, but the Huskies are the Huskies in basketball on the men's and women's side. So, I mean, everybody talked about Iowa being a bad loss and UCLA being a bad loss. But those teams were in it throughout the big dance against some of the best teams in the country. Yeah, and of course, they're only bad losses compared to top 15 losses,

which Nebraska had at some point. You know, and it's just been incredible to go on this ride, but you arrive here, get here, you're 28 and 6. Like you said, there's no Cinderella. There's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, nothing about 28 and six in the big 10, um, that has any sort of that. So it's a little bit interesting, um, to see where Nebraska is viewed. And then this Iowa game, of course, I, I think Nebraska fans especially, I mean, you

start off obviously 20 and 0. Um, so I think that that, by the way can pay dividends for Nebraska's, they try to win, um, six in a row here, right? to go to the national championship game. You've already kind of been through the streets. Now, granted, a lot higher stakes, you know, tournament play, winner, go home, all that sort of stuff. It's different. Don't get me wrong. But as far as like, hey, do you think we could win six games in a row?

Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, absolutely with a possibility in front of us. The other interesting thing is, too, is like breaking down Nebraska, Iowa. If this were Nebraska, Florida, we'd talk about the matchups. We'd talk about who Florida is, what their history is, all that sort of stuff. Nebraska, Iowa is pretty well known. We know the matchups. We've seen them play.

We've seen them split the series. So it's not one of those things where you go like, oh, can Nebraska beat Iowa or can Iowa beat Nebraska? Yes. We've seen it happen. A couple weeks ago. So again, it's just kind of funny, especially when you get in like these predictions, it's like, well, you, I don't know.

I mean, I can give you a prediction and I'm going to lean Nebraska. And they are favored and all that. but I don't know if that does a whole lot for you in this specific case when it's one to one, and here you have it, the tiebreaker ahead of you. Yeah, I mean, I think you have this rate, you just kind of throw the records out the books between all these teams, not only this Nebraska, Iowa game, but just across the board of college basketball because, I mean, this Iowa team, I mean, who would have thought they would beat the defending national champions in the Florida Gators?

I would have never picked that. I don't think many people picked that in the brackets. If they did, they were just doing it just to see in Iowa, Nebraska game one more time. if they were just trying to do that. But like Iowa, I mean, out of all the games in the tournament, that might be the most impressive win across the board just because of what that team had. I mean, Ben McCollin, four-time D-2 National Chamber

with Northwest Missouri State. He was coaching D-2 basketball around this time two years ago. Last year with Drake won a game in the tournament with them, a Missouri Valley program that's been in the tournament time and time again. And now he's at Iowa where he pretty much carried some of those guys from there. He was of Robert Morris transfer as well, over expectations for that team. I think a lot of people, even in the middle of the year when Iowa is losing games to teams like Penn State and so on and so forth, people were like, uh-oh, did we make a mistake with Fray McCaffrey?

Should we, should we kept Fray McCaffrey around? But, I mean, he's done something that Fran McCaffrey didn't do in his entire tenure brought a team to a sweet 16 and it's been forever. I believe it since 1999 was last time, but even before then, you look at the teams that I was had in the past couple years, Luca Garza team, the Keegan Murray's of the past and all those, all those guys who've kind of going through that program, none of those guys ever reached the second weekend of the tournament. I remember Fran McCaffrey and them in Luca Garza in 2021 were a two seed. They didn't even make it to the second weekend of the year. They lost Oregon in that game. And I would say those teams of the past were more talented than the team this

team that the Iowa team has, but this Iowa team just finds ways to win. Is it the prettiest brand of basketball? No. I also think what makes them so frustrating, we've seen them twice already with Nebraska. They'll use the shot clock. It's a different style of basketball you see from, you know, get the shot up as fast as you can, as many possessions you can throughout the game. I will waste, you know, you'll play good defense for 29 seconds on that end.

