The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Local Hour: The Matchup of the Century

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Today's Cast: Izzy Gutierrez, Mike, Chris, Jeremy, Roy, and Tony. Tonight is the biggest college basketball matchup of the year and one of, if not THE biggest Women's College Basketball game of all-time as Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes take on Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers. Izzy Gutierrez is here and he and Mike Ryan lead our group's conversation on the game, the narratives surrounding it, and the rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Plus, DJ Burns Jr. and NC State's run to the Final Four, Zach Edey is very tall, there's ANOTHER game in Women's College Basketball tonight that could be equally electric. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to DraftKings Network. This is the Don LeBattor Show with the StuGuts Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by DraftKings. Stay tuned because you'll hear more about DraftKings and all it has to offer throughout the show. DraftKings, the crown is yours. Happy April Fools, I'm sorry. It is me in studio with Izzy Gutierrez. I can assure you, or well,

considering Sugats is one of the variables, I can't fully assure you, but Dan and Stu will be returning this week. Got a lighter staff today too. We got people out sick and whatnot, which is a shame because we've added to our ensemble Jess and Lucy and here on the day of the biggest college women's basketball game of all time,

neither of them are in. So we'll get into that with Tony and Roy. I'm sorry about that. But Izzy Gutierrez was so kind to help us out here. I heard you're missing some feminine energy, so I showed up. I wasn't gonna do that, but I'm happy you're always there.

I do like the Meryl Streep shirt. Oh, thank you. This is immense today, right? This is the biggest women's basketball game of all time. I think the ratings will bear that out. It is the story of the day, no doubt. It is happening before the final four, which I've seen a lot of takes out there saying, why did the committee do this? Why did they put them in this bracket this early? Because I wanted to guarantee this matchup. If you wait one more round,

you're not guaranteed that. It was hard enough getting to this point. These teams have been challenged in the tournament and you have something that maybe some newspapers have posited as good versus evil and we'll get into that in a second. But I cannot believe that we are here. If you watched Morning Cable television, it is the sort of every show. It is Angel Reese, it is Caitlin Clark, it is Iowa, it is LSU, it is Kim Mulkey. You have tons of huge personalities

at the forefront here, and they are going to own this night, and I'm really surprised that we're here. I mean, you said personalities. I don't think it's personalities that is bringing people to the TV. I think it's the basketball. Like, I think Caitlin Clark, especially,

people want to see what, if they haven't seen her already, what's the big deal about this woman. And then, you sort of, if you're just learning, if you didn't even watch last year, didn't really know all the sort of smack talk that went between them and everything else, then you're curious to see what these defending champs look like against, again, this woman

who's taken everybody's sort of fantasy and created this great women's basketball player, this team that everybody wants to watch, but I think the Kim Monke element adds a whole nother, like I don't care if you are, have fallen in love with Caitlin Clark, I don't care if you hate Caitlin Clark, I don't care if you don't know anything about LSU, there's something about the Kim Moky element

that you're just drawn to because she's just putting herself out there as this tremendous villain and doesn't care what you think. Oh, but she took exception to how the LA Times at least positioned this whole thing as good versus evil and villains, which is weird. We're going to play two clips. First, I certainly want to play the Kim Mulkey

retort to the LA Times thing, which, by the way, came at a great time for Kim Mulkey, because it was a pretty garbage column. And I understand that it was a macro approach to explain the story of this. And Kim Mulkey in every sense of the word is a villain, but I think people projected something onto this team. And let's play the clip and we'll talk about it after. How dare people attack kids like that?

You don't have to like the way we play, you don't have to like the way we trash talk, you don't have to like any of that. We're good with that. But I can't sit up here as a mother and a grandmother and a leader of young people and allow somebody to say that. I don't get that. I'm sorry. I come from a different generation, I get it.

But I know sexism when I see it and I read it. That was awful. So Kim Mulkey takes the opportunity to weaponize something, get a good time for her, I think, because she was under attack from the Washington Post article, which by the way, that- Nothing Burger? Big Nothing Burger.

What? Oh, she's unlikable. She's unlikable. She's bad to players. She's bad to former coworkers. So is that the new one, or is that the one that still hasn't come out yet? The Washington Post one was the Nothing Burger,

where it talks about her, like, she's estranged from her family. It was just basically like a personality piece kind of thing. Yeah, I read it it and I'm like, all right, so when is this article dropping? Nothing about this Kim Boogie piece really surprised me. And I think this is mana from heaven to get this article so she can use it for her team.

