The Press Box - Ep. 278: ’T’d Up’—The Bracket Breakdown

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

The Ringer’s Tate Frazier and Mark Titus discuss the NCAA bracket release (5:00), Duke’s additional adversity (9:00), the UNC-Arkansas rivalry (14:00), the First Four game worth watching (19:00), potential matchups in the Midwest (28:00), Gonzaga’s favorable path (32:00), and the biggest snubs of the tournament (38:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Channel 33. This is the teed up edition on Channel 33. This is a special edition that we have for March Madness. But if you want all things madness, go over to Ringer University, subscribe. We have SoundCloud, iTunes, Google Play, wherever you get your podcast, all Ringer University, all March Madness, me and Mark Titus. And we'll be talking a lot of college basketball.

So hop over there and stay tuned. All this month, we're asking you to tell a friend about a podcast they'll love. Right now, think of a friend, your mom, anyone you care about, what podcasts would they really love? Got it? Now do it. Tell them about it in real life or social media. And if they don't know about podcasts, show them how. Tell us what you recommended with the hashtag tripod. T-R-Y-Pod. Thanks for spreading the word. Welcome to T-D-U-D-U-U-I-I'm sitting in Bill Simmons office with Mark Tadis. What's up, Mark? The bracket came out. That's insane. We need to talk about something that is inexcusable. The committee, they did it again.

They had the audacity to screw a team that frankly get screwed a little too often in these cases. The little guy. The little guy. The Duke Blue Dells were a two-seed. Can't believe this. This is shocking. So Duke beat North Carolina twice. Yes, as we all know.

They did beat them twice. And as Seth Davis pointed out, the whole body of work, they had the RPI as we know, it doesn't matter. All season, we talk about how the RPI is outdated, how the RPI is a terrible metric from the 1940s and we need to get rid of it. But then, but Duke beat a lot of teams in the top 50 of the RPI, so now all of a sudden matters a lot. It matters.

The RPI is what determines everything at this point. I'm really upset about that. Yeah, Duke got a two. Your tarheel's got a one seat. How do you feel about that? I feel like, you know, justice sometimes prevails. It's not always worked out that way, but today it did. But overall, we have four regions that.

have been worked out. Duke is in the East region. Yeah, Duke got the better draw of the North Carolina, I think, almost, which is kind of funny. Like, you're so, you're so concerned with trying to get the one seed that you didn't even think that you got put in the South with Kentucky and all these other teams. But we'll get to that in a second. What other, what was the other big surprise to you? The biggest surprise to me overall is that, first of all, Joe Lannardi was not 100% correct. I cannot believe this.

I thought Joe Lannardi was sent from God to give us the bracket to perfection. Hold on. Let me pull this up. Adam Schecter just tweeted this. Adam, yeah, Shephtey tweeted. So, Joe Lannardi got 67 to the 68 right. He did not get Syracuse. He had USCN over Syracuse.

He got, but what he did do is get 33 of the 68 teams seated exactly right. That's pretty good, Tate. 33 out of 68, that's pretty good. Well, in school, they call that failing. I think that's like a 56%. or something. You got 15 of the top 16 correct. Yeah, I don't know.

Lay off Joey. I know. I love Joe Laugh-O-Nardi. You're a brachapologist. I'm a brachapologist. We were talking about this before. A self-proclaimed brachapologist, huge in the business. Really come now for Lennardi.

Everyone likes to take down Lannardi. I mean, it's easy to sit there and say how these teams are going to be seated. But, you know, Lannardi puts his neck out there. He got 67 out of 68. That's pretty good. Well, the one team that was not in the 68 was Syracuse. How pissed is Jim Beaheim at the city? of Los Angeles.

Is he boycotting Los Angeles the way he does Greensboro at this point? The way he does Greensboro? Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, Syracuse did not belong in there. That's not shocking at all, right? Did you see their RPI, Mark Titus? What was their RPI?

We need to talk about the RPI. It always comes back to RPA. The one thing I think the committee forgot to take an account with Syracuse is that they beat Duke and they should have got them in. They did be Duke. They did be Duke. Syracuse did beat Duke. The biggest shock to me was Wisconsin.

that was like the first Wisconsin was one of the first people unveiled one of the first teams unveiled because they started with Villanova's the number one overall and they're going through and they yeah they show Wisconsin as Villanova's eight seed and

can we just talk about the best part of that they show Wisconsin they looked dejected they had just lost in the Big Ten championship game they're all upset they're like what we're an eight seed and then they show Virginia Tech and they are celebrating jumping in the air high-fiving I've never seen so many people jump that high at one time to celebrate.

Yeah, listen, if you're looking to make a pick on that game, just base it off of the reactions. Wisconsin does not want to be there at the AT. Wisconsin, yeah, they're better than AC. I think they're maybe better than Virginia, but not really. That's going to be a good game. But like Virginia Tech being happy to be there, Wisconsin was not happy to be there.

Was that the best eight, nine that you can remember in quite some time? This is a Wisconsin team that was pretty much the best team in the Big Ten outside of Purdue maybe. Yeah. You know, but like the outside of non-conference games, people did not want to play Wisconsin. Wisconsin, yeah. This is, that's what I mean. I'm so sure.

I thought Wisconsin is going to get like a six. I thought there's kind of a chance if they beat Michigan in the Big Ten title game, they could get a five. And they instead got an eight. And that's, yeah, that's not good. Yeah. Michigan is seven seed. So at least it worked out that way. Head to head.

