March Madness, Recapping The Last 4 Days Of Basketball, Sweet 16, Cal Wins The Break Up, Who’s Back and More

13:12Big Cat:Right, right. We all like it when we didn't have jobs that we had to go to. We were kids. When we were kids and our biggest worry was getting home from school and watching sports and then playing video games and we didn't have bills. That was awesome.

13:24PFT Commenter:But the court one was where I was like, I think we've gone too far. We're now nostalgic about court. We got to just chill out.

13:30Big Cat:You know what sucked about that era when we had those courts? You couldn't watch all the games at the same time.

13:35PFT Commenter:Exactly.

13:35Big Cat:Yeah. You had to wait. I would get text messages. You'd get one game. I was in high school. I signed up for text messages that would let me know if there was an upset that was happening and I would get there was a Kansas who are they playing I want to say like Bucknell Bellarmine or Bucknell or something like that in the first round I got a text that there was an impending possible upset get to a TV 10 minutes left and I went to a TV

13:59PFT Commenter:and the game was over yeah and Kansas yeah if you wanted to enter a bracket you had to physically see the person in the three days before the tournament right you could be in a bracket of 12 people things are a lot 12 people you saw things are a lot better overall now but the

14:13Big Cat:problem with the internet is we do see all the shitty stuff too right right right so okay that

14:18PFT Commenter:was just i i just had a quick point on that but yeah let's let's talk some games on saturday sunday

14:24Big Cat:uh you want i mean the big 10 big 10 just dominant this this just shows how good of a season wisconsin had to finish fifth in the big 10 well and also the fact that high point might be like the third best team in the entire tournament, and you guys gave them everything they could handle.

14:40PFT Commenter:I wanted credit. I mean, everyone was bemoaning the lack of Cinderella's. Guess who gave you at least one Cinderella story? It was Wisconsin. So shout out Wisconsin for being the team that can still get bullied as a big dog.

14:51Big Cat:With the Big Ten, I mean, we got still in it. We got Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan State, Michigan, Purdue, and then Iowa State, which is pretty much Big Ten. Yeah, it's Big Ten adjacent. By vibes. Yeah.

15:05PFT Commenter:Yeah, it's pretty crazy, though. The Big Ten has done very, very well in this tournament. So let's start with Saturday. Michigan looked awesome. I feel bad that that was the last time we're going to get to see Robbie Avila play college basketball. He's a true college. If you want to do nostalgia porn, that guy is like a true college basketball guy.

15:26Big Cat:I love that that guy can still exist. I know. In today's college basketball world. And that bruise was getting bigger. Oh, yeah. It was like his entire arm was just black and blue by the end of it. Michigan is just really good. Michigan is very good. Like what they've done through their first two games, you don't want to pick against them. They're just dominant. They're doing like offensively. They're as good as any team has been in a very long time.

15:47PFT Commenter:Yeah. And defensively, they're nasty. So they're going to the Sweet 16 in Chicago against. We're watching. It's going to be Alabama. Alabama is absolutely killing Texas Tech right now. Hank, were you a little nervous about how Duke played in the first half? A little bit, but they righted the ship second half. Yeah, they looked bad in the first half, and then they absolutely crushed TCU in the second half. No problem. Yeah, they found it. They remembered that they're Duke. Yeah. And it's their tournament to lose. It is. Right. And now they got to go against Rick Pitino and St. John's. I mean, it's an all-time region.

16:24PFT Commenter:It is. All-time Sweet 16 region. Region of the year? Probably ticket of the year. That's probably one of the best Sweet 16 tickets you could have.

16:32Big Cat:Listen, we have not seen a lot of great professional basketball games in that arena in the last 10 years. But this year, between the Duke-Michigan game and that entire regional, that's going to be a hot ticket. It is. But yeah. Well, it's true. Yeah, no.

16:47PFT Commenter:He's just stating fact.

16:48Big Cat:Listen, I will be the first to tell you, Hank. You tried to come at me about the Wizards last week. Nobody will say worse things about the Wizards than me. That's facts. Yeah. But that's going to be such a great regional. Duke against St. John's, UConn against Michigan State.

17:02PFT Commenter:Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And then the next game was Houston. Just Houston looks so good. Can I push back on something, though? With Houston, everyone saying, oh, Houston, they're playing in Houston in the Sweet 16. It's going to be like a home game. Yeah. Illinois, Nebraska, and Iowa have some pretty big fan bases that are all going to want to travel, especially Nebraska. Right. And Iowa. Sorry. I said that. Did they say Illinois? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Nebraska, especially just in the fact that they have never had any tournament success. But yeah, Iowa, first Sweet 16 in a long time. I don't think it's going to be like they're going to take over the place, but I don't think it's going to be 80 % Houston at these games.

17:47Big Cat:Have you ever been to Houston, Big Cat? Yeah, I've been a few times. You know how long it takes to get around town if you don't live there? Yeah. Yeah, that's what they're going to have to deal with. But I don't care. They might be late to the game because they got stuck on three different overpasses.

17:59PFT Commenter:Did you see Oklahoma City on Saturday night? And I know it's closer, but they broke the decibel record. There was a Game 7 NBA Finals this last year.

18:10Big Cat:Thunder Princess, I think, would have something to say about that.

18:12PFT Commenter:They broke the record. So I'm just saying, I think there's going to be more fans. Those are some really rabid fan bases that are going to be more than willing to travel.

18:22Big Cat:Yeah, of course. I just think Houston, man, they would be the last team I would want to play against.

18:27PFT Commenter:They're really good.

18:27Big Cat:They're so good. Like, it's so physical. I keep falling more and more in love with them.

18:32PFT Commenter:Yeah. And then, so yeah, Houston, that wasn't even. That was where we were. When we started Saturday, I think that's where it reached its peak of this tournament sucks discourse because we went Michigan blowout, Duke, which became a blowout, and Houston blowout. Tom Izzo though going to another Sweet 16 17 Sweet 16 he we're gonna have him on on Wednesday he's 26 and 9 in um second weekend second games in a weekend so that's either the round of 32 or the Elite Eight so when he gets there he just wins it's insane what he's able to do what he's like I I was thinking about it and I know we're very ring culture oriented and and you know he's only won one this tournament is so fucking hard and if you ask i mean you could ask me max you i mean max you won too but like there's a lot of fan bases that if you said hey your season starts in the sweet 16 almost every single year you'd sign up for in a heartbeat every single year they have at least a chance it's crazy like they just go to sweet 16s and then and then the tournament

19:40Big Cat:kind of starts for izzo yeah i mean before jay wright won that first one the whole thing was that he couldn't get to the second weekend. He would get upset in the first weekend every single year. So getting to that second weekend is a huge accomplishment in itself. And the best part about it is when you get to the second weekend, you just get this next week is the best.

20:00PFT Commenter:Yes.