And honestly, she's in the right. It was kind of a BS article. Jeremy, it's kind of like that meme, worst person in the world made a good point. I looked up that article so slowly because I said to myself, please don't be a Bill Plasky column. Please don't be a Bill Plasky column.

And I looked it up, saw the byline, I was like, okay, I don't know if I know this person. That makes me happy. The question with Kim Mocchi to me is like, first of all, she doesn't play that role very well. She's better off at being the jerk and being the villain. That, you just don't really feel sorry for her. They're, oh, how dare you not care about kids?

Well, we can talk about a whole different set of things that Kim Mocchi doesn't seem to care about her own student athletes back in the day. But that's my question with Kim is like, how good of a basketball coach do you have to be for all these girls in high school to eventually say, hey, yeah, I wanna be around that for four or five years. I get the whole idea of getting the most out of people,

being demanding and all. There's so many coaches around the country that can do that without all the nonsense. So why go there? Even the players like Hailey Von Lith, who transferred over there, seems like she's had a bad time there. So it's like, what are we, is she adding to her aura?

Is she making more people want to come to her school now with all this, or is she just showing herself to the point where she's gonna lose some people? Because I just don't get the appeal. I'm gonna need somebody to explain this one to me. I get the appeal. And I think need somebody to explain this one to me. I get the appeal and I think that she's she's certainly becoming more infamous but I don't necessarily think that's bad for her brand. I think people will pay more attention to the championship that they

most recently won. She's very successful head coach and while she had to take this approach on the opposite side of the coin I found Angel Reese's reaction to everything going into both this game and on the heels of that article and being called a villain. Keep in mind this whole rivalry with Caitlyn Clark started over the Tony Yeo, the John Cena you can't see me and her talking trash on the court pointing to a ring finger and kind of embracing a villain role and we can get into why this feels like good guys versus bad guys but here's Angel Reese talking about the

Caitlin Clark game that's coming up tonight. Me and Caitlin Clark don't hate each other like I want everybody to understand that it's just a super competitive game and like I would just wish people would realize that like once I get between those lines there's no friends I have plenty of friends on the court that I talked to outside of the game that. Once I get between those lines, there's no friends. I have plenty of friends on the court that I talk to outside of the game, but when I get between those lines, we're not friends, we're not buddies. I'm going to talk trash to you, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get in your head the whole entire game.

But after the game, we can kick it. I don't think people really realize that and that's fine. I'll take the villain role, I'll take the hit for it. But I know we're going to women's basketball and if this is the way we're going to do it, then this is the way we're going to do it. You like it or you don't. So Izzy, you have the head coach saying, how dare you call us villains in this way? And you have Angel Reese fully embracing the villain's role on the court. So a bit of a different

message from player and coach there. It's almost like people don't understand what they're watching because women are doing it, but all this stuff doesn't need explanation when it happens in the men's game. Like nobody's saying, oh wow, Jimmy Butler must really hate Drew Holiday because of all those antics during the playoffs.

No, like we get what that's about. And so yeah, the fact that she has to explain it, whatever it is, where it is, but she saying what she said was absolutely perfect. It was almost like just the ABCs of sport. I'm glad Lucy's not here at the moment because I'm gonna say something. I think I'm rooting for LSU tonight.

I want chaos. I want Kimochi to have to just be feeling herself after the game. Obviously, I want to be close. I want America to be, because everyone's rooting for Kaitlyn Clark, right? So I'm just kind of being an anarchist everybody I don't know about that. No, no, no over here Yeah, this is a to America's thing and it's funny because I do want to talk there are racial components to tonight which is How Kim Mulkey and some people in that locker room also took that LA Times article too

And I do think that a bit of that is justified a few years ago But Monty was in co-hosting with us and he said there are certain boxing matches that I can only watch with my black friends And I was like, what do you mean? Hey, why can't I watch boxing with you? He's like now this is one of those fights that I just want to watch with black friends There are racial components to this matchup, this Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese one specifically, and it'll play out on social media. Just like there were racial elements to Magic and Bird,

which is always a comparison when people are talking about Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. There is a racial component, and if you don't see it tonight, tune into social media, because it'll be in full force. Yeah, but social media's the worst. Like, in reality, most people like Angel Reese and Kim Mulkey's the one that we don't like.

