PTI - Tiger’s crash, Sweet 16 drama, and Opening Day buzz

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser react to Tiger Woods’ crash, Sweet 16 showdowns, and MLB’s Opening Day 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 Bob, I'm Tony. A kangaroo is on the loose after escaping a Wisconsin petting zoo.

I'm Tony Cornheiser. Maybe he just had an appointment with the ophthalmologist. You like that? The ophthalmologist for a kangaroo? I see what you're doing here. What are we talking about a kangaroo? And by the way, I don't get no dokes who think it's just a selfie opportunity to confront a wild animal. Kangaroo can knock you out.

Left, right, jab, cross, done. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls in today's episode, notable moments from baseball's opening day. George Gervin's issue with Caleb Williams and Duke is back on the court tonight. But we begin today with Tiger Woods arrested on suspicion of DUI, property damage, and refusal to submit to a lawful test after a rollover car accident in Jupiter Island, Florida. Woods' car was reportedly one of two cars involved with no reported injuries.

Police say Woods appeared impaired, passed a breathalyzer, but refused to give a urine sample. Five years ago, Woods suffered massive trauma to his right leg in a one-car accident outside of Los Angeles. Wilbon, we have so much more to learn, but what did you think about when you heard this news? Tony, my first thought was, again? I mean, Tiger Woods, clearly a bright man, a talented man, one of the most important sports figures in the history of the world. he just has these lapses. These aren't mishapses. These are huge, either lapses of judgment or capability.

Because this isn't the first or, as you mentioned, the second incident with a vehicle. He was cited for driving under the influence in 2017 and talked himself admitted, essentially, to having an unexpected reaction to prescribed medication. Then in 2021, the various serious accident while falling asleep, that threatened to take his right leg.

Then you have this rollover, and so how flawed is this Tiger Woods, who has to be worth north of a half billion dollars? You can't find a driver. There's nobody in your life that will force you, that will intervene, and say, dude, you're going to lose your life. How many chances do you want at this? These are not mishapsed, Tom.

These are stunning developments. Yes, you think it's part of a, pattern, and I understand that. I mean, the most recent time we had seen Tiger was just the other night. He played at TGL. He seemed happy. He seemed joyful to be on a team. He had not ruled out playing in the Masters. This is a setback. There is no question about that. I'll just go to my notes for a second. I mean, the good thing is he's not hurt. He's also in a jail cell. He had to spend time in a jail cell here. And there's no other way to look at this. other than Tiger Woods is a magical figure in golf and in all of sports.

All of sports. And the sad thing for both of us here, you and I, is we are not surprised. You hear news like this, you are not necessarily surprised. For all of his greatness, he seems star-crossed in many ways, his marriage, his injuries, his pain, his physical pain. And I wonder if there is emotional pain as well. I wonder, we're very glad that he's all. right. Yes. But yeah, what comes next? What comes next? We move now to last night's sweet 16 games. The early games were great. Purdue beat Texas on a last second tip-in. Iowa beat

Nebraska in part because of a basket Iowa got when Nebraska had just four players on the court. The late games were not nearly as competitive. Arizona scored 109 on Arkansas, beaten by 21. And Illinois throttled Houston. Wilbon, what is your biggest headline from these four games? Tony, like you mentioned, loved the first two games. The competitive, competitive close nature of them. You know, I started to call them, wake you up, but it was far too late to tell you to watch your new fave,

the team you have a crush on, Illinois, because they were doing all the things that you have come to love about them in the last month. But tone, for me, it's Arizona. And shout out first to Charles Wade Barkley, who says in the pregame, and I thought Charles was nuts at the time,

this game won't be close. Arizona is going to just take them apart. And that's what Arizona did, Tony. They're bigger and stronger and faster and more control. They've got a greater diversity offensively, ways to score and ways to beat you.

And the fact that they took out Arkansas and A-Cuff like that, that's to me the most impressive thing of the night. I said the other day that that could be $100 to 99. I was wrong. I underbid. They scored 109 points.

They won that game easily. We will disagree just in terms of shading. I thought the biggest headline was used in losing like. that to Illinois. Illinois played big boy basketball. Illinois held that to 34% shooting. If I have this right, 22 of 64 from the field and 9 of 32 from 3. Houston was in the final game last year. Houston had a great path to the final four right now. When Florida went out, it looked easy for them because they were playing at home. They're in the city of Houston, two miles on the campus.

So if I'm Kelvin Samson, I look at that game and I go, what happened here? And is there something I could have done to prevent this? The other two games, they don't have remarkable results. I mean, you expect Purdue to win a game like that over Texas, and they get a great basketball play at the end of the game in a great game. You cannot be surprised when Iowa beats Nebraska or the other way. It's a little bit better. When you have rematches of conference teams, you can never be surprised to wins.