20:00Big Cat:Because you get another week of prepping for the big game, going back, looking at highlights and stuff, and prepping yourself for the big game, trying to look at your path to get to the – like this week is the best if you get to that second week yeah i haven't been there in nine

20:16PFT Commenter:i think 10 you know it might be 10 years now and it's like that's every year michigan state they're like hey yeah we're gonna be in the second weekend that's 17 of them is insane tom iso is somehow underrated i think because it's just the the whole entire world has changed college basketball has changed and tom iso is just standing there being like yeah that's okay i'll just keep winning and

20:39Big Cat:The fears is just getting better. I loved on the broadcast when they were like, this young man, he's making so many better decisions on the court, and that's all thanks to the great coaching of Tom Izzo. He hasn't kicked a guy in the dick in like a week and a half.

20:52PFT Commenter:Dude, that's big.

20:53Big Cat:He had an addiction. That's huge. He's got a chip now. He carries around a chip with him like for Alcoholics Anonymous. Yeah. He has not kicked a man in the penis recently, but he was dominant. He was as dominant of a point guard as you'll ever see. And, yeah, Cohen Carr was great too. That whole team. It's like Michigan State, when they get to the tournament, they have this knack of just their guys become superstars before your very eyes in the span of a week and a half.

21:16PFT Commenter:A reporter asked Tom Izzo this, and he was spot on. How is it that every year your team is basically the same? It's a gutsy war dog of a point guard. Some guy who's just a freak athlete, Cohen Carr, and then you've got a few guys that you throw in there that just play Tom Izzo ball, fundamental, rebound, hit big shots. it's never the sexiest game it's not like they're gonna play you know in the 80s 90s but it doesn't matter it's winning basketball he's now 61 and 26 all time in the ncaa tournament that's stupid it's pretty incredible that's that's insane and he just he's 71 years old and he just keeps and it's like a young man's game look at look at some of the you know national title winners and just where the game's going tom iso's just there being like i don't care i'm not going to change what

22:03Big Cat:i'm doing and i'm gonna keep winning my favorite moments from tom is or always when he's like yelling at a player and then his player starts yelling at him and then he stops yelling and smiles yeah he's like this is awesome yeah he loves exactly where i want to be yeah he absolutely loves getting yelled at he's like yes i'm finally getting some shit now now i feel alive yeah yeah

22:22PFT Commenter:so congrats to michigan state um also i mean it's got to be a little weird for tom is out pat kelsey told a story about how he met Tom Izzo like 20 years ago when he was his first assistant at Wake Forest. Tom Izzo's been around for that long where it's just all these stories are going to start popping up being like, yeah, I went to your camp when I was 10 years old. I'm now 50. Pat Kelsey's 50.

22:45Big Cat:Yeah.

22:46PFT Commenter:And he had a glowing story about when he met him when he was 20.

22:49Big Cat:There was some picture. I want to say it was Rick Pitino when he was at Kentucky that they put out on Thursday or Friday and they did a fucked up thing. They added like a sepia tone to it to make it look I swear the picture looks like it was taken in 1954.

23:04PFT Commenter:But it was like

23:05Big Cat:from the 90s. It's like when you go back and you watch games from the year like 2009 on YouTube like that shit was it was in high def when we watched it. Right. But they make it look older when you go back and you watch it online now.

23:18PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. So congrats to Michigan State. Let me do a quick ad before we keep ripping through some games, get to some big moments that we had this week.

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24:08PFT Commenter:Dedication isn't born in the light of day. It's carved in the quiet hours before the world blinks awake. At Boar's Head, we rise with a mission to deliver craftsmanship worthy of your table. A slice of something special folded into every moment worth savoring. Because dedication means delivering only the very best. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. Okay, Saturday night is where we started to really pick it up, though. It felt good. Texas and Gonzaga was a great game. Texas is our Cinderella, by the way. The University of Texas.

24:48Big Cat:Those plucky little underdogs.

24:49PFT Commenter:It's the 11th seed going from the first four into the Sweet 16, which we noted before the tournament happens, feels like every other year. But they take down Gonzaga and Texas.

25:06PFT Commenter:How do you say his name? Vokititis? Vokititis. Unbelievable. He can't hit free throws, but everything else is he's just a monster around the rim.

25:13Big Cat:And he wasn't missing his layups and get his own, his me bounds this time. He was just dominant. He was just good, big, physical. Gonzaga, yes, down year. But Texas has some dudes. They can make some noise. I think they're 300 to one right now to win.

25:27PFT Commenter:Okay.

25:27Big Cat:Which is like, yeah, they're probably not going to, but that's pretty good value for a sweet 16 team.

25:32PFT Commenter:Yeah, it is.

25:32Big Cat:Like one that gets the type of players that Texas gets.

25:35PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. And Sean Miller also needs more credit. He's nine and one in round of 32 games. Pretty damn good. And the storylines, if you're like, hey, there's not enough storylines, the idea that if Texas could beat Purdue and Arizona can win their Sweet 16 game and you have Sean Miller going up against Tommy Lloyd to potentially stop Arizona going for the first Final Four in 25 years, the thing that Sean Miller couldn't do, that would be juicy.

26:06Big Cat:And, I mean, to have a guy that used to work with Nick Lachey when he was a college basketball coach do all this would be pretty incredible yeah do you see that clip of the interview where they were talking to sean miller about like nick lachey being a ball boy on one of his teams he was like a grad assistant and sean miller had no idea what the person was talking about that's perfect and the person knew everything about nick lachey's history with sean miller sean sean's like i don't i don't know who this young man is but yeah uh

26:31PFT Commenter:that would be that would be a hell of a storyline yeah so sean miller great tournament coach mark few I don't know Gonzaga came into this season with a ton of promise Huff's injury changes a lot you could see it like the way EK has to play when there's not another big like I said at the beginning you know having those two bigs out there that that that lowered their ceiling but Gonzaga mark few the the bar that he's raised it to not getting to sweet 16 is a disappointment because he is a guy who just expects you expect to go to sweet 16 you can pencil him into final four every year that's what we always say about yeah he's just a great coach he's just always going to the final four yeah um but yeah that was an awesome game texas like it felt like it in many moments like texas was not going to be able to pull it off and they just kept on holding off gonzaga kept on holding him off jordan pope making big shots so yeah they've got texas has

27:24Big Cat:vocatitis who is he's a very physically dominant and a skilled big man too and then they've got a few players that are just like super athletic and the way they move you think that they're awesome and they have the capability of taking over a game but they're like wildly inconsistent too like guys that will be able to jump out of the gym guys that are faster than everybody but they're just missing like that one little shred of consistency yeah yeah and they they had a

27:51PFT Commenter:disappointing regular season they went nine and nine in the sec uh but they always had that high ceiling of a team and now they're realizing it this is why the tournament is great because you have a chance you can have a season that you deem is a disappointment in the regular season but if you can rip off a few wins in in the postseason you you can walk away being like that was successful and again sean miller's one of those guys tournament coach yeah this would be just

28:17Big Cat:mark it under tournament coach for everybody like everyone that's still playing right now what an awesome week going back to school this would be the best right i guess unless you have spring break this week but if you go back to college and you just get to chill on campus for like three

28:30PFT Commenter:days yeah that rocks good for you yeah that was that was a great game and then um nebraska vanderbilt was the game of of the night maybe the game of the tournament because one that crowd nebraska it was just all nebraska and they were so loud and they were screaming about every single call and you could feel it like you could feel it in the gym i it was it was such a cool environment and they have the storybook Braden Frager, who is from Lincoln, Nebraska, hit the game-winning shot, and then Vanderbilt, with possibly the overinflated balls, have the ball go in and out for a buzzer beater that would have been top 10 buzzer beater in history of the tournament.