No, you're not gonna get any disagreement from me that social media's the worst, but it is an amplification of people's feelings. I mean, you can get into bots and whatnot, but there is a racial component, 100% of what's going down tonight. Well, and that was the problem with the article about LSU versus UCLA and the way that that was positioned

of good guys versus bad guys, because the way it was articulated in that particular matchup was essentially whiter team versus blacker team, and that was the issue in, at least in that column in the way that it was sort of positioned there where tonight the reason that you have sort of the the rivalries already there like it's an actual stated rivalry where we've seen trash talk the way that Kim Mulkey was talking about it was specifically about that article in the way it positioned her team where

Angel Reese is discussing like the basketball elements of what that rivalry can look like and why people might look at her as the villain in a matchup like this one tonight. I think when you talk about sort of the racial element and you're setting these two sides, it feels like it's suggesting that there's sort of conflict there. And really, the way, when you say it,

what I hear is, hey, there's a lot of people that relate to Angel Reese, and they're gonna cheer for her. There's a lot of people that relate to Angel Reese, and they're gonna cheer for her. There's a lot of people that relate to Caitlin Clark, and they're gonna cheer for her. They don't hate the other one, they just can't relate to the other one. So that's where I see a racial element, but I don't sit down in this game and say,

hey, which race battle is going to win today? No, I don't see any of that. I see if Angel Reese goes off, there's gonna be people who support her going off on Twitter. And if Caitlin Clark does something that seems like it would be disrespectful I don't see any of that. I see if Angel Reese goes off, there's gonna be people who support her going off on Twitter. And if Caitlin Clark does something that seems like it would be disrespectful to LSU

or Angel Reese, then they will stand up and defend that. But I don't think there's this default place where, hey, I'm an Angel Reese person, I hate Iowa. Maybe off a last game a little bit, but not really. We're all talking about the same thing and that social media is not a real place. But we've seen with, back in the day, Kobe versus LeBron, we see to this day,

Cristiano versus Messi. If you support Angel Reese, the social media fandom is such that you don't like Caitlin Clark. And if you're a Caitlin Clark fan, you go out of your way to diss Angel Reese. That's just what American fandom is right now at the moment in sports, Jeremy.

It almost feels more like when it was Steph versus LeBron in the way that you're talking about there's an appreciation for each other's games. Like the biggest stands of the other one are gonna point out why there are flaws in the other person's game or why this team or this program's better than the other. But ultimately at the end of it,

neither of those guys hated each other. In the league, most fans really appreciated both players for what they do. So it's more the narratives that we're creating around this game and the rivalry that already exists that makes it fun, right? That's why Steph versus LeBron became a thing because they played each other so many years in a row.

And when you have Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clark here, it's a similar type of thing. Obviously, Angel Reese, I wouldn't necessarily say is the LeBron James of women's college basketball. But when you have these narratives that are out there, it makes it a lot more fun. And when you mentioned the John Cena, right? She did that and she sort of mimicked Caitlin Clark saying,

hey, don't worry about her. And those sort of added to them. Famously, LeBron's got to look back at Steph after he blocked him like his little kid. And that looks like I don't respect this man. Of course he respects that man. He talks about it all the time. But between the lines is between the lines.

Which is what Angel was trying to say. And we once again reference the pro wrestling elements to the start of this rivalry, which college sports don't of this rivalry, which college sports don't present this often, especially in our day and age where it's one thing for Magic and Bird to be rivals in college, but with players going to the pros quicker, with the randomness of the tournament, you have a legit rivalry between LSU and Iowa just because they're playing for a second consecutive year,

it's like UConn, Geno versus Pat Summit, you could always guarantee because they had such a monopoly over the sport back in the day that that was a legitimate rivalry. And once Pat went away, women's college basketball was missing that. But I wanna get back to the pro wrestling elements, which is there's a saying in pro wrestling,

like from the crowds, when they really get into a story, really get into a match, fight forever, and sometimes they'll even chant both these guys. It's not like the stand-em. They'll just be chants, both these guys, both these guys. And I think tonight's a great opportunity. It's already a very confusing chant for me. Thank you for explaining it.

