Pardon My Take - Breaking Down The Bracket With Mark Titus, Bears Trade 1 Pick, Aaron Rodgers Won't Go Away And More

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

We have our brackets. Talking big picture March Madness. Bears trade the 1 pick to Carolina for a haul. Aaron Rodgers still hasn't made his mind up and Ja Morant is back in good graces (00:00:00-00:31:42). Who's back of the week (00:31:42-00:49:01) . Then Mark Titus joins the show to break down the bracket region by region as we talk storylines, fun matchups, upsets and who's going to the Final Four (00:49:01-02:10:04).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's pardon my take, we have our brackets. The brackets are out. March Madness is finally here. My bracket's busted.

Oh, no. There goes my bracket. It's the gift of the trash can going down a flooded street. Ha ha! Live look at my bracket. It's a dumpster fire. Oh, shit. And we also have Whitey in the building.

We have Mark Tituson to break down the brackets. We're gonna talk about the Eve of NFL Free Agency. The Bears have made a big trade on Friday afternoon. Talk about that. Aaron Rodgers is still a piece of shit. Who's back of the week? And guess what? A bonus NIT bracket reveal at the end of the show

before we do the lottery balls. See if Nova gets in and it's all brought to you by our friends at Pup Peroni. Pup Peroni. And guess what? PFT, I know that you're thinking maybe it's time you're back in the dog market. Gonna get a yard in Chicago.

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I mean, sorry, Whitey did. I thought it was Billy. It was Whitey. It sounded like a human fart. I was like, was that Whitey? And Billy was like, man, he just loves Pup Peroni. That's how good it is. Every dog loves Pup Peroni.

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That's P-U-P-P-E-R-O-N-I.com to find a bag near you and send us a pic of you and your dog filling out your bracket for a chance to win some PMT merch. Tweet us at part of my take and at Pup Peroni. I, Stel is a Pup Peroni dog. I'm just gonna say it right now. Stel's a Pup Peroni dog because Pup Peroni has the best treats out there.

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for a chance to win some PMT merch and tweet us at part of my take in Pup Peroni. Pardon my taking at Pup Peroni. I just booped Whitey like seven times during the ad read. He's happy. I think next time we talk about Pup Peroni, I'm gonna go for the world record. Yes, he is happy dog.

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Oh no, we gonna rock it down to electric avenue and then we take it higher. Oh, we gonna rock it down to electric avenue and then we take it higher. Welcome to part of my take. Today is Monday, March 13th. And we have our brackets. This is, this is Marsh.

Let's go. Hear that? Hear that folks? Yeah, you even got Hank with a pen in his hand. You never see that. That's like Loch Ness Monster. This is the most reading that I do in a calendar year. Like non-Internet reading is,

I think 90% of the words that I read over the course of the year when it comes to paper and ink are probably in the three days before March Badness starts. When I just look at all these different brackets, I'm probably gonna print out seven or eight different brackets.

Just look at them. I just love looking at a bracket. And you have to have- Guys only want one thing and it's disgusting to look at brackets. It's a bracket. It's a bracket. I'm so excited for March Badness.

We have Mark Titus on the show. We're gonna break down the bracket, talk all the storylines, get excited. Before we do that though, because we can save, I wanna talk about the bracket with Mark Titus. I don't wanna talk about anything else. I do wanna say Rutgers got screwed.

Let's just throw that out there. Rutgers got fucked. Rutgers got fucked. One of my favorite parts of when they do the bracket reveal and you have the last four out and one team always gets fucked. That team gets maybe like three minutes of everyone feeling bad for them.

And then you're like, oh shit, I have a bracket in my hand. Yeah, don't care. Don't care anymore. I don't give a fuck. Rutgers who? Who the fuck cares? Rutgers, did they even play basketball this year?

I have a bracket. Texas A&M got fucked too with their seating. But that's another thing where I see that they come out and they get a seven seed. But then I see that we could get a juicy second round matchup between Texas A&M and Texas. And I'm like, good, I'm glad A&M got screwed just so that I can potentially look ahead to that matchup.

Yes, yes. So I also got duped. I wanna just hand up. I got duped. I did not expect Wisconsin to make the bracket. I actually am happy they're not because their season's been torturous. I was at maybe, if you asked me honestly this morning,

is like 1% chance, 1% like three or four teams say, hey, we're not playing. So we need to find some more teams to get in the 68 team field. Right before the bracket was revealed, my friends, my best friends from college, we have a group text, one of them dropped a CBS sports link.

I thought it was gonna be a big black cock. It wasn't. I thought we were gonna go back to COVID times. It was instead an article that said, NCAA Tournament 2023 Wisconsin Badgers, it's all positive vibes now for the Badgers after they somehow snuck into the field of 68, despite being one of the nation's lowest scoring teams.

That was an insult sentence right there, but that's fine. Either way, I saw it and I was like, oh, script leaked. We're in. So in a cruel twist of fate, I have not let this team hurt me whatsoever all year. And then I had this dropped into my lap right before the bracket reveal, got my weird hopes up, and then they hurt me.

In the last final second, they're like, wait, hold on, let's get him one last time. You know what it is. It's like when they write an obituary ahead of time, so they're ready to drop it. This is like Jimmy Carter dead at the age of 98, and they accidentally publish it like two days before he gets in.

So I feel like just acknowledging that you were a bubble team is kind of a win. Yeah, but it just, it really was so mean that they did that to me at the last possible seconds. I had no expectations. I could not emotionally get hurt, and then it was one last, oh, maybe they're alive.

No, they're actually dead. Yeah, they're dead. They're deader than dead. So there's that, there's UNC preemptively declaring that they're not going to participate in the NIT, which is a bullshit thing that they're doing. And it's disgusting that UNC is bowing out. Maybe JMU gets in instead of UNC.

We'll find out at the end of the show. But people forget that UNC, the NIT used to be the national championship tournament. That's true. It's very disrespectful what you're doing. They are the first team to go from pre-season number one to not making the NCAA tournament since the field was expanded in 1985.

They're also the first team to go from a final four straight to Cowardville. They're cowards. They are cowards. This is, it's disgusting. It's a slap in the face to all of college basketball. Bitch made. The sport we love so very deeply.

And we were robbed of Armando Baycott rolling his ankle three or four more times. That's also true. That's bullshit. I wanted to see it. I wanted to be like, oh no, is he really injured this time? No, he's back in the game.

So my big takeaway from this, from looking at how the bracket could play out, and big kid, I think you're on the same page as I am. I think this is Duke's year. Yeah. I think we got to go heavy on Duke. Because how awesome would that be if Duke won the national championship the year after Coach K left?

Coach K was holding the boys back. It would be so awesome for so many reasons, but it would also change all of history because I will go back and I will comb through every year where Duke underperformed because I would think that John Shire, winning the ACC tournament on Saturday night, they've kind of put it together here.

They've overperformed what they look like at the beginning of the season. You could say that Coach K should have had 10 national championships. He's actually a colossal disappointment. Failure, I would say. Overall. As a human.

Hank, are you going to be back here? Are you back into the Duke bandwagon? You're back? Yeah, kind of. Okay. You don't even want to win. Listen to you, Hank. You don't want Duke to win.

If they don't make it to sweet 16, you get a cat? No. Okay. All right. I tried. I tried. I took one Hail Mary. Do you think if they made the national championship,

you think that Coach K would try to retroactively claim all these wins for him? Like the opposite of a Pete Gaudet situation? Yes. Absolutely. They're his guys. He recruited these guys. Yeah, yeah.

No, he would, he'd be like, actually I've been involved with his teams in day one. Yep. But we will do all the bracket talk with Titus. We got to break through everything. We'll do every region. We'll talk about our picks. We'll see storylines, everything.

We got a lot of bracket talk to get to. Also, the Bears are back. So on Friday. Fleeced. They fleeced. Somebody got fleeced. I don't know who asked me in three years, but somebody got fleeced.

Fleeced. The Bears traded the number one pick. We all expected it. I want to say that the timing, it feels like we kind of pushed Ryan Pulse to do it. He actually texted me after and was like, thanks, man. We took all your,

and he texted me before the trade said, does this look good to you? And I was like, I just thumbs up it. And then they did the trade. And he's like, you and PFT have great football minds. Thank you for getting this deal done. You smart guy. They got, the part that was kind of looked over

when they announced this trade, because it didn't seem like the massive haul of picks that some people thought. But DJ Moore, getting DJ Moore, did you know Big Cat? Oh, yeah. I know this is getting so sad. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me finish. Did you know that DJ Moore, his total,

career total for receiving yards, would make him the Bears all-time leading receiver. So congrats, you got the best receiver in the history. I'm saying it's a good thing. You got the all-time leading wide receiver in the history of the Bears organization. I'm pretty sure that, I'm pretty sure the top like seven or eight,

three of them are non-wide receivers. Yeah, they're tight ends. No, it's Matt Forte, Walter Payton, and Mike Tikka are definitely in there. So that, yeah. Greg Olson's probably up there too. No, he didn't play long enough. But yeah, it's bad.

It's been bad offense football. It's not great. But yeah, so the haul exactly is, Bears trade the one pick to the Panthers, who shout out to Panthers for throwing out a smoke screen today and being like, we might trade the one pick, which would be so hilarious if they did and got more than the Bears.

I don't even want to think about that. They trade the one pick. The Bears get back to the ninth pick, the 61st pick, which is the second round of this year, the 2024 first pick, and the 2025 second round pick, and DJ Moore. And I love the trade for many different reasons because we need draft capital.

But the fact that they got DJ Moore, who if you're going to draft a wide receiver, you're basically saying, yeah, there could be a wide receiver in the first round this year that's better than DJ Moore, but it's a risk. You don't know, it's a 50-50 shot. DJ Moore is pretty fucking good. He's really good.

Now you have your wide receiver core. I think they still probably will draft someone or maybe free agency, but you got a pretty decent wide receiver core around Justin Fields, and you can focus the draft on offense and defensive line. I love how assertive it was.

Get it done right before free agency. Start moving forward, and Jalen Carter might fall. I don't know. Imagine that. Imagine if the Bears actually got Jalen Carter, who they could have drafted with one. That would be nice. That probably won't happen.

That would be nice though. The Panthers seem like they're... Somebody leaked something because CJ Stroud went from being like plus 600, plus 400 in some places to now he's like negative money to be the number one overall pick. So somebody somewhere knows that the Panthers love CJ Stroud.

Tough break for all the Anthony Richardson fans out there of which there are many, but it could still happen. It could definitely still happen. It could still happen. Hey, think about it this way. Anthony Richardson physically could wear a lot of the same uniforms at Cam Newton War. They're basically the same player.

Once you just, if I were the Panthers, I would look back on that Cam Newton draft and I'd say, I want somebody that's as close to Cam Newton as possible, who better than Anthony Richardson? It's like, hey, Anthony, will you do the Superman after touchdowns? Okay. Yeah, dab.

Anthony Richardson, he could bring the dab back. Yeah, he could. But I am very, the Bears did something good. I'm very optimistic. Talking with everyone on Friday, I was like, everyone's enthusiastic. It feels good. The options are unlimited.

They still have the number one most cap space, which is crazy because that was the other part about DJ Moore. DJ Moore is signed for three years, 17 million a year. That's pretty good. Like he, it's not just a, hey, we're gonna throw, you needed weapons for Justin Fields to see what he is as a passer.

I know that this all, this all hinges on Justin Fields progression. That might be the scary part, but everything else is starting to align that if Justin Fields is who I think he is and who I hope he is, the Bears could be in a really good spot. And it's all crazy to me because it doesn't make sense

for the Bears to actually be doing competent things as an organization. And I also just want to say shout out Davis Mills. That motherfucker, I love him for life because none of this is possible if he doesn't beat the Colts. And that's why I was that excited that day because when you have the first pick,

you have all the ability to make all the moves. That was a franchise alter, hopefully franchise altering touchdown pass in two point conversion he made in Indianapolis that Sunday. Because if these picks start to align and they start to do well, this could be like, hey, the Bears have built something here.

I'm excited. Now the Bears might not be done trading though. Yeah, I said that they could, they said that they might, they might trade back or they might, they might trade up. Two for two second rounders. Yeah. If this was draft day, they would not be done. Just so there's a, yeah, there's a lot of stuff

that could happen. It would be very funny though, if the Panthers somehow figured out a way to get more for the first round pick. And then they traded to some other team and that third team. Like as teams get more and more desperate, leading up to the draft, or maybe it's a smokescreen.

Maybe the Panthers are saying they leaked this stuff about CJ because they knew there was another team. Maybe, I mean, who is probably, who's the most dupable owner in the NFL? And I say this with love. Jim Marseille. It's probably Jim Marseille. If Jim Marseille, if Jim Marseille

doesn't get Lamar Jackson, it sounds like he's going to try to get Lamar. He might be one owner that's in on Lamar. But if things don't work out for him, I could see Jim Marseille then being like, shit, you know what? We should get that picked. Traditionally have a rich history

of drafting good quarterbacks with the first overall pick. That's true. He's very comfortable drafting first. That's true. I think the Panthers will use this pick. I think Frank Reich probably took this job being like get the first pick for me

because I don't want to do a replacement quarterback again. He's spent the last five years of his career just getting, you know, cast offs, not cast offs, but guys detail into their career. And he's like, I need something new. I need a fresh start. The Panthers are going to have a fresh start. The Bears are going to have a fresh start.

I'll say it, you know what? I'll be honorable. Win-win all around. Good job, Panthers. Both teams won. I do think from like, because obviously this news happened. It happened on Friday during a conference tournament,

like madness. So I processed it. And then on Saturday, I just started reading every article I could read about it. And it seemed like the, there was a sticking point in the trade where the Panthers didn't want to give up DJ more and they wanted to give up a 2025 first.

Cause a lot of people were like, if you trade the first pick, you should get two additional firsts back. I would much rather have DJ more than the 2025 first. I would. I'd rather have the guy who's good. Who's an established NFL wide receiver. It's so far in the future that it might not even happen.

When I hear 2025, that's a future problem. We can figure that out at a later time. And it also just makes it so the Bears can attack the draft on the line. Like they can go get the offensive defensive line and they don't have to try to get a wide receiver right now. Like they still, it's not finished. It's not, people were tweeting the wide receiver court

of the Bears and being like, where does it rank? Everyone's like last, dead last, all this shit. Like that's hurtful. It still hurts my feelings. Just this is good. This is a decisive move that Ryan Poles has now set himself up to make more decisive. Yeah, it's actually perfect because in three years

we can look back at every person that they drafted. And then it's going to take three years to finally determine whether or not this was a good trade back. This is actually, it's so nice having the first overall pick. If you're a general manager, because you trade back and then you get essentially like a job extension.

So you get a contract extension because you're like, well, you can't judge me until the last of those draft picks, two years, three years after we draft until they mature. So essentially you've given yourself like a seven year window to prove yourself as a general manager. I trust in Ryan Poles. It's a weird feeling to be like, yeah, you know what? I think the Bears are doing the right thing.

They're making the correct moves. The only problem with giving up the first pick is you no longer have the first pick. It's like the last bite of a sandwich. I wouldn't, if I were a GM, I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade, I wouldn't even use it. I wouldn't even use the first pick. I would just hold it forever.

