The Kevin Sheehan Show - Best Elite 8 Ever?

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

Kevin opens the show with news of another recently inactive/retired player the Redskins have interest in. The Elite 8 was one of the best ever.....Kevin lists his Top 5 Most Impressive Moments of the weekend including how Tom Izzo out-coached Mike Krzyzewski to lift Michigan State to the Final 4. Also, why Kevin is now rooting against the New Orleans Saints in 2019 and an interesting comment from A-Rod last night on ESPN. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, I am here. Aaron is here. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. It was a good win for the Nats yesterday, a bad win for the Wizards last night. Jesus, they went to Denver and beat the number one seed or the team that was tied for the number one seed out west. That was yesterday, and that's all the time we're going to spend on that, just so you know. Tommy, tomorrow to preview Harper's return to D.C. tomorrow night. There was something that A. Rod said last night on Sunday night about our fair city. I'm going to play that later on in the show. If you missed it, you'll want to hear it. Caps beat Tampa Saturday night. And listen to this. They are still a significant third-place pick in the east right now, odds-wise. Tampa is a five-year-old. Tampa is a five-year. to four favorite to win the East. Five to four. Boston is four to one, Aaron. You found these odds for me a little while ago.

And the caps, despite the way they've played here recently, beating Carolina twice last week and then Tampa on Saturday night. The caps are the third pick in the East at six to one. I'm surprised about that. And I don't bet hockey, but I may throw something down on the caps at six to one to make the Stanley Cup finals. They just have the look of a defending champion. and that ain't going down easy when we get to the postseason.

Enough about those subjects, because, Aaron, we had quite the news this morning. You're getting ready for me to talk about college basketball, which I'm going to do for the most part. But I had to mention this because I woke up to this news on my Twitter timeline from Ian Rappaport. The Redskins, Kenny Britt, wide receiver Kenny Britt, is headed to visit the Redskins today, as source said. The former Patriots, Browns, and Titans wide receiver had his best season with the Rams, who had Case Keenham as their starter.

Keenham obviously is now in Washington. Yeah, you know how long ago that was? That was a while ago. You know where Kenny Britt played last year? Nowhere. This is hysterical to me. They can barely get anybody's interest people who are actually still playing and not retired or semi-retired. Are you all paying attention to this?

For those of you who think that I and others go overboard in discussing the state of the Redskins franchise as dysfunctional, broken, unfit, unstable, look at what has happened in this off-season. An off-season that Dan Snyder wanted action. He did. He wanted something other than what Bruce has been handing him for several years. He did not want Orlando Scandric, Geron Johnson, and Terrence Knighton again.

He wanted something big. Thank God, Landing Collins was a huge Sean Taylor fan. Because without Collins, do you know what this team's offseason would include at this point? It would include a trade for a middling quarterback that might have to start. A retired Dominique Rogers Cromarty, okay, he was retired, Eric Flowers who nobody wanted, Brian Quick who had no other options, Zach Karen, who had no other options, a 34-year-old running back that probably had very limited options, and now potentially Kenny Britt, who didn't play last year.

And by the way, let's also mention the fact that three of the coaching hires, Horton, Rob Ryan, both out of business, both not coaching, retired, out of retirement now to coach for the Redskins, and Tim Rite, who's never coached in the NFL before. You just, at some point, regardless of how you feel, you have to just look at where they are with facts. They can't attract anybody. No one wants to come here.

Nobody, unless there is some extenuating, unique circumstance. The circumstance with Landon Collins is he dreamt of playing for the Redskins. because of Sean Taylor. Unless you get drafted and don't have any other choice, it is not a place that most of these guys want to come to. Now, I've said this before. It is fair to say that coaches who want stability, players who want stability,

are looking at Jay Gruden's situation, and their agents are telling them, this guy's a lame duck. I mean, you don't want to go there. It's a one-year deal, and all hell's going to change. All hell's going to break loose at the end of 2000. and there's going to be a ton of change. So there's that, and that's fair to include in the conversation.

But for a team that I think wanted, or its owner, wanted more activity, they've ended up with a bunch of players out of retirement without options, same with the coaches, with the exception of Landon Collins and a player they traded for, traded for in Case Keenham. All right, let's get to the College Hoops weekend. What a weekend it was. it was a spectacular weekend of basketball, the Sweet 16 games and then the Elite 8 games. It really was. I don't know how I would compare it to others. I mean, I think we've had a lot of weekends before in this tournament. Elite 8, Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games that have been great.

This one's up there, though. This one is up there. I mean, you had four Elite 8 games that basically all came down to the wire. I mean, with two minutes to go, these games were undecided. The Texas Tech Gonzaga game was not decided until the final two minutes of the game. You then had Virginia Purdue, which is an all-time elite eight game, all time. That's a memorable game with one of the most memorable performances by an individual we've ever seen. And then yesterday, Auburn, Kentucky to overtime, and the Duke, Michigan State game, which I'm going to spend a lot of time on because I was at the game. I went to the sweet 16 games Friday night went to the game yesterday,

and it was nice to see a lot of people out there. Actually had a conversation, a short conversation with Ernie Grunfeld yesterday. Mike Loxley too. There were a lot of people at that game yesterday. Man, does Duke draw some people to watch them play? Zion does too. But Duke in general is a big draw. I'm going to start the basketball conversation, Aaron,

with a list of the five most impressive things that I saw this weekend since we left on Friday. Okay, so that would include the two games, the four games Friday night, and then the four games over the weekend, the four Elite Eight games. I'm going to give you a top five things that most impressed me over the weekend, and then we'll get into some of the games in general. I actually want to talk a little bit about the Virginia Tech Duke game, which was an incredible game. Most impressive to me, and maybe the most memorable thing about this tournament, I guess other than Zion not making it to the final four, and this Duke, you know, Fab freshman class not making it to the final four, the most memorable thing to me was Carson Edwards and the performance he had on Saturday night. It's one of the great individual performances I have ever watched in the NCAA tournament. And, you know, there have been a lot of

a lot of them. And I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to say that it's the greatest ever. It is certainly one. These tournaments all tend to blend together over the years and you have these certain memories. And a lot of times you don't remember specifically something other than a great game. You will never, ever forget Carson Edwards on Saturday night. That was one for the ages because it was, and it's ironic because the tournament run he had, he scored 42 against In the second round as well, had 42 on Saturday night in the 80 to 75 overtime loss to Virginia. The shooting performance that he put on in that game, I don't know what it is, and this may be a personal preference thing. The great shooting performances always stand out and are more memorable

for me than a dominant performance by a big. I don't know why, and maybe it's because of the kind of player that I enjoy watching. Those of you out there that know me, know that I've not yet met a shot that I don't like personally and haven't taken in any pickup game that I've ever been involved in. But beyond that, Carson Edwards was 14 of 25 from the floor, 10 for 19 from behind the arc. The average length of his three-point shots were 28 feet. they weren't at the line. They were five to six feet behind the line on average.