Both these guys. And I think that tonight is a wonderful opportunity to root on both of these athletes on the court because it is something special. Roy, you mentioned that you were going for LSU, and then we talked about the racial components to this, and you didn't really add to why you were rooting for LSU. I see that Kimmelke is the head coach,

so it can't be Kimmelke. It is definitely not Kimmelke, yeah Okay, it is definitely Angel you're going flat-out saying I'm is it because angels black and and Caitlin is white No, I mean I respect Caitlin like she's all time Liam score good for her. I'm cheering for angel tonight Okay, so you don't want to say it Situation Don't put him in that spot Hey, Roy, you can all feel it. How you feel it? You can just say it, Roy. Say it. Don't put him in that spot. I mean, he's saying it.

I put himself in that spot. I didn't do anything. Yeah, you said. Sit here. Yeah. He said, I know who I'm rooting for tonight. I was like, oh, that feels. Yeah, they're firm on that part.

Why you're not so firm on that part. Yeah, well, you didn't have to dive into it. You know what I'm saying? Hey, friends, it's Mike Ryan, and a lot has changed over the years. But one thing that hasn't, great and dependable taste of Miller Lite. It was the original light beer and to this day it is still the best one. Miller Lite has more of the taste that you want and less of the stuff that you don't. I was at a baseball game and thank goodness they had Miller Lite on tap.

Mmm, taste buds, electrified. Miller Lite, you were always the right call. And that's why I love you so much. Then I turned to my friend and I had a great conversation. Oh, Miller Lite, you greased the rails for a good conversation better than anybody. Dog on it, Miller Lite, you keep everything simple with undeniable quality, great taste, only 96 calories. It's the beer that strips away everything that you don't need and holds on to what matters most. Times change, but you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite. Tastes like Miller time? To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit MillerLite.com slash Dan, or you can pretty much find it anywhere that sells beer.

Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces. Don LeBretard. How do people always go missing in the mountains? Don't go to the mountains. And by the way, I don't want to bring racism. This is the most white people thing ever. Going missing in the middle of the mountains. It's the strangest thing.

You go by yourself, you don't take a radio, you don't take a phone. You're missing for four days and they find you like 10 years later covered in snow. And it's like, don't go by yourself. If you're going to go on a trail, don't go by yourself. Stugats. Put it on the poll. Is it the whitest person thing ever? I believe is what you called it going into the woods by yourself is going into the woods by yourself. I Can't disagree with that man. I mean so so black people don't camp. Yeah, black people don't hike

They don't camp they don't go out into the woods. This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugarts. This feels like such a cool moment for women's sport in general and when you counter that with what happened yesterday, where there's not an asymmetrical court, that... Unbelievable. It is truly unbelievable. where there's not an asymmetrical court. That. Unbelievable. It is truly unbelievable. It's something that's out of a mockumentary style special. I don't understand how we get here.

For those that don't know, and hopefully we can throw up some B-roll, there it is. The two teams had agreed, it was discovered before the game, that a three-point line wasn't the same on either end of the court. Now you do switch sides.

You could tell by the eye. They walk to the other end, it's clearly small. Yeah, that looks like, what, two feet? Two and a half feet? It is very noticeable to our eyes that the three-point lines at both ends of the court look very, very different. This is not something I think I've ever seen before.

In the NBA, you'll have some controversies regarding, like, oh, this rim seemed to be a little off balance. Wow, $5. If the NBA, if the rim is slightly off, somebody's noticing that right away, and we're taking as long as it takes to get that thing right, the resolution on this one is what shocked the hell out of me.

Actually, not really, because it would have been shocking if it was the men who came up with this resolution. The women just said, eh, whatever, we'll play anyway. By the way, this could not have affected the game any less. I did a deep dive. I was like, who had which side in the first half? How was their three-point shooting? NC State was on the side with the longer one

and they balled out shooting in the first half. No, they were unstoppable. So it's like, it really, it is embarrassing, it's a bad look, but it couldn't have affected the game any less. By the way, NC State making it to a final four. They're having a moment. Yeah, NC State basketball for men's and women's,

both programs make it to the final four. NC State, their women's program, got clobbered by the University of Miami. That was Miami's signature win that people were trying to poke holes in. And so I see them make it to the Final Four and I just get more and more angry. And they're doing the same thing they did when they won it. They'd had to win every game they've won since the beginning of the the ACC tournament. Yeah, on the men's side. I was talking specifically to the women because that was a huge win and people didn't

think NC State and the women because that was a huge win and people didn't think NC State and the women's basketball tournament were really worthy of a higher seed and they started poking holes in their game and here they are in the final four. Incredible moment but yeah, this is the dream scenario anytime your fledgling program enters a conference tournament, if we can just rattle off 13 straight wins, we're national champions. We can save our season. Their head coach was on the hot seat. They wanted him out.