What if you traded back to the first pick? Yeah. Should be like Panthers, how about we give you your picks back, but we keep DJing more. Yeah. Done. Maybe Panthers are experiencing regret right now.

Yeah. There's definitely some buyers remorse because the Panthers, come on, that was stupid. You guys got fleece, but no, no, good trade. Well, the Bears, they definitely miss having the first round pick because Ryan Poles is probably talking to a lot of good friends on the phone for a while.

He probably seemed like he was cool. Everyone was blowing him up. Now the phone stops ringing once you stop having something everybody else wants. NFL GMs are such fake friends. They don't keep in touch with the other GMs unless there's something they want from them. Yeah.

No, no, now we grind some tape. Now we grind some tape. So free agency starts Monday. By the time you're listening, it's already started. I think we'll have an Aaron Rodgers resolution by Monday. Are you starting to think about what I said on Friday? Oh yeah. It makes more and more sense to me

the more I think about it that Aaron would absolutely love to just rub in people's faces that he turned down this contract. So you can't tell him anything for the rest of his life. Yeah. And Mark Murphy, the president of the Packers, comments definitely furthered that along. So first of all, shout out Mark Murphy

because you would think, well, actually you wouldn't think this. This is very Wisconsin. I say this actually in an endearing way, not in a negative way. He didn't do a press conference. He actually was interviewed in the middle of a Wisconsin high school girls basketball state tournament.

That's when he was interviewed and talked about Aaron Rodgers. Perfect. I love that. Like, and I truly do love that. So he said, when asked about Rodgers, he said, yeah, unless if things don't work out the way the Packers want them,

yeah, we would bring him back. He is obviously a great player. And then he started talking about his legacy and we're gonna retire his number. And we just want to do right by him, which means he clearly wants to leave, but now he might retire. I don't know, you're right.

Here was the exact quote that was like, huh, this feels like a done deal, unless Aaron Rodgers retires. He said, we're fortunate to have back-to-back Hall of Fame quarterbacks. It kind of happens in our game. Very few players play for only one team. Brett had a great career here.

Aaron had a great career. Regardless of what happens, Aaron will be in the pro football Hall of Fame. He'll be in our Hall of Fame. We will bring him back and retire his number. But this is just one of the things that you go through as a team. We want to try to achieve something

that is good for both Aaron and us. That doesn't feel like Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. It also seems like the Jets would have had a deal that was in place tentatively with the Packers. And then the Packers are like, okay, you can sit down and meet with Aaron Rodgers. They did do that.

They talked about all the weird stuff. They did do that. So they had, yeah, that's what I'm saying. They had a deal in place before that meeting happened. That meeting has long, that meeting's been done happening for almost a week right now. So it feels like if nothing has moved since then,

it might be Aaron Rodgers being like, you know what? I'd really rather just retire than go somewhere else. And also like, yeah, I wouldn't blame Aaron Rodgers to retire rather than play for the Jets. No disrespect, Billy. But I feel like- But full disrespect. But full disrespect also.

They got rid of Brax and Berrios. So who's he gonna throw the ball to? Yeah, Thirst Trap King. Yeah, but no, this feels, it feels like we're just waiting for Aaron Rodgers to sign off on him going to the Jets because the Packers have moved on to Jordan Love. It definitely, like all the comments, everything around it,

it just, you can't say some of the things that have been said on both sides and not come to this conclusion. He went on, yeah, hopefully it'll create a situation where it's a win for both sides. We'd love to have it resolved to start the free agency. A win for both sides is not Aaron Rodgers coming back. When would be the most perfect time for Aaron

to drop his news? He's gonna do it like 3 a.m. tonight and we're gonna have to wake up. I'm gonna wake up because my son's gonna jump on me. I'm gonna see it. I'm gonna text everyone and then someone else is gonna wake up. I'm gonna be like, holy shit.

And then last person to wake up's gonna have FOMO that they were the last person to wake up. It could be during the Oscars. I'm still missing the slap buzz that I had from last year. This Oscars isn't gonna have a slap. I need Aaron to interject and put something out in that place.

Going back to your point about Ryan Pohl's not getting phone calls. That is essentially what Aaron Rodgers has done the last month. He just wants to be talked about on every show. He's a fucking diva bitch. Yeah, I hate Aaron. I need some DMT too.

I demand more transparency. Yeah, boom. Suck on that. Bitch. Suck on that. Yeah, no, he's... There's no reason that he's doing... How this whole process goes through,

he's just making it as dramatic as possible so people can keep talking about it. That's really all it is. Which is kind of cool. Like I kind of understand. But he's also done it multiple times. He's in the content game now. What if he retired to become a blogger?

He's definitely gonna have a podcast. Aaron Rodgers, a million percent, gonna have a podcast. It's gonna suck. It's gonna totally suck. It's gonna be the worst podcast. I'm gonna one-star review that shit. Actually, I would watch a podcast

that was done in complete darkness in a studio with no light whatsoever. No sound. Did you just hear him breathing? Yeah, it's just... Aaron goes into a darkness retreat with a celebrity. So it's like week one, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Rogan probably.

Or Aaron and Kyrie. That seems right. Aaron and Kyrie go into a dark room and sit together in silence for three hours. Oh, by the way. I would listen to that. That would actually be perfect if you're trying to fall asleep.

Yeah, special fuck you to Kyrie Irving who called out gamblers. Who does he think... Like this is just crazy how he's just torching everything. What'd he say? He was like, yeah, it's really the animosity sometimes from the crowd.

Like we don't care about your parlay. Like we're playing ball. It's like, dude, guess what the league... Like the league advertises with gambling companies. Every league does now. You want your $200 million, you're gonna get it. Like, what are you talking about? I just...

He pisses me off. I think Kyrie just doesn't like anybody that tells him anything. Anything. Not even people that are telling him what to do. He just doesn't like people talking to him. He's like, why are you talking to me? He is my three and a half year old son.

The other night, my son, I said, he grabbed my face and I was like, please don't do that. In that exact tone, and then he got mad at me. He was like, I don't like when you say something to me. That is literally Kyrie Irving. Yeah, Kyrie doesn't like interacting with people. I do not...

What do you do with that sentence? I don't like when you say something to me. That's what he said. And I was like, okay. What gives you the right to tell me to sit down? Well, I'm your coach, Kyrie. Yeah. Jay Williams called out Stephen A on first take last week,

saying like, this seems personal. And Stephen A kind of got flustered and then came out today or yesterday and said, Kyrie and I have our differences on a personal level, which is none of anybody's business. And I'll never tell why. He knows why. And his daddy knows why.

Oh, wow. So Jay Williams was right. That is personal. And now I just need to know what the reason is and what Kyrie Irving's dad did. That was an awesome clip though when Stephen A and Jay Williams were just yelling at each other. And it got personal between the two of them.

Yeah, and he said, I'm always triggered. Yeah. Yeah, that's what, yeah. It's just a great line to have. What did he say? I wonder what Kyrie's dad could have done to Stephen A Smith. Yeah. Oh, here it is.

Gambling, this is what he said. Gambling and sports betting have completely taken the purity and fun away from the game at times. I'm going to be honest with y'all. There's a difference between being a diehard fan and supporting your team and loving your team versus somebody that's betting on a parlayer, somebody that wants to hit.

I agree with that. But do you think people just started gambling last year? Yeah. What are we talking about? It absolutely takes away some of the purity of the game. But it's also what Kyrie needs to realize is it's also very fun. Yeah. It's also, and we're not saying like a diehard Mavericks fan

definitely cares more than a bet I make on the Mavericks. We're not arguing. Yeah. Shut the fuck up, dude. Don't come at me. Yeah, Billy. I'm triggered. People have been gambling since the Coliseum.

That was actually something really interesting that like the origins of gambling is like in the Coliseum. It's right there with sports since like the beginning of time. I mean, would you go to a Gladiator event and not gamble on it? Yeah. That would be disgusting, actually. People that were into Gladiator sports for the purity of it. It's like, no, I just want to go see this two humans fight

to the death because I love the game. That's fucked up. If you're betting on it, I completely understand that. If you go to a fucking sword fight and don't bet on it, you should be arrested. Yeah, you're just like, I want the guy in the red to die. Yeah, I'm rooting for blood. Yeah, why not?

But I just would love for Kyrie to put in the thought experiment of like take away all gambling, everything all together. And then the NBA goes and negotiates their TV contract. Yep. What happens? Well, what about betting on yourself? Yeah, that's true. He's done that like 17 times.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, what else do we have? Anything from this? I mean, the conference tournament week was took a lot out of me. Took a lot out of me, but it was fun. It's always fun. March is the best.

These two weeks, oh my god, I'm so excited for the break. Odell Beckham's back. Oh, yeah. Odell Beckham worked out for what? 10 teams, 10 different teams. Somebody said that he's like the most jacked up that he's ever been. Yeah, that makes sense.

But then, Big Cat, guess when the last time Odell Beckham had over 1,100 yards receiving was? I think it's 1,100 yards. 2016. 2016. Oh, I nailed it. It's been a while. It's been a while since Odell was like top of the line elite

as a wide receiver. Do you know what a rumor I heard? What? Chiefs. Oh, did you hear that from Leroy? Oh, no, I missed Leroy's tweet. Leroy broke the news on Saturday. All I see on Twitter is just ads

and all quiet on the Western Front. Yeah. I can't, I don't see anything on Twitter anymore. I don't see anyone's tweets. I just see ads. Are you on the For You page? Yeah, no, I'm on regular Twitter, but it's like everything else is an ad.

I don't remember the last time I've gleaned something from Twitter. Yeah, so well, if you follow what Leroy had to say, he's reporting that the Chiefs are front runners right now in the Odell Beckham sweepstakes, but also he's asking for a shitload of money. So Odell thinks that he's still in 2016 Odell mode. I'm going to withhold judgment on whether or not

teams should sign Odell until I see the most recent clip that his dad puts together of his highlight reel, and it really just needs to be the Super Bowl catch for a touchdown. And then I'll be like, yeah, Odell's still good. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he definitely will, he'll come back. He won't be the same Odell, but then he'll make

one or two plays where you're like, yep. Counterpoint, if he signs to the Chiefs, the Chiefs are all the way back. They're all the way back. He's going to have, Odell Beckham's going to have 2,300 yards receiving if he signs with the Chiefs. If he signs with the Chiefs, I'm going to pick the Chiefs to win the AFC West.

That's bold. Yep. I think this is Denver's year. I think Denver's back. They did it. Okay, anything else before we do who's back in the week? And then we're going to get all into the break. We're going to get inside the brackets with Mark Titus.

Anything? Going once, going twice. Scotty Shepard's a beast. Scotty Shepard's a fucking beast. And I'm not going to say someone that we know choked, but he went in the water. But he wasn't going to win anyways. He was on a run.

He was on a hot streak. And there's barely any water on that hole. When was the last time, when was the last time? Max so much. Whoever won the TPC at Sawgrass, won the Masters. I need somebody to look that up. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. Sure, sure.

You're probably right about that. Yeah, Tiger. It's probably a good thing that Max didn't win this. Yeah, no, we're keying up. Listen, it's all about the Masters, all about Augusta. None of this matters. I think every golfer is born with a finite number of wins inside of them.

You don't want to waste it on the TPC. Correct. That's like the seventh or eighth major. Correct. We want to save that for the Fortnite, for the Genesis, anything else that's named after video game systems. And then the Masters. I, yeah, Scotty Shepard is so fucking good.

He's so dialed in. It's insane. Him and John Rom. Yeah, I was going to say like. Well, John Rom got diarrhea. When somebody's locked in, the two most fearsome golfers when they're dialed in right now, nobody can be either Scotty Shepard or John Rom.

Yeah. When they're dialed in. No, it's, they're on a different level. And John Rom, yeah, he had diarrhea. What are you going to do? It just sucks when you get, I feel bad for John Rom because when you're a little bit heavier and you get diarrhea, people automatically assume like,

well, shouldn't have had that fucking ice cream in the pizza. Like they judge you. Like if I get diarrhea, people look at it differently than when you get diarrhea. That's just a fact. People, people, they, they diarrhea shame me where they're like, well, no shit, you fat slob. Yeah.

You get it. They're like, oh, make sure you drink some water. No. Make sure you stay hydrated. No, if I, if I get it, it's like, oh, it's another Tuesday. Yeah. But no, this is how people judge. It's not right.

When I heard John Rom had diarrhea, I was like, of course he did. He fucking went to Sonic last night. All that paella runs right through you. Yeah. So shout out John Rom. Shout out John Rom. Most impressive golfing of the week goes to Trent, though.

You see Trent stuck it on the green on 17. Yeah, he did. Max could never. Yeah. Great shot by Trent, though. Max went into the water. Nails. Not a lot of water.

It was a very funny video. There's a lot of non-water on that whole. It's a very funny video that they put out where they had all the amateurs try to hit it onto the green the day before the Sawgrass, before the TPC, I mean, and like 90% of them hit it in the water on their first shot. And then of those guys that hit in the water,

like 90% of that 90% hit it in the water again on their second shot. I would still be staying there. I'd just hold it out. I'd swish it. It would go right in the cup. No problem. All right, let's do who's back of the week.

Hank, you ready? I'm ready. Who's back of the week? Who's back of the week is baseball. Yeah. World baseball classics going on. Wasn't getting a lot of buzz this kind of last week. It was like, damn, baseball is dead.

There's no buzz around this this weekend. It was popping off. A lot of good clips. Great Britain's jerseys. Great Britain's jerseys. Looked like they lost their jerseys the night before, and they had to go to the jersey store down the street and just print jerseys as quick as they could.

Like we need jerseys an hour. What can you do for us? We just need the words great Britain on them. All right, that's good enough. Right, they got ironed on there. How big are the bases? Are they big? I don't think that they're not big enough for me

to care about baseball. They need to be 20% bigger. Did you see the Shohei clip? No. He hit a home run. And all a woman caught the ball. And then everyone in the. Is he playing for US?

No. That's bullshit. We should get him. Everyone in the crowd, they passed the ball around. And everyone in the crowd got to take a picture. And then they nicely brought the ball back to the original girl. It was so respectful.

And it was like, that would never happen. Is this like the upside down world of Philly? No, yeah, pretty much. What the hell is going on? It's good culture. No, I think that means that Japan's a bad sports town. I think a real sports town. Is that where it's taking place?

No, but that's all over the place. Yeah, but the fans, they're doing home games. There were Japanese fans that were passing around to themselves. A real sports culture would have been so drunk that they would have thrown up on each other and then fought over the ball. See, this is another thing with the Twitter broken.

I'd like saw, I'd see it like once every like, I don't know, a couple hours, like, oh, that's going on. I just, March is college basketball. Is this my same argument with XFL? Like March is college basketball. In the world baseball classic, they should at least, if they're not going to have the bigger bases, let them use aluminum bats.

Yeah, that would be sick. Just here, yeah. Like Schwabber would be going yard all over the place. Is Schwabber playing? Yeah, in a ball. Yeah, in a ball. All right, that's what I mean. I mean, you should have started with that, dude.