29:15Big Cat:Yeah, the bank shot. The ball was in. It was in. It was as far in as you could get it in. Backboard rim, rim, out. There's some screenshots out there that will keep you up at night if you're a Vanderbilt fan. The ball, it went in. It went in and then bounced out, but it was like a ball don't lie situation. We're good for Nebraska. Nebraska earned it.

29:33PFT Commenter:And Nebraska is showing, you know, they're so fanatical, especially with how football's gone recently. They're so fanatical for their sports that having a team like this and the way they're getting behind it, it's just an awesome thing. These are the type of March stories you are drawn to. It's also a reminder, Fred Hoiberg is just a really fucking good college coach. I think his time at the Bulls probably got some people off the scent. He was really good at Iowa State. He's really good at Nebraska. He's so good at Nebraska the Bulls might hire him again, which I wouldn't put it past him. Jerry Reinsdorf being like, who's this up-and-comer, Fred Hoiberg?

30:12PFT Commenter:Yeah. The way he switched up his defense in the second half going to 1-3-1 zone, and he just always had Vanderbilt. Because Vanderbilt's guards are good, but he had them in a torture chamber all night.

30:23Big Cat:I loved seeing the Nebraska fans wearing the football helmets and football pads. It's like, yeah, we're rooting for the basketball team, but we would kill a man if this was a football game. I want this for a football program so badly. But, yeah, the fans were really into it. I saw our good friend Dana. Dana was there. Dana Holgerson. Dana Holgerson. Having the time of his life out there. I love seeing him happy. It's good. It's good, I think, for the sport that we get. Iowa, Nebraska. It's crazy. In basketball, in the Sweet 16.

30:54PFT Commenter:And they split in the regular season.

30:56Big Cat:Yeah.

30:56PFT Commenter:Home and home. The Corn Bowl. It's so perfect. Cornhub.com. For both of these schools to reach this point in the first time in Nebraska's history, the first time for Iowa in, I think it's been 30 years, and it'd be like, oh, shit, you're here? Like, the guy we hate, you're here? Yeah. You showed up?

31:14Big Cat:It's good. Fuck. This is really good. I'm pumped to watch this game. I don't think I – if you had asked me at the start of this tournament, would I be looking forward to a game between Iowa and Nebraska, I would say no. But now, yes, you can't help but look forward to this.

31:29PFT Commenter:No. And Vanderbilt, this was also – see, this is where it's like we did not have a Cinderella, but if you watched Vanderbilt-Nebraska on Saturday night, it was not only a great tournament game, but it's two teams that are so far from blue bloods in basketball and have no real basketball history to fall back on, both trying to reach a point that would be huge for the program and the stakes couldn't have been higher. Those are the type of games where I'm like, hey, you don't like the tournament? Here, watch this. Watch this crowd. Watch these two teams that have not had a ton of success in basketball and watch them go toe-to-toe in the shot-making at the end.

32:05PFT Commenter:And it felt like Nebraska was going to lose a million different times where they just kept on having big shot after big shot after big shot. It was an awesome tournament game. Yeah, it was great. It was great. this is the portion of the show for our good friend Tom Fernelli we have to talk about Illinois they're a buzzsaw they VCU did the thing where they were scrappy for you know Illinois came out looked like it was a complete mismatch which it was especially like height wise was just insane and then VCU came back you're like oh man VCU and it was like nah we're not doing this

32:39Big Cat:nah Illinois is too smart

32:40PFT Commenter:we're not doing this

32:42Big Cat:they're too well coached

32:43PFT Commenter:Yeah.

32:44Big Cat:They wouldn't let that happen. It's not Hubert Davis on the sidelines in Illinois.

32:47PFT Commenter:Did you see the Penn fans on, was it Thursday, doing the that's all right, that's okay, we're going to be your boss one day chant in Illinois?

32:56Big Cat:That's always a good one to break out, yeah.

32:58PFT Commenter:But it's not, like, I get it, Ivy League, whatever.

33:02Big Cat:Illinois is a good school. Yeah, but I get it. If you go to Ivy League, you just assume that everybody's going to work for you.

33:08PFT Commenter:But that wasn't, yeah, that wasn't Penn, and forgive me because I'm sure people would be upset that wasn't Penn Arizona State actually I would say Arizona State much higher

33:19Big Cat:likelihood that you go into business as like a shitty entrepreneur yeah true and like for true basically like run a scam true but it's not like a safety school no but that's listen if you go to Penn if you go to Princeton if you go to in any of these schools you do that at Duke yeah UVA the Ivy League of the South yeah Michigan at the end of the day you know you lose a you lose a game and And you do have that mentality of like, well, at least I get to be an asshole to you for the rest of your life.

33:44PFT Commenter:Right. Right. At least I can walk around. And the first thing I'll tell you is that I went to an Ivy League school. Yeah. I have that going for me. But yeah, Illinois looks awesome. We're going to Arizona this week for PMT spring break. And I don't know what the line is because we can't bet it here. I'm going to have to take a look. Illinois, Houston. If they can get through Houston, they have.

34:04Big Cat:I mean, the bracket broke really nice for both Illinois and Houston. The problem is they have to play each other. Right.

34:10PFT Commenter:That's going to be an awesome game. The most efficient offense, the most efficient defense. It is. I don't know if they're – I know Illinois is the most efficient offense. I don't know if – Houston's probably top five defensively. This over, by the way, is just torture because all we needed was Texas Tech. Sorry for everyone's GMT parlay. All we needed was Texas Tech to be not complete ass, and they were complete ass tonight. Big time ass. It was bad. Like, they just had to be a little bit not ass.

34:37Big Cat:They just had to – yeah, they had to run plays.

34:39PFT Commenter:If they had scored 65 points, we'd be...

34:43Big Cat:And this is not Alabama deciding to be good at defense.

34:46PFT Commenter:No, Alabama was just insane offensively.

34:49Big Cat:They're great offensively, and Texas Tech was complete ass on offense.

34:53PFT Commenter:Complete ass. The other games... So, yeah, Illinois is really, really good. I don't know what else to say. It's hard to talk about the teams that just are bud saws in the first two rounds. And Illinois is in that category. They were a complete buzzsaw in the first two rounds.

35:10Big Cat:It's tough. We haven't seen them tested, really. I mean, VCU got kind of close in the second half, like within 10. Well, I think it was more first.