And then I will make a shot in the final second. And then that's so deflating because then you have to go back down after working so hard on defense. And you have to go back down on the other side and you have to, man, we just play defense. 99% of that possession well. And they end up making a three-pointer or whatever. Bennett starts makes a layup or so on and so forth. And then, oh, that's so deflating. Now we have to go down and answer them on the other side.

They just do it so well, making shots. They're just such a balanced attack as well. Yeah, they're peaking. I mean, you beat Clemson, a solid ACC team, then you beat Florida, a defending national champion. And I mean, it'd be a bad taste in her mouth seeing I would defeat Nebraska. It would be. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but Ben McCollum's a heck of a coach.

I mean, look at that play they had down the stretch there against Florida. All the attention to Ben and Sturts kicked out in the corner and game winning three. That's what makes them dangerous. Like Sturt's when 0 of 9 in that game from three hasn't really been a primarily score, the guys around him have really stepped up. And that's what makes Iowa a little bit of a threat to anybody, not just in Nebraska. Yeah, and I think watching that game, too,

I started to lean toward a Sipple side there. Ben's search isn't very good, which is not what he said. That's what he kind of went Iowa viral for saying, but he was specifically saying in that game didn't look very good. And, you know, obviously, again, did not necessarily look good in this past game. But a lot of that is that shot clock that you're talking about a lot so often. It's just, hey, Bennett, make a play.

You got five seconds. There's left in the shot clock, you know, either find, you know, draw the defense's attention and kick it or force up a shot. And so, you know, there are the ones that he misses that are open, you're like, well, and then, you know, for as good as he is, he can create his own shot and kind of get to his own shot. And so you expect him to hit a few more of those. But, you know, that's, that's what I expect to see Thursday. I think we're going to get a pretty good look at Bena starts. But I will say this for through the first two games for Nebraska, they've held them under 40% from the field. So that's got to give you some pretty. pretty good hope here going into this game. Now, obviously, I will won one of those games and the other one went to overtime, even doing that. So you might look at it a different way. But I guess as far as like, okay, best player does, you know, again, back to those questions. If you haven't matched up with somebody, do we have the defenders to kind of bother him? And certainly that's been the case so far with Marcus Lawrence and Sam Hoyberg. Yeah, we saw that game at PBA, the close out regular season play. They really put everything. in their game plan was to get anything away from Ben Sturtz. Ben Sturts barely attempted any shots in that game. Everything was about limiting him, let anybody else beat you. I think that's kind of the game plan for Nebraska defense.

Limit Bennett Sturts, and if anybody else gets hot, then they get hot, and then you have to adjust. I think that's the game plan because you know Sturtz is going to be on one throughout. I mean, he's, I feel like he's kind of due for a game in the tournament, too, because he's been cold the first two games, and we know how good players do. They're due at some point. But I think Nebraska has to be Nebraska. They know what it's like to play against Iowa there.

They've obviously lost 57-52 in that low-scoring fair, probably the worst performance of the season, I would say across the board. But then they came back and won an overtime, 84-75 in that game in Lincoln got revenge. Another thing to crowd, I think Nebraska is going to have a huge crowd there. I think Iowa's up for the challenge.

They know what it's like to play in PBA. Obviously, it can be PBA South or whatever else you want to call it. But I think Iowa's not going to be rattled by the Nebraska crowd. I think it's going to be, that's what makes this game so interesting. Then you look on the other side of the bracket. We haven't gotten to Illinois and Houston. The four teams have so much different styles.

You have Nebraska who has multiple guys who can score. Illinois is going to be a team that's going to shoot a lot of threes. They have one of the best freshmen in college basketball and Keaton-Wogler. You have Iowa, who's a balanced attack, who's going to slow it down and Ben and Sturts is their guy. And then you have Houston who time and time again, they've been in this situation. They're playing pretty much in their backyard, 2.2 miles away from campus. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up. spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year.

It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. I Excel is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I Excel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules.