I was rooting for Nebraska because, you know, Nebraska, to me, was a Cinderella. But even Cinderella's have to have five people on the court at various points during this whole game. But I just, I think those were unremarkable results. But the Houston one was a remarkable result to me. Tony, just to note this, Kelvin Samson, when Illinois, and I'm sure he will wonder that because he's that kind of coach, but when Illinois shoots it like that, with the size and the depth they have, when they shoot it that way, I mean, I don't know that even Arizona, who I have winning the whole thing, and I think you do too. I mean, that's the one.

Maybe Illinois can match up with Arizona when they shoot it that way, and they did last night. When you talk about shooting it that way, Arizona shot it 64%. They did. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. And 60 points in the pain, it was. Let's move to the major moments of baseball's full opening day. The headlines include Kyle Tucker driving in a run for the Dodgers.

Mike Trout here. a home run and his return to center field. The Miz striking out 11 of the Brewers, 20 against the miserable, awful white socks. Terek Scoobel and Garrett Crochet looked strong. Roman Anthony went three for four for the socks. And big days for Tigers rookie Kevin McGonagall and Guardian's rookie Chase De Lauderdone

was stood out to you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just going to go to the Nationals beating your Cubs in Wrigley Field, beating them 10-4, good buddy. They had 10 runs. I don't know how many times they had 10 runs last year, wasn't many.

They had three home runs, again, wasn't many times last year that they had three home runs in the game. But I understand that's a marginal game. And I just bring it up because I watched it and the Cubs are involved. And I went to Cable Channel 1261 to get it and I didn't know Cable went up that high.

I'll talk about a young man and an old man. McGonigal is the young man for the Tigers. The first pro game he ever had in the major leagues. He goes four for five. He scores two runs. He drives in two runs. He gets two doubles. Nice to debut.

Absolutely. And he helps his, he helps Tarrick Scoble, who ends up six innings, three hits, no earn. The old man is Mike Trout, who has been robbed of his greatness by injuries over a long period of time. He goes out there yesterday,

he gets on base four times, he has a home run, he has a stolen base, and he plays center field. You know how many stolen bases he had all last year? He used to be a great runner over 40 a year. He had two, all last year. You know how many times in the last two years

he's been in the circumstance where he's been on base four times in the game? Twice. in two years. Mike, I know you join me in saying this. He's a ghost. It would be great. It would be great if he was great again, because he was going to be an all-timer. Mike Trout was an all-timer. He was. Tone, no doubt. By the way, I hope he can be great and get traded by the deadline. Let him go. I mean, you can't be expected if you're the angels and you haven't done enough at this point

to get him to the playoffs more than I think once. I don't trust them, and I don't trust that to be the venue that he becomes Mike Trout again. like you, absolutely hope he can become that. Tony, let me tell you the thing that struck me yesterday wasn't the performances, not yet. I'll get into baseball in June. It's too cold here. It's 37 degrees here. And Major League Baseball's lucky the Cubs and Nationals aren't scheduled till tomorrow. They're not playing the day. That's right. Not playing the day. But tone, this, this, it's not like the shift. It's not like the pitch clock. Those things were immediate successes. You saw the impact they had on improving the product.

This is intrusive tone. I got to take some time on that one. I liked it more than you did. I didn't think it was terrible at all, and I thought it went by quickly. So we disagree on that. We'll wait. Let's move to a legal battle between George Gervin and Caleb Williams.

Gervin, of course, is the Iceman. But the Young Bears quarterback has decided he is the Iceman, and he has attempted to legally patent the nickname under trademark law. This has frosted the Iceman, who says, quote, I've been the ice man for 40-something years. I never thought anybody would try to trademark it. That name is taken. And I'm saying, young fella, we've already got one ice man, unquote.

Whip on, your head must be exploding. You love Gervyn and you love Caleb Williams. I do. Is Gervyn correct to be upset that Williams is trying to trademark Iceman? My head's not exploding at all, because Iceman is Iceman. It's George Gervin. He's ice, okay? That's it.

I like it when Caleb Williams does this. I've been sitting in the soldier feeling. in person when he's doing it because I'm in the stands doing this and I feel like the ice man. But no, there's one that, this George Gervin, when I am lucky enough to see George Gervyn, it gives me goosebumps on the road when I see him in a game in Texas or somewhere. And I say, hello, ice. Not even George, he's icy. You know this, he's your peer.