I would have been okay with Wisconsin as an eight seed if the rest of the Big Ten would have made any sense. But Purdue is a four and Minnesota is a five. Like, all of these are fine. I don't have really complaints about them. The complaint comes when those teams get those seeds and then Wisconsin gets an eight and just like, I mean, Wisconsin was the fifth seeded big 10 team. They were the fifth worst big 10 team

and they were at the top of the standings all year and then Purdue kind of pulled away from late because I don't know what the hell happened. To put it in perspective, Northwestern and Wisconsin have the exact same seating in the tournament. Northwestern has the same. And by the way, Northwestern, okay, they made it in. I'm a journalist, so obviously I love

Northwestern. Yeah. Because that comes part of the job. That's part, that's part one and part two. Right. So I was really happy to see Northwestern, but I got to say,

maybe act like you've been there before. Yeah. Like they kind of linger. They show some class. They show the camera on the Northwestern players cheering a little too much. I don't know. Jim Nands,

biggest storyline of the season. Right. Big a storyline of the season. How about that? Like the biggest storylines of the season right now are coming out of the Big Ten. We got Michigan winning the Big Ten term. That was,

Jim Nams was like that's the biggest storyline of the season. Yes. Because they had their playing, which I don't mean to try. trivialize that that is like a big deal but um i don't know like ultimately they beat a few shitty teams and won the big 10 third of it which like i like i like certainly like michigan a lot more than i did a few weeks ago and they're playing well but um let's pump the breaks on like story of the season yeah not quite and the northwestern's also the story of the season yeah it's a

bad to see who'll be the story of the story of the season yeah um calip swanagan's the story of the season he lost a ton of weight yep um Minnesota was supposed to suck this year they didn't suck that's the story of the season yeah uh Maryland i forget why they're the story of the story this season, but I'm sure we can make something up. What about Vanderbilt? Nine seed, 15 losses. I think there should be a rule of thumb that if you have 15 losses, you shouldn't be in the tournament, especially if you're in the SEC.

Come on. Yeah. That makes no sense. If you're Jim Beheim and you see that, you've got to be furious. He's definitely going to boycott Nashville at this point. He's just moving down the cities. Should we go through each region and just figure out what the best situations are for each team?

What's the worst? We can start in the East. We're already there. We're in Wisconsin. So Villanova is the one there. They have Wisconsin, Virginia Tech. That's a tough draw for Villanova, right? Yeah.

That's not a fun eight-nine game. Yeah. That's not a fun team. Like, Villanova's better than both those teams, but Carolina got, they got a good eight-night game. Gonzaga got a really good eight-nine game. Northwestern Vanderbilt.

That's the eight-nine we want. Villanova did not get a good eight-nine game. They're, I mean, they're going to win, probably. But, yeah, I don't like that. The thing that's the thing that's, The thing that stands out on that is Duke, South Carolina in the second round, maybe, playing in South Carolina. With, as you said, North Carolina, they're going to be playing in Greenville, wherever the hell that is. Greenville, South Carolina.

It's close to Clemson, South Carolina, if that gives you a story. Where the hell is? I know where Charleston is. I know where Hilton Head is. Yeah, see, that's what everyone says. That's not South Carolina. I know where Charlotte is, which is kind of. Those are resort cities in the middle of a, you know, desolate place.

Why are we having the tournament in Greenville, South Carolina? Yeah, no, it just brings people in. It's a beautiful place. It's like 30 miles south of Charlotte, right? Is it really? Yeah, it's nice. So Duke is going to be, I mean, so Duke has been overcoming adversity all season. We know this.

Yes. This is more adversity. They're back. Like, they're officially back. Yes. That's pretty clear. Yes. Kay's back is back.

Just when you as a Duke fan, want to get excited that Duke is back and everything's rolling and they're going to win the national title. And Seth Davis is on TV during the selection show, losing his mind that Duke didn't get a one. Yeah, biggest snub in history, I think. Big a snub. Just when you get excited about that, more adversity comes. They got to play South Carolina in South Carolina. North Carolina is going to be playing there as well.

Carolina fans and Carolina fans pulling against Duke. Practically a road game for Duke, honestly. Unbelievable. It's going to be... It's far from New Jersey. That's far from home. That's a tough draw. What else stands out about the East?

Baylor's a three-seed? Do we... I mean, Baylor, I feel like they've been irrelevant for quite some time in the college basketball. Baller is like the weirdest. Yeah, they just held on. Like Joey, Johnny liked Baylor's a two seed

because they just had like a great November and December. And then... The two most important months of the season. That's right. The two most important months in season. So, yeah, that was interesting going into this.

Because like anyone who watches Baylor now knows that Baylor's not good anymore. They haven't been good quite sometime. Scott Drew, definitively not a good coach. He's come out and let us know that. He was tired of the conversation. He just wanted to know he's not a good coach. If you look at their body,

work. If you look at their RPI wins and all that other shit that's supposed to matter a lot, they probably did deserve like a two seed. So I'm okay with them as a three seed. The interesting thing is they got SMU as their six seed. Yes. So second round, which program in Texas cheats the most. Well, who's the good guy, right? So who's the good guy? Right, which probably SMU at this point. Who we're going to cheer for? Yeah, I think it would be SMU. So that's big for lay brown. Good for lay brown. The best thing that could happen there is that Duke, you know, gets through, you know, just that South Carolina game, which would be probably the toughest game of the season they've had to play.