Do you agree with me that that's the most memorable takeaway of the weekend? Most impressive thing you saw this weekend? You know, I don't know if it's the most memorable thing just because we did have, you know, several first-time coaches making it to the final four. Famasas who haven't made it in a long time or have never made it to the final four make it. But my God, Carson Edwards was everything. Just an unbelievable individual performance. And what's really ironic about Purdue and Aaron and I are Big Ten guys now, Maryland people, Big Ten people.

I found myself rooting so hard for Michigan State and Purdue over the weekend. It's crazy the way that works. But anyway, watching Purdue, you know, under Matt Painter in particular, it's not typical of his teams to have a guy that basically takes over a show individually. But you know what? Good coaching sometimes is understanding that less coaching is better. I talked about that a lot this year as it related to Maryland. I felt there was too much micromanaging, micro-coaching, possession by possession going on. And sometimes you got better athletes, you got better players, let's see the players do it. Let's get out and watch them play fast and end up with high possessions in a game. And Carson Edwards was incredible on Saturday night.

It was, I talked to two UVA friends of mine, and I'm happy for the UVA people. I never disliked Virginia as an ACC guy. Don't ask me why, because I don't have a good answer for you. I never hated Virginia. Never felt like there was a big rivalry between Virginia and Maryland. I never did in the ACC after all of those years. And I think Virginia people will tell you they didn't feel the same way about Maryland. And Maryland and Virginia had some unbelievable all-time games, too.

but I always felt like Virginia was an underachieving program over the years. I always felt like in the ACC, they were the team that should be a heavyweight, and they weren't for so long. It's their first final four since 1984. Now, they've been a dominant program, a consistent top five, top 10 team over the last five years with Tony Bennett, but they had not been to the final four since 1984, and that was the year after Ralph Samson. graduated. The great UVA teams with Samson went to one final four with Terry Holland as their coach. And they went to the final four the year after Ralph graduated and lost, by the way,

ironically, to Houston in the final four. And they were very close to having potentially Houston as a final four matchup. Houston was close to beating Kentucky. They had a three-point lead in the final minute of the game. And then I think Houston and Auburn would have been a, I was a great game anyway. I think Houston could have beaten Auburn. In some ways, I thought they would have had a better shot. I gave out Auburn twice this weekend in the smell test, Aaron. Friday I gave Auburn out, plus the five and a half. They went out right against Carolina. And then I gave them out yesterday plus the four and a half against Kentucky. They went out right. I just, I was blown away impressed with how good they were. And I don't think anybody saw how good they were and how good their

guard play was all year long. Two and one, the smell test was. since our last show because I gave out Virginia Purdue under 127. It was under, it was trending under, and then all of a sudden, Kyle Guy and Carson Edwards went off in the second half. Kyle Guy's performance was outstanding too. On my top five list, back to that, of the most impressive things to me, number one was Carson Edwards. I'll never forget what Carson Edwards did in the elite eight. I am really, really sad personally that Matt Painter and that team didn't get to the final four. I think it would have been fun to watch Carson Edwards play at least one more game in this tournament. But Virginia, you know, they got a lucky break, you know, at the end of that

game. We'll talk about the games in more detail. Let me get through the rest of this list, as it takes me forever to do it. The second most impressive thing to me was Tom Izzo in the final minute and 30 seconds of the game last night. Izzo in the final minute 30 of that game last night. took Coach K to the coaching clinic cleaners. To the cleaners. I've talked about Shishchevsky before. Shoevsky's a great coach. He's a Hall of Fame coach.

Nobody is going to dispute that. Never, ever, ever. Don't get me wrong. I consider Mike Shishovsky to be an all-time great college coach. But I said something a few weeks ago that some of you had a problem with. And you, you know, you doubted my, my, uh, my contacts on this. And I said, Coach K is a great coach, but when it comes to one portion of coaching, X's and O's, you know, in-game strategy, X's and O's strategy, there are a dozen to two dozen

guys that are better than him. And coaches have told me that before. They have. I'm not going to go through the list of coaches who have told me that before. But if you watch basketball and you know basketball, you know that Kay's a good coach. But there are guys out there like McKillop at Davidson and, you know, and some of the guys I've mentioned here in recent weeks, Matt Painter, Tom Izzo, Chris Beard at Texas Tech, there are a lot of them that are probably better X's and O's coaches than Shoshchewski. But Shishovsky does all of the other things brilliantly. He recruits brilliantly. He handles young men incredibly well. He's an incredible mentor. He's an incredible motivator. I actually have always felt that Shoshchewski is a better

defensive coach than he is an offensive coach with respect to X's and O's. And I did not think that this particular Duke team was a great defensive team, although I thought they played pretty good defense yesterday at times, really good defense at times. Izzo outcoached Shoshiewski in that game yesterday, especially down the stretch. I'm going to take you through it. There was a minute 30 left in the game. By the way, at that point, the Michigan State still had three timeouts left, and Duke only had one timeout left at that point. And you now get into, with Michigan State down three, they got to get these possessions right.

He calls a timeout with a minute 30 to go. They run a set where they run two fake ball screens towards Cassius Winston to clear Zion and RJ Barrett to the opposite side of where they want to go. You get Cassius Winston into the lane and he gets a lob to Xavier Tillman 6665. Great set out of the timeout. by Izzo. Up next is the next possession just in watching Duke. You know, it's Barrett and or Zion against a set defense. It was nothing structured really for Duke. It was hoping that one of their two stars would make a play. Barrett drives into a wall, a defensive wall misses. Michigan

States got the ball back. They bring it up court. They call the second of their three remaining timeouts with 43.6 seconds left. Now you get Izzo at his best. They need a bucket on this drive. You also have the concept of a two-for-one in that situation. You know, possibly really what you want, I think, more than anything, you want to get the best possible shot, and you want to take the lead on that possession. If it comes with 24 seconds left, it doesn't matter.

But if you get something early, which he designed to try to get something early that's there, you take it and you're in a two-for-one situation. So he uses Cassius Winston, the guy that's been running every, Every ball screen, every, you know, putting the decision into his hands on every single possession up to that point, he uses Winston as a screener. He screens Zion to open up Goans from behind the ark. No one's within seven feet of Goans out of that timeout. Now, they had a lot of shit going on in that particular spot. That was their first option out of the timeout.

He takes the three. You're in a two-for-one situation. if he misses, all right, you don't have to foul on the other end. You can get a stop and still have a chance to win the game. But if he makes it, you're in a great position. Zion reacted very late to Winston screening him. They have, you know, they basically now got him coming out late away from the basket if he gets to Goins in time.