Him winning the ACC tournament not only gives him an automatic buy into the NCAA tournament, a tournament that he would not have secured a seed for had he not won that, and it also kicked in a two year extension into his deal that even entering the NCAA tournament, fans were a little lukewarm on. Here we are, DJ Burns becomes a star,

and NC State has this miraculous run to the Final Four, knocking out Duke on their way. So we are talking about the men, okay. Now we're back to talking about the men. That ACC tournament, they could have been gone. So close. They were trailing Louisville. Louisville's a garbage basketball team. They were trailing Louisville at one point during the ACC tournament, they could have been gone. So close. They were trailing Louisville. Louisville's a garbage basketball team.

They were trailing Louisville at one point during the ACC tournament. This is the Cinderella story. Now, they've won an NCAA championship in their past. They're a tobacco road dynasty. This is the farthest they've been since 1983, though. They are a name that matters. Anything in that tobacco road corridor

matters when it comes to this sport. But they've been the forgotten program. As other programs in that tobacco road corridor matters when it comes to this sport, but they've been the forgotten program. As other programs in that corridor have had their moment, NC State is just holding on to success of a bygone era with Jimmy V. So to have both these programs in the Final Four for NC State at the exact same time, it's a hell of a moment. And that's a really cool college town because it's a big city, but it kind of feels like an SEC town when you compare it and here we are an ACC school once again in the final four everyone tells us three straight years now set Davis among them

The ACC is overrated and what does the ACC do come tournament time? They always show out and there'd be more if the ACC didn't get as many teams as they actually got into the tournament because they were cannibalizing themselves by the end of it. So DJ Burns is gonna be playing Zach Eady in one final four matchup. The big man in college basketball, Tony, is back. It never really went anywhere, right? Like that's one place where you can always look

at college basketball and have a guy who's seven foot four, who can't play in the NBA But he's a dominant force in college and then stories like DJ burns where you get a guy Who when you look at him on the basketball career like is that a defensive lineman playing? Basketball like I don't really know what he is Then you see him with the drop steps left foot left hand floaters right hand floaters dominating great passing looks like escalate out there when he Passes rest in peace escalate by the way, but he gets passed where he's down the lane passing looks like escalate out there when he passes rest in peace escalate by the way but he gets passed where he's down the lane so he would get balls in

the block kind of do a shimmy shake behind the back DJ Burns is an electric but it's only a player that can live in college and that's I feel like people are upset because of that because you watch it in college and say why can't that person exist in the NBA and the answer is the game's just gotten way faster. You can't do that. You can't just give him the ball. He's not gonna do anything defensively. I get that, but the fact that there is just still a place

for them in college, not just to appear, but to dominate and say, hey, that's what that can look like, a lot of fun. Like I've seen him run up and down the court. Like, you know, the next level, that game's not gonna translate. But if you get back to the basket where he's backing down, Kyle Filipowski, who weighs 113 pounds soaking wet, he's dominating. The thing is you can only do that in the NBA when you're yokage. Yeah.

We've seen it like, was it Kenny Lofton jr.? Like we've seen it in garbage games at the end of seasons where guys just get committed or teams they'll commit to giving them the ball. But you're not going to do that. Barry Larkin jr. You're thinking of no no Euro legend by the way Shane Larkin right you might he's a monster over there I was actually I was in place and there was wall-to-wall coverage of Shane Larkin's don't trust me I'm in a group chat. We're taking plenty of, yeah, we're not myopic.

We pay attention to the Euro success. I do wanna talk a little bit on the other end about the pro prospects and why it's dumb that we can't separate what we're seeing in college from what we're seeing from NBA mock traps and finding out. No, no, no, I just hate that when Zach Eaddy does what he does, and this show is guilty of it, hell, I'm guilty of it, but I had an epiphany over the weekend,

I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy this, take it for what it is. It's kinda like a five foot eight college quarterback that lights the world on fire. You know next level, they're not gonna do it. Yeah, there'll be barbershop conversations on how people will try to trick themselves into thinking, this guy can maybe do it at the next level, they're not going to do it. Yeah, there'll be barbershop conversations on how people will try to trick themselves into thinking this guy can maybe do it at the next level because the game has changed.