It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, Iexel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get Iexel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off Iexel membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. I mean, their defense is legit.

Like, if you play, if Nebraska isn't playing Houston, I'm curious to see what that match of is like. Is Houston, you look, Idaho, only allowed 47 points. And then they played A&M, only allowed 57 points. No, they haven't allowed 60 plus points in this tournament yet, which is, in this day and age of basketball is very hard to do. Yeah. Well, and again, to your point,

might be even harder to do with Illinois on the other side of that, because that's a pretty darn good offensive team. If they, if they allow 60 plus or 60 less against Illinois, then, I mean, it's going to be tough to be a Houston team. Anyway, because Illinois, always a high scoring attack. They're going to get many shots off. They're a completely different style than Iowa, the little reverse of that. So, and I'm just curious what this, this takeover looks like, because Nebraska is going

a lot of fans. We know a lot of people here in our, in our office are going down there for the games traveling right now. See, if travels everybody as well going down there. But Houston, I mean, imagine if Nebraska basketball played a game, played a lead eight game here at PBA. That's what it's going to be like for Houston because it's two miles away. Like, this is like. It's not quite their home arena, but in. it'd be like if we drove down the wings and rings that's essentially how far how it's about a seven minute drive that's from here to wings and rings on 60th and oh is about the exact same distance so yeah imagine that for a row you know you're on campus may be a little more traffic in houston but i would say so probably a little bit different than Lincoln um yeah i probably a little bit more than a little bit yeah just yeah i would say a little bit more than a little bit but uh it is interesting too and i'm glad that you brought up the the illinois houston matchup because there was so much talk around Troy and preparing for Troy.

And then you just kind of have this short turnaround. And there's, you know, a peek ahead to Vanderbilt, right? But you didn't even know if Vanderbilt was going to win. But they were likely to win, right? And now in this case, it doesn't matter if it's Illinois or Houston. You should peek ahead a little bit. Familiarity, once again, with Illinois could be continued kind of the story. If Nebraska is able to beat Iowa, and then have a chance at Illinois to win those kind of tiebreakers,

if you will, win the series, best two hours. out of three for the year, which could be interesting. But, you know, that's, that to me is kind of really the moment that Nebraska will have. And it was, it was projected to be this moment, right? Where you're no longer the favorite. No longer kind of just, you know, the darling story kind of happening. It would be you've got, you got to punch up to a degree from where you were from these teams that have had good enough seasons to be ranked ahead of you.

Now, again, depends on how you look at it. Nebraska, Illinois, Nebraska is the number two seed in the Big Ten tournament in Illinois was lower than that. So, you know, there's different ways of looking at it here just because this seating specifically has Illinois one spot ahead of Nebraska. Doesn't necessarily mean the way that it has to be. But I was thinking about it too. And there's different ways to think about the tournament, the structure, the setup, all that sort of stuff, is that if you're in the Sweet 16, are you one of the best 16 teams in the country? I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think you're the one of the best 16 teams in the tournament, right? And as that's played out,

does that make you one of the best 16 teams in the country? Again, up for debate. To me, it wouldn't, it doesn't necessarily do that. And I've got this whole different argument about single elimination tournaments and best way to determine champions and all that sort of stuff. But I guess my point to all of that is, I think even seating wise, if you look at who's, left in the tournament as far as who's not top 16, if you will. That would be Texas, who's an 11 seed. Tennessee, who's the sixth seed, so Tennessee, not off by much. Tennessee, you know, Texas and Iowa have had to make their run.

St. John's technically a five seed instead of a four seed. They beat Kansas. I think you, you know, again, you could understand there where they would be a top 16 team. But I guess my point to all of this is there, Nebraska's has a chance in the sweet 16 against a team. against a team that, in my mind, is not a top 16 team in the country. And that doesn't mean they haven't done a miraculous job. In fact, the opposite, right? Ben McColl – that adds to the fact that Ben McCollum in year one has just kind of put together a roster.