They get through that game. Then they play SMU. Simi O'Dule. That's going to be awesome. Former Duke player that came in with the Mill Jefferson and Alex Murphy. Transfers to SMU. Becomes the star of SMU. Started lifting weights.

Started lifting weights. Started lifting weights. Started getting supplements from Alonzo Treer. Yeah, just working hard. Just working really hard. Piss is clean, by the way. Clean piss. Clean piss.

And then they play Duke in the Sweet 16. It's a redemption game. Coach K tells him to act like he's been there before. And it'll be great. What else stands out in the evening? Virginia, UNCW. I was laughing. We were laughing as you were watching the selection committee,

every North Carolina team that comes up except Duke, Tate was like, they're going to win. They're definitely going to win. You picked North Carolina Central to beat Kansas. So yeah, one of the first things, UNCW, Virginia,

you're like, yeah, definitely win. Can we just say, explain to us other than, other than Wilmington having a guy named like Cockcock or whatever. Devante Kaycock. I'd been calling him Cockcock all season. Turns out is Kaycock.

Did my research, did, you know, which real journalists. too. Why, other than that, and the fact that they're in North Carolina, why are they going to beat Virginia? Well, Kevin Keats,

hottest coach out there. The name's everywhere. Everyone wants them. I use looking at them. Someone say Tony Bennett's pretty hot himself. Yeah. It depends on your definition, the connotation there.

But I will say, Devante Kekak, Denzel Ingram, team that should have beat Duke last year in the tournament. Now they get a chance against Virginia. They're familiar. Virginia gets the worst draws.

Can we just talk about Virginia? It just never gets it. Like a 5-12 matchup is just not fair to So I'm, I, I love Virginia. Virginia fans know this. I've always loved Virginia. But at what point do you have to make your own luck in this tournament? You do.

You have to make your own destiny. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. It's not going to be. Nothing is given, only earned. I'm willing to listen to being unlucky like two or three years. But yeah, if they lose the UNC Wilmington, I mean, I'm no longer interested in here in the unlucky stuff.

Or if they lose the Florida in the second round. Like, Virginia has to get to Villanova. And they could be Villanova, too, by the way. Yeah. They gave Villanova a good game. Tide Jerome, waving him off. Tid Jerome had the best game of the season. The Big Ragu, Devinchenzo, tipped it in for the win for Villanova.

Yes, the magic was still there for Villanova at that point. Yeah, that's an interesting, it's an interesting region. Definitely not the best, though. The best is the South, which is hilarious again because you were so concerned. Last night we were watching the Duke Notre Dame game and Duke wins. And then that, of course, starts the whole talk about, is Duke going to get a one seed? Yes. And Tate is losing his mind.

It was awesome to watch. The last 24 hours have been great with you. Well, it's amazing that you've been on Duke all season. You've never fallen off the bandwagon. In fact, you may be created and built the bandwagon yourself, which is, you know, that's you, just being a hard worker. And at this point, everyone's jumped on Duke. Seth Davis did not stop tweeting about Duke.

He even took on Mark Hollis head to head after the pigs came out and was like, how is Duke not the one seed? Stuff is not happy. Yeah, North Carolina. It's just a complete disappointment to be at one seed. So now we sit here. North Carolina's got Seton Hall, Arkansas, and then I did a little research.

Arkansas and North Carolina may be the best rivalry in college basketball, if you look at it historically. Yes, I'll run through. 2015, North Carolina, Arkansas, Bobby Portis team. Who could forget? Who could forget? What an amazing game. North Carolina knocks out Arkansas.

The time before that, Arkansas is in the tournament 2008. Guess what happens? They lose to North Carolina in the second round. Are you saying Arkansas has been in the tournament? This is the second time since. 2008. In the last nine years they've been this is the second time. Second time. Wow. Yeah. So they lost North Carolina in the last two times

and guess who they beat before North Carolina, Indiana, your boys, in 2008? Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. That was a tough time. And then we go all the way back to 1995, national semifinal, North Carolina, Arkansas. And I'm not done. 1993, North Carolina regional semifinal. So Arkansas, North Carolina is a, you know, historical game. Great rivalry. One thing to keep in mind about that is North Carolina is soft. They are soft. That's right. They've always been soft. And anyone, if you watch that SEC title game today, Arkansas is not soft. Moses Kingsley tried to take off the Aaron Fox's head.

The other dude who's a little white dude on Arkansas, like set the pick with like crossing his arms and throws his shoulders up. Threw up the X. It's going to be interesting. Carolina, a little soft. We'll see what happens there. They're not even going to play Arkansas. Like we're talking about this. It'll probably be seen.

It'll probably be seen. Or Texas Southern. Are you worried about Texas Southern? Are you worried about Mike Davis in Texas. Southern. So before you did a road joke and you had to remind me

it wasn't Texas. No. The reason you're worried about Mike Davis took down Coach K in 2002 when K had seven NBA players. Yep. Mike Davis was coaching

Jared Jeffries and four white dudes. It was a starting lineup. Great. I love Jerry. Jeffries in that game. Tomi Tuffin'nuds, Tom Coverdale. Yeah. And they beat like one of the best Duke

teams ever in the Sweet 16. A team that was going for back to back. Not only did they beat him. They had like 20, IU had 20 turnovers and went like four for 400 from the three point line and still beat Duke. It was amazing. Amazing. Jay Williams missed the free throw at the end of the game.