And meantime, Winston is now back screening for Tillman for the last. lob. So if Zion had popped out and not given Goens the open look, they had a backdoor lob going to Tillman, which would have given him a one-point lead. And then if that wasn't open, Winston ends up with the ball. It was great. I went back and watched it multiple times. It's Izzo at his best. Yes, you're micromanaging a possession. You're not necessarily letting your stars, you know, decide the game, which is Shoshchewski's model. I'm going to let my stars decide the game. Izzo ran incredible sets, incredible plays to get that. Goin's knocked down the three. They're up two at that point. Now, at that point, Duke has nothing going offensively. Ultimately,

they want Barrett or Zion one-on-one down 6866, and Barrett misses with 8.4 seconds left. You had to scramble in the corner, et cetera, and it ends up being Duke ball with 8.4 seconds left. They've got no timeouts at this point. All right, Duke has no timeouts at this point. Now, Izzo does something that it made so much sense. That ball was out in the deep corner, all right, where McQaeda landed on it. They lined Duke up in a favorable position on the inbound pass in your normal spot underneath their own basket. And Izzo screams from the sideline, brings the referees over, and says, that's not where the ball is going to be triggered from. That's not where it went out. and they moved it. They moved the inbound pass almost to the deep corner,

which is a much more difficult place to inbound the ball. And Duke really, to be honest with you, and Shoshchewski had time because they went back to look at the clock and then Izzo screaming about ball placement. And Duke didn't really have anything set up. They barely got the ball in bounds to bear it. Now, Michigan State was playing the three-point shooters, which gave Barrett a chance to drive. What was interesting is the help came from Tillman, and that left Zion wide open. If Zion stayed in, you know, on some level, you're like, what, you want Zion shooting a three to win the game? Yeah, he shoots the three better than he shoots free throws.

But Barrett got to the rim and he got fouled with a five-point, a three-point, think it was 5.2 seconds left in that game. Keep in mind, though, on that particular play, they barely got the ball in bounds, barely got it in bounds. But it was huge for Izzo to recognize where the ball was being inbounded from. Then you get to the 5.2 seconds left, Barrett's at the free throw line. Now, he misses the first. Now, something that you may have been paying attention to in that second half was Duke's team fouls. They didn't have many. It's amazing as aggressive as Michigan State is.

One of the other just high-level things that I found interesting from that game is Michigan State is one of the big 10 teams that plays fast. They had a fast break dunk in the first half. McQuaid did off of a made free throw. And to watch Duke, who also prefers to turn you over. play fast, take it off the rim and go. It was Duke who didn't want to play fast in that game. Michigan State did, Duke did not.

That is an aside. Barrett misses the first free throw. Now with 5.2 seconds left, my personal feeling is in most cases, you got to make that free throw. There's a lot of game left, believe it or not, at 5.2 seconds. But here's where Shoshchewski made the right decision, telling Barrett to intentionally try to miss it, which he did, but it went in anyway.

get to that in a second. They only had three team fouls at that point because, you know, Duke gets a kind whistle. Sorry, it's true. There was a play on an out of bounds play. They got knocked out of bounds. It seemed to be clearly knocked out of bounds. About the three minute mark, Aaron, I think it was at the under four timeout right before it. That looked like it was clearly off Duke and they gave the ball to Duke in that spot. I don't know. No, no, no. That was the correct call. It was the correct call? Yes. Okay. People were going nuts there. But with only three team fouls, you're not going to be able to foul your way into a free throw situation for Michigan State that's going to leave you enough time. So the Duke Whistle, if you want to call it that, and I don't know if I'd call it that necessarily. I didn't see any egregious calls in the game personally. Duke having only three team fouls really meant that after Barrett missed that first one,

it probably was the right strategy, especially with Zion Williamson, you know, sitting there at the free throw line. I mean, you know, underneath trying to battle on offensive rebound. It was probably the right strategy. In most cases, I would say absolutely not. You know, if you're at six team fouls, hell, if you're at five team fouls and you have to foul twice, 5.2 seconds, you know, more likely than that you're going to get a chance with the ball, you know. But he intentionally tried to miss it, which was, again, with three team fouls, probably the right. thing to do there, and it went in. You know, he fired that thing low,

it hit the back iron, popped up into the air, and went through. It's a one-point game now to get the ball in bounds quickly, and there's a quick foul. Now, here's Izzo again, man. All right? You got 4.9 seconds left. I believe it was 4.9 seconds left. And, by the way, Michigan State's inbounding the ball from a difficult spot.

Izzo's got one time out left. He's going to save it in case they can't get the ball in bounds. He's not going to call it to run a point. play. He's coached these guys to run a play in that spot from that spot on the floor. You saw Michigan, you see a lot of teams in that spot, a lot of college basketball teams and pro teams in that spot. If their coach hasn't called the timeout, they don't know what to do. They're just having some guy trying to shake free without any sort of set play to get the ball inbounds. Not Michigan State. They got something going on, which includes, and here's what you cannot do in

that position. Michigan State cannot throw the ball in towards Duke's basket. If you end up having a difficult time, you call a timeout. Obviously, they had one timeout left. If you come back out after that timeout, you've got to throw the ball down the floor. Duke has no timeouts left. If you're going to turn it over, you're going to turn it over on the other end of the floor, not near Duke's bucket. They had McQuaid break towards the basket, Duke's basket, open, and Tillman makes a hard ball fake to McQuaid as Winston's coming off a screen into the back court initially, towards Duke's basket, and then makes a hard cut up the court, and Tillman's ball fake gets Duke moving in that direction, hesitating, and here comes Winston wide open, moving down

the court, and he's able to dribble the clock out. That is coaching. That's practicing, that's a practice situation on how to get the ball in bounds and what you're going to run and game situation stuff and you see a lot of teams fail miserably in that spot, not Izzo. The second most impressive thing to me all weekend long was watching Izo coach the final minute 30 seconds. He is flat out the best in the game today. And there are a lot of good ones. And I know I've said this over and over again, Aaron. A lot of good ones just happened to be in the Big Ten for some reason. But Izzo was brilliant down the stretch and coached circles around Shoshevsky from a possession by possession standpoint. And that's one of the reasons Michigan states in the

final four, and Duke isn't. Third most impressive thing I saw all weekend was Auburn's pace. All year Auburn was one of those teams that played super fast. They had guard play. Remember that formula I went through before the tournament? Auburn was one of the teams. They were one of my final five teams that could win it all because they scored. They were a high offensive efficiency team. They had great guard play, and I think Pearl is a good coach. Those were my four criteria, and Auburn were one of the final five teams. Auburn was one of the final five teams that made it to my list of teams that could win the title. Michigan State was in that group, too. They're the only two that are left. Virginia and Texas Tech were not in that group.

Auburn's pace of play to watch their guards push tempo, to watch them without a really effective player in that game because of the injury that he had on Friday night. To watch them, to watch in particular, certainly Harper and Dunbar, Harper and Brown, their back court. Brown is a lanky, creates his own shot, great at finding ways to score from the mid-range in particular, but also can knock down the three. And then Harper, this little guy at 510, 511 with incredible speed, was barely even recruited. Harper was.