Like you said, much of it from Drake. Remember, this is a team that lost to Penn State. Penn State. Yes, bottom of the barrel in 2010. So, I mean, you know, in the nature of basketball, we know you can kind of have your ups and downs, different types of games. I'm not saying all this to kind of diminish Iowa. Again, I think it is more speaking to the coaching job that Ben McCollum is done.

But just as far as opportunity for Nebraska, and it's kind of Nebraska's initial run to the Sweet 16. You said earlier, maybe it never happens again. Hopefully that's not the case. Fred Hoyberg's been to the Sweet 16 a few times now at Iowa State is where the furthest day that he got there. So that's another kind of story line to watch if they win. this week. It'll be the first that Fred Hoyberg's been into the tournament.

But just the opportunity of all the other things that go along with it is you don't want to miss an opportunity to be able to take advantage of what's kind of been laid out in front of you. I mean, I believe this is going to be a close game again. The first two were, I'm not saying there's this wide difference between the two teams. But to be able to be in the sweet 16 and not play a top 16 team is quite an opportunity ahead of Nebraska. Whereas in future years, if you get back here, the road could be a little bit more difficult. Again, you know, a tournament void of too many upsets who are not chalk moving along. This is the one seed that fell was Florida to Iowa. Yeah.

And like I said, you throw the records out of the book. We saw Purdue play a team in St. Peters a couple years ago in the Sweet 16. At that point, you know, Purdue is a, I believe they were a three seat at the time playing a 15 seat in St. Peter's. every checkbox you produce got the advantage in St. Peters one. I'm not saying I was a St. Peters, but these are,

this is why they play the games, the 40 minutes of, 40 minutes of basketball still to be played. And you just can't overlook them too because I would, I mean, they're a gritty team. They out, like they out hustled Florida in that game throughout.

I mean, Florida, obviously that was a home game essentially for them too. You look at it that way. That game was in Tampa and Florida, whether they were fans with the, I don't know, did you see the fans,

the guy with the huge arms? There was a couple of really buff. Florida fans. I don't know what that was all about. I don't know. I don't know what they're feeding the people down there in Florida. Close to the beach, yeah. I don't, I don't know. But there was one a couple years ago they showed and then there was the guy they showed. He was at both games. He met up with the 7-9 guy, Ali on their team, too, which I don't know, regardless of those distractions in the crowd and the fans of Florida faithful showing out in Tampa. I was able to get over that hump and keep their season alive. And yes, they are a team that's lost to some bad big 10 teams, but they're probably playing their best basketball of the year. And I think that's what makes this game interesting to say the least because we'll find out at 630 tomorrow. also some really good games across the board. Duke St. John's has storylines,

to say the least. Yukon Michigan State, I call it the Blue Blood region, because you have all them. Rick Patino, St. John's. Arizona, Arkansas, SEC Champions, been rolling in Arkansas, and you have Arizona,

Texas, Purdue, two staples for basketball. Michigan, Alabama, I think, is a very interesting game. Nate Oates against Dusty May, two guys who could be potentially linked to that North Carolina job too as well. And then Tennessee,

they kind of been overlooked, Rick Barnes has had that team in the Sweet 16 a number of times. And they're taking on Iowa State, a team that's kind of been scratching at that door for an elite eight final four. They haven't really unable to get it. So storylines across the board, I think. And it should be interesting. Nebraska get past to Iowa, potentially, like you said, rematch with Illinois again. They're one in one in that series.

And then, I mean, in a world where you get a chance for Nebraska with Fred Hoyberg taking on Kelvin Samson and Houston in Houston, in Houston where you could have a huge crowd for the Cougars for their basketball program. because Kelvin Samson, what he's done in that time there, while he's with Houston, they have some of the best fans in college basketball, just because of what he's done and turned around that team. They are a top five team year and year out. And then potentially on the other side of you of Nebraska,

who are going to have probably about 30% of the state down there, it feels like, and they're going to be there in full force too, but a lot of red. And I can't imagine what that game would be like if those two teams met up, especially with the clashing of styles. Houston, one of the best defensive teams, Nebraska, if they're hot shooting, it could be interesting, say the least.