Had a four-point play. Jason wins that time. Yeah, Jason Williams back then. Yeah, so Mike Davis has been there before. If he can take down K, he can take down Roy. I'm just saying, that's something. But looking at the rest of the region, North Carolina definitely isn't the toughest region, but most of the tough stuff is on the bottom half. So they're just going to have to basically let UCLA, let Kentucky, Dayton,

Wichita State, all those teams kind of beat up on each other and then pick up the scrap. Is that how you feel as a Carolina fan? Are you optimistic? I think Butler, North Carolina, North Carolina never beats Butler. That will be a tough job. If they play them in the Sweet 16th, then that could be one of those games.

Well, fundamentals would just be at the top of the totem pole in that game and North Carolina usually doesn't fare well in those games. I just think that Kentucky having to play Northern Kentucky first. So you got an in-state game, in-state rivalry.

I'm sure the Norse and Kentucky have a... North Kentucky's first year eligible for the NCAA tournament and they made it. And they're in. And they're in. How about that Northwestern? How about that?

Yeah, geez, Northwestern. You had like 4,000 years. And did you see Northern Kentucky losing their mind on their? No, they said, business like approach. As expected. As expected. We're ready. Yes.

We're taking down Kentucky. Best 710 game, though, in the South. Dayton, Wichita. Dayton, Wichael State. Yeah. Winner gets hired at IU. That's what I'm saying. Archie Miller, Greg Marshall.

Winner gets the I you job. Who would you want? I mean, Archie Miller would take the job for, like, half the money that Greg Marshall will ask for. That's right. Also, Greg Marshall looks like Tom Crean, and that would be a little weird. Yeah, it's too close. Too close for comfort. Like Bizarro, Tom Crean, on the sidelines.

He don't want that. So yeah, but that, yeah, that's going to be a great game. Dayton, Wichita State. Cincinnati? Wichita State won 30 games he got a Tennessee. Charles Barkley did not like that. Yeah, well, let's just be honest. Charles Barkley came on.

He was heated about Middle Tennessee State. He was heated about Wichita State. And he doesn't even know where any of those schools are, even though he probably would guess it's in Middle Tennessee. That would probably be as far as you could get there. But he's heated. He just looked at the record. He doesn't know any of that.

He said they won 30 games. And he said, yeah. We're on your side, Chuck. But let's be honest, that's the easiest way to curry favor with college basketball fans is to just take a small school that won a lot of games and be like just absolutely outraged that they didn't get a better seat. Or they didn't make it in. Like I'm really pissed at that one small school. You know the one I'm talking about. Won a ton of games.

Yeah. Was on the bubble and didn't get in? Can't believe it. What was there? Illinois State or something like that? Yeah. One of those. Texas State.

Whatever state. Absolutely ridiculous. They didn't make it in. That's what Charles is doing. He's like upset that Gonzaga got hosed and got the fourth one seed. Wichita State got no love. Can we talk about South? He's got the best playing game.

We got Bruce Weber first Danny Manning in the Miracles. That is going to actually be a great playing game. I don't care about the first four in ever because they're not really in the tournament, but Danny Manning versus Bruce Weber. That has my attention. Yeah. That's probably the best game you can find. That's going to be awesome. All in on that game.

I want Bruce Weber. So who do they play when they win that? So if they win that, they'll play Cincinnati. Hmm. Yeah, and then UCLA's going to steamroll whoever they, yeah, UCLA's going to the Sweet 16 pretty easily. Yeah, I want Bruce Weber to go on a run though. That'd be hilarious.

I'm all for the coaches that are on the hot seat to just like... What do you think about the rematches that you get in the South? So North Carolina has played Kentucky. UCLA's played Kentucky. So no matter what we'll probably get UCLA Kentucky rematch, North Carolina, Kentucky possible rematch. Those two games for me were like two of the five best games of the season. so I'm all for it.

Yeah. That's a... By the way, this is a great time to bring up my... The one thing I want to tell all the fans about Cinderella's and upsets and all that kind of stuff. Like, when upsets happen, they're awesome. But then you remember that these teams... Have to play the next game.

The next game. They're still in the tournament. The best example of this was 2011 when everyone was so excited that VCU was going on a run. And we were so excited that Butler was going on a run. We were like, this is the craziest thing. We have two terrible teams in the final four. And then you get to the final four and you're like, oh, shit, VCU has to play Butler. That's a final four game I have to watch.

I play in my entire year around the final four and then we get there and now I have to watch this game. We should just give them a trophy and then just let the other teams keep battling it out. With that, what I'm saying is be careful cheering for Kent State to beat UCLA. You know, like we want Kentucky and UCLA to play each other. We want that game. Like we all won upsets, but at the same time, we want Kentucky and UCLA rematch even more. So do you believe that they're evenly matched so that it would just be one of those things where UCLA wins just because you know just one to one? I think when those teams play each other, it's there's so, and this isn't a slam on the coaches, although if you want it to be, go ahead and take it as that.

Slam them. There's like so little structure in that one game. It was just like an up and down. It was like what the NBA All-Star game was 10 years ago, 15 years ago, is what that felt like. it takes it was like them finally being prideful in defense like late in the game yeah that's when it mattered it didn't matter before but once he got laid in the game it's like let's de up let's play some defense which is my way of saying I don't really I mean I expect that in the next game it's just going to be like up and down pick up game

everyone's playing really fast and well and shooting threes and not really thinking too much and just being athletic and it's going to be a high scoring fun game so yeah I don't really think that favors anybody in particular I mean it'll be in Memphis I guess Kentucky you might have a little bit of a, I mean, UCLA fans travel really well, as we know. They're everywhere. They just can't even get over the amount of UCLA fans that are around the world. Yeah, so maybe they'll bring some crowd. But yeah, the South to me is definitely the hardest, specifically the bottom half of the South.