35:18PFT Commenter:They tied it in the first half, and then Illinois closed out the half strong. And then I don't know if it got close again. I feel like it didn't.

35:27Big Cat:I would like to see Illinois play in a close game in this tournament. Or at least get tested a little bit. It would be the Houston game.

35:34PFT Commenter:It's going to be an incredible matchup. The Sweet 16 matchups are awesome. Yeah. Absolutely incredible. And then every Saturday night, every night game should finish with Arkansas playing High Point because that was so much fun.

35:47Big Cat:That's one game where I'm bummed that I don't get to watch High Point play basketball anymore. They're good. Those might be the two best point guards. Yeah, Fears, you got to toss Fears in. But between Acuff and Martin from High Point, those are two of the best point guards in all of college basketball. And that game was just so fucking fun.

36:05PFT Commenter:And it was – High Point had them in the spot that they wanted them to be in, in that it's exactly what they did to the Badgers. Like, keep it close, keep it close, and then have Chase Johnston make a couple crazy threes and win the game. And he just didn't make the crazy threes.

36:23Big Cat:These were crazier threes. Right, they were, but that's the game plan for him.

36:27PFT Commenter:That's like people were saying, oh, how do you take the ball out of Martin's hands? Well, they were down, you know, six or seven. Like that was, that's the whole way the high point can win that type of game is chase Johnson has to do that thing where he's just unconscious.

36:39Big Cat:And I thought that Brazil from Arkansas did a good enough job, like altering the offensive high point to the place where Arkansas could kind of afford to slow it down at the end. They had a big enough lead where they could take their time in half court and not have to rush everything and just kind of like, it's crazy. because it was 94-88, but if Arkansas continued to play their high-speed offense and just let Acuff drive whenever he wanted, this game could have been like 105-101.

37:07PFT Commenter:Yeah, yeah. And Acuff, his last five games that he's played, postseason games, 37 points, 24 points, 30 points, 24 points, 36 points. He's averaging 30 points, 7 assists, 45.5 field goal percentage. He's just insane right now. He's the best. He is so much fun to watch. He just makes the right decision all the time. He gets, we were talking about it with like the cool, cool limp. He also has the cool speed switch up on court where you think that he's going slow. And then all of a sudden he, he will hit the turbo booster kind of like low people into being like, Oh, he's, he's, he's not like trying that hard.

37:52PFT Commenter:And then he'll just hit that turbo and be at the rim. And his body control and the way he just kind of controls the game. It's just awesome. He's one of my favorite players to watch. And I'm happy that we get to see him play more basketball in this tournament. Do we think that there has ever been a bigger one to break up more than Cal and Kentucky right now? It was a good choice.

38:17Big Cat:Maybe Brady and Belichick. Who would you say won? I would say Belichick because he's with Jordan. Yeah, Jordan. And also Brady's being a weirdo these days.

38:25PFT Commenter:That's true.

38:26Big Cat:Really strange. But how so? Oh, he won't trade players to the Patriots. True.

38:31PFT Commenter:The flag football game where they got killed.

38:34Big Cat:Yeah. He's dating like. We might have been wrong on that. He's dating 23 year olds. Belichick's actually very normal compared to what Brady's up to. True.

38:42PFT Commenter:Cal is living the best life. He has gone to back to back sweet 16s. And Kentucky could not. Kentucky's just in a crisis. Kentucky's in a complete crisis with Mark Pope.

38:52Big Cat:Yeah, it's like at Arkansas, Cal has almost an attitude of like, let's have fun.

38:58PFT Commenter:Right.

38:58Big Cat:He's having the best time ever. But they're dominating. They're really, really good. And at Kentucky, you can see all the pressure getting to them. And now I think with, I mean, a lot of it does have to do with having Acuff as your point guard. Oh, for sure. Where it's like, I can do my Cal thing, which is I roll the ball out there and then the boys play basketball.

39:18PFT Commenter:Yes. a cuff is is makes probably any coach would make any coach smile a lot more but it's just funny to see how happy cal is right now and how miserable like it couldn't have gone worse in the first two years for this breakup and the breakup i don't think they would have taken it back because they like they had to do it mhm kentucky will win a national championship before arkansas who said that still still a lot of time to go oh that's big cat it's still a lot of time to go i mean You're probably right.

39:48Big Cat:I don't know. Acuff is so good. You're probably right. Acuff, I think, is the most fun player in this entire tournament to watch.

39:54PFT Commenter:Did you tweet that, Memes? Today? Some Arkansas fans came back to it.

40:00Big Cat:Oh. Yeah. They bumped it? Did they win the national championship today? No, but as soon as they got eliminated, they... They bumped it. They're circling it.

40:09PFT Commenter:Hey, fair play. They're monitoring the situation. Part of winning in the tournament is going and just getting old takes exposing everyone.

40:17Big Cat:Should we do a list of, like, part of my take, top five most kick-ass guys to watch in the tournament?

40:23PFT Commenter:Yeah, sure.

40:25Big Cat:Number one, Acuff?

40:26PFT Commenter:Yeah. Acuff is easy number one.

40:28Big Cat:Acuff, easy number one.

40:29PFT Commenter:Sounds like you have it. Give it to us. No, no, no.

40:32Big Cat:I don't have it. I was just thinking, like, Arkansas might not—Arkansas is not the best team, I don't think. No. But they have the most fun player. Oh, yeah. And debatable. By far. He's probably going to go in the top 10 in the draft. He's probably not going to go super high.

40:48PFT Commenter:I think he's going to go. I mean, his defense is a problem, and he's not the perfect height for a point guard. I feel like he'd be stupid if you don't tie. I would take him top five, personally. I think he's awesome. I personally would take him top five. If you watch him play basketball and you don't think that he can't just own a franchise, be like, hey, here you go. It's your franchise. You're going to have fun. He's that good.

41:14Big Cat:You're going to have fun. Yeah. So I would put him number one as most kick-ass guy.

41:19PFT Commenter:It might just be Acuff, Acuff, Acuff.

41:21Big Cat:All Acuff.

41:22PFT Commenter:Acuff. And then Martin, maybe five.

41:25Big Cat:Vokititis. Vokititis, yeah. He should be in there. Okay, we can put him three. Absolutely. I would like to put Jojo Tugler. Okay. Number five.

41:36PFT Commenter:I think Edge of four has got to be on there. Yeah. He's an awesome story, an awesome player. Well, maybe Wednesday we do our all kick-ass team.

41:46Big Cat:Yeah, all kick-ass tournament team.

41:48PFT Commenter:All kick-ass tournament team. I like that a lot. Anything else on Saturday? I had to – this is also the show. So this is the worst Monday, by the way, I think, in the year. I think it's worse than the Monday after the Super Bowl because you get to a point where you just think that this is your life now, where you just wake up and you're like, okay, it's time to watch basketball for 14 hours.