Would you rather go through, and there is a route here where Nebraska only plays Big Ten teams on the way of the championship game? Would you rather face as many Big Ten teams throughout this tournament? Would you rather face kind of a new look? Or does it matter to you? One way the other, just keep on moving. I don't think it really matters. Play the team moves in front of you.

You can't really control. Control what you can control. Because I see what you mean. Like they play Iowa, then they play Illinois. And then Penn Jones. Oh, they got Tom Izzo and Michigan State in the Final Four. They could, yeah. No, I mean like...

Then Purdue or Michigan on the other side of the bracket if they made it. Technically, you could get it all Big Ten Final Four. Yeah, technically. What I'm cheering for. Big Ten fans would cheer that, the ones who cheered for the Big Ten in the football playoff as well because of the SEC as well. That would be interesting to say the least. I mean, if Nebraska got Yukon or Duke or St. John's,

I think that would be a very fun storyline as well, potentially. But I still think you got to worry about tomorrow before you look ahead to April. We're still in the month of March. But yeah, playing any team, I think, would be interesting because if you had told me Nebraska is playing Duke or something, Nebraska is playing St. Johns or Yukon, in past years you'd be like, oh, boy, they're going to have their hands full just because you haven't really expected anything

from Nebraska playing those teams. Never really had a chance to play any of those teams in recent history. So that'd be fun. I think regardless of who they're playing, I think there's a storyline to be told and control you can control. Because right now, I think Iowa's on the schedule and then whoever wins that two, three matchup on the other side tomorrow and I'd as well. So South Regents, a little interesting.

Like I said, the classic of styles of all four teams. To say the least is a storyline in itself. You have the coaches with Fred Hoyberg. Like you said, he's been to the Sweet 16 before. You have been a column who's coaching D2 basketball. Brad Underwood's been in a situation like this before. And then Kelvin Samson literally was in the championship game last year. They're kind of a redeemed team in a sense for them.

So storylines across the board. You can look at it anyway, whichever picture you want to look at. excited to say the least. Yeah, yeah, it's just interesting as you kind of think about it, as like Nebraska making these runs or making this giant best run in history, you know, you think about the NCAA tournament. You do think about, you know, the Dukes, the Yukons, the Michigan States, you know, those type of teams that you would run into, of course, Michigan State

from the Big Ten. But so that might be ahead and will be ahead if Nebraska beats Iowa one way or the other because Illinois and Houston is a great match of two of the top 10 teams from across the country. So we'll have to wait and see on that. And of course, Friday would be a big preparation day here at 93-7 the ticket. If you're trying to get an idea of what the, those that matchup will bring. We'll break it down. And then Saturday, well, a post game right after the final buzzer as well.

I mean, last week, I mean, people around full force. The text line was crashing. It was, it was crazy. Fireworks are going off here in the distance on O Street down the road down on N Street. People are honking their horns to go, Big Red. I mean, if you were watched the stream on YouTube, you could see there are a ton of people out of your pounding on the glass.

It was, it was pretty electric, to say the least. Yeah, mind you, they were on spring, the schools on spring break. Yeah. And most people are in Oklahoma City. So this was going to mean the full force, Nebraska fan base, freaking out on a Saturday night. So yeah, yeah, party on O Street is that is what you're saying.

Might get one if there's two more wins heading in the final four. Oh, Nebraska, but they're taking the final four. Yeah, I fully expected. Let's go ahead and take a quick break. We've got a few more segments here on one on one. coming next. Myself, Jake Bockman, Nick Wyman, holding it down for you. We'll be right back. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused

and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. I Excel is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-k through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-X-L makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, I-Exel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they

sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Iexl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.