PTI - Olympic Hockey Heat, NBA Anti‑Tanking Shake‑Up, and Jay Bilas’ NCAA Breakdown

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser break down the latest in Olympic hockey, examine Adam Silver’s proposal to curb NBA tanking, and welcome Jay Bilas for an in‑depth look at this weekend’s top NCAA matchups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilburne. Tony, two men set a Guinness World Record by playing pickleball for 28 straight hours. I'm Tony Kornheiser.

We could have gone longer if you'd want a catheter like I did. We could have. Yeah. The next time I play pickleball will be the first. Have you actually been out there? Have you done that at Columbia? No, it is the loudest sport in the world. And people scream and the ball makes the car noise.

And it's a joint ACL waiting to happen. Usually when they tear their Achilles, it gets a lot louder. Yeah. Absolutely. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, Adam Silver goes after tanking. The Pistons own the Knicks. And Jay Billis joins us to talk about a huge weekend in college hoops.

But we begin again today with the Winter Olympics. In men's hockey, the USA put up a big crooked number on Slovakia and is headed towards a gold medal showdown with Canada. who came back from two goals down to beat Finland earlier today. Wilbon, I presume this is where you want to start with today's results. Yeah, yes, we're at that portion of the program. We got big hockey games. We got the best teams, and now we're really down to the two best teams,

the United States of Canada. You've got the greatest players in the world. I mean, you've got, you know, McKinn, you know, scoring the goal that lives Canada, you know, with the assist from McDavid. You've got the best players in an exciting format. And I know now you've caught on a little bit. You like the overtime. You love the three-on-three, the wide-open nature of it.

Tony, there's nothing to dislike. And the United States comes out. And, okay, we got the favorable draw in the semis, it seems, and just bludgeon, you know, Slovakia. And that turned out to be nothing. But now this is what we want, right? Don't we want U.S. Canada? Yes. Yeah, no.

Yes. I watched the Canadian game. That last power play, that was incredibly exciting. It looked like Canada had 80 shots on goal and somehow couldn't get it in until McKinnon got that. So they score with just two seconds left in the power play and just 35 seconds left in the entire game. I mean, they have Canada has cut it close. a couple of times now. And Canada, if Canada invented high, it's their sport.

It's their national sport. If they hadn't gotten in to the Winter Olympics gold medal game, I think there's a sense of mourning in all of Canada, but they made it. And it was truly exciting, I thought. I really did. Can I just mention one other thing, Mike. I watch the Olympics, as you know, every day. I watch in the morning and I watch in the early afternoon.

And curling is on every single day. Yeah, there's a lot now. When does curling end? When does it end? Are they going to play the gold medal game in August? Where do they get these brooms? They are out there hours every day, curling. Every day.

Tony, of course, you and I have covered multiple Winter Olympics each. And the curling, we would go to the curling. You or I would go to the curling. It's fun. And our colleagues, remember, they would get angry. They're like, what are you doing? You're wasting our time. It's fun.

You're going to the curling. You couldn't. find it on television, and now like you, I turn on Peacock, and the splash on my screen is curling. Enough. It is possible that they are showing reruns of curling from another Olympiad because it's on all the time. It is on all the time.

I enjoyed it when I was there, but let's not get crazy. Let's move instead to Adam Silver's attempt to quash tanking. The NBA commissioner told the league's general managers yesterday, he plans to implement new anti-tanking rules for next season. Among the possibilities, fewer protections when trading draft picks, freezing the lottery odds at the trade deadline, or even flattening the odds for all lottery teams, tone, which of any of these proposals resonate with you? I'm gratified that the NBA is going to try and get rid of tanking. I believe that tanking is a much more serious problem than you do, much more serious problem than load management, which occurs occasionally, 10 or 12 times a year.

Tanking occurs every night, all 82 games when a team is trying to lose like that. I think it cuts to the heart of the integrity of each of those games, cuts to the heart of the integrity of the league. I think it creates a fraud when you buy a ticket, and I think it destroys that thing which makes sports great, which is honest competition. The Washington Wizards have tried to lose for three straight. years. Utah, Sacramento, who else is trying to tank? A lot of teams, Brooklyn is trying to tank. Dallas is trying to tank. Milwaukee now is trying to tank. Your team, Chicago, traded its entire team, and they are trying to tank. Memphis traded Jaron Jackson Jr. And John Moran doesn't play. And they're trying to tank. Indiana can't win. New Orleans, if they had a draft

pick, would be tanking. They just stink. So I'm glad that this is in the center of the discussion. There's two things that I like, Mike, because you have to get out the reward. One would be you cannot have a top four pick in consecutive years. I would vote for that. Another would be I'd flatten the odds out completely on the lottery. I wouldn't give an advantage of somebody who lost the most games. I'd make sure all lottery teams were in there. I think you have to de-incentivize tanking and go to the reward area.