Like Cincinnati won a lot of games this year. Like they didn't really have a ton of great wins, but there's still a Cincinnati team. And you kind of know what you're getting with Cincinnati. They basically Cincinnati can shoot better than they usually can. And that's kind of scary because they always just like make games. rock fights but then they can't score so that's their Achilles heel but this team can actually shoot so maybe Cincinnati's good

UCLA's really good obviously Dayton Wichita State as a 710 game is going to be nuts Kentucky's good Northern Kentucky really good The Norris I mean they're one for one Yeah the South is definitely the one to watch And then Middle Tennessee State playing Little Petito. That's a

That's a upset way to happen yeah Dickie Pee with the middle Tennessee Butler is so weird I can't decide if Butler's good or not Are we sure they're good? Are we sure they're good? Yeah, who knows? Are we sure?

I am sitting in a, yeah, I'm in Simmons' office, I guess it's this. I flew all the way to L.A. just to be able to sit in the chair that Simmons sits in when he says, are we sure they're good. That's how I feel about Butler. They need like one more and really good player, I think. All right, Titus. We're going to get a quick break, get a word from our sponsor,

and we'll come back and we'll hit the Midwest and the West. Today's episode is brought to you by the Ringer NFL show. This week, they're taking a look at the running back prospects in the 2017 NFL draft class. can subscribe to the ringer NFL show on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or wherever you get podcast. All right. Back to the Regents. All right, Titus.

We're in the Midwest. Yep. We've never seen, we just saw a big promo on CBS. It's like, all right, dummy, never pick an upset for one verse 16. Never happened. Never could happen. Never will happen. But I'll tell you this.

North Carolina Central. They're facing Kansas. Kansas. Assuming they beat whoever they're playing. UC Davis. I don't care. Even if they lose, they can still win. They can still win.

If they lose, that's just fortunate for Kansas at that point. But all that matters is that North Carolina Central, everyone loves Dunk City. They remember the run of the Sweet 16. One of the guys on that team, Titus, DeWan Graff, guess where he's at now? Is he at North Carolina Central? That's a great guess.

He is there. And I believe in magic and I believe in upsets. Wait, back up. Did you say he could slam dunk? He could dunk. He can dunk the ball? That's amazing. The thing goes, he was a guard, so he throws.

most of the alleys to the dunks, but he can dunk, I believe. So the funniest thing to me about the Midwest region is that Kansas is going to obviously play in Kansas City, and that's something we'll hear a thousand. We've already heard a thousand times. We're going to hear a thousand more. They can never lose there, right? And that's being, yeah, that's being, you know, put forth as though this is a lock for Kansas to make the final four, because as soon as they get to Kansas City, the fans are going

to take over and win a game, as though three days ago, Kansas did not just lose the T.C. You. Kansas lost to TCU. I know Josh Jackson didn't play in that game, but I mean, TCU didn't even make the tournament. So I don't know. That's interesting to me. Kansas has been playing with fire all season. And, you know, like you and I, I think we're both kind of level-headed about the whole Bill Self-chokes in the tournament thing.

Yes. The reason, again, he chokes so much in the tournament is because he's always a one-seed. And as a one-seat, if you lose, by definition, that's a choke. Yes. So he doesn't actually, like, choke that badly. but so I'm not I'm not like saying that when I'm about to say what I'm saying is that Kansas has been playing a fire all season to me and it becomes interesting when you start to pick this apart like Louisville is the two seed I really like Louisville love yeah they're great team love love make some free throws so speaking of seven 10 matchups with Dayton and Wichdall State this seven 10 matchup might be the game of the tournament yeah this is going to be like 140 to 135 Michigan Oklahoma State um and that's going to be awesome. Creighton and Oregon as a 6-3,

both teams kind of Chris Boucher towards ACL. I'm not really sure how much that matters. Oregon did lose by a lot a lot to Arizona. Well, actually, didn't lose it by a lot, but they were kind of down a lot in that Pact 12 title game. So we'll pretend like Boucher out really hurts Oregon. What up? Purdue, Vermont.

What are your thoughts on that? The fighting Ryan Bucelos. Yeah, the fighting Ryan Bucelos at this point, everyone's on in Vermont. I think Seth Davis didn't even see who the four seed was, right? Or no, it didn't even see the next game was, and he already decided that Vermont was going to the Sweet 16. He's already in on those guys.

Caleb Swanigan and Purdue looked really bad against Michigan, and Michigan didn't even play that well. Obviously, they had the near-death, you know, experienced the NDE of life to deal with. And they had a lot of magic on their side. But Caleb Swanigan, you think he's going to punk Vermont. I think the cat amounts are going to ride out to the next round. Iowa State, obviously, won the Big 12.

They're a five-seed. Was that a little low? Do you think they could be a four? Yeah, they should have been a four. Yeah, so five's tough for them. Five, twelve. I say that just because like, what's the harm in saying, yeah, they should have been a four. Yeah, why not?