Let's enjoy this ride for what it is. The Zach Eadies, the DJ Burns, we're gonna be talking to Donovan Klingon from UConn. These are, even though he might actually have pro pros bags, these are wonderful stories that are unique to this sport. And when people talked about college basketball when I was growing up when they were romanticizing these things these were the types of stories that they would lift up and I hate that the discourse just totally wants to undercut it. It's a bad week shaping up for Dan Lebatard. I'll tell you that right now especially with that that performance from Zach Eady. I don't know if you fall with me but I'm just done

with taking negative potshots, poking holes in someone's pro game because it's not the pro game. It's college basketball. They are dominating the sport right now. Big meaty men slapping meat is going to dominate your final four. I think I have a bit of a hot take. Zach Eady, too tall. Just want to throw that out there. Mike's already done this with him. Too tall. He he's too tall I've done this with Edie too he is too tall he's too tall he is too tall Klingon makes it work but he's having to though but he's got the physical limitations that when Binyama doesn't have that make you realize okay our great game is safe and we don't have to protect it from Zach Victor when Bembenyama, Zach Eady and bigger balls.

Don Lebatard. Sports. Stugarts. More sports. This is the Don Lebatard show with the Stugarts. The one criticism I would have for NC State in this tournament, the men's side and DJ Burns, is they try to recreate the San Francisco 49ers walk from the locker room to the field with a guy in a boombox.

No one does this better than the Niners. It's super cool. And this one, it's just DJ Burns walking and three guys that look like me behind him. And he's holding a sad Bluetooth speaker. It's not an oversized thing. You're saying DJ Burns out of these group of guys is like the most physically imposing?

It just looks like DJ Burns walking out. Like there's people behind him, but none of them look like players. Like there's, outside of him, they're not exactly a large team. It's just, that's one area they could improve. So you look like this generation's Radio Raheem? That's right.

It's not Fred Warner behind him, it's Chris Cote. Are they trying to do a thing though maybe? Like with the Bluetooth speaker. They are trying to recreate that, I'm telling you. Oh, it's like a joke though. Maybe they're being ironic. Cause I'm sure they can get a boombox if they wanted to. I think the point with the little Bluetooth speakers.

I don't know man, I've seen it a couple times and it's sad every time. It's because it's a team manager in a polo that's walking through with the boombox. I'm watching the video now and it is embarrassing. DJ Burns looks like the only pro level athlete there. It's not the 49ers. The 49ers couldn't look any cooler doing it. It's the exact opposite.

This is DJ Burns' third basketball program. He was at Tennessee and Winthrop before that. And there was a graphic that I saw before the game with Duke that Duke was the only team whose starters in the starting five had been with just that one program. If you look, there were some graphs that I couldn't even tell the program that they were looking at because there wasn't even a logo represented by the program that they were in the Elite Eight with. It's a wild time in college sports particularly, which is why I don't know how many times we're gonna get the opportunity to see what we're seeing

tonight with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. These players deciding to stay in a sport because they both could have gone pro easily last year, deciding to come back, get an NIL check, meet up yet again in the tournament. That's why I think tonight is going to be a ratings bonanza. It might be the highest rated college basketball game, men's or women's of the modern era. And I take your point about Larry versus Magic. I think that actually sets up really well

and it kind of helps me, I don't know if I, I'm not speaking for Roy here, but Roy, let me know if this is something that makes you want to choose. Which one's Larry, which one's Magic? Oh, whoa. Gonna need you to specify. All right, so I'm not gonna do that. The thing is, they both also talk trash on the court, too.

So when Caitlin does the shut the bleep up stuff on the court, that lands differently when Caitlin does it than it would for Angel. You're playing yourself if you're not acknowledging that. I think part of the reason that anybody would cheer for Angel, regardless of race, is Caitlin, even though she hasn't won the championship, has gotten, to use Chris's phrase, all her flowers.