It was flat to start with, Tony. Then they unflattened. So you unflattened. So you unflash, so you go back, so you just hip hop back and forth so you can get a nice appearance. This is about appearances and it stinks. I don't like tanking either. But don't, if you're thinking that load management happens 10 to 12 times a year, you're not watching the same sport I'm watching. It happens every damn night somewhere.

Every night, 10 to 12 times a year. What? If you freeze, if you freeze the positioning at the lot. It just means you can tank all your games early. These things are for show. They're stupid, and they will not work. And if you want to get rid of tanking, you better get rid of a draft.

Because if you have a draft, any sport, and you say Wimbabonyama is at the top of the damn draft, then I'm going to tank to get them. And anything other than that is a phony lie. It's a lie. And I don't care who the commissioner talks to. This is what I'm saying. I would prevent you from tanking.

I would work a system that prevents you from tanking, because it calls into question the integrity of the entire league. Let's stay with the NBA, and let's talk about two young and up-and-coming teams who had big wins last night. The Pistons once again beat the Knicks, their third victory over the Knicks so far this season, closing out that series 3-0.

Last night, Detroit won at Madison Square Garden by 15 points, and they were without All-Star Center Jalen Duren and his backup, Isaiah Stewart. And the Spurs beat Phoenix by 27 points, as Devin Booker only played nine minutes for the Suns, and Dylan Brooks, you boy, was serving a suspension. Wilbon, who had the more impressive win? The Pistons or the Spurs?

Yes, Spurs, nice job out of you, go have some cold cuts. The New York Knicks, we signed off this show yesterday. That was screaming louder than I just was in the tanking segment. The Knicks had better win, and they better win convincingly. Instead, they get their doors blown off in Madison Square Garden by a team missing his second best player and his backup. What? They're missing all their muscle.

And Kay Cunningham goes in there and basically points his finger in the chest or face of every New York Nick. Tony, the Knicks can't beat them. I know the Knicks had a similar situation with Boston last year and they were still able to come back and flip it in the playoffs. I don't see that. The Detroit Pistons. are for real. I don't want to let you off the hook quite this easily. I want to go back to yesterday's segment in anticipation of this game when you said,

and I'm directly quoting you here, the Knicks had better win this game. They had better win this game. And then you thought they should win by 20 points. And I believe I asked you, well, what happens if they don't win? Well, I woke up this morning, and the world was still spinning, and the Knicks had lost. So nothing terrible happened. The Knicks have now lost by 84 points in three games to Detroit, by 31, by 38, and last night at home by 15.

The Knicks look like a D3 team against Detroit. There's no reason to ever believe that Detroit won't beat them, except that last year, Detroit beat them three out of four in the series, and then lost them in the playoffs, rendering useless what happened last night. Let's take a break. Still to come. Michigan and Duke face each other tomorrow. We will ask Jay Billis what he will be looking for. We'll also ask him how tank-worthy this upcoming draft class really is.

Are you surprised that the Knicks got their doors blown off like that? Yes. In the garden. Yes, but I'm happy to be able to quote you saying, The Knicks had better win. I quoted me from yesterday before you did. Yeah, but you didn't give it the emphasis. You didn't do the acting job today that you did.

you did yesterday. Tony, 84, minus 84 in three games. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. We have a couple of huge matchups in college basketball this weekend, which makes it the perfect time for a visit from our great friend, the dashing ESPN college basketball analyst, Jay Billis. You are in Washington, D.C. Tomorrow is number one Michigan against number three Duke. That's a big time, get your popcorn ready deal. What are you looking to find out from this game? Well, if Michigan is every bit as powerful as I think they are, Tony, like Michigan, I think is the best team. I think Michigan and Arizona have been vying for that throughout the year.

Arizona has a couple of injuries right now, but Michigan has been as close to a juggernaut in college basketball as we've seen in a while. They've got tremendous size across the front line. And I think it's only Michigan and Florida vying for best front line in the country. and they cover up the rim. Only 20% of the shots that are taken against them are around the rim. That's how good they are. And they've got depth, they've got five guys at average and double figures, and they've got Yaxel Lendeborg, a transfer from UAB.