42:13Big Cat:Right. If you go out and you drink like 20 beers in one night, you're going to wake up the next day and you're not going to feel great. Right. But then maybe by that Monday, you'll just be like kind of a little off. whereas if you spend like a week drinking beers and then you try to go back to work on monday you're going through withdrawals yeah you need it like we do need a little bit of basketball yeah

42:34PFT Commenter:no it's it's this this is the the day that i just i'm always so scared of because i've just i spend every single second watching basketball for four days straight it's really the the two weeks before that with conference tournament week and then you just hard line we have nothing Do we have the crown? Is the crown? Is the crown starting? No. I could use some crown.

42:57Big Cat:I would pay probably$1 ,000 to watch High Point versus Florida tomorrow night. Yeah.

43:04PFT Commenter:Right? Crown is in April. April, yeah. Sorry, boys. We lost this over Texas Tech. So we went PMT Parlay. We won one out of four. Actually, plus money.

43:15Big Cat:Plus money because I think it was five to one.

43:17PFT Commenter:Yeah. About just every time. This one sucked because it was... The pace was there. Just Tex Tech was complete ass. What were you going to say?

43:26Big Cat:Which is it, Mames?

43:28PFT Commenter:PFT went four for four. Yeah, PFT did go four for four. I did. How's the pistol? Hot as a pistol. Lava hot. Cool inside. Yeah, this one's on me.

43:39Big Cat:It's on us.

43:40PFT Commenter:Us, yeah, us. Great job Saturday, though. Great job Saturday. Great job Saturday. That was a lot of fun. and Friday we got close

43:49Big Cat:and Thursday we got close

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45:33Big Cat:but every single iso possession they'd have would just be like a awkward step back three

45:39PFT Commenter:Yeah. It was just bad, bad offense. And Nate Oates and Alabama are into the Sweet 16. Does Aiden Holloway play?

45:48Big Cat:I don't know. He's got to get the tax stamp thing worked out. It's really the tax stamp that pisses me off.

45:56PFT Commenter:This will be an interesting story because I feel like he might play. Although, are you going to mess up the vibes? They killed Texas Tech. I don't think so. That was a pick-em game, and they won by 35. Yeah, they're playing really well, but Aiden's a good player. This is a scary team for anyone. I know Michigan is really good, but the one thing that Michigan, when Wisconsin beat Michigan and Ann Arbor, it's like just hit a million threes. If you hit a million threes, you could beat anyone. If Alabama just gets hot and just hits a million threes.

46:28Big Cat:Let the Aiden Holloway situation be a reminder to everybody that you don't have to let the police look through your phone.

46:34PFT Commenter:Yeah.

46:35Big Cat:It's kind of on him. Well, they were. I actually point the finger at Nate Oates for this. Because Nate Oates, you got to do a better job of explaining the First through Fifth Amendments to your players. Given the history that you've had, there have been some legal issues.

46:51PFT Commenter:Yep.

46:52Big Cat:Day one, you should get the guys from Morgan and Morgan to come in and be like, do not talk to the police if you're in trouble. Shut the fuck up.

47:00PFT Commenter:They really had him, though. They had been looking at his trash.

47:04Big Cat:Yeah.

47:05PFT Commenter:They had him figured out.

47:06Big Cat:They dug deep and they found, yeah, it was like two pounds of weed,

47:09PFT Commenter:which could be personal. Yeah. That could be. Is there a chance that he was providing weed for the whole team and now they have to ban drugs because that was an incredible performance?

47:20Big Cat:Where was that game today?

47:22PFT Commenter:That game was being played in Tampa, Florida. Okay. And Alabama just won by 35 points against, yes, Toppin being out changed all of the season for Texas Tech, But still a good Texas Tech team, and they shot 45 % from three. 19 for 42. Pretty damn good.

47:42Big Cat:Yeah. Oh, no. They just did a sad Texas Tech fan in the stands, giving a sad head down gun up. Oh, no. Guns up. That was pretty bad.

47:51PFT Commenter:That is bad. That's really bad. Okay. Sunday. We started off. Purdue. What? Oh. Now, Purdue just played a perfect offensive game. Purdue is humming right now. Say something nice about Purdue. I'm proud that Purdue is a Big Ten team. Are you? Yeah, because I've just switched to this has got to be the year the Big Ten wins the national title. I've gone through all the emotions of coping, and now I'm just like, hey, good job, Purdue. Just go finish it.

48:22Big Cat:I'm starting to come around a little bit on Fletcher Lawyer. Yeah, he actually was in the office.

48:27PFT Commenter:He's a nice guy.

48:27Big Cat:Yeah, he's a very nice guy. Very smart player. I like his interviews that he does with Rothstein. It's good. I'm coming around on him. The Braden Smith situation, that's going to take me a while to let my guard down and really accept him. But Fletcher Lawyer, very fun player to watch.

48:44PFT Commenter:They're just Purdue is a team that is built for the tournament and the fact that they have been there in every single moment with those three seniors. And even at the end of the game, I think it was maybe three minutes left and it was a six-point game, you're like, all right, you need to have a guard who you can trust, who can get you into your offense late in the shot clock, still get a good shot off, hit free throws, all those things. That's what Purdue is. And they were, again, almost perfect from offense. They shot 53 % from the field, 57 % from the three. And I think they were – I saw a stat.

49:21PFT Commenter:Yeah, okay, so Purdue's in their win over Miami, they were 53.2 % from the field, 57.1 % from three, 95.5 % from the line 21 for 22 They're the third team in NCAA tournament History to shoot 50 50-95 in a game Marquette was the last team to do it In 2003 round 32 With Tom Crean and Dwayne Wade That's insane 50-50 90 and they were really 95 21 of 22 from the line

49:51Big Cat:It's nuts So they played a perfect game And Matt Painter is a very good tournament coach I think we have to include him in that list

49:57PFT Commenter:Yeah, he also had a pretty good quote on Friday where he kind of pushed back on the entire Travis Steele, Miami of Ohio, we tried to schedule these teams and we couldn't do it. He was like, hey, we played the Mac. We can't figure out who's going to be good year to year. Yeah. And that's true. It's not on Purdue. They scheduled mid-major teams. It's not on them to be like, oh, well, it's our fault that Buffalo was bad this year or Northern Illinois was bad this year. You know what I mean? So I think there's a little bit of truth to that. Yeah. And it's an imperfect system because every coach is trying to figure out the perfect schedule so that they can maximize their chance of getting in the tournament.

50:40PFT Commenter:They're obviously not going to take risks that have very little upside.

50:45Big Cat:No, why would they? Right. But did you see Miami's player Malik Renault after the game?

50:51PFT Commenter:No, what did he say?

50:52Big Cat:So he went – he found his way into the concourse right after the game's over. That was real? I think that was real.

50:58PFT Commenter:I thought that was fake, just because I was like, no way is that true.

51:01Big Cat:I saw like four different angles of it, so I think it's real. Memes, can we confirm, or did I get got? I thought it was real. I think it's real. He went to get some pizza after the game wearing his uniform. Shout out to that guy. You're done playing. You're done for the year. Why not? That's incredible. You'll have way in tomorrow.