She has gotten so much attention, she is going to be all eyes on her for the rest of her career, effectively. Angel Reese, meanwhile, has won a championship and still doesn't feel like she's respected in the same way, and I feel like it helps the rivalry more if Angel wins again tonight. And just sets it up for in the long run.

Because if Kaitlyn wins, it feels like it's the end of a story. It's like, oh, she didn't win it last year, came back, beat Angel, won the whole thing, boom. Now she's going to the pros, greatest player ever. Pro wrestling elements yet again. That's the narrative of Cody Rhodes. You want Kaitlyn Clark to finish her story.

And it may not come here in the college ranks. It's funny though when you made your joke about which one's magic which one's Larry. When Larry and Magic were playing the smiling commercial marketable face was Magic and the guy that would talk loads of shit on the court and be nasty to opposing players was Larry Burt. And I don't know if history remembers it when when that was the court and be nasty to opposing players was Larry Bird. And I don't know if history remembers it when that was happening, it was a little bit before my time,

but there was a white-black thing, very clearly. And they went all the way through the pros with it, to the point that most people still talk about it, romanticize it, saying that's when basketball was at its best. Just hearing this conversation, I can imagine the steam coming out of Gino Ariema's ears. Has he ever been this irrelevant? Like, he dominated the sport forever

and we're not even discussing, they play tonight too. That game is arguably, could even be a better game. USC against UConn, where you have Juju Watkins against Paige Becker's, that's gonna be a spectacular basketball game. And yet because of the spectacle of what Iowa and LSU is tonight, no one's, I mean, we just spent the first 30 minutes

of the show talking about the other game. There's some great basketball happening tonight. It's WrestleMania week. And I'm gonna go with yet another wrestling analogy. There was a Toronto WrestleMania where Hollywood Hulk Hogan took on The Rock. And it is the only match that is remembered from that card. Chris Jericho had to face Triple H after that match and it was a dud and that is what's gonna happen to USC Yukon today. They are following Hollywood Hulk Hogan

versus The Rock in Sky Dome. Well you're saying that nobody talks about you know Yukon that's because everybody's talking about Don Sterly in South Carolina because they've been dominating lately. Yeah they've been dominating but they've also been tested in ways that the the lines associated with their name headed into this tournament may not reflect. They've been in some battles and been tested in ways that I don't think anyone was expecting because it was a foregone conclusion which is another great reason why the committee got it right in putting LSU and Iowa where they did Because of how dominant South Carolina has been all season long if they were on an opposite end of the bracket We may not have seen this was was Paige Becker's gonna be Caitlin Clark before Clayton Clark before those injuries

Yeah, and then she just got hurt and she's come back and been an amazing player. But I There's an argument to be made, I think, that she had this ceiling that everybody anticipated she would reach in college that she hasn't been able to because of those injuries. But she's still a spectacular player. Kaitlin Clark just got to come in and have this unbelievable career

that's led to her getting more of the hype. You mentioned Gino, and Gino's not just jealous because he's on the bill and he's a total afterthought. He's going on after this game and he is a small font top-of-the-line Coachella act compared to Kaitlin Clark versus Angel Reese. But Gino Horeyema isn't even the biggest Colta personality head coach in the sport anymore. Kim Mulkey has taken that. He's probably more jealous of Kim Mulkey than he is of LSU and Iowa grabbing headlines. He's like, I'm the coach that got under everybody's skin. I was the one that was driving the conversation. Geno is actually positioned quite well that

a Yukon run with Geno Oriyema at the helm has flown totally under the radar. Man, what a moment in time we're in right now. And depending on how this game goes, because if it follows the script, and we have a tight finish, and we have Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark going at one another, and no matter the result, it's gonna be great,

because it's either gonna be tied in the college ranks, or Caitlin Clark's gonna have another painful loss, and has to finish the story in the pros. No matter the result, as long as it's a good game with individual moments where maybe they draw at each other on the court, this sets up so nicely for women's basketball as a whole. And I do think that even though they probably, it's been debated whether or not they'd make less money in the pros. I think the NA, we saw that Fox

was considering an NIL package for Caitlin Clark because the ratings are such. It is hugely important to advance the game and do what they're doing right now for college basketball for the WNBA. Where do you think, do you think that's where it goes? You think it goes they just follow the fandom to the WNBA because it's a different type of year, different time of year. They're also not going to be as great when they step on that WNBA court So to me the fear of it of not continuing the flow but to ride that wave It's got to be one or two more great players in college. You don't think that they're gonna be as great in the pros

I understand that the competition is better But when LeBron James is this highly touted prospect and he fulfills that promise, no matter who's on the court, his elite level of play does pop off the screen. Yeah, was Steph Curry great right when he got into the pros? No, he had to work it out. There was also weird roster construction there. He had injuries too. His ankles were dust those first couple weeks. You didn't know where you were going to play him. You had Monte Ellis there. He went to a really weird spot because Minnesota decided to take Johnny Flynn.