Last year there were two players that led their teams all year long in scoring, rebounding, assist steals, and blocks. One was Cooper Flag of Duke, and the other was Yaxel Lendiborg of UAB. And he's in the player of the year conversation. with Cameron Boozer. I think Boozer is ahead, but Yaxel Lenderborg's a real deal. You mentioned Arizona, Jay, which is the perfect transition to talking about them. Fourth ranked Arizona, of course, at second ranked Houston. Arizona's lost two of three while

Houston just lost to Iowa State. You seeing any advantage there, another huge matchup. You leaning either way? Well, I think the advantage has to go to Houston. One, Arizona's a little banged They have an eight-man rotation, and two of their rotation players are going to be out, including a starter in their second leading score, Koa Pete, who had 30 points in the opening game of the season when Arizona played and beat defending national champion Florida. Pete's going to be back relatively soon, and they've got another player in their top eight, Dwayne Aristote, who can really shoot a lengthy wing, who's got an illness, and he'll be out for a little while. So they're down to a six-man rotation, and that's going to be really.

difficult, especially playing against a team like Houston that is really good at home and great defensively. So I think it's going to be really important for Arizona to handle the traps, the post-double teams that Houston throws at you. And they've got Kingston Fleming's, who is one of the not only best freshmen, one of the best players in the country, and a guy who had 42 points at Texas Tech a couple weeks ago. On any given night, of course, we are all aware of Arizona and Houston have been the whole season. Let's go to the other end of the spectrum. Miami of Ohio undefeated at 26 and OJ, yet there are people talking about them being on the bubble?

If that happens, I am going to encourage a boycott of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. This can't be serious, can it? Well, yeah, because it's difficult. You know, Miami is a really good team. And do I think they're worthy of inclusion into the NCAA field as an at-large team? I do. They can beat a lot of people, but they haven't played a schedule that has given them a whole lot of resistance. Now, I give a lot of credit to just winning, and they're 26 and 0, they win.

But if you look at the metrics, they're ranked below the top 70 among other teams, because not only just sort of their like Kenpom.com metrics, but the fact that they haven't played a very challenging schedule. Part of that is maybe their league hasn't offered as much resistance as maybe it normally would. Travis Steele, their coach, who's an outstanding basketball coach, has said publicly, it's really hard for them to get games. Nobody will play them, he's saying. That may be true, maybe not. I think they could have done better. But if they were to lose in the semifinals of their conference tournament, I could see a scenario where the NCAA tournament selection committee would say, wait a minute, this team we have to put in before they,

them and they could wind up at the end of the line. The best thing for any team, major or mid-major, is when your automatic bid and take it out of the committee's hands. If you don't do that, and every team in the country has the ability to do that against their peers in their own conference. If you don't do that, you go in the pool with everybody else. And I think if they only lose one game,

that being in their conference tournament, I think they'll still get in. You don't want to get Wilbon started. If you go anywhere near analytics and metrics, Wilma's head will blow up. You don't want to do that. Let me get you out of here on this. This is a far afield story. The NBA says it wants to crack down on tanking, which I applaud.

How tank worthy, though, is this year's draft class? It's as tank worthy as I can remember. This freshman class, which is going to dominate this year's NBA draft in the first round, is as deep and talented as I can remember. Like we oftentimes have great players at the top, but we hardly ever have this kind of depth where you can go 20 deep saying, man, this dude's a starter in the NBA in the future and maybe even a star. That's possible with a lot of these guys. And you combine that with the fact that next year's freshman class and the one that's coming after that are not as highly regarded as this one. And certainly you've seen NBA teams say, hey, you know, it's. worth us getting in there. We need to get in there. So this is going to be a great draft. And like I look forward to every draft, but this is one I'm really looking forward to. We just haven't seen a freshman class like this in a long, long time. And the number of 40-point games these freshmen are putting up.

Darius A-Cup Jr. of Arkansas just put up 49 the other night. We've had multiple players put up 40-point games. And you don't see that very often. Thank you, Jay. Enjoy the game tomorrow. Thank you. Jay. Appreciate it. man. Thank you, guys. Catch more of Jay on college game day tomorrow morning, starting at 10 Eastern. Let's take one last break. Still to come, UCLA coach Mick Cronin apologizes for rejecting his own player.