51:21PFT Commenter:I just assumed that was fake somehow because it's so ridiculous. That's awesome.

51:26Big Cat:Yeah, good for him.

51:27PFT Commenter:That's fucking awesome.

51:28Big Cat:Yeah, why not? I think that, what's the line? Whose line is anyway? Purdue, Texas.

51:36PFT Commenter:Six and a half. On DraftKings Sportsbook. Which is live again in Arkansas. Seven and a half, Purdue. Okay. I like Purdue. Yeah, I mean, it's been a lot of favorites. A lot of favorites have been winning. I like Purdue a lot in that. I don't know, Texas, yeah. Purdue's just good. they're just a good tournament team and they're this senior class has won a lot of tournament games so maybe it's one of those like the next game I was going to talk about maybe it's one of those the years where no one's talking about them like Tennessee's in the Sweet 16 held on against Virginia the years that not all the pressure's on Purdue there's other dominant teams Tennessee, there hasn't been a lot of discourse about Tennessee being a national title threat and maybe they aren't but they're in the street 16 and they got a shot against Iowa state.

52:26PFT Commenter:Who's missing a key player. Maybe he'll be back Jefferson, but that's maybe that's what happens is when you're not, when you're least expecting it.

52:34Big Cat:We do talk a lot of shit about the one and done era. And this is, yeah, Purdue is actually doing the exact opposite. This is like a, it's a mid nineties team.

52:44PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. And Iowa state, Kentucky, Kentucky is just, that was just a brutal game to watch. They had 20 turnovers.

52:51Big Cat:Yeah. Yeah, Mark Pope on the hot seat? He's got to be. I think he is. I mean, I think they're going to bring him back. I think he's safe for this year, but I think he's going into next year. Seat is warm.

53:02PFT Commenter:Here are two things that you're not going to want to hear if you're a Kentucky fan. The first one was after the game, Nate Heisel, who plays on Iowa State, said part of their game plan was if they can get a couple kill shots on Kentucky 10-0 runs, that Kentucky will lay down and quit. He said they talked about it before the game. They're like, if you can jump on them. And Kentucky came out hot. They were up, I think, 20 to 5 or something like that. But then it just all the momentum went the other way. And they couldn't get the ball in bounds. They turned it over 20 times. It was just throwing the ball everywhere.

53:38PFT Commenter:And you could feel it. They kind of quit. That's not great for Mark Pope.

53:42Big Cat:No. And, I mean, at least Louisville lost. So that took a little bit of the sting out of it if you're a Kentucky fan. But then you've got Patino in the Sweet 16. You got Cal and the Sweet 16. And then Kentucky did not look very good at all.

53:55PFT Commenter:And the other one was, which I think there's probably some truth to it, which is Sting's extra hard. Tyrese Halliburton said, went to text the guys who played at Kentucky about this game and forgot they think they Arkansas alum now. Which is, I bet you that their allegiance goes to Cal before it goes to Kentucky. 100%. Yeah. There's no way that half, I mean, maybe a couple of the guys, but a lot of them, they have a lot more of a close relationship with Cal than they do with the University of Kentucky.

54:23Big Cat:Yeah, I mean, Cal's job unabashedly was, I'm here to make you as much money as possible. Right, right.

54:30PFT Commenter:So, yeah, all right, the Malik Renew was 100 % true. Good for him. That's awesome. That's a great move to not even get out of his.

54:37Big Cat:I like that he waited in line, too. Yeah. He didn't just go up there. Did he have money in his, do those shorts have pockets?

54:47PFT Commenter:he probably went and grabbed his phone yeah yeah good call yeah there's the yeah he's just like fuck it I'm just gonna go I don't like the food here I don't play in college basketball anymore I'm out of here go grab my food that is awesome but yeah the that's gotta sting for Kentucky maybe when we host Kentucky Sports Radio in the summer Mark Pope hot seat feels inevitable feels very

55:14Big Cat:As a colonel, it does sting to know that other coaches and teams are talking about your squad like that.

55:20PFT Commenter:Like they'll give up. Shout out to our guy, Matt Jones, though. He removed himself from the game. Okay, good. Did you see that? I did not see that. He said he was very close to yelling at a ref from press row, and then he realized that's his time to leave the game. Self-regulation. It's important. Thank you for your service, Matt. Yeah, good job, Matt. That's incredible. Thank you for doing the right thing.

55:41Big Cat:Yeah. When no one was watching. Sometimes the most important part of the First Amendment is knowing when not to use it, Matt.

55:47PFT Commenter:I would like to know what he was going to say to the ref.

55:50Big Cat:Probably something really polite. Yeah.

55:53PFT Commenter:Hey, that's a bad call. You stink. But it was on press row. Remember that? Y 'all are sorry. Yeah. There's also the Kentucky part of NIL. It doesn't always work out. It's not always the most amount of money because Jaden Quintin got paid$2 million this season, allegedly transferred from Arizona State, and he scored 20 points all season. $100 ,000 per point. Sheesh. Yeah. So it's not always like, hey, you can just throw money at it. It'll work.

56:22Big Cat:Yeah. There's going to be some people that aren't going to be too happy with that.

56:26PFT Commenter:No. No. Probably a lot of Colonels.

56:29Big Cat:Yeah, a lot of Colonels. A lot of Colonels. I'm not happy. Frankly, it's unacceptable.

56:32PFT Commenter:Yeah. St. John's, Kansas. Great game. What a game. It was a bad game until it was a great game.

56:37Big Cat:The first half was kind of ugly. St. John's came out remarkably shooting threes at an amazing clip. Yeah. Did not expect that to happen. Yeah. But, yeah, then at the end, it kind of felt like it was a great game down the stretch. The Kansas offense with Peterson looked a little disjointed when he was the primary guy with the ball. That was all season. But it's all season. And it finally caught up with him, the fact that he didn't get that many minutes playing with that first-team offense. So it looked a little awkward. But, I mean, Kansas, they fought back. They almost won.

57:11PFT Commenter:Yeah, and then we had Dylan Darling, who had a buzzer beater. His only made field goal in the entire game was the buzzer beater. Pretty damn cool. The end of game, Bill Self did the right thing. So Kansas had two fouls. Obviously, seven is the bonus, the start of one and one. So there's 12 seconds left. You might as well burn the fouls and take some time off the clock. They just didn't do it correctly the first two times. It's fouled immediately. They fouled immediately and ended up having three seconds left. And Dylan Darling just blew right by the Kansas defender, right to the rim. Incredible finish.

57:54PFT Commenter:Rick Pitino back in the sweet 16. He's 73 years old. I think this is the fourth team he's done it with now. He did it with Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, and now St. John's. I don't think there's a more perfect fit than Rick Pitino at St. John's.

58:11Big Cat:No, it was meant to be. It really was. It was. And, and seeing that list of coaches, it was Shire, Pitino, Izzo, Hurley, all going to the same regional. That's awesome.

58:22PFT Commenter:Yeah.