It just depends on, I mean she's probably going to be with Indiana, it just depends on how much responsibility they want to give her right off the bat. I'd say she's minus 8,000 to go to Indiana. Yeah, she's definitely going to go to Indiana. I kind of want to, depending on how tonight goes, I want either Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese to rep another country in the Olympics and just pour more gasoline on this rivalry. I actually think if the college game still has the stars

like Juju Watkins sort of carrying this over into next year because she seems like she is it, like the next great thing, I think that's where you're going to see most of the attention and then, if and when, we see their greatness show up in the WNBA, they will draw a bunch of eyes there, mostly because I think it's the time of year

that really lends itself to people trying out new sports, but I think, yeah, I think those two are probably what's gonna have to be the draw. So in a way, you almost kind of knock on the door of that coach in Indiana, say, listen, just go ahead and give her the draw. So in a way you almost kind of knock on the door of that coach in Indiana say listen just go ahead and give her the keys. Last year when you had a really bizarre Final Four, a historical outlier, you had Miami, FAU, San Diego State made it to the championship game and you had the the perceived blue blood UConn, the legitimate one as Miami is still building up their credibility. It

was weird and there wasn't really a star-making performance there. This year, there are stars in the Final Four and it's because of their mass. Let's be honest, they're doing things at unbelievable sizes. And I want to circle back to some of the pro prospect conversation that surrounded Zach Eadie rather than just the joy, because if you watch that game, hell, dude even looks spry, more spry than he's looked. As the season's gone on, he's played himself into better shape and he's quicker to the eye.

He dominated that game yesterday, a 40 burger. That was a perfect phrasing by you. You said they're doing things at unbelievable sizes. The things they're doing, totally normal. It's just the size that makes it interesting. Every Zach Eaddy highlight is pivot, pivot, layup. Pivot, pivot, layup. Or hey, the guy.

Shoot over guy that's smaller. Or that. I mean, now he's getting the type of rejections that it's not just, okay, that's a tall guy rejection. Like he's getting some mmph behind it. Some stink behind the rejections. I understand that he's got some mind at some stink I have behind the rejections I understand that he's I understand that he's got some things working to his advantage they cut down the net without a ladder there was a so the the pro

prospect conversation surrounding Zach Edie has usually been especially on this show that he's probably got European prospects not gonna see the court and then someone made the bow ban comp, and bow ban, depending on the situation, he could go in and get buckets. If you plopped bow ban into the NCAA tournament right now, I imagine it would look a lot like Zach Eadie. What do you make of the narrative around Zach Eadie?

It certainly bothered him because there was some attitude and some chest pounding over there at Purdue, and they have Certainly fed off of this narrative that he's not gonna do anything at the next level. It's kind of weird They're they're seeking motivation for one players pro prospects So it's just a rumor that Dan is not coming back until after he's not tired of it because I have a feeling his social media Accounts are just on fire with Purdue folks. I usually go to you for pro prospect evaluation. There's a thing.

When he gets to the NBA, if he's going to be anything, he's going to be leaner, he's going to be more mobile than we see him now, will it be enough of an upgrade? I don't know. Does he have the time to do that and have teams be patient with him? Absolutely. I mean, Orlando Robinson, I know he's not the

same type of player, at times was a rotation player with the Heat. So I think Zach Eaddy, get him in the right shape. He can absolutely be an NBA rotation guy. Hey friends, it's Mike Ryan and a lot has changed over the years. One thing that hasn't great and dependable taste, a Miller Lite. It was the original light beer and to this day it is still the best one. Miller Lite has more the taste that you want and less of the stuff that you don't. I was at a baseball game and thank goodness they had Miller Lite on tap. Mmm taste buds electrified. Miller Lite you were always the right call. And that's why I love you so much. Then I turned to my friend and I had a great

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