Good, should. And the Kings make franchise history, and of course, a bad way. So many good players at the top tone, the wizards, they're going to get somebody. Ah, how about that? Ready for that? Well, as you know, I will. I would give them whatever pick they get and give them 10 deeper than that. Happy time, people. Happy 63rd birthday, Charles Barkley.

Barkley is on ESPN now. The whole basketball show moved from Turner to ESPN. The oddity for us is that we used to have Charles on this high-quality cable program all the time. He was our first guest ever. And now that he's in-house, we don't have him at all. Clearly, we love Charles. Everyone loves Charles Barkley. That might explain all the commercials Charles does.

He does Capital One. He does Subway. He does Roe, the weight loss thing. He's done commercials for Dick's Sporting Goods, Nike, Wright Guard, and McDonald's. Wilma, who do you think does the most commercials? Charles, Peyton Manning, or Shack? These guys are selling everything that isn't nailed down and say hello to your family for us, Charles. Yes, Charles.

Who does it? He does it. It's Shack. Shack has more commercials, I think, than Peyton and Charles combined. I really think he does. And Charles, you see. See how skinny Charles is? Do we want to go on some sort of rant that Charles should gain some of his weight back?

It's like he has to have new suits every couple of weeks. He looks great. Yeah, he can afford them. He can afford new suits. Happy anniversary, Gary Williams. This is obviously our day for shouting out to our friends. On this day, 16 years ago, Grievous Vasquez's half-court shot at the buzzer that would have beaten Georgia Tech was waved off because Maryland assistant and former Terps great Keith Booth had called timeout before Vasquez took his shot.

So with 1.5 seconds left after the timeout, Marilyn inbounded the ball to Cliff Tucker, who had a three-pointer from the left wing and Maryland won anyway. Tucker later said, quote, it meant a lot to me that coach had the faith to draw the play for me, unquote. Maryland's home court is now named the Gary Williams Court with a replica of Gary's signature. I don't reckon that Gary was real happy with Keith Booth for that time out. I'm just, as I recollect that game and that situation, I am grateful to have had a front row seat to so many years of the Gary Williams Show, great coach, and of course we love it.

Happy anniversary. Happy trails to the 15th game in a row for the Sacramento Kings. I don't know whether they're tanking or just lousy. Either way, the Kings lost by 37 to the magic last night at home. The 15 straight losses is a new team record for a franchise that has stunk for long stretches of its history. The Kings actually had two winning seasons recently, but then fired head coach Mike Brown last season after five straight losses. And there's little hope ahead. The team is without DeMontas, Sabonis, and Zach Levine the rest of the way and face the Spurs and former player,

franchise player De Aaron Fox on Saturday. Yeah, good luck with that one. Tony, wasn't Light the Beam fun? When Sacramento was good a couple of years ago, and they lit the beam, the purple beam into the sky, in the city after the games, I just thought that was, you can have your traditional powers be great. Fine, let the Lakers and Golden State be great.

I thought it was really cool when Sacramento was a threat. Yeah, I think I slept through Light the Beam because I recall that hardly ever being in the playoffs, I don't know in the last 20 years. Let's go to the big finish. UCLA coach Mick Cronin says he has apologized to Stephen Jamerson for rejecting him from the Bruins' loss to Michigan State.

Your thoughts? I mean, it's okay. It's nice. He did it, but it's too late. And the kid, like you said yesterday, he can't play there again. Transfer Portal time. Indiana coach Kurt Signetti agreed to a new deal that ups his salary

to $13.2 million. Is that high enough to keep him from fleeing? I think it is. I think he really likes it there, you know, but he's worth 10 times that Indiana hadn't won for 100 years. The Brewers gave manager Pat Murphy a three-year contract extension. Does that make sense to you? Two-time defending NL manager of the year, certainly a reward.

The MLS season begins this weekend. I know you're excited, so break it down. Messy. That's all I got. Last one, Clippers at Lakers tonight. Are you intrigued? Yeah, because even though people keep asking how far the Lakers can go into playoffs and the clippers are like under 500, I am intrigued because I think the clippers are a better team right now.

We are out of time. We will try to do better the next time, and I'm Tony Kornheimer. I'm Mike Wilbon. Have a great weekend, knuckleheads. We're on the deuce Monday. And now... Yeah, TGL. You know, PTF.

TGL. TGL. Get into a...