Yeah, who knows? I don't care. Yeah, they could have been a four. Good for you. Everybody should have been a four. You won the tournament, right? Duke should have been in one. They won the tournament.

They should have been a four just for that Deonté Burton dunk. Yeah, that was unbelievable. That should have been enough to give them a four. But the Kansas eight, nine game, Miami, Michigan State is a real tough draw for them, mainly because they're going to play Miami because Michigan State's really bad. How is Michigan State a nine seed and how are they even in the tournament? Michigan State shouldn't even be in the tournament. Yeah.

How do that happen? Is that just an Izzo? Is that an Izzo bump? I mean, this is like the reverse of what Dick Vital does where Vital wants to have like everybody, 800 teams in the tournament. 108? I don't think Michigan State should be in the tournament, but then, I mean, Syracuse doesn't belong in the tournament either. So I guess I'm okay with Michigan State being in over Syracuse.

But as a nine seed. Michigan State should not be in the tournament. Yeah, that makes no sense. There should have been no bubble this year. Like if you're on the bubble, you're out. Just get out of it. These teams are so bad. I was trying to, before he came in here,

before the Bragg was released, I'm trying to, like, get a sense of what the bubble looked like. So I was doing, like, side-by-side resumes of these teams all the bubble. I pulled up, like, USC and Syracuse and just looked at it for two seconds. I said, no, this is stupid. These teams are just bad. They're really bad basketball teams. So, yeah, I'm sure Michigan State, it's Izzo, it's March.

He's never, he's never, like, been upset early in March. Everyone knows this. Ever. You have to go back, like, at least 365 days the last time that happened. And that's a lot of days, folks. So that never happens to Izzo. He's a professor in March. Yeah, a lot of people are going to pick Izzo, aren't they?

Yeah, they are. It's going to piss me off because he's going to actually do it. The thing is Laranega is such a good coach, too, though. That's a bad draw from Michigan State. They usually don't. They usually play young coaches with salt and pepper hair. But now they got Jim Laranega who looks like Bernie Sanders. So it's going to work.

Some potential matchups in the Midwest. We got Michigan, Louisville, in the second round, 2013 national title rematch. Yep. Trey Burke, the block shot, called a foul. Michigan fans still think that that was what cost them national title, as though there wasn't like five minutes left in the game. They were still losing.

That was last second, yeah. Yeah, as though it was like Michigan was up one and that was at the buzzer and then Louisville hit two shots and won it. Here's the thing. If you had a guy that comes off the bench named Luke Hancock, who now works in real estate be the most outstanding player, you deserve to lose a national damage. The best player in that game for Michigan is now playing 10 minutes a game at Purdue.

So, I mean, how good was that Michigan? Come on, Spike. Yeah. And then Mitch McGarry, smoked marijuana and got kicked out at NCAA. They said, you can't do that. Yeah, come on, Mitch. The first time, it was the first time.

I don't know if you remember that story, Tate. It was the first time you ever smoked weed and he got tested. I can't believe it. What are the odds? The most unlucky guy in the history of college basketball. So yeah, that's going to be awesome, though, because we're going to see those highlights at Tom. We're going to see Russ Smith and Lou Cancock and Spike Albrecht, tweeting at Kate Upton and all that kind of stuff. If that game, sneaky game, Sweet 16 potential, Purdue and Kansas.

The Ghost of Robbie Hummel from 2012. I don't know if you remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Robbie Hummel, like, tore his ACL 400 times, and then in his eighth senior year at Purdue, he was 27 at the time. Purdue was a very bad team that year. Yeah.

Maybe they weren't very bad, but they were not a good team. It wasn't like the teams that they had had with Juan Johnson and Etouin Moore. Yeah. But Hummel was still there, and he went nuts against Kansas in that 2012 team. That ended up losing to Kentucky in the title game, Robbie Hummel, the ghost of Robbie Hummel is going to Will Purdue to win. maybe. So that's a game I'm looking forward to.

If they get past Vermont. If they get past Vermont. And then you get past Iowa State, which probably isn't happening. But we'll see. So Midwest, what, third best? Yeah, I'd say they're in strong bronze. South is the best. South is the best.

East is second. Mainly goes dukes there. He probably should be the number one overall seed. And then Midwest is the Kansas zone. So that'll be good. Kansas City. It'll be fun. I like Louisville.

I do like Louisville. I like Louisville. too. Louisville's going to win. Louisville's been three straight at lead dates. But what if Michigan gets revenge? That's the thing. I feel like Michigan's there for revenge. John B-line. The teams get hot in March. You know it's the B-line effect. That's the only

thing that I'd worry about for, that's a tough draw for Louisville to get that history. With Michigan, it's like it's been the story of Michigan all year. Like if they're making shots, I have this theory with basketball teams. If you make shots, you're a good team. If you miss shots, you're not. Yeah. And that seems to be what Michigan has going on. Like if they're, like today against

Wisconsin, they had the thing. I forget who we do it was. maybe it was Abdul Rahman. Like Wisconsin's coming back kind of in the Big Ten tournament in the title game. Abdul Rahman shoots a three. It hits the back of the rim. It shoots like 30 feet in the air and then it falls straight down through.

Yeah. If it was it lucky, was it not? I don't really know. But those are the kinds of breaks. Like when that's happening from Michigan, because like they have a ton of shooters. They B-Line's a great offensive coach. Yeah, when they're hitting threes like that.