You, as much as you love Gervyn and Julius and the guys that you covered there, your peers, Caleb doesn't know. He's not old enough to know ICE. Caleb's dad is, though, I'll ask Carl about this, but the marketing people can get off their behinds and put them together in some sort of ad as Ice Men. Nobody calls Caleb Ice here in Chicago. Nobody. Of course not.

Yeah, what are we talking about here? Who exactly is Caleb Williams? What exactly has he accomplished, excuse me, and who exactly is referring to him as Iceman? George Gervyn is the Iceman. Now, if you're my age, you're old enough to know one of Chicago's own Jerry Butler, singer, you know, he won't love you like I love you. He was the ice man before Gervyn. But in sports, George Gervyn is the ice man. Not some lovely kid from Gonzaga High School. I'm sorry, that's not how it works. And yeah, they ought to get together. They ought to get together

and they ought to meet. And Caleb Williams ought to say, it's your nickname. It's not my nickname. Because it looks like, Mike, it looks like he's trying to steal George Gervyn's identity. Yeah, not to me, because he doesn't know who he is. Tony, it'd be good for both of them to get together because what that would do in the present is make a whole generation of people aware of George Gervin who now are not. So the marketing people wake up and stop advertising Super Bowls and put these two together. Wake up. You shouldn't be able to trademark a name.

That's somebody else's name. It's not like anybody's going around calling themselves the Bambino. Let's take a break. Coming up, number one, Seeds Duke and Michigan, have sweet 16 games tonight. Which team is more vulnerable? And which number two C do you have more confidence, Antoni? Yukon or Iowa State toss-up next.

There was an ice man in Top Gun, in the original Top Gun movie. But George Gervin is the Iceman. George Girvin is ice. But he's gone. He's ice. That's it. It's on his jersey. Time for toss-up.

Two men enter. One man leaves and spends the next 54 hours, either watching college basketball or texting Wilbon. about how his Cubs are getting pounded by my Nats. What's first? They're both game tonight. They can't get pounded. Toss up, which number one seed feels more vulnerable tonight?

Duke or Michigan? Duke feels more vulnerable to me, and I root for Duke. They haven't shown greatness so far. And St. John's is formidable and undervalued and underseeded at a number five. They won the Big East regular season. They won the Big East tournament. they beat Yukon two out of three times this year. And they got a guy on the sidelines in a fancy imported suit who knows what he's doing.

You know, that's a scary game, I believe, for Duke. Michigan, let me get to Michigan. Michigan plays Alabama. Alabama's going to throw up a ton of threes. And maybe they'll make them all. But I think, Mike, what happened to Arkansas last night is what's going to happen to Alabama tonight. Yeah, Alabama, to me, has got the biggest, you know, tree to climb to get. to its opponent tonight.

I mean, St. John's, I got St. John's beating Duke in my bracket. And largely because you looked at it as now, now Foster is going to be back in the lineup apparently. For Duke. The guard. The guard is going to play. And Duke's turnovers were

way up in those first two games. You turn the ball over against St. Johns, you're going down. But if they can play in an environment, which is going to be, Tony, to me, equally charged in terms of passion, there's going to be a lot of big east people in that building in Washington, D.C.,

a lot of Duke fans just because they leave in the Mid-Atlantic and they'll go. That's right. But a lot of it, I don't see, Alabama's going to have to make 50% of its threes to beat Michigan tonight. And that will not be close in terms of fan support. The United Center will be Mays and Blue, and then it will look like some Iowa state colors because they can drive as close as the Michigan people are. So Alabama's in for a hurt tonight, I think. Yeah, and I mean, the Big Ten's played great.

The Big Ten is establishing itself as the best conference in the Sweet 16, right? I mean, that's what I would say. No, absolutely. Vulnerability. Duke is vulnerable. What's next? Toss up, which number two C do you have more confidence in tonight? Yukon or Iowa State? Let me just say that the Yukon, Michigan State game is the best game on the board.

That's the game I'm going to stay up, and I have to stay up. I'm going to stay up and watch that. I think Yukon is really good, but I have more confidence in Iowa State tonight, and that's because Iowa State is playing Tennessee tonight, right? And I think Tennessee is not as good as Michigan State. So I think it's an easier match. And if you look at what's happened to the SEC so far, they've lost a lot of teams. Florida, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Texas, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Missouri. And Iowa State's really good.