We should just call him Captain America. Yeah, you should have started with that. Schwabber's Captain America. And then also... By the way, we should say on this podcast, the fact that they call it Chinese Taipei is bullshit. That's Taiwan. We recognize Taiwan on this podcast.

We're not, we're not communists, are we? Hell no. Nah, I don't think so. I don't think so either, but I don't, I need to do my own research. Okay. Hanks, get away from the facts to come out. No, I don't want you to speak for me.

That's a pretty, pretty aggressive. Don't put words in my mouth. Oh, so you guys, you guys are... No, we said we don't know. CCP apologists. We don't know yet. We're going to have to... It's fine.

This seems like an ongoing issue. You guys love China. When did it, did you just add Trump to your repertoire? China. He's Australian Trump. You're the last guy to add Trump to your... No, it's Australian Trump. This wall is going to be 10 feet higher.

The, the, the Chinese, I'll, I'll, I'll side with Taiwan. Good, good. Hank? What if they give us the bag? I've, I've been convinced. What if the CCP gives us the bag? No, I'm starting with Taiwan. I don't think that they...

We're going live tour. They don't allow this podcast in China. Yeah. We're going live tour. Hank? I'll get back to you. Let me, give me some time. Don't pressure me.

Okay. Sounds good. And then in, in the real shocking news of the weekend, the strip club that John Morant was out... Oh, that was mine. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'll wait for it. No, that's okay.

Is it great visual? Well, yeah. It was just like, wait, wait. I have John Morant's... The strip club that John Morant went to, he was in a private room throwing money and getting a lap dance. So this is crazy. They asked, they, Shotgun Willys is the, is the strip club.

So John Morant's all the way back because Shotgun Willys owner came out and said, he spent over 50K on tips a few weeks ago. He said, this kid, real young, was exceptionally respectful and sweet and he did not drink. He's marvelous. He gets it. I don't, I feel like Shotgun Willys

is making a bad business decision here. Why? I don't think you want to like blow up the spot of your famous clientele that's dropping 50K. No, but it's good. It's, why, why is that bad? That, that looks good for John Morant. It does, but it also...

I don't think other players are wanna... Yeah. Worry about their pictures being out there. Yeah. Other players going to a strip club and dropping 50K and Shotgun Willys does a press release. I think that they didn't put the pictures out there. I think that was somebody else.

That was in the investigation, I think. Either way. Somebody leaked it. I think it's like, if you're John Morant, the pictures, did you see the pictures? Yeah, I understand that. So the most, the craziest part of the picture was that John Morant in the VIP section,

he had papered every surface in this massive VIP room with cash. There were tables, there were booths, there, the floor was covered in cash. It was a snow globe of cash when he walked in. That looked awesome. I saw that and I thought to myself, I may have been premature in discussing

how immature John Morant was because he, the interior decorating that he did with money, I wanna have a room in the house that I buy that's just wallpapered with money. Here's, here's a point to my side though. Maybe the horniest man online and in the world, Stephen A. Smith is very upset. Stephen ain't no Stephen, he also is.

But Stephen A. Smith said, what do people think happens here? Why is the club releasing these? Feels like a massive invasion of privacy. Why would any big spenders go there ever against Stephen A. Smith? Goes to shotgun willies all the time. That's where I'm reading from this.

And then he followed up with saying, you know what, I have a lot of feelings about the John Morant strip club photos being released. Frankly, I'm ticked off about the whole situation. He, like Stephen A. Smith is probably a preeminent strip club goer. Yeah. He's now gotta be on red alert

that shotgun willies is airing dirty laundry. Well, we don't know that shotgun willies released the photo. But that's what I'm saying. Shotgun willies. It could have been released by the police that are investigating it. But the owner, like, talked about it. The owner could have just been like, no, never saw him.

The owner saying like, he was very respectful, we love him. I would be okay with that. I'd be fine with that. Stephen A. Smith, I'm signed with Stephen A. Smith. He's a strip club guy. You know he's a strip club guy. It's also obviously a very serious topic, but Gilbert Arenas has had some hilarious lines

and the whole thing. Oh yeah. He called John Morana a philanthropist, donating 50 K to a local community. And I think he said like, at least when I got caught, like I was trying to get money from someone. Or like there was a reason why I was caught, like got in trouble with guns.

I wasn't just flashing it for Instagram. Yeah. He's like, to my credit, I was trying to, I was trying to rob my teammate. No, he was like, yeah, my teammate owed me money and I had to get it. He also, he also had a story about, you told the story about Mello saying that,

like David Stern just went in and like strong armed him. He had a story about that too, that when all that went down, David Stern was like, we have two options, 50 game suspension, or you don't take the suspension, I just take all your money. And he was like, okay.

And then like, and Gilbert was like, all right, see you next year. That was it. That was a negotiation. One of my favorite stories about, I think it was when Gilbert Arenas was on the wizards with Deshawn Stevenson. Deshawn Stevenson used to keep an ATM in his house.

He had an ATM installed in his house, because he would have parties all the time. He'd have strippers over. And then he knew that his teammates would spend a shitload of money on him. So he had an ATM with like $9.99 service transaction fees. So he was just taking a tax from all of his teammates every time they come over to his house.

That's great. It's like Jimmy Butler and his coffee. That's hustling, man. Yeah, yeah. All right. Who's your who's back? My who's back of the week is Kirk Cousins, because we've got a video coming out tomorrow, right Max?

Correct. From Super Bowl week. Correct. I did a little one-on-one slinging it with Kirk Cousins. We just passed a ball back and forth. And I put him through the ringer about what to do if he was presented with an option like he had at the end of the season against the Giants this year.

Who's he going to pass the ball to? Does he make the right decision? Does he fuck it up? Who knows? You have to tune in tomorrow and figure it out. And Steven Chays in it, right? Steven Chays in it. Steven, it's me and Kirk throwing the ball back and forth

and then Chays my guy on the sidelines that catches the ball for me. So I don't break it in fingers. You don't want that. That's below my pay grade to catch balls. I like that. My who's back is your face. My face is back.

We were given a picture over the weekend that we promised to not release. Billy's face was in a bad place on Friday night. Now that my face is back. You can release it. You should release it. Release the pictures. Well, maybe.

Well, we'll find the right time. You look like you just got stung by a thousand bees. I look like I got my face like beat, like a bad beat. It was crazy. You remember when Jared Rodgers doesn't sign with the Jets? Yeah. You gotta release it nice. If he signs, I'll release it.

Okay. Okay. And if he doesn't sign. If he retires, you never have to release it. I'll just put it in the Aaron Rodgers blog. I post. So please click on it. There you go.

There you go. You remember when Sydney Crosby had mumps? That's kind of what you looked like. It also was just funny having Billy text us out of the blue being like, I'm going to send you a picture if you promise not to tweet it. Credit to us.

We all had to promise. Thanks guys. Credit to. Stop me in my track. Really credit to the conference championship Friday. Cause if it wasn't that, I would have tweeted it. Yeah. Also.

I was, I like barely saw the text. It was a great Billy moment because he was on Friday and he was like, Hey guys, I can't work on Sunday cause this is what my face looks like right now. And we saw it and we're like, yeah, you know what? He's kind of right. He shouldn't come into the office. If I still look like that,

I don't think I would have came into the office. You're very jolly. Yeah. But my who's back is a unified world heavyweight belt for the, there's a possibility that for the first time since April 2000, one heavyweight boxer may be able to hold all of the belts. And that's because Tyson Fury put up the proposition

to Alexander Yousik that if he took a 70, 30 split with him, he would fight him to unify all the belts. Oh, nice. It's not official, but it's, they're looking at April 29th for Wembley, but Tyson Fury said, I get 70%. You get 30% in every day that you don't accept this offer. You get less of percent. That's awesome.

Yousik called them on it. He said, as long as you donate a million dollars to Ukraine, I'll take the fight. And it sounds like it's going ahead. So Tyson, this is going to be a great match because Tyson's been boxing a lot of bigger guys who aren't as skilled, big right hands. I mean, the Fury Wilder trilogy was insane.

I mean, the Joshua Yousik fight was amazing. I'm actually super pumped for this because Yousik is going to go the distance with him. He's got the, he's got the stamina. He's got, you know, the feet. I think this is going to be a really good fight. Are they going to add Ruffin Rowdy's belt to it? I mean, that's not all the belts.

True. True. We've got to unify all the belts. They should make a belt that's made out of all the other belts and that's what you get. Like the Iron Throne. Yeah. That would be sick.

I'm just. I would watch that. If it was a giant belt. And then they just make like the last two rounds really suck and the kid in the wheelchair wins it. Yeah. But, spoiler. Are you over at Yad Hink?

Over what? Game of Thrones? No. Still upset? I mean, imagine the Clitchkos and Game of Thrones. Once I start to rewatch it, that's probably over. They just beat this shit out of each other and probably make out at some point.

It hasn't happened yet. I actually think Usa could beat Fury. That's what I think he's been trying to duck him. For the big belt. For the, for all the belts. All the belts. All the belts. And also some guys suing Buffalo Wild Wings

for having boneless wings. He says that they're really chicken nuggets and that they've been selling an inferior product for an upmarket price. What does he think boneless wings are? This guy, he just figured this out now? Yeah, he's like, Buffalo Wild Wings has been fucking me over and he's suing them.

There should be a law that if you have a dumb enough lawsuit that you can then open yourself to get sued by everybody that has to read about it. Yes. Yeah. Wait till he finds out that French fries aren't from France. Yeah. Wait, what?

Also, economic meltdowns. World's gonna crash today. Is that a thing? No. No, we're good. Silicon Valley Bank. I read a Twitter thread pretty much. Those guys are fucking crooks.

They knew it was gonna collapse. They all sold their stock right before. Lock them up. Throw them next to Hillary in jail. Done. What about everything else? No, no, no, no, we just print more money, dude. If you run out of money, the government prints more money.

That's how it works. The thing is money is not even real. Right. We just add it onto the deficit. Or not, no, what is this? The debt? The debt. Yeah.

Dude, that's it. You think we're ever gonna pay that debt? No chance. My favorite is when people think about it like it's your household credit card bill. There's a lot more shit that goes on in the national debt. You can just add a number to it if you want to. We need like a 10 million leg parlay to get out of this debt.

Oh, you remember? We're never getting out of that debt. You remember when people are like, Gamble responsibly. Just print the $1 trillion coin. We should do that. Yeah. Just print, just make a coin.

And then tell me that the money's real. You know why I don't have to pay the debt? Why? Nukes. Yeah, come get it. That is true. You won't. Yeah, we're gonna break my legs.

We're basically like the tough ass dude on the block who borrows the tools from his neighbor is like, they're my tools now. Say something about it. Yeah, you're not gonna get it. You know what? I wish somebody would try to collect on that debt. Yeah, no, Hank, don't worry.

People are gonna freak out, whatever. Maybe we'll just make more money on GameStop, Diamond Hands, that shit, but we'll be fine. Yeah. All right, yeah, I was just checking. I was curious, but now I'm good. Okay, good. It was funny, the clip of Jim Cramer just being like,

SVB, SVB, sorry, SVB, SVB has the fundamentals for a huge bounce back. This was like a few months ago. He's like, bye, bye, bye, boom, gone. It's all the nerds in fucking California. They had a little bank with their friends. It went under. Who cares?

And I think people were telling every company that they were investing in, like, I'll only invest in you if you put the money in Silicon Valley Bank. Yeah. Dude, they all sold their stock. They're crooks. They're not going to go to jail,

but they should go to jail. I was like, yeah, in that Twitter thread, some guy had all the percentages that basically the entire C-suite sold in February. And then I don't know what you got to be to be like a rich guy simp online, but another person responded was like, we have to double check

because that's actually when bonuses come in. So that might have been a scheduled payment of all the, or sell off. It's like, dude, you really went online to be like, hey, these guys who ran a bank that has now gone under, we should wait and make sure because we don't want to accuse someone

of something wrong here. The real take that you should have at all times is anybody that makes more money than you should be in jail. Correct. And if you disagree with that? No, and anyone who makes 10x what you make, you should, we should eat.

Guillotine. Yeah, we should eat them. Eat the rich. And then if you disagree with that, then you're a bootlicker. That's a fact. These are big time economics. We just took all the other things else to Econ 101.

Print more money. Hate people who are more rich than you. And if someone wants to fucking come and try to collect this debt, try us. Yeah, my general rule is the thumb are if they make more money than me, they're evil. If they're younger than I am, then they're a Zoomer bitch. Yeah.

And they probably will like, like. Then they're gonna eat me. They'll probably do like the knockout game with me and put me on TikTok. Yeah. This is why I like shit all the time is because I know that anyone younger than me that wants to eat me.

Yeah. Good luck. I'm not putting it past Billy for one day to just like sucker punch me and just be like, TikTok, knockout game's back. I was like, fuck dude, I got caught. What are you gonna do about it? Can't really do anything.

Or else you're a boomer. Yeah. Like he got me, ultimate prank. Knock someone out who's not looking. What, that's top level humor. All right, let's get to Mark Titus. Let's talk about the bracket. We're gonna break it all down,

but we've had a few minutes here, PFC. Probably about a half hour, 45 minutes of the show so far. I talked to you about Puparoni to start. Yeah. You said you were gonna think about it. I want you to really think about it. I'm thinking about it. Puparoni's the best.

It is literally the best. So the only thing is I might even get two dogs. Is there enough Puparoni to share between two dogs? Yes, there is. There's absolutely. And if you get your pup, Puparoni, you ever heard a dog say woof, yeah? Woof, yeah.

Yeah, because they say that whenever they get the Puparoni. Look at Whitey right now sleeping, snoozing. He is dreaming about Puparoni and you gotta get the Puparoni original beef flavor snacks. Celebrate your favorite sports teams. Watch maybe on the couch while you're watching some basketball this March, April, May, June,

whenever it's going on too. What's the Puparoni? Hang out, make sure that your dog, your best friend is treated great with Puparoni PFT. I feel like you're closer to being a Puparoni guy. I'm thinking about it. Okay, all right, well let's do some bracket talk and then we'll get back to it.

We'll think about it more, but you can go and be a Puparoni dog owner right now. Go to puparoni.com to find a bag near you and send us a pic of you and your dog filling out your bracket for a chance to win some PMT merch. Tweet us at pardon my take and at Puparoni, I'll retweet any dog. So you just send us your dog with the Puparoni.

We're gonna retweet it. We love dogs on this podcast. We love making sure our dogs have the best treats in the absolute world. So Puparoni is the place to do it. Go to puparoni.com to find a bag near you. Okay, here he is, Mark Titus. Ooh.

Okay, we're able to book an elusive special guest. It is Mark Titus back in studio. Mark Titus' show, go subscribe on the YouTube podcast. First of all, how have your first two weeks of parcel been? I've enjoyed it. Everyone's been very kind to me. Everyone? Everyone. Everyone.

I noticed so- Who's your, no, no. Who's your least favorite person so far? Honestly, Brandon. Yeah, okay. Brandon Walker. I set you up for this on all matters. And the really stupid part about that, about saying Brandon is he's gonna think it's like a bit

and he's gonna be like, yes, they're talking about me, which is what he wants. I'm just answering that genuinely. Brandon texted me at all times, anytime anything goes well for me, he's like, this is bullshit, this should have been mine. And anytime anything goes poorly for me, he's like, you suck.