He had 26 in the game, went 11 for 11 from the free throw line. Brown had 24 in the game. The starting back court for Auburn combined for 50 of their 77 points. Great guard play wins in college basketball. And Auburn had it. And their pace of play against Carolina, Carolina was, the fastest team I watched all year in terms of how quickly they would take the ball off the rim or out of the net and try to push it at you. And Auburn was one of those top three or four

teams when you watched them this year. And they beat Carolina at their own game. They shot lights out. They lose a key player. They come back against a Kentucky team that was good. Really, really good. I mean, I think that PJ, I mean, PJ Washington is a legit, I mean, stud. and they had him back. But it was interesting. One thing about that particular game, and I thought Pearl just kept going to it over and over again, and I have no idea why Calipari didn't answer this with something.

They kept getting Reed Travis, their 6-9 forward, into a pick-and-roll with Harper, the little point guard. All right? They kept switching. They switched every screen, Kentucky did. And I don't know how many times Travis ended up on Harper in the second half, but it was too many. It was a mismatch. Why they kept allowing that.

I don't know if Calipari had the proper sub for Travis to get him out of that switch, or they just decided they weren't going to, you know, they decided to stick with the switch. There were multiple possessions down the stretch where you've got Harper at five, 10, 5-11, and fast matched up after the ball screen because they knew they were switching with Reed Travis. And Kentucky never decided to do anything about it. I thought that that was crazy watching that over and over again. It was clear that it was a mismatch that Travis could not stay in front of Harper, but they allowed it to happen. I thought the better team won. I thought the better team won in that game, even though they were missing a key player who

tours ACL in the game against Carolina Harper and Brown were spectacular in that game. I think Auburn can beat Virginia. The only thing is, is Virginia has what I think is the easier of the two things, which is, is it easier to speed a team up or slow a team down? I think it's easier to slow a team down, and Virginia will do that to Auburn. But Auburn's guards are great, and they can score. All right, that's the third most impressive thing I saw this weekend was Auburn and their pace of play in particular and their guard play. The fourth most impressive thing I saw, and this was close because I almost put them at number three, was just Texas Tech, and their defense in particular. That is the best defensive team in the draw, as it turned out.

I know that they were heralded as really good defensively. I thought Michigan was as good a defensive team as I watched all year. Well, Texas Tech's even better defensively. And they're so well-coached. And they have high- IQ guard play. Not necessarily consistent, but high- IQ guard play, including the kid Moretti, who was outstanding in both of their wins over Michigan and then in the win on Saturday against Gonzaga. Jared Culver is everything that everybody talked about. Matt Mooney is a high IQ player. Texas Tech defensively is so good. Man, did they really wreak havoc against Gonzaga, turning them over multiple times, turning them over. They rebounded in the two games. They ran good half-court offense, Texas Tech. I think Aaron, going into the final four,

can win the tournament. I think they can win on Saturday against Michigan State. My final I would lean Virginia Michigan State final, but I think Texas Tech is totally capable of winning the tournament. In fact, I think they are worthy of a bet here going into the weekend. What are the odds on the four teams? I've not seen them. Do you have them? I don't have them up right now. I did see them. I believe Virginia is the favorite. If I remember this correctly, at around. Virginia's the favorite, really? Yes, at about plus 120, I believe. Michigan State's about plus 150. Texas Tech is plus, I saw between plus 410 and plus 450.

Here, I got it right now. I just found it. Virginia's plus 160, Michigan State's plus 180. So they're pretty close. Yeah. All right. Texas Tech is 4 to 1. They're plus 400.

Yeah. And Auburn's plus 700. You know what? Going into this weekend, I absolutely will put money down on Texas Tech and Auburn to win the national championship. It's reasonable. Because really out of these four teams that, It will not be a shock if any one of the four win it.

You can say, well, Auburn doesn't have the experience, and Texas Tech doesn't either, and you've got Michigan State, you got Izzo, who's the best. And no result this weekend will shock me. What are the point spreads in these games? That's what I want to see. I saw as of last night, I believe it was 5 and 1⁄uva minus 5 and 1⁄2 and Michigan State minus 3.

Only 3. Wow. That's short to me. That is short to me. Michigan State's only a three-point favorite. Let me rephrase that. It's not a shock to me in terms of Texas Tech being really, really good. I just think the public doesn't know it.

And I think the public's going to perceive that line to be short. Really short. That's what I would say about that. I don't know that I would imagine that the public is absolutely going to play Michigan State minus the three. And the other one was what, five and a half? Five and a half, yes. You know, Carolina was five and a half against Auburn. Kentucky was four and a half against Auburn.

They won both of those games, and now Virginia's five and a half. And you could say that Virginia is lucky to be here because they needed Ryan Klein to miss free throw, you know, late in regulation. Every team at this point is lucky to be there. You're right. You're right. In fact, Duke was lucky to even be playing in this weekend after the UCF game. I would bet that the public's going to play Auburn in that game. My immediate reaction to both of those lines is the public will be on Michigan State and Auburn. One underdog, one favorite. But anyway. All right, back to my list.

Top five most impressive things to me this weekend. Number one was Carson Edwards. Number two was Tom Izzo in the final minute 30 of the game last night. coaching out coaching Coach K and it wasn't even close. Auburn's Pace was the third most impressive thing and their guard play.

The fourth most impressive thing from the weekend was Texas Tech and their defense in particular. And the fifth most impressive thing, and this is a personal thing because I was there on Friday night and Sunday, was Capital One Arena for the regional. It was an incredible atmosphere.

Now we all know what it would have been like had Maryland been there. but even without Maryland there. Couple of things I wanted to mention. Number one, congratulations, Hokey Nation. You showed up for Friday night, and you were loud, and it was awesome to be there in that arena. The second game on Friday night, Virginia Tech Duke,

was a completely different atmosphere than Michigan State LSU. First of all, LSU, you know, they just didn't have that many people there. I mean, it's not a big alum base here. It's a football first school. They were surprised to be here. There's all the controversy around whether or not whatever they do is going to be vacated anyway. Michigan State shows up, their fans show up, but nothing like what you saw with Duke in Virginia Tech in the second game on Friday night. That atmosphere was fabulous.

I was disappointed. I saw a lot of Maryland people in the crowd. It was funny to see and run into some people. And everybody said the same thing. Yeah, I was hoping. I bought the tickets hoping, paid a lot of money for the tickets hoping they would be here. But Virginia Tech Hokey Nation showed up in a big way, loud, and it was great. Now, I was also closer to the Virginia Tech section, but I thought Virginia Tech's fans on Friday night were better than Duke's fans Friday night.