58:22Big Cat:That's going to kick so much ass. Yeah. Yeah. The, the end of that game self, I think got out coach. And now he seems like he, he's thinking about whether or not he wants to come back and coach basketball next year.

58:32PFT Commenter:Well, this is now four straight years that Kansas has not made the Sweet 16. Again, going back to the Izzo stat, it's insane. He just goes to the Sweet 16. But four straight years at Kansas not going to the Sweet 16 is a problem.

58:47Big Cat:I mean, that could be pretty crazy. If Kansas, if Bill Self decides he doesn't want to coach anymore, and then UNC, it sounds like they might be moving on. Oh, yeah. And if those are the two big openings, that's going to be kind of chaotic.

59:00PFT Commenter:Pretty good.

59:01Big Cat:And I feel like there aren't that many huge names out there that you could expect.

59:06PFT Commenter:Well, there's one huge name. Brad Stevens. You got to make him say no. You got to call Brad Stevens and make him say no. You do have to make Brad Stevens say no.

59:16Big Cat:Brad Stevens, Jay Wright. That's every coaching opening. You got to make him say no. We got to reach out.

59:21PFT Commenter:How old do you think Brad Stevens will be before we stop saying you got to make him say no?

59:26Big Cat:Never. Never. I will personally never stop saying that. You gotta make him.

59:31PFT Commenter:How many times do you think Brad Stevens had to say no?

59:33Big Cat:He probably wakes up every morning and says no. Do you think he has a no guy? He probably does.

59:39PFT Commenter:His agent. Yeah, his agent is probably just... No, but that doesn't count.

59:42Big Cat:If you're thinking about Brad Stevens and you're trying to make him say no and his agent tells you no, you don't give up. Wait, I love this tweet. You keep reaching out to Brad Stevens. Go back up.

59:51PFT Commenter:I love this tweet from Aaron Conrad. What is this person? Is this person a real reporter? Or is this a... Thank you. My dad, husband, Mark Price for three podcasts. OK, so he's in the business. He says my case for Brad Stevens to UNC has coaching in his veins. He's been a successful coach and GM in the NBA. He can speak to recruits about the NBA landscape character. He's a family man. Chapel is a place to raise a family, understands NIL cap talent. He wins. Did this guy just find Brad Stevens and think no one else knew about Brad Stevens?

1:00:27Big Cat:Well, did you miss the part where it says he's a family man and Chapel Hill is a place where you can raise family? Okay, have you ever tried to raise a family in Boston? Nobody has. There's no families in Boston.

1:00:37PFT Commenter:Oh, look. You're right, Max. Max called it. This is from another person. I'm told that North Carolina plans to fire Hubert Davison wake of today's collapse versus VCU in the NCAA tournament, a replacement for the Tar Heels that has been contacted thus far. Jay Wright. Perfect. Jay Wright and Brad Stevens. Got to make him say no.

1:00:57Big Cat:I think there's another guy that anytime a big college opening comes up, you have to make him say no to.

1:01:02PFT Commenter:Who?

1:01:02Big Cat:You know him quite well. Who's that? Billy Donovan. Yeah. I think Billy Dee is another guy you got to make him say no.

1:01:08PFT Commenter:Then we could hire Fred Hoiberg.

1:01:10Big Cat:And then Hoiberg, yeah.

1:01:11PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah, Billy Donovan, you got to make him say no. Make him say no. Very good college coach. What's Steve Lavin up to these days?

1:01:18Big Cat:Probably waiting by his phone.

1:01:20PFT Commenter:Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. He and Seth Greenberg are probably like, someone's going to call us. Yeah. the if you're if you're an nba coach you're definitely not leaving to go to college no billy dog gets paid a lot of money to put out a subpar product and still have a job yeah think about think about you could you could coach the bulls make i don't know how much he makes let's call it six million dollars a year google how much i think he just signed a new contract a ton of money and if you go 42 and 42 your your boss is happy or you could go to unc and if you get bounced in the second round everyone wants you fired oh yeah i was right six million dollars a year uh

1:02:04Big Cat:yeah i think i'd stay with the other one yeah it's pretty good security yeah but still brett are you a little nervous about brad stevens i think he has an agent and the agent has a guy

1:02:17PFT Commenter:whose sole job is to just pick up the phone and say no. Or he just has a separate phone for college coaches that he just has like auto response. The voicemail just says, thank you so much for the consideration, but it's going to have to be a no.

1:02:30Big Cat:Hey, this is Brad Stevens. No. It's like the opposite of the way Kevin Hart answers the phone.

1:02:34PFT Commenter:Yeah, exactly. It would be shocking if he ever took another college job.

1:02:39Big Cat:Yeah.

1:02:39PFT Commenter:But that Aaron Conrad guy, he's on to something. Yeah, I mean, no one had thought of Brad Stevens until he tweeted about that.

1:02:45Big Cat:That would be crazy, though, if it's Kansas and UNC at the same time. Yeah, it would.

1:02:50PFT Commenter:I think Bill Self is going to be back.

1:02:52Big Cat:It does seem like just pissed off coach after you lose.

1:02:57PFT Commenter:Bill Self back. Hubert Davis not fired, but mutual parting away is because he is family.

1:03:04Big Cat:He is family, and he did some great things for the university.

1:03:07PFT Commenter:Yeah. Why are we on Aaron Conley?

1:03:10Big Cat:I'm looking at his website. Who else in the family can you bring back there? Rasheed Wallace? Roy? Rasheed Wallace, head coach. MJ coaching would be awesome.

1:03:18PFT Commenter:MJ would rock. Tyler Hansborough. Yeah. We'd have to put in his contract. He has to come back for pros versus shows once a year. Jordan.

1:03:26Big Cat:Luke May. Jordan should be on the cheerleading team.

1:03:29PFT Commenter:Jordan could do it. Yeah. Yeah. Tennessee, Virginia. Congrats to Rick Barnes getting the Sweet 16. He actually, he's the opposite of Bill Self in the run that he's been. And he went Sweet 16, Elite 8, Elite 8, and Sweet 16 this year. See if they can get further. But he's – Tennessee's one of those teams I can't really quit and I don't really like them. Right. I'm saying – No, I hear you. I don't really like watching Nate Ament play basketball. It's the opposite of Acuff. They don't really do anything really well. They rebound.

1:04:05Big Cat:Yeah, yeah. Good point. They rebound. Good point. Yes, they've got a big man that can be fun to watch. they don't really shoot foul shots that well they don't really get the ball in for a while they forget forgot how to inbound the ball so did kansas by the way yeah like what's going on with these teams where they just don't teach you how to throw an inbounds pass they freak out but yeah tennessee doesn't really do that they don't really do anything special but i guess they're just a good team yeah and rick barnes gets a lot of shit for not going to final fours but But he always has his guys there in the discussion this time.