And he reminds you of it. I think you've been fitting in seamlessly. I did have my first red flag happen tonight on a cultural fit. We're in the office right now. The office water is shut off because of construction or something. Max had to go take a shit at Macy's.

Shout out Macy's, no free ads. Shout out Macy's. Titus was like, I'm gonna go to my hotel room and take a piss real quick. I was like, bro, he's pissing this jug and he looked at me like, what? It felt like an HR trap that you were like, just go ahead and piss in this bottle.

I promise nothing wrong about it. Do I have permission to pee in any jugs during this interview? You can do what you want around here. So was that permission? You're not gonna sue us if we don't know. No, I felt like I don't, I don't think I have that cloud.

Let's not get upset about a little piss in a jug. You've been an indoor cat for a while, Mark. Now, this is like letting your indoor cat outside for the first time, like go cause some ruckus in the bushes, pee wherever you want. Fox doesn't do any such harassment. They don't. All right, let's talk about the brackets.

Let's do the bracket. Let's fucking get into the bracket. Let's talk about the brackets. So Jake and I just got done recording my show where we filled out our entire brackets. And the only way I would describe my process with this was I felt like I was at war. I felt like this is a legacy play for me this year.

Because I have the last two years, my national champion has lost in the first round of my bracket. That's tough. It's tough. You're an expert though. I won a national championship in 2019 with Virginia, but then COVID happened and the haters are saying

that I've lost my touch and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not an expert. And so this is a legacy play for me and I can feel it. I can feel the pressure going into this tournament. Now, when you won with Virginia, did you, so you picked Virginia to win the year after they got eliminated as the one to the 16 seed. That's pretty good.

I thought so. I thought at that point I had arrived, but the haters are saying that was a one off. All right, so let's cut to the chase. You have to win two titles to be a legend. Yes, you do. I've only won one. Who's your team?

Who's it gonna be this year? Well, do you want him to reveal his winner? Well, I want to know who not to bet on right off the bat. And then people can skip the rest of this interview. Just skip the whole interview. God, Mark Tyson's on every show now. So when we sat down to fill out the bracket, this was not my intent.

Oh no, you didn't do it. I did it. I did it, Dan. They're criminals. I know they are. You took Alabama? I took Alabama. Oh!

I was filling it out and it just happened. Did they circle the wagons? Is Alabama like, it's us against the world and criminal justice system? It was that, it was, they play the best defense I think in the country. They have the best player in the country probably. I don't know.

I don't know. I didn't mean for it to happen. It was just wrong place, wrong time, I guess. I was just filling out the bracket. You can only control what happens while you're filling out the bracket. Everything else. I had, it was out of my control.

You asked Jake to bring your bracket to you. Does that implicate Jake as well? Yes, yes, true. And Jake actually texted, the bracket is hot. No, I did not. Who'd you take, Jake? I took Arizona. Oh!

Yeah, okay. I didn't like that page for Jake. You just did that. But Jake, Jake, as I pointed out on the show, Jake is a storyline slut and he just like, aligned all the story. He was just going crazy for, he ultimately had Tommy Lloyd versus Mark Few.

Oh my God. An Arizona Gonzaga game. Yeah, I have all blue blood playing in the garden down the street in the sweet 16. Oh gosh. Yeah, that's just stuff you wanna see for the good of the game. Exactly.

Now, you're a big Mark Few guy, right, Jake? I mean, besides having them in the national championship game, I do not condone what you're setting me up for. Just bringing his dogs back from a little lake house thing? Maybe. Disavow. Maybe Mark Few is just really allergic to dogs and that's why he was driving erratically

and he went up in the front seat with them. Those dogs were all over him when he got that DUI. Okay. Should we go, let's go region by region. All right. Let's talk region by region. By the way, I have a little trivia for you to start. Ready for this?

So when you're filling out your bracket, just remember, cause everyone always fills out their bracket. I think what happens is I call it the Dickie V bracket where you blindly start filling it out and then you look up and you're like, I have three ones and a two. That's what happened to me. That was my bracket.

Yeah, the Dickie V bracket. That was my bracket. Now it's hard to predict, but since 2012, there's only been one year that there hasn't been a seven or higher in the final four. So there's, every year there's been at least one seed has been broken every bracket. Do you remember what year it was, trivia?

Every year there's been a seven or higher. Since 2012, at least one in the final four. I don't know. My brain doesn't work that way. I don't, I don't, I can't think of anything. It was your year. Oh really? 2019, UVA, Texas Tech, Michigan State, and Auburn.

Auburn, yeah. The lowest seed there was a five seed. So just keep that in mind. Okay. When you're filling out your bracket, there's going to be someone who crashes the party. I did go and- You did the Dickie V?

I did the Dickie V. Yeah. And I acknowledged it as I was doing it, but as I keep saying, like this is a legacy play for me and I don't have time to get cute. This is not a, this tournament is very serious to me. And like, I don't, that's the problem is like, I get that you got to take a big swing,

but you take a big swing and miss. Yeah, I know. You look like a fucking moron. And I'm not in a position to make myself look like a moron. Yes, I agree. All right, so let's go through it. So anyway, let's go through it. We'll go how you read.

So we'll start with the south. Yep. Let's do big picture in the south and then we can all pick who we have coming out of the south. Big picture is this is super fun. These teams are fun to watch. If you're someone who hates watching college basketball, cause you think that there's not enough points

that the kids can't make open shots, all that sort of thing. This is the region for you. Alabama can score a ton of points in a hurry. They are, obviously I picked them to win it all, but they shoot a ton of threes. They play up tempo. They're awesome to watch,

just in terms of pure basketball. As long as they're not throwing the ball over the gym. Arizona, there's a couple other as long as. Well, yeah. Yeah. But yeah. They take a ton of shots. Yes.

They do. That is actually a fact. Like that's literally not a lot of charges on them. That is true. Are their friends, their friends take a lot of shots. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was on the team.

Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. Arizona plays very fast as well. Scores a lot of points. They're fun to watch. They are very funny. They're super fun. Yeah.

I watched on this when you were on the two weeks ago. If you aren't, Arizona is very fun for a lot of reasons. They have two very skilled big guys. They have, who's there? Who's the guard, not Kirk Risa. Courtney Raimi. Yeah. He's very, very good.

And Kirk Risa is like, if you miss the days, if you're like, oh man, I wish we had like a Bobby Hurley like point card that we can all hate. Kirk Risa is that guy. He will, he will like pump up the crowd when someone else does something good on his team. Yes. And then he will throw it off someone's face.

He is that guy. I think I said this on the show when I was on the last time though. He also has like a tinge of self-sabotage that when things start going well. Yes. He just, he can't help himself. He has to throw it out of the roof over the backboard.

He's also got a tiny mini Grace and Allen in him where like once a game he'll get in like, he'll get like legs tangled up. And you'll be like, did anyone take a nut shot there? He doesn't go all the way. So I'm not going to put that on him. But there's a lot of like, there'll be little moments where, you know, or, or even, you know, when, when the guy

comes up to the, to the coach's box to call time out, but you know, advances it to half court. He'll try to, he'll try to steal it. And he'll be like, yo dude, chill out. Like you'll have those. He lives in the gray area basically. He loves living in that gray area. Right.

I like that. It was very fun to watch. So Arizona's that, Baylor, the three seed is also that. They, they score a ton of, they, they're three guard lineup that they, they all shoot threes and make a ton of threes. And that's like their whole MO. They, they're not going to win the national championship because I don't think their defense is good enough,

but they are, they are so fun to watch. Um, and I just think on down the line, like Virginia is not quite as fun as they, they can be obviously set kind of starts to fall apart at the four or five, but Creighton, I think is a fun team. NC State's a fun team. Missouri is another team that gets up and down and they scored a ton of points.

Yeah. Missouri, Utah state game should be a lot of fun. That'll be, that'll be fun. Is that going to be one of those situations where it's a 10, seven, but the, you think the 10 is going to be favored? Or you think Missouri is going to be favored? Well, the Mountain West, we should, we should say it. Mountain West is one in 11 overall since 2016. And if you don't remember the Mountain West last year,

they had four teams in the tournament. They were eliminated from the tournament in 10 hours. They didn't make it to Friday. I brought my, uh, so before the bracket came out, I was sitting in the hotel room and I jotted down like a manifesto based on, cause what happens is when the bracket comes out, I get, I, I just get sucked into like Matt, I do what Jake does,

which is I look at storylines and I think like, wouldn't that be cool if this happened? And I lose all sense of what makes actual sense. So I wrote down a bunch of shit before I even saw what the matchups were. So that way it was like a reminder to myself, don't do this when the bracket actually comes out. My number one bullet point was Mountain West.

They've been to four sweet 16s in the history of their conference. Yeah. In the history of the conference. One in 11 since 2016. Yeah. So I, I, I made sure. And what was that? Just San Diego state when they were really good.

Yeah. They, they went to two and then must when Nevada went to one, I think. Oh, I love that team so much. They had the twins then, right? Yeah. Yeah. They were so much fun. I'm just looking at, I go by my Bible is the Kinnpom luck statistic.

That's a great stat. Yeah. It's a great stat. Missouri is the luckiest team that is, you know, from a power conference. Are they really? Yeah. So it's Missouri and then Kansas. Kansas is also a very lucky team. I'm not going to bet against Kansas.

I didn't know that. Do you think they factored in, bill self happened to go to the hospital? Well, bill self. No, that was planned. Okay. It's lucky that they caught it in time. We were saying that we were, I hope bill self is okay.

I actually used my one thoughts and prayers on Friday to bill self, but we were joking before that it would be funny if he came back and he was just fully bald. And it was like, it was a Joe buck. Like he actually was getting hair plugs and something went wrong. You're like, we're going to have to like,

like all quiet on the Western front. Like we're going to have to take off the leg. We're going to have to take off the hair bill. Yeah. Like it's suffocating you. You can't breathe. It would be awesome. Bill self as a bald guy, I would actually bet I would bet the farm on.

Yes. Like he's finally living his authentic life at that point. You're Virginia who's, so that would be, I'm going to circle that as maybe one of my upsets. Furman bombs. You should actually mark Furman. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Furman. Yeah. Furman bombs. They just chuck. And that's how you can beat Virginia. Cause they're the pack line defense. They're going to like, if you could just shoot over them,

you might have a chance. I, as, as the preeminent Tony Bennett lover, I, I'm not saying the game, I'm worried that maybe like, as, as everyone has started to figure out that three is worth more than two.

And as every team, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Steph, Steph Curry, I think taught us that in 2016. And then it's starting to make its way to middle America. And all these teams are,

are starting to learn that. I am worried that the pack line might be a thing that like, it might not have, its heyday might have come and gone. Now, would it be fun to watch UVA against Alabama? Like two completely opposite styles of basketball? I don't, I, I think Alabama would win by 40.

Cause I think what would happen is Alabama would get up like 15 to two. Virginia can't come back. So it's, so I'm clear. Like if they played, I would a hundred percent cheer for Virginia to win that game. But I don't, I don't, I wouldn't have much faith in Virginia.

Yeah. So that's one of my upsets. Also, I have a question for you. Cause we're going to get to more of these, but how would you classify a revenge game? Because that's everyone's favorite storyline. I saw someone tweet West Virginia, Maryland, the Mellow Trimble revenge game.

Yeah, no one remembers that. He got hurt. Who remembers that? No, who can forget? Oh, it was obviously a Maryland fan. Was it Jett DeLoe? Yeah. It was just like,

This is too far in revenge games. Like we can't, this can't be a revenge game of a guy who went to Maryland like eight years ago. Yeah. But the winner of that game should get Frostburg. That's the closest city I can think of to that border. There we go.

That is, it's a border war is what it is. It is. West Virginia is another fun team, by the way. Yes, they are. Throw them in the region of fun. Yeah, like the most fun outcomes are, our West Virginia Bama game would be fun in the second round. Creighton Baylor would be fun.

Missouri, Arizona would be a ton of fun. Charleston Furman would be awesome. Charleston Furman would be, yeah. So that to me, the South as a region is the most fun region for sure. In terms of, if you have, if you're like all three of us are, where our schools are not in this thing

and we're just here for a good time. We're for a second. I just like saying Charleston Furman. The South is, yeah. It sounds like somebody that's in like the Alec Murdoch trial. Yeah. Is that a rivalry? Isn't Furman down that way by South Carolina?

Is it in South Carolina? Yeah, it is. It is in South Carolina, yeah. In state rivalry. Yes, that is in state rivalry. Yeah, this, the bracket, whoever makes the bracket, the NCAA, they did it right in the fact that Alabama was the number one team.

They deserved it. I don't like them, but they deserved it. Like they, you can even look through their entire season. They, I don't think they ever lost back-to-back games. They had a couple of, what, lost four games. One of them was Gonzaga Neutral site. Like they, they were good all year long. They deserve the one seed

and they by far have the easiest region. Like if they don't win, I said this before on our show, but if, if Alabama doesn't go to the final four, this is the biggest failure in all of sports. What I'll back you up on is, because this is the fun region, I think every one of these teams will,

when Alabama wants to get up and go and try to score a ton of points, every single, all the best teams in this region, except for, by seed, except for Virginia and San Diego State probably, the rest of them are gonna nod along and be like, yeah, we wanna play this style of basketball. And then let's roll it out.

Yeah, let's do, let's do this. And it's not gonna work out well for them. So in that regard, it's a great job for Alabama. Maybe they're not hitting their threes. Yeah, you have to make shots. This is, I know how this is gonna go. Alabama's going to win the national title. And every game will be like,

this is the game, they're not gonna hit their threes. Yeah, yeah. They're just gonna keep hitting their threes. But that's why I, it's, they're not just the three-point shooting team. I know. They are going, they're so long in athletic, they're playing, I know.

I know. I hate it, I hate it. Length is important. So you have Bama coming out of this region? I have Bama, I have Bama over Baylor somehow, which I don't love this Baylor team, but I just like, every matchup, it just felt like, they're a guard oriented team,

and I felt like that mattered, but their defense stinks, their defense stinks. It has been really bad. You know what, Jake, I apologize. Wait, you have Arizona winning at all? All right, so I don't apologize. I'm gonna take Arizona to get to the final four just because it's anyone but Bama.

That's fair, and I respect that. And I think that's what most people should do, but I have my legacy on the line here, so I have to. Well, that, I mean, it tells me that you're, you're picking with your head, not with your heart. You're a true analyst. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. What do you got, PFT?

You know, Mark, Mark makes a good point about Alabama. You wanna do some fuck boy shit with Kirk Reesa? No, you know what I'm gonna go with? He is a fuck boy. He's a total fuck boy. Talk me out of NC State, make it a little rough. Talk me out of the Wolfpack. Well, if you're a Clemson fan listening to this right now,

you have to be very upset because Clemson did not make the tournament. Ruckers was the main one that everyone's upset about, but Clemson didn't make the tournament. Clemson beat NC State by a thousand on whatever it was, Friday or Thursday. That was an absolute ass kick. Well, NC State was resting their best players.