And we were saying Zach Irvin, who has been doing nothing in our season is just wetting threes now. He shot 32% for the season. season now is shooting like 45% from three. Michigan fans didn't even watch the second half of that Bigton tournament game because they were so busy going through their Twitter accounts deleting all their Zach Irvin's trash tweets that they've tweeted all season. They're like, shit, I got to take all these back.

I can't believe I said that about this man earlier. Zach Irvin finally decided to start playing well. Let's talk about the West. Last last region we need to talk about. First things first, Gonzaga ranked as the fourth one C. They have one loss all season at BYU. do you think Gonzaga was treated disrespectfully?

I think Gonzaga is the best team in the country. I don't think they deserve the number one overall seed. I think Villanova did because I say that because a lot of people that know more than me told me that. So I just like went with it. Just keep reading.

I was like, yeah, sure, why not? Yeah, Villanova lost the Butler twice. They seem like the best team in the country for sure. Gonzaga should have been above North Carolina. You have to admit that. I need to hear you say that. Gonzaga should have been ranked above North Carolina. In what way?

Where? In what seating? in what bracket? Gonzaga should have been the third one seed. Not that it matters. The only reason this matters is if all the one seeds make the final four, that's the only reason any of this matters

is like they put it so like the fourth one seed plays the first one seed. I would, I think Gonzaga could have been the number two like overall. Like they should be one. Yeah, they could be two. I'm not saying, but they shouldn't have been three over North Carolina

could have been still ahead of them regardless. Why would North Carolina be ahead of them? Best conference. I'm a best conference bias. Yeah, North Carolina lost in the semifinals of the best to arguably the best team in the tournament, right? So like, what can you say? Do you be North Carolina twice, dude?

I don't know if you remember that. I forgot. That did happen. Let me go back. Yeah, Gonzaga should have, like, what does it really matter? It doesn't matter because they got a good draw. They got the best draw. Yeah.

They got the worst eight, nine game in history probably. Yeah. Zaga is going to win that. Having said that, though, a ton of pressure on Gonzaga. There's no excuses this time. Yeah. Like when they were the one seed last time in Wichdall State, it was really good that year and beat him in the second round.

You kind of have an excuse for that. So I have a situation that I got to throw at you. Coach K dominates Gonzaga. We'll never lose to Gonzaga. Chris Collins, his protege in the 8-9 game. Coach K game plans for Chris Collins. Hold on. Let's look at the dates. So, oh, they're staggered.

They're staggered, right? Gonzaga plays on Thursday. Gonzaga is Thursday, Saturday. Yes. Duke is Friday Sunday. It's Friday, Sunday. So he has a day to help him game plan. Oh, boy.

Chris Collins gets. upset over Gonzaga who's had almost an undefeated season. Shit, how do we not notice this? Marquette. Wojo might play. I didn't notice that. I just now saw that

and I scrolled up to look at Duke's. Duke's got Wojo. Like Coach Casey has to game plan for Wojo against himself. Think about the pressure. Think about that. Just think about that. That is incredible.

That's a lot of deal with. Woldo is going to call Coach Casey. Be like, Coach, big game coming up. I need your help. I got to play two seats. He's like Steve. She'd have been in one scene. Steve, you're playing me.

Stop this. Stop this madness. I see Northwestern getting the win over Gonzaga, and I can see 13 think pieces being written about it already. Yeah. Look at the first thing that jumped out to me when they were unveiling the West was this murderers row of nerds in the West. We're Northwestern playing Vanderbilt,

and then the next two teams unveiled Notre Dame and Princeton. Yes. And then they kept it going with West Virginia and Bucknell. I think when we go to overtime, it comes down to SAT scores. Yeah, right. So one thing that's kind of interesting, semi-interesting, is only coach in the West that's been to a final four is Bob Huggins. So this has a lot of potential to unlock the new,

the coach that's never done it before type thing. Mark Few and Sean Miller are the top two seeds. Those are probably, are those the two best guys? I've never been in Final Four. Leonard Hamilton, who's the three seed? Leonard Hamilton is a three seed. Mike Bray. Mike Bray is the five seed.

Hey, what about Mark Turgeon, six seed? Martin Turgent, six seed. Yeah. Should we keep going? Let's keep going until we don't know who the coaches are. Will Wade 10 seed? Randy Bennett is a coach of St. Mary's. I knew that.

Northwestern, Chris Collins. Bryce Drew is Vanderbilt. He's the 9 seed. Yeah. Will Wade's the 10 seed. Yeah. Can we keep going? Coach Mac is the Xavier 11th seed.

Chris Mack should always been there. Princeton? Okay. So yeah. Yeah. We don't. No idea. I know Carrie Kittles.

Carrie Kittles is assistant coach. Carrie Kiddell should be there. So, yeah, what else about the West? Like this is, this is, in a way, like, so only one of those coaches can get to the final four, but doesn't just, like, scream, whichever coaches don't make it are just going to be just bombarded with, like, yet again, another year where you can't do it. Coming up short. Like, Sean Miller and Mark Few, I feel really bad for one of them. One of them is going to have their reputation just rich of the headlines.

I see the headline, few and far between. That's the headline for them. Because, I mean, if you, there aren't really any excuses for either one of them. I guess they could lose to whoever loses. If they meet in the elite eight, the loser, I guess, might have a decent excuse. But other than that, this is pretty clearly the easiest regional. Don't you think it's set up perfectly for Gonzaga to go to the Final Four? Yeah, that's what I mean.