The arena was probably pretty close, but I had made the comment, I was dead wrong, about Virginia Tech showing up for this thing. I know how much alum, Virginia Tech alum there are in the arena. this area. But it's a football first school, and it's not even close. But there was a ton of excitement about that thing on Friday night, and it was great. It was really fun. The atmosphere was great. And no Cam Reddish hurt Duke on Friday night. That's an interesting story in its own right. Why Cam Reddish apparently was bouncing around moments before Tip, and then all of a sudden is ruled out with an injury. There's going to be, I think there's a story that's coming out about that at some point. And the game itself was a phenomenal game. How about the final play that Buzz Williams

you know, queued up there for the tap, what should have been an easy bucket to force overtime at the end of regulation. It was awesome to watch. Yesterday, Capital One Arena was electric. And, you know, CBS does not do CBS does not have a great audio feed or they place, they decide to deemphasize the loud crowd for other things

like cheerleaders and bands and whatever. I've always noticed that about CBS. If you watch a game on ESPN, you hear the crowd much more. I watched the final, you know, three minutes of the Virginia, of the Michigan State Duke game when I got home late last night.

And it didn't do it justice. The place was electric. It was loud. The Duke fans were great and there were many more of them than the Michigan State fans yesterday. A lot more Duke fans. Man, Duke shows up for these regionals, especially when they're close, I'm sure. And Zion was a big draw too. Now, a lot of people in that crowd rooting for Duke, they didn't go to Duke.

They didn't know anything about Duke until about 25 years ago and their total bandwagon jumpers. all of them. And by the way, just one other quick side note, if you're at a game like the games that we saw Friday night, the game that we saw yesterday, I don't personally get at all why somebody at the game would choose to videotape the game using their telephone rather than watching it. I don't understand all the phones up in the air to record the final moments of a close game. Scott said this the other night on Sports Center. Be present in your own life and stop worrying about documenting it for others. I don't get it at all.

It must just be me, Aaron, it must be a generational thing. There's no chance in hell with 8.4 seconds left in the game yesterday. Duke down two, down two at that point. I am going to hold my phone up and watch my sell, watch my phone and the game through my, my phone. There's no chance I'm doing that. I don't understand it at all. Do you really think the view you have looking at your phone is better than watching the game that's right in front of you? I don't get it. And the hysterical part of that is you will go online on YouTube and there will be thousands of these, hey, watch it from my

vantage point. The problem is you weren't watching. it. You were more interested in recording it. I don't understand that at all. But anyway, it was amazing. Virginia Tech Duke on Friday night, that final possession for Virginia Tech on the inbound play with 1.2 seconds or whatever it was down to 75, 73. Everybody, I mean, one out of every two people are recording it on their phones. You know what? If that's something you're into, have at it. I don't understand it at all. You paid a lot of money more likely than not for those seats because they were expensive, and you're there and you're watching one of these classic regional semifinal or regional final games,

and you decided the most important part of the game to be more concerned about recording it and watching it as you're recording it through your little phone, your cell phone, rather than the game right in front. And I had decent seats. So the game was right in front of us, especially, the Virginia Tech Duke game, that inbound pass was right in front of us. And people are holding up their phone recording it.

I don't get it. I don't get it. If you get that perfect shot that, you know, goes viral on Twitter, that's what you want. I guess. Anyway, it was a phenomenal weekend. I wanted to say a couple of things about what was the best game of the weekend, and one of the best games you'll ever see in the tournament. And that was the UVA Purdue game, beyond Carson Edwards, because it was as good

an individual run in the tournament by one player that we've ever seen. But there were a couple of things in that game. First of all, UVA's offensive rebounding, I thought, won the game for them. I think Purdue, if they had rebounded better in that game, it wouldn't have been as close. Virginia was phenomenal on the offensive glass in that game. 17 offensive rebounds in that basketball game for Virginia. And Purdue's been a pretty good rebounding team. Now, I think Painter had to go small a little bit and perhaps smaller than he would have liked at times, but it was that offensive rebounding for UVA that I thought was the difference in the second half. I think if they don't offensive rebound the ball, I think Purdue wins that game in regulation, not by blowout margin,

but by a comfortable margin. Virginia, have you ever seen anything have to go right for a team at end of a game more than it did in regulation for Virginia to force overtime. First of all, Ryan Klein misses a free throw. All right, he's a really good free throw shooter. I think this year he was only in the mid-70s. In previous years, he's been like an 82, 83, 84% free throw shooter. But if you've watched Ryan Klein, you know what a great shooter he is. And he's got a chance to give Purdue a four-point lead. And he missed the second free throw. And that created that situation where, you know, they're up three, do you foul, don't you foul? Matt Painter chose to foul. Ironically, Ty Jerome initially has an open look, you know, with harms on him. And harms weren't going to,

you know, he was going to be able to create some space and then decided to dribble away from that particular look and then they fouled with 5.9 seconds left. A lot of you asked me on Twitter, was it the right thing to do? I think it's six and one half dozen the other. I've never felt strongly either way. You know, you've got to be sure that you can secure a rebound, all right, up three if you're going to foul. I would never do it with 15 seconds left. I would never do it with 10 seconds left. I think if you get into that situation of under six or seven seconds, you know, somewhere in that general area, this was at 5.9, I don't think it's a terrible strategy. You have to be very careful that you foul somebody that's not going up into a shooting motion. I didn't think

it was a terrible mistake to foul with 5.9 seconds left. Now, Virginia had been offensive rebounding very well in that game, so that would have been part of the context there if I were Purdue. But he makes the first to get it to a two-point lead. He did not intentionally miss that second free throw, for those of you that think he did. That was not an intentional try to miss with 5.9 seconds left. He was trying to try. He was trying to make it to get it to a one-point game, which was the right thing to do in Virginia's case. He missed it. The center tips the ball out and just think about the probability at this point. Virginia has no timeouts. Actually, they did. They had one timeout left. I actually thought

when they chased the ball down into the back court, they would call timeout. But they've got to chase the ball all the way back into their back court. And then they've got to turn around the clock's running, because once it was tipped back, the clock's running, they then have to turn around and make a play and hit a shot to either win the game, if it were a three, or get one off from two-point range to tie it and force overtime. But in that particular situation, are you expecting anything but a heave? You know, just a last second chuck towards the rim. Virginia had a time out left.

They decided not to use it. Clark chases it down in the back court, finds their guy, he hits it at the buzzer. it just was so improbable that Virginia would tie that game. Not when Ty Jerome's sitting there with the second free throw with 5.9 seconds, but when you saw the tip go into the back court, it just wasn't very likely. But they hit it. They go to overtime. I thought there were a couple of terrible miscalls in that game.

I did not think that was a well-officiated game. Not that it was a one-sided officiated game. There was one play, though, where Ty Jerome, pushed off latent regulation offensively. It was a terrible miss of an offensive foul call. I thought there was an out of bounds on Virginia early in overtime that was given to Virginia. But, you know, it was not a one-sided, officiated game. I just thought it was a poorly officiated game for the most part. It was interesting to watch Purdue's fan base show up. Now, it was only 180 miles away from West Lafayette, Louisville. But, man, Tony Bennett said it.

after the game, he said that was a road game for us. And you could, you could feel how much of a road game it was for Virginia. The Purdue fan base was great in that game. One last point from that game, well, two of them actually. I don't see it with DeAndre Hunter. I don't see a top half of the first round NBA pick. I think he should come back. I think he's a good player. And I know why people see him as having great NBA potential. You know, he's incredibly athletic and long and all of those things. I just don't see it as a player quite yet. The last thing was the last two free throws for Virginia gave them the cover.