They knew they were gonna make the tournament. That one, I would be really pissed if I were a Clemson fan right now. So I don't know, NC State has not, the ACC has been weak this year. What about San Diego State? Mountain West. Yeah.

This might be the year they turn around. Yeah. I predict the Mountain West will make it to the second round. Somebody from the Mountain West will win. San Diego State is a team that I have wanted to believe in all year. There are a handful of these teams

that we can get, because we get to other regions, I'll talk about more of them, but it's a team that on paper at the start of the season, I was like, this team's gonna be freaking awesome. And all season, even when they lose, I'm like, the pieces are there, the pieces are there. If they can just, if they can just, and I've never really seen the San Diego State

I've wanted to see all year, but yet they're a five seed. And they've been playing well. They've been playing well. They've been playing well. They haven't lost in a like, you know. I have wanted to believe in San Diego State all year and I just could never really fully get there. You know what?

I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get there. All right. San Diego State. Get yourself a map out of the South. You're getting there? I'm getting there. All right.

Yeah. I'm switching back and forth between Alabama. Between the Mountain West. The Mountain West and the SEC right now. I'm gonna say it. San Diego State. All right. Why not?

Listen, if they make it more than 10 hours, they will have a successful tour. Where they play in Orlando. I don't know if anyone had any Mountain West teams have Friday games. They hopefully do so they can not have. That was just 10 hours. That broke me.

Last year, Colorado State was the one that I wanted to believe in. I was really high on Colorado State and David Roddy. They were so fun and they lost to Michigan. But that game was like an Indie, wasn't it? Yeah. Which was horseshit. Michigan was an 11 seed and got to play

Colorado State. Yeah. Yeah. That was tough. East region. New York City. Yep. Purdue is the number one seed.

I don't, I think Purdue is good. I think they've been fading. But and they, I mean, they just won the Big 10 tournament. So obviously they played well, but they were fading in Big 10 regular season play. Just seeing Purdue as a one seed. I'm like, someone's gonna beat them. For pulses.

So this, I have Purdue. I've had a future on them for quite some time. That's right. I forgot about this. I'm watching this. I'm watching Purdue play over the last weekend, especially today, especially the second half against Penn State.

This is shaping up to be a repeat of my doink bet in the Super Bowl all over again. Because Purdue's gonna be their prohibitive one. What are they? The number two ranked team right now. Did they get the overall two seed? I think Houston was. Houston got, so they're the.

They might be the fourth. Oh, they're the fourth. Yeah, they're the fourth, yeah. Well, I was wrong about that. But Purdue's, this feels like the best shot that Purdue's had in a while on paper. Watching them try to navigate the press against Penn State.

That's exactly it. They're gonna lose, I'm calling it right now, Purdue's going to lose in heartbreaking fashion against an inferior opponent. But I'm gonna be rooting for them the entire time. They got a bad draw. Somehow, every coach in the Big Ten waits until they're down 12 with like four minutes

to start pressing Purdue. It's crazy. And if one team, just one team, looks at the film and says, wait a second, what if we built the whole airplane out of the black? Out of the press, yeah. And what if we just pressed from the start? It might work out well for them.

Yeah, it all is gonna come down to how Zack Eadie's officiated, honestly. It's like, if he gets a favorable whistle, Purdue's unstoppable. But as is, every Big Ten team that loses to Purdue gets butt hurt about how Zack Eadie got away with everything and never gets called for fouls. And I experienced it recently in the Big Ten tournament

as the Buckeyes got called for like 400 fouls. And Eadie got called for one in zero, three seconds. But every Big Ten team that goes through it then says, wait till the NCAA tournament. When you don't have Big Ten refs, they're gonna call so many offensive fouls and over the backs and all that sort of thing. I don't know if it'll happen or not, but yeah.

It's better, he's gotten a lot better. Yeah. I mean, his footwork is a lot better, his defense a lot better. I, there could be a scenario where he goes to make post moves and he turns and like, displaces a defender and the refs are like, that's a foul, we're gonna call it on you.

Which they don't call in the Big Ten. And the second round matchup for Purdue is either gonna be a Memphis team that, if you remember, that was one of the, that was probably the game of the tournament against Gonzaga last year. That was one of the best games of the entire tournament. Memphis has physical players, they have guys that can,

you know, go toe to toe with Purdue and they just beat Houston, which is the most physical team in the country. And they have Kendrick Davis who could score 40 points. Yeah. And Purdue is not exactly elite defensively, especially their guard. So yeah, that's, yeah.

And then if Memphis doesn't make it to the second round, Florida Atlantic's really fucking good. And, which I'm kind of rooting for, even though I think Memphis has a better shot against Purdue, but we would get Zachy D versus Vatislav, what's his name, Vatislav Golden, the seven footer for Florida. I watched last night the UAB game,

because I was rooting for Jelly. This dude's a seven foot white guy. We're gonna have a hilarious visual of those two going up against each other. Yeah. I love that. It's always very funny when they do call like a seven foot three guy for over the back

on someone who's like six. Yeah. And they just catch the ball above the other person's head. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not fair what they do Zachy D sometimes, because he's so big. Sometimes he gets bad whistles.

He can't help but be dominant. I'm still riding with my Boilermakers. I'm just, I'm seeing the train that's about, or I guess that's an ironic turn of phrase for Purdue, but I'm seeing the train that's about to come through the tunnel and just wipe me out on the track. The train. I know it's gonna happen.

The train is going to Ohio in the first two rounds. And I don't know if there are any famous instances of trains derailing in Ohio. Oh no. Oh no. That would be bad symbolism for you PFT guys. Yeah. But Purdue will be playing in Columbus

their first two games. I like Memphis too. They play like. Purdue's gonna be the team that everyone picks. The one seed of the loose. Yeah, they will. That's the team that everyone's going to go. And Memphis feels like the team

that if they play their best, they are, they can play with anyone. Yeah. Absolutely anyone. How does Purdue not know how to break a press? The guards are young. Can you just throw the ball to Zach Edie on the inbound and then have him ditch it to somebody

that's coming up the wing? The guards are young. We put it that way. That's what I would do. You can also do the guards hit the wall. They hit the wall. Yeah. The young guys that season high school basketball

doesn't go that long. It did look like high school basketball. Watch them try to just bring the ball at the court. Yeah. It's young guys that are like, why are we still playing? I think the season's gonna be over. Yeah, right. Like we're ready for a nap.

That's really what you gotta say if you're a Purdue fan and things go south. Your guards are ready for bed time. Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, it is crazy seeing some of these teams not getting a break from it.

No, I'm a little bitter towards Purdue because the Buckeyes were on a dream, run there in the Big Ten tournament and had we beaten Purdue, all we had to do is beat Penn State to make the tournament. So I'm a little bitter, but I do go back to what I said last time I was on the show. I'm not cheering for Purdue,

but if they won the national championship, some small part of me would appreciate how cool it is to now throw out everything we thought we knew about college basketball. Right. It would change everything. It would change everything. Yeah. At least nine or 10 guys are going to get laid in West Lafayette

at that night. Yeah. For the first time ever. Mm-hmm. For the hot dogs. Which I don't think they have. I feel like that would be the national title among all major sports where more people, more students at that school would lose their virginity

than any other national championship ever. Might not be enough. Well, that's what I'm saying. Sex is sex. That's what I'm saying. Like nine or 10 guys. That would be the headline coming out of West Lafayette. It's like dozens of men got laid tonight.

Yeah. It's like that or Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, which one is more important for Purdue. Yes. All right. So this region, other teams. Duke. Oh. Duke.

This is the year, right? Like we were saying before you came on that like this would be the ultimate for Duke haters. If you're going to pick one year. Well, Dan said you want a month for Duke. It'd be so funny to see them win. I think I would have to agree. I think because we don't.

I don't think John Shire is ever going to be hateable. I don't know. I think we don't hate him now because we're comparing him to Kate, but I honestly think in 20 years when he's, if he's still a Duke, he's not going to get a kid. Yeah. Like a really small child. Yeah.

Like a like a five year old who's asking for an autograph. He just open hands, slaps him in the face. The only thing would be, I guess, like we got to see him when the pressure gets turned up. When he gets like really, if he ever gets on the hot seat and he feels the heat that he it's like a must win game and he loses. And maybe get a few of those.

Maybe then we'll get to see like a dark side of him, but he just feels like he's too mellow and cool. Maybe it's coach Kay's got to hit John Shire, where it's like, I expected more out of you. Yeah. Slaps him and he's like, go out there. Or Kay tries to take his job back and now Shire has to like fight for it.

Yeah. He has to be a little bit of a dick. Then he would look good. Yeah. And I don't hate him. If he, if there was like a young journalist, you know, they usually get like a seven or eight year old that goes to cover the games.

If he lectures a young journalist about asking a bad question after a loss. Yeah. That would really, oh, I love journalists. We are so far away from that though. Yeah. And this team is like just not, I mean, we talked about it last time,

but this team is just like not hateable. And they're playing really well right now. The thing would be though, the ACC stinks. It's the ACC stinks. So like you've won nine in a row. We acknowledge that, we tip our cap, but also how good is dude? I don't know.

I still, I'm at, what did I say Jake on the show? Four and a half, somewhere between four and a half and six, I can't remember on my Duke Panic Meter. That they're, I think it was like four and a half. Yeah. I can't remember. I'm like four and a half. The Duke is going to make the final four out of 10.

Here's the thing, I, as a joke, well actually maybe a little bit of me will want Sean Shire to win this just because it would be funny to do that narrative. But then you also have to remember that those Duke fans that would like die for coach K. And those people would be happy and you can't allow that. There are more Duke fans who were fed up with K by the end.

Then you might lose. Oh, there were really good Germans too? Is that what you're saying? I don't know. There were a lot of people, I remember being in New Orleans and I had Duke people like, don't, don't, don't share this publicly. Oh, see, I remember handing that card to a few Duke fans.

They were like, this stuff happened. I never knew this. They didn't teach us this in the history books. I'm not saying the majority. I'm just saying there's a silent minority. You are doing a really good job. There were a few really good Germans. They were just doing their jobs.

I will say about Duke though, Oral Roberts is the best 12 seed. Yes. And that's a horrible matchup to start. That I wrote down on my little manifesto I put together before the bracket came out. This is the first time somebody's had a manifesto and hasn't bombed somebody.

Like that's next up. Well, you're just talking about as a blog actually. Wait to see what happens before you murder? Wait to see what happens with my bracket. We might go down that path. I wrote down before the bracket even came out that no matter what happens, make sure you have Oral Roberts win at least one game.

They didn't lose in conference play. Yeah. They ran the table. They shoot threes. They shoot a ton of threes. They don't turn the ball over. They have a guard who's been there before Max Ace Miss. This team is way better than the 15 seed

that won a game against Florida. They beat Florida and then almost beat Arkansas. Are you sure about that? They did, right Jake? Am I wrong? Jake, am I wrong? They beat Florida. What you said is factually correct.

That's all, okay. Who did they beat? They beat Florida. Who did they beat in the first round? They beat Florida. You also said it's a two seed? You were a two seed? Oh no.

To Oral? If you have two, your puns are back for this week. If you have two, you have two. I emptied the clip on that one. Play the hits the next week. Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna make me spit out my drink if they win this game.

Anyway, this team is better than that team. Like this team is miles better than that team, I think. All right, so now actually I'm, cause it is also like, remember that stretch when Duke was losing in like, was it Lehigh? Did Lehigh beat Duke? Yeah, Lehigh beat Duke. Yeah, C.J. McCollum, yeah.

Yeah, C.J. McCollum. Yeah, like those, it would be fun to go back to that too. And maybe then I'll just, listen, anyone who listens to this show knows that, oh they're revealing the NIT. Oh, Wisconsin's a three seed. Look at that. Huge, great draw for us.

Oh, Bradley out of the Missouri Valley. Great draw. They won the Missouri Valley. They're very good. Great draw. This is a stacked NIT right now. No UNC Cowards. Nova still has not been selected.

Oh no, Max. This could be Nova, Max. Max versus Big Cat, NIT Sweet 16. Three, we're not beating Bradley. No chance. No chance. Well, I will stream this Wisconsin Bradley game cause I think it's going on at the same time

as Mississippi State game on Tuesday night. So, what I'm just gonna say was that I will, anyone who listens to this show knows that we can. Oh, it is Nova. Nova, let's go. He's not baby, let's go. Oh, I want you. So that game would be in Madison.

Yeah. Wow. That is true. Liberty ironically is going dancing. Yes. First time in school history. The, what I was gonna say was the, those Duke teams that like fumbled,

I will now be like, yeah, this is actually Coach K. I'm putting, if they lose to Oral Roberts, I'll put that on Coach K's. You should, it's Coach K's. We can change on a dime here. He recruited those guys, isn't he? Yeah, exactly. The bottom line is if John Shire wins a Natty,

then it just proves that Coach K completely lost it at the end. Duke's better off without him. Now, if they lose early, then it's Coach K's fault for recruiting such shitty players. Yes. John Shire inherited a terrible situation. Yeah.

Yeah, Coach K. He did the best that he could. He did the best that he could. Yeah. With the number one recruiting class in the country. Big, big question for you here Titus. Yeah. Kentucky.

Yeah. If they lose in the first round, Coach Kilopari, Coach Kilopari. Coach Jim Kalpari, officially Hot Seat City. Hot Seat City, yeah. I think, I think, I really, if you're a fan of off-season content, I know you guys definitely are,

as it pertains to the big blue nation. I cannot imagine what will transpire if John Kalpari loses in the first round this year. Football school. Yeah. Oh my God. I think that's what it is. If they lose in the first round,

Kentucky is officially a football school. There's also this, Providence, Bryce Hopkins is Providence's best player. Revenge game. He transferred from Kentucky. Yes. Because he wasn't getting enough minutes. And he was mad at Cal, like, I don't know.

I'm sure he was, you know, took the high road when he left, but the writing was on the wall. He wanted more minutes. He's like, I deserve to be playing. I'm gonna go to Providence. He's killing it for Providence. If he beats Kentucky,

and the big blue nation has to watch a guy who was a wildcat beat their team and knock him out of the first round yet again. That's juicy. Yeah. Bryce Hopkins' revenge game. We have two revenge games at this bottom part because if Michigan State,

if it holds serve at the bottom, Michigan State Marquette, we get the Joey Hauser. Yep. Revenge game. That's right. Which will be, the Hauser should have gone to Wisconsin, whatever.

That's not a big deal. I did slide into their GMs being like, what's up guys? Come to Madison. I'm not sure. Has that ever worked? What's the most successful? Nope.

Kale Williams, I shook out on pretty hard. Kale Williams. That one was pretty bad. But yeah, the Bryce Hopkins revenge game. Dick convinced Brad Davidson to return to school. That's true. That's true. I did that.

Yeah. This is a fun region. I'm very excited. Like, I know, listen, Purdue, maybe they have the miracle run in them, but Marquette's very good. USC's actually really,

like USC's better than I think people realize. Drew Peterson. Not the murderer. Yeah. I know. Got to just say that. He's a stoolie. Not the murderer is a stoolie.