Because especially the bottom half is tough, so Arizona will have, you know, to play Florida State at some point. St. Mary's in the second round won't be easy for Arizona. Or VCU. Either one. It doesn't matter who is. There are two tough games. And VCU obviously just won their comments tournament. So they got all figured out.

So I'd say Gonzaga will probably easily get there, barring a Chris Collins upset. To the sweet 16, yeah. Yeah, yeah, so the 316. And then Notre Dame's a good 5C, but that's tough they have to play Princeton, which is, you know, I had a question the other day, does Princeton run the Princeton offense?

And I was told that whatever offense they run is the Princeton offense. Whatever, yeah. So they don't actually run much offense at this point. They just play a lot of defense. So Notre Dame probably could get upset there. Yeah, I think Arizona is probably the favorite, though. Even though it's coming through the bottom.

of the bracket. Florida Gulf Coast, Florida State, 14-3 matchup. I think that was the one that Seth Davis. As soon as he saw the 14, he goes, I like him in the Sweet 16.

Didn't see any of the matchups. He already decided they're going to stay. He didn't know who they were going to play. He didn't know. I have a question. Does he know that Andy Infield was not the coach

at Florida Gulf Coast anymore? Does he just think it's still Dunk City? There's no way that he knows that. I guess like I'm making fun of people for being ignorant. I haven't watched a second of Florida Gulf Coast basketball. Me either. They still dunk a lot,

but like. They still call themselves Dunk City. It would be great if they did Dunk and they just were like, we're Dunk City and they just lay it in every time. They played like Princeton does. Yeah, that'd be great. I like St. Mary's. Do you like St. Mary's?

Yeah, I do. I like St. Mary's. They lost to Gonzaga three times. That's just me pandering to Delvedova. And it's also like, what are you going to say? You don't like a team. Of course, you like all the teams. We all like the teams.

Yeah. Anything else stand out? I think this is a chance for Xavier to make a little run. I can see Xavier. That's a bad matchup for Maryland. And then Florida State. They're going to have a tough game against Florida Gulf Coast, even though I haven't watched much of Florida Gulf Coast.

I can just expect that's Florida versus Florida. That's probably going to be a tough game. I can see Xavier making a run. I can see VCU possibly doing something, but St. Mary is a tough matchup. But I told you this earlier in the season. Arizona to the final four, because it's in Arizona. It just makes sense.

And they got an easy draw. That would be the first local team in the final four since Butler in 2010. And we all know what happened in 2010. The Duke Blue Devils. National champions. Is that what you're saying, Tate? No. That was not the implication of America.

No. How nervous? So what is more terrifying you? The idea of meeting Villanova in the title game again? Or the idea of meeting Duke and losing for the third time

to Duke this season at the national championship game? I think Villanova, North Carolina would be what would be deserving of a rematch after the way that went down. If Villanova and Duke meet in the elite who you cheering for

as a North Carolina fan again? Just don't watch it. Just see. who wins. Just check the box score. No need to watch that. Okay. Censor that FCC. Another omission I noticed. I was just scrolling through here. Ohio State. Not in the bracket. What happened? Neither was Indiana.

Can we just say that Indiana beat two one seeds this season? And they got snubbed. And Michigan State lost 14 games. Their best wins were against other Big Ten teams. And they got beat by everyone outside of conference. So what does Indiana do with that? That's tough. Was Iowa supposed to make it? Peter Jock snubbed. I feel like Iowa was, maybe they're on the bubble. Well, they lost Indiana. Who should have been in?

That's true. Yeah, they got smoked by Indiana. It's just like a transitive property there. Yeah. Georgia Tech, coach of the year, Josh Pastern doesn't get in. That's another snub. Kevin Stallings didn't get in. Kevin Stallings, huge snub.

We love Kevin Stallings. We love Kevin Stallings. So, yeah, as Clark Kellogg said, when they sat down with Mark Hollis after the show, after the Brack was revealed and they were talking, Clark Kellogg made a great point, and I agree with him. This should be a good tournament.

It should be good. If you look at it, it should be a good tournament. A lot of good matchups, as he said. And I would agree with that, Tate. I think we're in for some madness. As they say, that's March. That's madness. We'll be here tomorrow, right?

We're filling out a bracket live on the interwebs. Yeah, we're going to do a Facebook live tomorrow, fill out our bracket. We're going to be Barack Obama and Andy Katz and the Oval Office. I'm not sure who's going to play which role, but that'll be fun. It's a fight. figure that out. That's going to be fun. We're going to have a tug of war over Duke. I'm going to try to put Duke in the title game. And I'm going to probably, I'm just going to write Duke for every single game. I can't wait for this. And you're going to try to steal a marker for me and

we're going to fight over it. Terrible. So we're going to do that. We're going to do, we're doing podcasts like every day. Yeah, we're going to be podcasting all day all night. Yeah, once the game start. So yeah, check out that. We're, Tate and I'm out in L.A. having fun. This is great. The sun's still out. We're, we're, we just watch a selection show. Can't beat that. I watch Steve Alford, the local news comes on. They're talking to Steve Alford. I love that. You don't get to see that in Ohio.

You don't get to see Steve Alford talking to the local news people. That's good. About how he... Maybe one day. Steve Offord wants it. About how he wants the Indiana job, but doesn't really want it. And yeah, so, yeah, it'll be fun. We'll be back tomorrow.

We'll fill out of bracket. Cool. Yeah. March Madness. It's here. Boom, baby.