You know, they were a four and a half point favorite in that game, and Purdue looked right the whole way, and those last two free throws gave Virginia the cover in the game. Carson Edwards threw up one last three-pointer from half court that actually almost went in and they lost that game. That to me was the game of the tournament, and hell, the Purdue Tennessee game was really close to being the game of the tournament, but the Purdue UVA game was really, really special. It was a spectacular basketball game.

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I really feel that way. We went through the odds. Virginia's the favorite, a slight favorite over Michigan State. And then you have Texas Tech and then Auburn. Texas Tech at 4 to 1, Auburn at 7 to 1. That's what it was, right? Yes. I think Virginia was plus 160 and Michigan State was plus 180.

I think any result is possible. The matchups are interesting. I think Texas Tech's the best defensive team left in the tournament. Michigan State and Auburn play at a pace. That would be a phenomenal final, but then the contrast of Michigan State against Virginia or even Texas Tech against Virginia would be – or Texas Tech against Auburn. You've got so many possibilities this weekend, and I know it's not a made-for-TV ratings final. The ratings, by the way, on the game last night were the highest in how many years, Aaron, for the Sunday late game?

I saw – 14 years. 14 years. It's Duke. It's Zion. Williamson, obviously, that makes sense. But I don't know that you'll have the big TV ratings for this Final Four. There's no Duke, there's no Carolina, there's no Kentucky in the Final Four. I mean, Michigan State's a big name program, a high-profile program, but you do not have any of the Blue Bloods. The true list of Blue Bloods, really, is Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina,

Kansas. That's the list, right? Would you put any other program in the list? of true elite blue blood programs in college basketball. You used to be able to say UCLA or Indiana, you can't say that anymore. Those are the four. Those are the four without peer, I believe, without any peers. It's that category. And then you get into the category of Michigan states, probably in that next category. There was a time.

Wasn't that long ago, 15 years ago. Maryland would have been in that next category. They're not anymore. But Michigan States, the highest profile, program. You got a team that's never been there in Auburn. You've got a team that hasn't been there since 84 in Virginia. And then you've got Texas Tech who hadn't won a tournament game until last year was the first year they had won a tournament game in 15 years or 14 years. So it's going to be an interesting final four. I'm actually very, very excited about it. I wish Purdue

were there so we'd have a chance for an all Big Ten final. But anyway. Well, you've really embraced this big 10 thing. I remember at the beginning of this podcast, You were begrudging about it. It's still a tractor league. Still, you know, a bunch of, you know, farmers, you know, that tell, like the guy from Iowa, Jordan Bowhannon, remember the way he lipped off about Maryland and the way Maryland guarded him in that game? I don't like a lot.

I'd much rather be in the ACC. That's without question. I'd much rather be in the ACC, but I'm not. I'm in the Big Ten. So I got a route for the Big Ten to do well and show well, which I think it has. One other quick thing, you know. Duke's recruiting class was number one

this year. They made it to the elite eight. Did not win a national championship, didn't even get to a final four. Last year, number one recruiting class in 2017, 2018, they made it to the elite eight. Did not make it to the final four or win a national championship. 2016, 2017.

Guess what their recruiting class was ranked? Number one? Number one. And they didn't make it past the first weekend of the tournament that year. This is not an anti-corruption. Coach K rant. I'm just pointing out the facts, and I've done it before. He's a great coach.

He's a Hall of Fame coach. That team's got four first-round picks. Four of them. How many does Michigan State have first round on their roster right now? Zero. Yeah. Zero. There may be even some question as to whether or not they have a draft pick on their roster

at all. Coach K's Hall of Famer, all-time great. does almost everything incredibly well. The results aren't always what you think they should be. Now, he's taking teams like the team with Zubek at Center in 2010 and won a national championship with that team, that was one example of him overachieving with a group of players. That's typically not the case at Duke.

You know, there was a stretch there in the 2000s where they weren't recruiting like they have been in the last 10 years. But anyway, Izzo, give me Izzo any day of the week before K. And they're both outstanding. Again, I don't want to hear from you, Duke people saying this is an anti-coach K thing. It's not. I just don't think he's the best. I think he's outstanding.

I don't think he's the best. I think we saw the best yesterday in Tom Izzo. And I'm glad he's getting his team to the final four. And before this tournament started, I said to you and Tom, when we were doing our brackets. He has not been out of the first weekend, Izzo, in three years, which was highly unusual for him. This is his eighth Final Four since 1999.

What is it? Every senior except for one class? Except for one class. Except for one class. He's experienced the Final Four. And I felt like there was going to be a chip on the shoulder. And when that bracket came out, and they were a two-seed with the number one team in the tournament, Duke. He wasn't happy about it, thought he got screwed on that draw. And you know what? For Duke,

they probably didn't want to see Michigan State as the number two. They would have preferred Michigan over Michigan State as a number two, which really Michigan should have been the number two in the East region. On an S curve, they would have been. I'll tell you what, I mean, Izzo would have been royally screwed had Maryland beaten LSU. And he would have had to play a true road game in the Sweet 16 just to get to the game yesterday. I was happy for him and happy for Michigan State. Was Kurt Cousins at the game? Didn't he tweet out something that he was going to be at the game?

Yeah, I didn't see any pictures of him, though. I saw Darius Geis. Oh, for LSU. For LSU was at the game. I saw Magic Johnson at the game. Yes, Magic was there. Magic was down on the court afterwards. Yeah, and there was somebody else there.

Oh, Dak Prescott and Amari. Cooper. They got booed royally by the fans there, which tells you that there were some redskin fans probably in the crowd. Well, not just that, but anyone who's not a Cowboys fan. But you would have expected with Duke fans in the crowd, there would have been a lot of Cowboys fans in the crowd, too. Yeah, that's true. I wanted to get to something else today. And I'll get through this quickly. But I was reading over the weekend just how influential Sean Payton was in the league meetings last week when it came to getting the rule implemented. It's a one-year rule only, the rule that will allow coaches teams to challenge a pass interference penalty, called or not, not called,

and then allow the booth to review in the final two minutes of a half or a game. And I was reading basically a story of how Sean Payton and just the Saints in general, but Sean Peyton in particular, was incredibly compelling in his argument as to why this that to happen. And, you know, we ended up with a 31 to one vote on replay. And Rich McKay, who was the head of the competition committee in the NFL, said we never, on any replay issue, get that overwhelming a consensus. But that Sean Peyton was very, very influential in some of those meetings. And Mike Brown was the only one. The Bengals were the only team to vote against. And I was thinking about it over the weekend, and I just thought, Jesus, God.