The players. All right, all right. Confusing there for a second. Jake was creaming his dockers, thinking about a world in which, what was the sweet 16 matchup he had was. So it's in the garden. So obviously it's a hot ticket no matter what.

But you're going to tell me Purdue, Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State. Yeah. In the garden. That goes for Purdue versus Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State in the garden. Cause that region's in Madison Square Garden. Just to have.

Providence would be pretty sick at MSG. Yeah, definitely. And Titus saying Marquette, Marquette going back to the garden after cutting down the nets there last night. But he was saying, you have Zach eating national player of the year. Or Vermont.

You have Duke, who is Duke. You have Kentucky, who is Kentucky. And then you have Tom Izzo, Mr. March in the garden. It was just, he's not Mr. March anymore. Who's Mr. March? Jerry. Oh, that's Jerry.

Jerry's Mr. March. Tom Izzo was Mr. like early March, mid-March. Who would be Mr. March in college bathroom? Well, no, it is. It's Jerry Fragrance. He is, he is, he said it's January, February, January. He has a shirt.

Yes, I am Margie. No, I don't know who's Mr. March now. That's a good question. I guess Bill Self, if you, I guess it's just one of the latest title. Yeah, but he's been high seated, like who makes, I'll tell you what, we'll get to him. But if Arkansas made like a deep run,

cause I think Mr. March has to be, you have to like, you know, go farther than everyone expects. It's like three or four straight second weekend. Yeah, right. Right. And also just like, be like, oh, I didn't expect them to be here. Yeah, one or two of them have to be unexpected.

Yeah. If Arkansas can be Houston, be Mr. March. I mean, if, or they don't play Houston. I'm sorry. We should just, if Duke wins two games, we should just call John Charles. John Charles.

Yeah. Yeah, no, this, I don't know who I'm taking out. Ed Cooley might be Mr. March. Yeah. And we didn't even talk about Kansas State. Kansas State's battle tested. Kansas. That's what you got to say for your big 12 team.

Yeah. Battle tested. Yeah. What about, or, or, but are they worn down? Is the other question. Are they battle tested or are they worn down from a, that's the tough one. What about Mr. February?

Rick Barnes. Rick Barnes, Mr. February. He is in this region. I also wrote that down. I've, I've believed in Tennessee one too many times. So Tennessee fans, you'll be delighted to hear that I have completely given up on your team, which means this is probably the year they make the run.

But yeah, I, I think, I think this is produced second round matchup is tough. But in terms of like the caliber of each team, like Marquette's not the best two seed. I don't think they, they are playing really well. I have Marquette coming out of this region for what it's worth. Okay.

I, I, I don't think Duke is the best five seed per se. I don't, I mean, I'd have to think about it. I guess they're playing the best right now, but yeah. I don't know. Like they didn't jump out to me, jump off the page of me when I saw like these teens, Tennessee is a four seed, Kansas State is a three, Marquette is a two.

I think that's a good spot for Purdue, but they are Purdue and it has, there's a one next to their name. And every three fans knows what's coming. Yeah. It's not, like, this is not the hardest region. It's just, it's Purdue. Duke is the best five seed, by the way.

I take that back. They are the best five. I, I, yeah, they are. Anyway. I'm going to take, you know what? I'm going to say fucking, because I'm going to go back to what I said at the beginning that you have to have at least one seven plus

in the final four. I'm going to take Memphis in this region. Well. Yeah. And I'm going to look so stupid when they lose in the first round. I got my, I got my boiler makers. Okay.

Purdue or die. Okay. There we go. Who you got? Oh, you got Marquette. I got Marquette, yeah. I took Marquette, which is, is probably dumb, but Marquette has not played great defense

for most of the year. And I, I made the mistake of watching them in person against Xavier and the Big East tournament championship. And they were, their, their defense was incredible. And so now I'm, I'm instead of looking at the, how many games did they played 34? Instead of looking at the first 33 games, how good they were defensively.

I'm looking at the last one and saying, they figured it out. Right. And now they know how to guard. Right. Just based off of one game. Yes. Rutgers is a one seed.

Rutgers. A dangerous one. There we go. When you started by saying, I, I failed a cultural test here at Barstool. I thought you were going to say that I, I feel bad for TJ that Rutgers didn't make it. Yeah. No, that was also a fail.

Yeah. Because like, It feels like everyone else is just laughing at it. No, I was like, TJ, get in here. I want to drink your tears. The one, the one, the biggest rule at Barstool is when anyone suffers like terrible, terrible losses on their fandom, you have to just rub it in as hard as possible.

Except for Max. No, I think that's true. I think you guys treated me pretty well. Shouldn't have got that haircut. Big hat. We have a yak battle in the first round of the NIT. Rutgers, Hofstra. Oh yeah.

Who's Hofstra? Oh, Steven Shea. Oh yeah. Yeah. Wow. No one tells Steven Shea that Hofstra's in the NIT. He will not know. We can tell.

He doesn't. He doesn't know college basketball is a sport. We could, he could win it all. All right. Let's go to the Midwest region. The Midwest. The Midwest region. Houston's the one seed.

I'm just going to make a quick prediction on Houston because I know Sasser got hurt. He's going to be back. He was warming up today, wasn't he? Growing. I don't know. I have to take a look at his growing myself. I'd have to really get in there and take it.

We can arrange that. But yeah, growing injuries can suck. So I don't know. I mean, I assume he'll be back for the sweet 16 if they make it. Yeah. My main point, even if he's not back, Houston, what does it say? Probable.

Probable. He's probable for the first time again. And they do need him to go to, you know, Final Four. But this first two games for Houston. Houston is a team. They just got embarrassed by Memphis. Houston, when they get embarrassed, they take it out so hard on like the game against,

who do they play in the fuck? The quarterfinals the other day that they kind of struggled. Was it ECU? ECU. I mean, not like they were 23 point favorite. I think they won by 10. They then came out the next day and just embarrassed Cincinnati. I think Houston is going to steamroll Northern Kentucky,

duh, but then Iowa or Auburn are both going to get steamrolled. Either one. Houston, just a reminder, Houston is the team that Kellan Samson for long periods of time in their practice puts a bubble on the rim so they just rebound. You literally, he puts a lid on the rim and they just rebound.

That's all they do. To your point, I think this is a great draw for Houston in the sense of like, if they are the professional team that I think that they are, which is to say they have like upper classmen, they have a culture of like toughness and we're just going to come out and beat your ass. If they are that, Iowa or Auburn in the second round

are both great for them to just like chew them up and spit them out and keep it moving. I think, I've thought Houston was the best team for most of the season. Bama beating Houston at Houston, I don't know, gives me pause a little bit. It's basically the satchels growing. Like if I do satchelers fully healthy,

I might have picked Houston to win it all, but I got to take a look at that growing. I need to get in there and see for myself. By the way, this Iowa Auburn game, I don't want to get anyone too excited, but we have an Elvis bet. We have an Elvis bet. Iowa Elvis and Auburn Elvis are making a bet.

What does that mean? Both teams fan bases have. Have a guy dressed up like Elvis. Dressed like Elvis. So, Viva March Madness, they released an official statement. Iowa Elvis versus Auburn Elvis. If Iowa wins, Auburn Elvis will make a donation to U of I Children's Hospital,

matching the Hawkeyes point total from the game. What? Like $60? Well, if Iowa wins, oh yeah, if Iowa wins, they'll probably score like 80, but if Auburn prevails, Hawkeye Elvis will do the same for the Children's Hospital of Alabama. It's how much money?

Whatever they score in the game. That's such a weak bet. That's such a weak bet. I don't want a unit shame here, but. I just love the thing. No, you can, if it's like a $70 bet. You're gonna donate $70? You're the fucking king of rock and roll.

I love that they had this bet released within an hour of the bracket being out, because it's like, I would imagine the Elvis fan bases, like the Elvis community, they're all in touch with each other. He's like, oh shit, my friend from Iowa City. There was a group chat. I got an Elvis thing.

Yeah. They had a group chat that if two of us play, let's have a bet. Utah State Elvis is like, shit. I don't have a fucking Elvis to go up against, but yeah, watch out. The Iowa Elvis versus Auburn Elvis is gonna be crazy. I love that.

If they were any sort of Elvis whatsoever, they would just bet that the loser had to die on the toilet after the game. Or just, yeah. Just sit on the toilet until you die. Get addicted to opioids. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe not that one. Yeah. I was gonna say, I saw the picture of them. I wouldn't put it past them. Yeah, this game though, is a bad matchup for Iowa, simply because they've been horrendous on the road and this game's being played in Alabama. Oh, it is.

That's right, Birmingham. Yeah. I didn't even see that. So it's gonna be all Auburn fans. Yeah. That sticks. And also, it's horrendous for Iowa because Fray and McCaffrey's still their coach.

Yeah. Doesn't get enough credit for never being in the street 16. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't. He does not get enough credit for that. I'm giving him credit right now for never being in the street 16. What about Texas A&M?

We were saying earlier how it sucks that they got jobbed in their seating. But we instantly moved on past that once we saw the potential second round matchup against Texas. Too fun. I mean, Penn State will be a fun game. That's why it sucks that they got jobbed in their seating

because to have to play at Penn State team that's been playing really well is sort of unfair to Texas A&M. But yeah, I mean, that whole bottom region, even if you want to take a big swing on a 15, now, I think Texas, I have Texas going to the national championship and losing to Bama.

So I'm not condoning picking Colgate to beat Texas, but Colgate, I'm saying, I'm saying that whole bottom four in terms of fun, like Colgate plays a fun, aesthetically pleasing style of basketball. But it's all I'm saying. They're not going to beat Texas. That's not what I'm saying.

Colgate, last year, I did the Colgate thing because they played Wisconsin first round. That's, dude, it's literally in my manifesto. Do not believe in Colgate. Cause everyone's like, look at their, look at their shooting and they have all these guys don't make mistakes. They got to a point in the game against Wisconsin,

which is hard to do, where all of our athletes, and I use that with air quotes, looked 10 times better and they look like they're all wearing cement shoes. Texas is going to the winner. I'm not saying pick Colgate to win. I'm saying in terms of that four,

those two games, the two games, Texas A&M Penn State and then Texas Colgate will be two fun games to watch. Texas will probably be in a comfortable lead the whole game, Colgate will be fun. Their team, you'll want to root. Sounds like we have to make a legacy bet.

Texas is going to murder them. I think Texas will. I think Texas will murder them. But PFT is right. Texas, Texas A&M will be awesome. It will be awesome. It's a great game. That's a big 12, no, an SEC revenge game.

Yeah. But it's not. But it's not. But it's not, is it, does Texas A&M get revenge on Texas? Because now Texas has joined Texas A&M. I think it's a civil war. Yeah.

It's a civil war. It's a house divided. They should actually wait and play this game on Thanksgiving. Oh my God. Yes, I would love that. Pause the whole tournament. That would be, that would be, it's going to be a fun game.

The two guard oriented teams that play great defense. We also, we have some other revenge games in this bracket depending on how Luke, cause this is really all that like the media does in March Madness, like look at this revenge game. I don't know if this is a revenge game or just a homecoming game,

but Sean Miller, if he beats Mississippi State and Xavier wins, Sean Miller did play at Pitt. So that, maybe that, is that a revenge game? He could play his alma mater. He's from Pennsylvania. He played at Pitt. He plays alma mater.

I don't know if that, does that count as a, what is that? It's just a storyline game. Yeah, that's just a factoid game I think. That's it. You know what that is? That's an interesting nugget. That's a nugget.

That's a nugget game. It's a nugget game. Well, you just kind of threw out Iowa State there. No, I know. I'm saying, yeah, Pitt has to win two games. They got to win two games. They got to beat Mississippi State. Listen, we had Joey Hauser already playing

his second round game revenge game. Little nugget, I have a nugget on Iowa State that their strength and schedule, their opponent's offense has been number one in the country. Yeah, pick 12. Battle tested team. Battle tested team. Battle tested.

Battle tested. Do you think, do you think T.J. Otzelberger, I asked this on the live stream, but we moved faster pretty quickly. Is he jacked or is he just wearing tight clothing? I think he's mini jacked. Okay. Cause he's not a tall guy.

Maybe he is tall. He doesn't look that tall. He doesn't look that tall. I also am respecting Iowa State because this is a lot of, you know, the number one rule in sports and gambling, everything is like past, doesn't, what is the, what's the actual saying?

I need a line. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Right. There it is. Iowa State beat Wisconsin this year, last year in the tournament. So I respect Iowa State from that. Means nothing. Yeah.

But this is just how my brain works. I think T.J. Otzelberger, his hair is too nice to be jacked. You know what I'm saying? Unless he's got that like Oregon strength coach vibe to him. You remember the one with the mustache? Yeah, he's at Miami now. Are you saying that the only way to really be a jacked man is to have awful hair?

Terrible hair. Yeah, because you have to overcompensate it. Shaved head, goatee, because you're going bald. And then you wear polo shirts that are super, super tight. Some really bad tragedy in your childhood. Yeah. Cause it'd be like, I'm going to get so jacked no one can pick on me anymore.

Your more young adult life maybe. Yeah, right, right. Something happened where you're like, I'm spending my whole life in the gym. And then you moved thousands of miles away from home to live by the beach or something. Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. Well, you can get jacked, you got emaciated.

I was talking about this. You're the first person who did the fucking insulin medicine without doing it. Yeah, I did the opposite of it. I thought we were going a different path, nevermind. What about your beloved Hoosiers? Revenge game, Indiana Houston in the sweet 16, Kelvin Sampson versus the program that he sank

on the way out, which would be a juicy storyline to be sure. See, this is why I hate filling out brackets because before the bracket came out, I wrote down advanced Kent State no matter who they play. And then they played Indiana and I was like, what do I do? And I had to stick with it because, so I have Kent State beat in Indiana, but I hate that. I definitely hate that.

And I just want to crawl into a hole because... Kent State's really good. And since Sarah Carey is a really fun march name to say. Yeah. When you think of it in an ounce, you're saying sincere Carey from three. With a name like that, he's destined to play an NBA. Am I right?

Yeah, when we're on fucking season 543rd of the dozen, there will be a sincere Carey question. Who led the Mac in points in like 2023? How do you know if he did? They also, Kent State is a muck and up team is how I've described them. They played a game against Houston. If I remember right, the score is like 45 to 43

or something, 40, yeah. It was just disgusting basketball. And I think that Indiana played a brand. So Indiana before Mike Woodson got there with Trace Jackson Davis and some of the other guys are still there, they played a brand of basketball that was muck. And I think there's a world where Kent State

like invites them back into the muck. And they like just revert back to their old ways. And suddenly they're playing Archie Miller basketball. Oh no. Yeah. And it's just a gross basketball game that's just like, yeah, that Indiana fans are losing their minds like how did we get here?

I don't know. That's one timeline I see. I got a deep revenge game on this one. Chris Payton who plays for Kent State who might be guarding TJD for a little bit in this game or most of it. He played it pit. He's from Bloomington.

Oh, interesting. Revenge game against the entire town. I like that. What about Texas coach Terry? Yeah, Rodney Terry. I've read a lot of stuff about him recently because they're going to have to determine at some point if he's going to come back or.