Iowa State this year has beaten Houston. They've beaten Kansas. they've beaten Purdue and they've beaten St. John's. It's just, Mike, I'm saying it's harder for me to pick Yukon than it is to pick Iowa State. Yeah, Tony, I agree with that. And Iowa State, we don't know Joshua Jefferson, you know, earlier here, different reports here in Chicago

where the team is and will be playing tonight. Obviously, Iowa State would be better off with him in the lineup. But they defend even if he's not in the lineup. They really defend. and Tennessee to me is going to have trouble getting any pace and rhythm in this game against Iowa State, which again will feel like it's playing at home. I mean, I know what the United Center is going to look and sound like tonight. It's going to sound like a home game for Michigan,

and it's going to sound like a home game for Iowa State. And they're going to have all of that in their advantage. Look, Yukon is every bit Michigan State's equal. They just are. I mean, those are two heavyweights, blue bloods, anything you want, however you want to term it. But I got Michigan State in that game. I got Michigan State going to the final. So, you know, I got St. Johns and Michigan State winning in your town in Washington, D.C. tonight.

That's it. Wilburne's corner man just threw in a towel. Let's take one last break, but still to come, Yukon loses a top assistant, which means Bill Murray might be coming to a Boston gym near you. And the feisty horn had snapped the Nick seven game win streak. Told you yesterday, Tom. Told you. No, you had that one. I remember that you had that one.

Happy time, people. Happy 39th birthday Buster Pose. The Giants' great catcher and three-time World Series winner is now president of baseball operations in San Francisco. He had an opening for manager when Bob Melvin was fired after finishing 81 and 81 last season. Many assumed Posey would go after his former manager, Bruce Bosh. But Posey hired Tom.

Tony Vitello, who was coaching the University of Tennessee. Vitello had never managed a game in the majors, had never been involved in a game in Major League Baseball. Posey's choice is one of the most intriguing, if not risky, hires ever. So far, Vitello is 0-1, having lost to the Yankees 7-0 on opening day. That's right, Tony. What's more important now is golf. You realize Posey is officially listed publicly as a six handicap?

I mean, he's gone. It's a short retirement. He's gotten good in a hurry. a lot better than we are. Happy anniversary University of Oregon. On this day, 87 years ago, Oregon won the first ever NCAA basketball tournament defeating Ohio State 46 to 33

in the championship game of what was then an eight-team field. Oregon did not return to the final four until 2017. Oregon has become a legitimate football power in recent years. The same cannot be said about the Ducks basketball team this year. Oregon finished 16th in the Big Ten this year. For those of you keeping track, the big 10 has 18 teams. Oregon limped in 12 and 20. Its worst season under Dana Altman and its fewest wins since eight wins in 2009.

Then Altman came in and rattled off 15 consecutive 20 win seasons before this year's dud. You know where that final four was? Tony, I was there today. Evanston, Illinois, Patton Gymnasium where I played my inner mural basketball. How about that? I had no idea. Oh, I didn't know. Wow.

That's something. Happy trails to Yukon for Luke Murray. The assistant coach on Danny Hurley's staff is leading the Huskies to become the head coach at Boston College. Murray won two national championships with Hurley and gets praised for helping build the team's offensive system. He's also the son of actor Bill Murray. Wolf on BC has struggled for years. I think this hire will get people to actually go to games to see Bill Murray. And he'll say to people, big hitter to the Lama, big hitter.

I mean, you don't rule for anybody like your own son. But Bill Murray's got one team. One team for real. We share that team. They lost to your nationals today, and they're shivering in front of a fireplace somewhere today in Chicago. That's the Cubs.

Let's go to the big finish if we could. Let's do it. The Hornet sent it to the next seven-game win streak. You had that called your impressions. Yes, Cinnipple, the rookie of the year in the NBA. Had 26, he was the best player on the floor last night. Shrater's going to be a handful for somebody if they get in the playoff full field. Alex Oveskin had his 34th career hat last night.

You impressed? Yeah, he's 40 years old and he's got 29 goals this year. I've been impressed with him. He's been on the club for 21 seasons. One of the great careers in all sports ever. Sidney Crosby left yesterday's win over the senators with a lower body injury. Is that cause for concern? Yes, if there's recurrence of injuries of Crosby's age with his history of injuries coming up to the playoffs,

Yes, I'm concerned. Men's free skate at the world's tomorrow. Is your boy the quad god going to wrap it up? I hope so. I do. And I hope he gets another shot at the Olympics. Because what happened to him was very sad, I thought. Last one, Hannah Hidalgo, three assists away from a quadruple double.

In Notre Dame's win over number two, Vandy. You're impressed, aren't you? 31 points, 10 steals, 11 rebounds, 7 assists. Yes, that's the performance of the tournament, no doubt, so far. We're out of time trying to do better the next time. Live TV kids ain't nothing like it. I'm Mike Wilbon. Have a great weekend knuckleheads.

Yeah, there's something like it. I just can't say it.