I mean, I understand that Saints fans are upset. And if it were my team and my coach, I'd be upset too. It was a blatant missed call that cost them an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. And by the way, I'm not blaming the fans and the organization for being upset. I'm now angry that the league count out as much as it did to something that, I'll be honest with you, It was a big deal, all right? I know that that miscall was a big deal, but it wasn't a rare occurrence. We have seen this in the NFL for years, blown calls, blown calls, you know, missed calls in games that have added to the league's lore over the years.

The league really buckled on this. And I just, we talked about it last week, and I said, I'm not in favor of this. some reasons as to why I think it's going to end up being more problematic during these games than maybe even they thought of. But I'm crazy to think that they haven't thought through all of these issues. But I pointed out that I think at the end of halves and the end of games, because that's when you have a significant percentage of the plays that are throws, that you're now going to have Al Riveron and New York reviewing a lot of passes caught and not caught. Because there's contact on a lot of caught passes. There's contact on a lot of passes that fall incomplete without flags. And now are we

going to be into a position where we're going to be reviewing all of these? Are we going to hold it up? New York's looking at that last throw. And, you know, Hail Marys, where there's almost always contact on a Hail Mary throw at the end of the half or the end of a game that goes into the end zone. How long are we going to wait for New York to review it and tell us it's first and goal at the one because there was defensive PI, or we're good here, and we can move to halftime. I think it's going to be more frustrating than problem solving personally. But in reading through just how the Saints just have not been able to get over this loss, it just makes it to me an issue in which the league buckled on this.

And the Saints are hardly like one of these massively influential franchise. If it had been the Giants or the Steelers, you know, or the Packers, but the Giants in particular and the Mara family, I mean, cowtowing to them as they often have over the years, I could see that. These are the saints. What the hell are we doing? They got robbed on a call. Great.

And they've been bitching and complaining and whining about it so much that the league is now going to take something they never used to do, which is use replay. to solve judgment calls, and we're going to allow that to happen because the Saints are so upset? Are we going to change the overtime rule because the Chiefs couldn't get a stop in the AFC title game? Because I did read that that particular rule has been tabled for the next league meeting, that there's still a possibility the overtime rule is going to get tweaked before next season. Because the Chiefs didn't get another, it didn't get a possession. Stop somebody.

I mean, good God. This league can't be this reactive. I think the overtime rule needs no fixing. None. Unless you want to just go to a straight 15-minute extra period. The only thing I have a problem with, and I've had a problem with it for the last two years, is them going from the 15 minutes to the 10 minutes.

I think that's stupid. Because that really creates the possibility, or more of a possibility, of not necessarily a one possession game, but the second team getting the second possession down three with very little time to win the game, and only a certain amount or an adequate amount of time, I'm sorry, to get into field goal range to tie the game.

I think that was stupid going from 15 to 10. I'd go back to first possession, touchdown ends it, field goal doesn't end it, and a 15-minute overtime period, attend. But now, you know, the Saints whined and get Sean Payton. I mean, did you see the call? I mean, are you serious as an NFL guy for years? Do you know how many of these calls? I've gone through the list of them. I'm not going through the list anymore. All of the famous missed calls and non-calls and bad calls and the history of the NFL have just added to the lore, added to the incredible, the

incredible way in which we feel and we're emotionally attached to this league more than any other really. They buckled to Sean Payton and the call that cost the poor Saints a Super Bowl trip. And now they're going to probably buckle the Chiefs fans because the Chiefs didn't get a chance to get the ball in overtime. My God, they let Brady go down the field at the end of regulation in an overtime without, they had multiple third downs to get them off the field. Defense is a part of the game. Stop them. Stop them. Oh my God, enough already. What are we doing here? It's going to open, look, all of this stuff is going to open up Pandora's box.

You know, this is what we always hear, right? We always hear of, you know, teams and over the years, when these rule ideas have come up and teams have pushed in the league, you know what, if we do that, it's going to open up Pandora's box, it's going to lead to unintended, we hear unintended consequences all the time when they stand up in situations like this.

And they say, nope, we got enough replay right now. We got enough. But not now. Now we are going to open up Pandora's box. Now we're going to have all of these unintended consequences come to fruition. Kudos to Mike Brown. the Bengals owner. Can't believe I would say that ever. But kudos to him to standing up and saying,

no, we got enough replay. We got enough. It's not really what he said. From what I hear, he votes no one literally every rule change. I think you're right. I think you're right about that. I mean, boo-hoo Sean Payton. You're the first team in history to lose a game on a controversial call or non-call. Please. The Saints just became the team that I'm going to root a against more than any other next year. I hope they go four and twelve next year. Seriously. I do not have not wanted Al Riveron to be the star of these games.

And cowtowing to the Saints, put him into a position. We're going to be sitting there at the end of some of these games just waiting to see if Al Riveron is going to have his referee throw a flag on a play that none of us really thinks is interference, but there was some contact. you're going to get what you wanted, New Orleans. And I hope they stink next year. And I hope the overtime rule doesn't change. But I bet that's next.

I mean, at this point, the chiefs are going to come to the table, and the Hunt family is going to come to the table. The whole family is going to come to the table and say, we haven't been to a Super Bowl since 1970. We were the founders of the NFL, and we are a great NFL family, and we got screwed because Brady got the ball. and we couldn't get it back from them.

Give me a fucking break. Enough. I don't want the overtime rule changed, and I really am much... I told you last week, I didn't like it, I don't want it, but I'm going to deal with it because it's not going to probably change

the way I consume the NFL. You know what, none of these things ever change the way we consume the NFL. Do they ever? It just doesn't. No. It's Teflon. It is the Teflon League.

They can do all. anything and we're right back there Sunday at one can't wait for the Sunday 425 late game oh we got another game Sunday night oh we got another one Monday night it's the best but man enough of the whining and the complaining I mean the chiefs in particular look the saints got screwed they did they got royally jobbed in that game they're not the first and you know what even with this rule change they won't be the last Quick word about window nation. It's Window Nation's annual spring cleaning sales event.

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Get a jump on your spring cleanup and call Window Nation now, where every window is installed by a factory trained professional and guaranteed to be done right the first time. I've got experience with Window Nation. Harley, Aaron, Eric, they're the best. Saw Harley and Aaron yesterday, actually, at the game at the Michigan State Duke game. Always good to see them. Every window is backed by a company with an A-plus Better Business Bureau ranking and over 10,000 positive online reviews. These are the many reasons Windonation has installed over 475,000 windows and more than 80,000 homes, including mine. Hurry, these off-season savings won't. last long, call 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com. That's 86690 Nation or visit windonation.com and tell them that I told you to call. All right, three things to finish up the show with. Number one, Sean Taylor would have been 36 years old today. God, still miss him. And 36 years old, by the way, his jersey number, 36 years old, first jersey number, 36 years old, he'd still be playing today. More likely than not, he'd still be playing at that particular position. We've seen

safeties make it. Now, the way he played the physical style, maybe he would have had too many injuries, and if he had injuries, maybe he would have slowed down and not been the explosive player, but there's a chance he would have still been playing. I mean, every time anything comes up about Sean Taylor, it's always, you know, your memories of him are fond, as they are for me as well. And none of the stuff that we talked about with respect to Jersey number means any of that to how the way all of us felt as Redskin fans watching him play and watching him improve and feeling like he was robbed of a Hall of Fame, a potential Hall of Fame career, because the best was yet to come. We didn't mention last week that the Redskins did make the decision with Landon Collins that he was going to wear number 20, not number 21. so they are not going to let anybody else wear Sean Taylor's number. I don't want to get into that debate again.