He's from Bloomington, Illinois. So it's not actually. Oh, it's not. They're different Bloomington. Okay. But with Terry, how many games does he have to win for him to be presumptive guy coming into next year? I think there's an argument to be made.

He should be the guy already. I don't think Texas is going to see it that way. I think he's going to have to go to the final four for them to actually hire him. And I think he could. But the Texas is in a position. Like Chris Beard was such the perfect hire for them. Like when they hired them there,

like we got our guy for the next 30 years. He's going to be here for 30 years and then he was not. And so I think like they're in a position where they want to take a big swing. Big swing. Hope they don't choke. Yeah. Yeah.

I walked right into that. If they choke, they'll take a big swing. We want to take a big swing on their next coaching hire. If you're looking for the inverse of the Alabama storyline, Texas would be it where they got rid of the bad guy. Yes. And then they go on a miracle run.

Yes. And they're a program that I was talking to Steve on my, it's Stanford Steve on my show about like how I was trying to make an argument that Ohio State basketball is actually fun to cheer for if you can just remove the football part of it. But nobody can. I think Texas basketball is kind of the same thing.

They're like, there's no real reason I hate Texas basketball. They never win anything. They always choke. They had Kevin Durant and they didn't do anything. They never do anything. So there is like some small part that's like, you hate the fan base because they're so loud and they think that they're the best

and they never win anything. But if you just like cut out all of that and just focus on like the group inside the Texas basketball locker room, they're never, they've never elevated themselves to hateable in my eyes because they never like actually win anything. You know what it is?

It's very similar to when LeBron was in Cleveland separating the Cavs and LeBron from Brown's fans. Cause I was like, I root for the Brown's fans. Not like thinking in my head, oh yeah, these are also LeBron fans. These are the same people. Texas football and basketball. You got to separate them.

Also, I mean like TJ Ford, who didn't love him. Yes, but that's what happens is as Texas basketball starts winning, you realize the same people that are happy about this are those assholes that I deal with in the fall, you know, XYZ. And yeah, so then you're like, nevermind. I hate these guys.

Yeah, similar to the John Shire like Duke, like I'm rooting for John Shire. And then I'm like, wait, Duke fans are gonna be happy. Yeah. What did I do to myself? I do need to see McConaughey back on the bench. Yeah. That'll be awesome.

Come on. Like many people, many national pundits are expecting Texas to make the final four this year. Yeah, I have them. I have them in the championship. Yeah, I do. In the championship, now's the time when you need to come out of hiding McConaughey.

I think so. Shout out in this region, Jim Lernernig in Miami. I just love him. He's awesome. I don't love that he goes by Coach L. I think that's a bad message for shadowing. You have the in yay. You should ride with that.

You should be Coach In Yay. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Such a cooler letter. Tilda. Tilda, is it called a tilde? In Yay. What's a tilde?

I think it's a tilde. In Yay is the squiggle. Yeah, it's a tilde in English. It's an In Yay in Spanish. All right. We also have a wild storyline for Drake. Their head coach is Darren DeVries. His son, Tucker DeVries, is the conference player of the year.

Wow. It is wild. So how did you recruit him? I don't know. You have any free meals in high school, middle school? Maybe. Problem of violation. I'm going to write in.

An I.L. Yeah, let's get a free time. Free clothes and a bedroom and a place to stay. We'd be the first time Drake groomed somebody. Oh, that was too easy. We forgot to mention the Bruce Pearl storyline that he was in Iowa when he was a rat. When he ratted on Illinois.

Oh, he wore the wire. Yeah, he wore the wire. He was coaching in Iowa. He forgot about that. Yeah, so. Iowa Elvis and Auburn Elvis. Do without what you may. Who do you got coming out?

I have Texas, as I said, because Texas is depth. Texas plays defense. Texas is battle test in the Big 12. Texas has a bevy of, that's not the mascot, it's a Bevo. No, Bevo. Yeah, you're plus a Bevo. I just turned myself up. A bevy of guards, they check a lot of the boxes

and they're playing really well right now. So I have Houston in Texas. I think it's gonna go chalk in that regard in the elite eight. And then it's kind of a coin flip. And I went with Texas because I don't know what Marcus Sasser's growing looks like. Okay. That's fair.

I gotta see it. I still haven't seen it. I still haven't seen it. Mark, you should tweet at it. Yeah. Let me see your growing. I'm gonna pick. I need to see what the bruising looks like right now.

I'm gonna join you with Texas. Yeah. Until you see that growing. Until I see the growing. If Marcus Sasser is 100% healthy, I would like Houston. Yes. Yes. I'm also kind of weirdly rooting for Indiana

to make a deep run. And I do love watching TJD play basketball. He is fun. No, I think Indiana could. I think Indiana, Jalen Hood, Shafino would be a lottery pick probably. And they don't, I don't think they play good enough defense. And they're certainly not consistent enough,

but Indiana on their best night can beat anybody. I mean, they smoke Peru and McArena. Yeah. Swap them first time in like 10 years. I kind of like A&M to beat Texas. Ooh. Coach Buzz ride with our guy a little bit. Yeah.

So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go chalk out of this region. I'm gonna go Houston. Houston, Houston. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So. Last region.

This is the death region of death, the West. So when we were doing our bracket reveal show, I said this looks like the region of death. I went back and looked in this region. You have five teams that are in the top 11 in Ken Palm, which is pretty crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy.

And not only that, but the number one seed is the fourth ranked team of those five in Ken Palm. So UCLA is number two in Ken Palm. They're the two seed. UConn is number four in Ken Palm. They are the four seed. Gonzaga is number eight in Ken Palm. They are the three seed.

And then Kansas is number nine in Ken Palm. They're the one seed. The same areas is up there. Same areas is 11. And Arkansas is 20. So you have six in the top 20. This is this entire region. And then we didn't even mention TCU,

which like when I was looking at the bracket reveal, I was like every team, there's six teams in this region that their ceiling is final four national championship. Yeah. TCU came into this season saying we are, we expect to make the final four. Cause they, they last year, if you remember,

took Arizona, who was the number one overall seed in last year's tournament. The overtime, there was a controversial call that wasn't actually controversial at all, but everyone lost their minds on an over and back call. But that was when like we got to introduce, that's when like America was introduced to TCU. And then they brought all those guys back.

No Eddie Lampkin though. You love Eddie Lampkin. I love Eddie Lampkin. You've always loved Eddie Lampkin. I love Eddie. He was in the office a few months ago. He was. You could probably get him in the office now.

Cause he left the team. He's got nothing going on right now. Why'd he leave? I don't know. Well, so a little bit of injury. Then also his mom came out and said that there was maybe some racial things said by Jamie Dixon. So we don't know.

Okay. But he left the team. Somewhere in between. I can tell from the, well, I just asked a question. I don't want to know the answer. Yeah, we don't know. Somewhere in between like a mild injury

and racial slurs being done. Yes. Somewhere in there. Got it. Find the blanks. Yeah. So he, yeah, he's not there, but there is, this is an incredible region.

Like I'm very excited about all these games. I will co-sign that and say, look no further than just the Arkansas, Illinois game, having two teams that have just loads and loads of talent and on paper jump out at you at how good they could be theoretically if they could just put it all together. Neither team has really done that fully yet, but you can talk yourself into it.

And that's the eight, nine game. So like, honestly, this is, it's a cop out. I understand. And people are, people get angry when I do this, when I do like the anything could happen type shit, but Illinois is good enough to make the final four. They're not going to, they're not. They're going to find a way to screw it up.

But if you've been watching Illinois all year and you only focus on like their positive flashes of basketball, you're like, that team is good enough to make a final four. Same with Arkansas. They're loaded with talent. I think it's going to be a rock fight by the way. It's going to be, it's going to be like very, that might be my under of the month.

I just, you just, you have no idea which one of those teams is going to show up. And if they, whoever wins, you don't know who's going to show up against Kansas. But that's what makes that region crazy is like, if you're Kansas, you could, you could get the shitty version of Illinois, run them off the floor,

and it's a whole hung second round game. Or you could get, you know, like an Arkansas team that's got multiple lottery picks and a ton of athleticism. And you're like, well, I thought we were a one seed. How the hell did we get this draw? So, you know who I want to show up to this game? Burt Belima.

Yeah. Yeah. I would love, I would like him to do like a topless red panda at halftime. There should be an Arkansas Burt Belima versus Illinois Burt Belima bet that we have on this game. It is a revenge game for him. Loser has to eat 70 pounds of red meat after the game.

We need it. We need it. And we have, speaking of revenge games, if Illinois gets to the second round and Bill Self, that is obviously Bill Self, the coach of Illinois, his guys went, you know, that was a famous team that went to the national championship

game. So I don't know if that's even revenge because that felt, who's, we just say revenge game. If someone has any ties to the other team. Who's mad at who? I think Illinois probably would be a little mad, but then also wouldn't take Kansas job over Illinois. Yeah.

They'd be like, thank you for taking us to a national championship. Right. Right. Well Bruce Weber did, but yeah, he's his guys. His guys. His guys that he recruited. Cliff Alexander revenge game, by the way.

There we go. Remember that. Cliff Alexander, yes. We know that video. Yes. Oh my God. I also have maybe if CBS, TBS, whoever this game's on knows what they're doing

as broadcasters. I own a Yukon. We need it to just, just don't even show the game. Just show Dan Hurley and Rick Petino, just in their coaches boxes, like just going. They should have an alternate feed. Yes. Coaches only.

Yep. Oh, yes. Absolutely. I did a personal alternate feed at the big East tournament for Hurley versus Shaka the other night. I just watched them. Shaka was on the floor. Shaka was on the floor.

And did you see he blew me off those games? No, what do you do? I said, good game coach. He's walks right past me. Shaka was. Expect a big chip on my shoulder mark, kept versus Vermont. Yep.

Shaka literally was on the court. It was driving me insane. But either way, I was joking. If Rick's in the box, he'll only be in there for a few seconds. Yes. Yes. 15.

Yeah. If there was a stream of Rick Petino and Dan Hurley and they were miked up and they were, we got like a genuine miked up experience. And like, not that they knew they were miked up. Yeah. You just get to hear whatever they would have said otherwise. And you can either watch that stream

or watch the actual game. I would watch that stream. Yes. I would watch that stream and check the score later. Absolutely. And just judge by their facial expressions. Yeah. I was saying that the ref,

if they know what they're doing, they should just give a T to both of them before they even tip it off. Preemptive. And being like, I know what you guys are gonna say. Yeah. So here's your technical. If Rick Petino wins this game,

I think that we're definitely gonna get Rick at a big school next year. Well, that's the best part about this is, this could be something we get twice a year because Rick Petino going to St. John's, Rick Petino going to Georgetown. I haven't heard Ed Cooley going to Georgetown, Rick Petino going to Providence.

There's all types of Rick Petino fanfic going on there. I like that. Yeah. He's going home, yeah. I actually think Leroy broke the Ed Cooley to Georgetown. He might've been a little bit over his skis on that one. Got it. Might've been some bad rumors going on.

Ed Cooley loves Providence. He does love Providence, but he also likes money is the thing. Yeah. Everyone likes money. I do. I like that fan fiction though. Yeah.

Ed Cooley to Georgetown. Rick Petino, go to Providence. He's going home. Run it back. Where he started, yeah. Yeah. No, that's interesting. I would love to see Rick advance to the second round here.

Rick Petino against St. Mary's second round. Oh, I think VCU. What if, what if it goes on a run here? I think VCU is going to be a tough, tough game for St. Mary. I mentioned this on the show or Titus' show. VCU revenge game against COVID. They forfeited the last time they were in the tournament.

Oh yeah. I can't trust VCU. I can't trust VCU until I see a mask up. I need a picture of the guys taking COVID serious at this time around. Yeah. Because they, last time, too many positive tests. That's the reason.

Which coach was it in 2021 that he had a massive herpes outbreak? Oh, I thought you were going to say Josh Pasterner. Josh Pasterner with the mask. No, no, no. He just got fired. There was one coach that had a massive herpes outbreak and they all had to wear masks.

But for whatever reason, this one coach, kept pulling his down. It's like, dude, you have the best built-in excuse. It's a once in a generation pandemic. No one has to know. I don't remember. I don't remember that. I don't remember.

I know what you're talking about. Yeah. I don't. I do know what you're talking about, but I don't remember. Who's the coach with herpes? Oh, it's Fred Hoiberg. Oh, it's Fred. No, no, no.

I really thought he had COVID, right? Fred was one who was very, very sick. Oh, okay. That's what I was thinking. He had, like, the flu. Remember, he was, like, sweating on the sideline. Everyone's watching that, like, throw this man in prison? Yeah.

Like, how dare him. And then he didn't have COVID. That's just the flu. That's what you were going to say. Yeah, this region, in Gonzaga, what are you even talking about? Gonzaga. At Grand Canyon Games, going to be policy. Gonzaga, as a three-seed, with zero pressure whatsoever,

is very, very dangerous. And I, for whatever reason, America hates Gonzaga and everybody hates Gonzaga. For whatever reason, America hates Gonzaga and everybody loves to roll their eyes at the idea of Gonzaga. The Gonzaga's one, we're going to Seven Straight Sweet 16. He's Mr. March. He's Mr. March.

Mark Few might be Mr. March. He's never in no Final Four. Yeah. So Gonzaga is a three-seed where there's no target on their back whatsoever. And nobody's expecting, I mean, I've kind of at times probably, I've probably said this multiple times that I hate this Gonzaga team.

I don't hate them anymore. They're starting to play a little bit better lately. Their offense is really humming. But yeah, all season long, it's been clear that this is not one of Mark Few's best teams. And that kind of makes them dangerous, that they can just let it rip and have Drew Timmy just, you know, be all American that he is.

I feel like we are destined to see Drew Timmy, at least in a Sweet 16 game this year. Yes. Yes. Also, just a reminder, don't root for Northwestern because a bunch of like journalists are going to come out of nowhere to be so fucking annoying. I called my shot on a graphic that CVS is going to do.

Northwestern kid crying then and now. They're going to show him live in the stands, the meme, the AD Sun. They're going to show him six years later. Yeah, he's like 25 years old now. Yeah. I hope he's crying again. He probably will be.

He's Northwestern. Yeah. Although, it would be nice to see Greeny advance. No, but Revelle? Yeah. That's the problem. Yeah, that's true. You can't have Revelle.

He can't have anything nice. He took the polo off of Collins' body when they won at Rutgers. He literally was like, on his Instagram, he was like, got the game-worn polo from Coach Collins. Fucking crazy. We can't have it. We can't have it.

We'll get Will Bond on PTI wearing a little purple quarter zip. A quarter zip with like 10 to purple? Yeah, something like a small piece of flair. It'll be a polo shirt that he has underneath his quarter zip. Yeah. It'll be a Northwestern. You can't even see the logo on it.

Can't have it. Can't have it. Tony, my wild card. Northwestern just, oh, they play an ugly style of basketball. Yeah. Yeah. Counterpoint, Boo-Boo-E, fun to say. Boo-Boo-E is fun to say.

That's fun to say. Yeah. Don't, you can't, you can't have that. And then UCLA, if Jaylen Clark was healthy, he's not. Yeah, that's on Max. Yeah, thank you Max for that. Max towards Achilles. Is it officially torn?

Yeah. Yeah, it's torn. It was torn the second we saw the video. That's not true. Yes, it was. We didn't see the MRI. No, actually, that's technically true, Max, because he tore his Achilles, and I

said the second we saw the video, he tore his Achilles. But we didn't know. But we did, because his Achilles was torn. It was torn. We just found out. You're wrong. His Achilles was torn. His Achilles was torn.

You're jumping to conclusions. No, I was not. It's called being right if you were right about it. Yeah, and his Achilles was torn. The minute it was torn, I said it was torn. And now torn. No, it just, it got torn at the hospital. It should be torn in the MRM.

Yeah, it wasn't torn. Look at this. You should do screenshots, Max. Like, look at this. It's clearly intact when he was being wheelchaired off the court. I'll do some research. Yeah, please do.

I'll conduct my own research. If he was healthy, I think I said on the show with Jake, if he was healthy, I would have wrote UCLA's National Champion and filled my bracket out backwards. It was a good pick. UCLA was a good pick. It was. Until you tore Joe and Carter's Achilles.

So I don't know how good they are now. I mean, they played Arizona while they had a shot to beat him in the tournament. They have Mr. March. They do. Mr. March. Did you see his dad was fighting people? Yeah, I love that.

Good. See, this is his name again? Hep. Hep C. Hep C. Hep C's back, guys. Watch out. Wrap it up.

But Mick Cronin is, I feel like this is when he really shines, is when everybody completely doubts him. And he's going to be coaching pissed off. But they've got guys that've been there forever. Tiger Campbell and Hawkeyes have been there forever. This is why this is the group at that. I could see Kansas winning the national championship. I could see UCLA winning the national championship.

I could see, Gonzaga's tough to go all the way. But I could. I can't see them in the final four. Yukon is up there. Arkansas and Illinois, like I said, and some weird twisted timeline. I could see them. TCU, same thing.

The ones that I did, the top eight seeds of the top eight seeds of the teams that I think there's no way they're winning national championships. Northwestern, St. Mary's. Jake, I need you to put a reminder in here for me. Because this is something I make a mistake every single year. If Arkansas or Illinois wins that game by 10 or more, take Kansas by a billion.

Because that is exactly what will happen. Like Illinois would beat Arkansas. It'd be like, holy shit, Illinois kick the shit out of Arkansas. So reminder would be for Saturday morning. Yeah, Kansas better watch out than Kansas like, no, no, no. That's not how this works. Does the game, if Illinois wins, the game will be in Des Moines, Iowa. Now, Kansas is close to there as well, obviously.

But Illinois. Very close. Very close to Des Moines. Does that matter? How much does that matter when you look at it? I think Kansas travels better. It's like Kentucky, Kansas, like those teams, they are going to have fans there no matter what.

You know what I mean? But instead of Kansas overwhelmingly having the advantage, like say if it was Florida Atlantic that they were playing as their nine seed. It's going to be Illinois. True. I don't know. Either way, what do you think?

If either of those teams wins decisively in that eight, nine matchup, it's hammer time on Kansas. Yeah. Because I tricked myself. It's the same as in football. Whoever wins a wild card, you're like, man, they just want to play off game. This other team hasn't want to play off game yet.

Like the Giants want to play off game. They're going to be able to go into Philadelphia. No, that's not how it works. All right. I have a row back question, RHOBACK.com. You're wearing it right now, Mark. I'm wearing the row back joggers. They have QZips, hoodies, joggers, polos, everything.

RHOBACK.com. The most comfortable clothes in the world. Use code TAKE for 20% off your first purchase. Who do you have coming out of this region? Group of Death. I have Kansas, it looks like. And I have Kansas because what was the static pole, Jake? When Bill Self has a one seed, he's

gone to seven out of nine elite eights. So I think Kansas is eschewing to the lead eight. And then at that point, they're going to either play a Gonzaga team that's very flawed, or a UCLA team that just lost their best defender. And I thought they're probably going to win that game. So I have Kansas going back to the final four. That's my pick.

Which people hate because anytime you pick the one seed, it makes people very angry. I hate that. I'm angry. I hate it. I'm angry at you right now. So wait, what's your final four right now? I have, if you want storylines, here's your storyline.

I have, in Jim Bayheim's last season in college basketball, I have a 2003 replay with Texas, Kansas, and Marquette all making the final four. But the fourth team, because Syracuse isn't in it this year, I have Alabama in Syracuse's place. And then Alabama goes on to win the national. They're the new Syracuse. They're the new Syracuse.

With a freshman leading the way. Let me ask you this. In a year that ends in three, has a freshman ever carried a team to a national championship and won their coach his first and only title with Texas, Kansas, and Marquette also in the final four? Has that ever happened? Somebody Google that.

I don't think so. Yes. I'm looking right now. What does it say? Yes, it happened. Actually, it's actually the last year that ended in three. The last time a year ended in three, Syracuse swore it all. That's right.

It didn't happen. Yes, that year did not count. It never happened. Yep. So 20 years later. No, yeah. So the last time the year ended in three that we had. For the record, when I was filling out my bracket,

that was not my train of thought. This is just retroactively making. It sounds like you just kind of improv your bracket. You just go through it without writing a structure. But you just lead wherever your heart takes. Yeah, my big red flag is that I have a lot of conference tournament winners. Oh, that's always very stupid.

The same thing that we just said. I know, but I painted myself in a corner. I didn't realize it till I was on my lead eight. And I was like, fuck it. You've got to be tired, too, if you win your conference tournament at this point, right? Yeah, but then Yukon. Remember Yukon?

You can get hot. Kansas won theirs last year. Yeah, yeah. I would be tired. I would be so tired. I'm tired and I just watch the games. Like, fuck this. I have to go play basketball again.

Yeah, I'm going to take Yukon in this region. That's a fun pick. Yukon's a fun pick. I have a few, yeah. You guys are going to lose first round. Yukon, so my foul four is what? Yukon, Texas, what was my, I've already forgotten. No, in Memphis, in Arizona, yeah.

OK. I'm going to go UCLA. Fuck it, because fuck it, because that's why. Keep running. Because fuck it. It's Mick. It's Mick. Hep C in the crowd.

Hep C, fuck it. Team of Destiny. Let's get the boys back to the game. I actually do think there's something to Mick where the worse his teams get, the better his coaching gets. Yeah, I agree. I'm very, god damn it, just nothing better than an tournament. It's the best.

Any other last thoughts? You're going to be able to stream with us? Yeah, I'll be streaming. This will be, that'll be fun, being in a room full of. Can we get one lock a day? One Mark Titus lock a day? People are very angry that I'm not providing the locks of the day.

I wanted my, I told you this, that I wanted my locks of the day to just be like, find the biggest spread. Yeah. I'll do that. I'll do a money line. I'll do one over 16 money line. Just roll it over. That'd be so awesome if you lost.

512, give us a 512 upset. 512. So it would have been Oral Roberts over Duke, but I think Duke's the best five, and Oral Roberts is the best 12. So I will say Charleston over San Diego State. I think San Diego State's the better team, but Charleston all year, they're not that great,

but they just keep finding ways to win, and the game will be close, and they'll eke out a W. And that feels like a good one. But I honestly like all the 12 fives, as everybody does every year. But the little nugget, I guess, as I was talking to Jake about, is that this year, it felt like there were a ton of the small school conference tournaments.

The one seeds and the two seeds won a lot of them to where your 12 through 16 seeds are very, very strong. There's not a lot of teams that got hot just to win three games in their conference tournament, and now they're a 14 seed that might be a little fraudulent. These are teams that were dominating their conferences all year, across the board. So yeah, there probably will be a lot of upsets,

because it's a lot of 25 plus win teams that are double digit seeds, which doesn't happen all the time. What 15 seed is the most likely to give a two seed a scare? I would say. Who is the scare out there? Princeton, Colgate, or Asheville would probably be the three. It's just three out of four.

But I don't know if there's... Can we narrow it down a little bit to maybe two out of four? Just three out of four. I don't like the... So wait, what's the one that is not going to give a scare? Vermont, that's the point. Oh, Vermont? Oh, I didn't see it.

Sorry to... They're gonna win, I don't know. Jake Creep is... That's not a scare, yeah. What do you say creamed his dockers? He creamed his dockers when they announced that in Columbus, and he asked for permission to go. It's like, yes.

Though, Jake's very persuasive, so he's slowly talking me into the idea. But Vermont and Colgate were two teams I wrote down. Don't trust them. Like, how often, can we, just one time, I want Vermont to pop up on a bracket and nobody mentioned TJ Sorrentine's team. But unfortunately, we have no other moments to go off of.

And at what point do we all say, wait a second, we talk about this every year and nothing happens. Yeah, but it is. Which is why it's gonna happen now, when no one suspects it, in Zaga. You're taking them because no one expects them to go deep. If Vermont does beat Marquette, Jake deserves to just host part of my take one day.

No, no, no. He should host your podcast for a day. No, no. I probably would let you do that. Yeah. He doesn't even want that. Jake, if Vermont beats Marquette, you get to do the Ray Allen tweet.

Perfect. That's perfect. Let's go Golden Eagles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. That's perfect. Wait, you would rather have Marquette win. Jesus Christ. I'm kidding.

Like an all-time upset. And have to tweet the Ray Allen tweet. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'm so sorry. We should actually pick one where, if you call the upset correctly, you get to do the Ray Allen tweet. Like how Max got to do that.

Has to be a 13 or higher. 13 or higher. All right, Titus, you in? Yeah, what are you gonna do the Ray Allen tweet? Oh, well, I'm clearly gonna go Iona. Yeah. If Iona wins, you can do the Ray Allen tweet. I'm gonna do the Ray Allen tweet.

I don't think I wanna do the Ray Allen tweet. Okay, that's fine. You don't have to. I need some help. Unfortunately, yeah. You still have some integrity. Well, you could just pick a 16 seed. That's true.

I'll pick a... No, it might happen. It might happen, Titus. Look at how he's saying it. No. I'll pick Fairleigh Dickinson. Okay. Because it has...

Oh yeah, say your line. Say your line. Oh, that's... That Dickinson did make... At least one Dickinson made the NCAA tournament. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I think if Hunter Dickinson showed up

with the ski mask on for the NIT... No. Michigan has Toledo in the NIT, by the way. Our guys, Barstil, Barstil Invitational. I'll go Furman. I'll go Furman with my Real and Tweet pick. I feel good about that. The Furman wins.

PFC and I want to do it. Yeah, oh yeah. It would pop number size. I would love it. I would love nothing more than to do Real and Tweet. But it's good that we're doing this type of stuff where we can't... Because it would lose its luster if we just did it.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to watch the tournament, you boys, though. It'll be fun to be on the couch with you guys. It's a grind. You say that now? By the end of day number two, you're going to be just tapping out.

I'm curious. I've done three, maybe four West Coast NCAA tournaments. It's a tip off at 9 a.m. You wake up, make a little coffee, and then the games are starting. So I'm curious to get back on the East Coast. Yeah, it all blends together. Because you really don't have a morning,

and then you just... Recording podcast at 2 a.m. Hey. Thank you for your service. God gives us some of his battles to the strongest soldiers. That's us. We'll see where that goes. We'll get a little loopy.

All right, you want to stick around for the lottery ball? Yeah, yeah. All right, cool. One last thing we got to get to. I've talked about this all episode. PFT. Yeah, pick it. I think I've sold it,

but I want you to say right now that you're going to be a Puparoni dog owner and get your future dog Puparoni treats all the time. Like Whitey, who's in studio right now. Give him a Puparoni treat. I want to see if Whitey likes it before I make my final decision. Make sure you're on the YouTube to see Whitey

in all his glory getting some Puparoni treats. I mean, Whitey's going nuts. Whitey's in here right now, and Billy's dog's also here. Clip this and send it to me, Max, because this is the best ad ever. I'll tell you what, Whitey is locked in on those treats right now.

I'm going to say it. I'm a Puparoni guy. Yes, let's go. Everyone clap it up for PFTs. A future PFT puppy is going to be loaded with Puparoni. And Puparoni is our wonderful sponsor. Puparoni has a taste and aroma that dogs find irresistible.

Look at Whitey right now. He's barf tested right now. Give me more. He's going woof yeah, with his Puparoni beef flavor snacks. So be your best friend's best friend with Puparoni treats. Go to Puparoni.com to find a bag near here.

You also send us a pic of you and your dog filling out your bracket for a chance to win some PMT merch through this app. Pardon my taking at Puparoni. I'll tweet out a picture. Me and Stella filling out our bracket. Go check it out now. Billy, let's go an extra mile for Puparoni.

I want Whitey's bracket. So I want him to pick every single game. Already done. Oh, okay. You've done it already? You actually did? We sat here and did it. You did the whole bracket.

Look at that. Good job. That's beautiful. Billy, that's why he's farting. Why does his collars say six, four, six, three, two, oh. Oh, that's your number. Go to Puparoni.com to find a bag near you. Some psycho is going to spend the next four days trying

to figure out Hack Billy's number. Send us a pic of your dog filling out your bracket for a chance to win some PMT merch. Tweet us at pardon my taking at Puparoni. Thank you to Puparoni. Go get some Puparoni for your dogs. Come on, they love it. Why he's going absolutely bonkers right now for his Puparoni.

OK. It's time. Ty, this is your first ever chance. Hank, have you ever gotten this? Nope. You sure? Yep. Positive.

You've never gotten the lottery ball? No. This is Ty's first time, so he doesn't know. How many? You guys have done a lot of shows, haven't you? Yeah. Hank, you want to do a pee bag? This is our 500 show, actually.

And you've never gotten it one time. No. You want to do a pee bag? I don't have any pee. The water's off. I don't have any right now. OK. We won't do it.

Should we let Titus pick first? Just so he's our guest? I'll go 83. 83. OK. Numbers. 69. That was PFT.

88. PFT beat you. I literally beat you. 17. Murph. What's your number, Billy? 96. OK.

18. What was you? I was 83. Hank, 88. 20. 96. 69. 17.

I percentage a lot of people guessing right now. Eight. Eight. Are you going to guess eight? I guess 88. Oh, no, Hank. You were so close. You're only 80 numbers off.

Were you thinking about guessing eight? No. Yeah, I mean, you don't guess 88 without thinking about eight. Is that fact-infection? It's a lot of eights. You wanted more eights. Fact-infection.

You got greedy, Hank. You got greedy. You do half the amount of eights and you would have won. Everything would have been different. PFT, you won on eight twice. Yeah, I ate to my jam. And Hank's never won. I would have taken eight, but I took 69 for Billy.

Ever. All right, that's the show. Love you guys. Birds are closer to dinosaurs than lizards. Wait, are dinosaurs real? Are they methodically? I'm talking away. Though I don't know what I'm to say, I'll say it anyway.

Today is another day to find you shining. I'm coming for your love, OK? Needless to say, I'm singing about you. Stumbling away, struggling to find you's OK. Say after me, I still better to be safe than starving. Say after me, I still better to be safe than starving. Drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink on me, drink you're all the things I've got to remember if you're shy and I'm not gonna be with you any longer if you're shy and I'm not gonna be with you any longer

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