As I said, I had no problem with Sean's jersey. If the owner felt the way he did, which he does, and the organization feels the way they do about Sean, of making that one of the untouchables, I just felt, you know, from the get-go, this conversation about any player from the Dan Snyder having a jersey worthy of being an untouchable was ridiculous. They didn't really have a player at any point

during these last 20 years, because Sean's career was just too short. But again, understood that if they wanted to make this exception because of the tragedy and the way they felt about him, I had no problem with that at all. The other thing I wanted to mention real quickly, and I know a few of you watch this, I know some of you did. I got up Saturday morning to watch Tiger and Rory. It was a lot of anticipation for that particular round of 16 match, and Tiger beat Rory head-to-head and match play.

It was great to watch. not miss a single shot of that on Saturday morning into Saturday afternoon. And then Tiger lost to this Danish guy in the quarterfinals in a very compelling match at the match play event in Austin. But Tiger seems to be rounding into form. And it's going to be interesting. The master is coming up here in a couple of weeks. To see Tiger and Rory, they had never faced each other in a match play situation was really exciting. And to me right now, there'd be nothing better than seeing Tiger and Rory on the weekend in the final group at Augusta. Last thing on the show today is I wanted to play sound from last night's Sunday night ESPN

baseball. It was Braves and Phillies. By the way, the Phillies swept the Braves in all three games to open up the season. And Bryce Harper already in three games has two home runs, two RBIs. His on-base percentage is 540, and he's hitting 333 and three games. but he had a home run in last night's game. He had a home run in the second game as well, which I think was on Friday,

or it may have been Saturday. But anyway, last night during the game, Arod took a moment to say something about, in the context of talking about Harper and the city he's now in versus the city he used to be in. And this was part of what I said a month and a half ago that Tommy vehemently disagreed with me on. Aaron, I think you disagreed with me on it, too, to a certain extent.

And I didn't say that it was the only reason that Harper wanted to leave Washington at all. I just said it was part of what he was looking for in his new place. I will not debate with you, Aaron, or Tom, that money wasn't number one. I think that goes without saying. But there were too many, you know, very subtle comments over the years about D.C. as a baseball town and as a sports town that Harper made, including some since the season ended, And I thought that he might be looking for, at least perception-wise, a much better sports town. I think we heard it after opening day. He raved about the lunatics in the crowd at Philadelphia's opening day.

He supported all the Philadelphia teams. He's got flyers on his shoe and whatever it was. This was A-Rod last night, clearly off a personal conversation, I would guess, with Bryce Harper. D.C. is about 130 miles down the road, but let's make it clear, is a world. the difference between markets. If you're over there, you're thinking about politics and what happens in the White House. If you're here, this is a sports town, and they love their Phillies. That was Arod last night. I mean, that, you know, out of nowhere, some would say, but I would say it's based on a conversation that he probably had with Bryce Harper. That was a part of this.

I don't think there's any debate about that anymore based on Harper's initial reaction to being a Philly. And again, I mean, D.C.'s not a great sports town. Somebody sent me a lot. long email to the website. By the way, those of you that have emailed me on the website, I apologize. I'm not getting a lot of those emails. It's my fault. I'm going to start going through them and responding if I can. But somebody sent me a long email, which was after my Bryce Harper rant from a month and a half ago about D.C. and the sports town that it is. And he's like, why are you knocking D.C. as a sports town? You have a sports show. Well, what do you want me to say? Yeah, I have a sports show. It's a D.C. sports show. Do you want me to try? Do you want me to

to act like DC is a great sports town. It isn't a great sports town. It's a lot better than many. It's just not what you would call New York in terms of a sports town or Boston as a sports town or Chicago as a sports town or Philadelphia as a sports town. They're just better sports towns. There's nothing wrong with that. DC's a better sports town than Charlotte, then Atlanta, then Miami, then Tampa, then probably

Phoenix, definitely Phoenix, Jacksonville, Nashville, Indianapolis, it's probably a better sports town than Houston or Cincinnati. I'm not saying it's a, I've never said it's a bad or a terrible sports town. I'm just comparing it to the real good ones. You know,

and a lot of times those conversations sort of stem from or the root of those conversations are talking about DC as a sports media, which is soft. Always has been. Now, is it as soft as Denver? No. Is it as soft as Jacksonville? No. But it's totally different than Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Boston. All right? Just totally different. And that's why I always smile and laugh as does everybody in the local sports media, or a lot of people do in the local sports media, when we've heard complaints over the years from head coaches who say, oh my God, I mean, this is such a tough media market. Jay Gruden has said it before. Bruce Allen's sort of implied it before. Mike Shanahan said it, and I've had that conversation with Mike. I said, Mike, this is not a tough media market. You just came from Denver. You know,

Jay Gruden came from Cincinnati. But if you were Bill Parcells and you ended up getting the Redskins job instead of the Cowboys job years after being in New York as the Giants head coach, you would have thought it was a cakewalk. Anyway, long way to get to, yeah, there's some truth that Bryce Harper was looking for a sports city or a baseball town that was more into it than Washington. I don't think there's any debate about that anymore. Was it number one on his priority list? Probably not. Money was. Was it so far down the list that it didn't matter at all? No, I think that would be an exaggeration as well. And I think Arod basically told you that with his comments last night, because I think they probably came directly from Bryce Harper. That's my theory anyway.

What do you have? Anything? Nothing. There are a couple interesting things baseball-wise that came out that I think Tom's going to have some interesting conversations on tomorrow, but I'll hold it for tomorrow. Let's do that tomorrow. We'll also obviously have Bryce Harper's return to discuss, get Tommy's thoughts on the final four. They changed up their rotation, so Scherzer is pitching Tuesday now. So Scherzer's pitching tomorrow? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, that's going to be a crazy.

That's going to be up there with like Strasbourg's debut as one of the most anticipated regular season games for the nationals. And you know what? It might. It just might be a bigger story than if the Redskins signed Kenny Britt today. Just might. All right, great hoops. Hope you enjoyed the conversation. No guests today. I think we're going to try to get Cooley on this week. I was going to try to get him on today. And he said he was going to be able to do today, but I think something came up for him. So we'll do Cooley this week. Tommy twice this week. A lot of Final Four stuff. I'm going to try to get Barry's Verluga on the show. I think he's going to be at the final four in Minneapolis. He's also a Duke grad, so we can have fun with that as well. Enjoy the day.