1:04:39PFT Commenter:Again, it goes back to this is a really hard tournament to win, and there are a vast majority of fan bases that would be very happy with consistently having a shot at a Final Four by playing in the second weekend. Right. Because when you're in the second weekend, you got a shot at the Final Four. And you lasted longer than Kentucky. And you lasted longer than Kentucky. The Iowa-Florida game was a shocker of the day. That was the upset we were looking for. Florida goes down. It is now, I think I saw the stats, since 2007, there's only one national title defending national champion who has gone past the Sweet 16.

1:05:18PFT Commenter:So that was the UConn Huskies when they went back-to-back. They go out before the Sweet 16. I could, you know, Florida, I bet on them in February. They ripped off a bunch of wins, but they were kind of leaking oil down the stretch. and Ben McCollum is just an unbelievable coach. He has won everywhere he's been. It's his first year at Iowa. He's now gone further in the tournament than Fran McCaffrey ever did in 15 years, which is a shocking stat. I don't know if you guys knew that. First year? His first year.

1:05:48Big Cat:Kind of crazy.

1:05:49PFT Commenter:I was not – I mean, Bennett Sturts is a stud, but outside of that it's like he's had to just be a very, very good coach. That last play they drew up for the corner three was perfect. They slow you down. they grind you out they're just so real like he's an awesome coach i would say yeah the last uh the

1:06:08Big Cat:last two plays florida got out coached yeah the first one when when i was bringing the ball up the court somehow they got themselves into a very clear like three on two situation wide open corner three um florida's last play kind of what we had talked about with florida for the last few weeks they just don't have the guards yeah to make it happen and they had they tried to have their guard take the ball pretty much the full length of the court, make a last-second dish off, and just didn't really – I don't think they got a shot off. I don't think they even attempted a shot on the very last play.

1:06:39PFT Commenter:No, they were trying to do – I think Lee was trying to drive and then dish it underneath the basket for like a dunk. I don't think his big man knew that that was happening.

1:06:49Big Cat:Was that Condon that was under there? Yeah. It was not a cohesive play. And then also there was – they were getting a little chippy in this game. Oh, yeah. Some rolling around, some fights. Ben McCollum was out on the floor. Yeah.

1:07:00PFT Commenter:Yeah, so his rise is pretty insane. I mean, he was so good when he was coaching Division II. He won a bunch of national titles. He is now, he went a year at Drake, went to the tournament, won a first-round game, lost, and then now this is his first year at Iowa. He is, as a head coach in basketball, he is winning 80 % of his games. That's insane. 80 % of his games. he also is very funny because it's like he has that male pattern baldness that ages him a little he's only 44 years old

1:07:33Big Cat:he doesn't seem like an up and comer because he wears a suit

1:07:36PFT Commenter:respect him for wearing a suit

1:07:39Big Cat:he yells he sweats that's what I really miss I miss seeing these guys get sweaty as fuck out there

1:07:44PFT Commenter:yeah but he's a really good coach and down goes Todd Golden again Todd Golden I think his four tournaments are 0-1 0-1, 6-0, 1-1.

1:07:58Big Cat:Yeah, I mean, McCollum got under Golden's skin, too. Like, Golden snapped and looked like he wanted to fight him, and then after the game, McCollum said they were going for the ball, and then everybody all of a sudden got sensitive. Their people got sensitive. Just kind of like twisting the knife a little bit. I like him. He's a little spicy.

1:08:13PFT Commenter:Call him a little soft. He's spicy. Yeah, but this was, they were, what, 10-point underdogs winning outright, taking down the defending national champs. And I do think having one, I know it's Iowa, so it's a big school, but having one of the one seeds out before the Sweet 16, especially given how top heavy this season was, it's a shocker. I don't think anyone expected this. I thought everyone thought that, yes, it might not be all four one seeds in the final four, but all four one seeds should be in the Sweet 16.

1:08:47Big Cat:So the remaining one seeds, I think Duke has looked beatable. Yep. I think Arizona's looked really good, but they haven't really been tested at all.

1:08:57PFT Commenter:They got tested a little by Utah State.

1:08:58Big Cat:That game got close. It got frisky in the second half. Yeah, I don't. Michigan has looked. Michigan's looked dominant.

1:09:05PFT Commenter:They've looked dominant in the tournament. Yes. They were not as dominant down the stretch of the last two weeks before the tournament, but maybe it doesn't matter.

1:09:15Big Cat:This weekend, I think Michigan set records for the most efficient offense in the history of the tournament through two games. Yeah, so they've looked good.

1:09:22PFT Commenter:It's basically throwing out the Big Ten tournament because the Big Ten tournament, they got tested by Ohio State. They won on a buzzer beater against Wisconsin, and they lost to Purdue. So if you throw that out and you're like, hey, I do believe in this. This is kind of the UConn theory of once Dan Hurley can get out of conference play, everything's going to look a little bit better because you just spend two and a half months slogging through opponents that everyone knows what you're doing. And Dusty May, great coach in the tournament. Great tournament coach. Yeah, so, yeah, we had the UConn-UCLA game was great because it was just Mick Cronin.

1:09:58PFT Commenter:There was that one clip of Mick Cronin and Dan Hurley both saying, like, get the fuck over here at the exact same time. Yeah. Just two nasty, nasty, angry men.

1:10:07Big Cat:Mick Cronin got teed up for clapping at the ref.

1:10:10PFT Commenter:Yep.

1:10:11Big Cat:That was kind of weird. I think they thought it was a sarcastic clap.

1:10:15PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:10:15Big Cat:Listen, if you're reffing Mick Cronin, I know that you're assuming that he's going to be saying some shit to you. You got to let the claps go.

1:10:23PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:10:24Big Cat:You look soft if you're teeing up a guy for claps.

1:10:26PFT Commenter:I'd agree. So that game, UConn, back in the Sweet 16. I don't really know. I still don't know if UConn's all that good, but it doesn't matter because they have a really, really good coach.

1:10:36Big Cat:I mean, Caravan looked amazing. Caravan had the best game of his career. Yeah. What do you have, like 27 tonight? 27 points. Career high? Yeah. He looked like the first-round pick that people thought he'd be a couple years ago.

1:10:46PFT Commenter:Do you think Mick Cronin is – how many times do you think Mick Cronin smiles in the offseason?

1:10:50Big Cat:I don't know. I think his – when his dad's at the game, I think he'll look up at Hep C and be like – give him like a half-of-the-mouth grin and then focus. So I would say like half a smile per game.

1:11:03PFT Commenter:Yeah. He just – this was the most – for a team that was actually pretty good, But Bill Adew getting hurt in the Big Ten tournament definitely hurt their ceiling because he's very, very good. But for a team, if you just went off of Mick Cronin's vibes this year, you would have thought they won four games.

1:11:23Big Cat:Right. They were the worst team in college. Yeah.

1:11:25PFT Commenter:And they were in that game until the last five minutes, until UConn pulled away. They were in it to go to the Sweet 16 with one of their second best player being out.

1:11:35Big Cat:Yeah, but that's the trick to being, I think, a great college coach of any sport is to just never be happy with anything. Yeah, that's fair. Just be a completely maladjusted individual.

1:11:46PFT Commenter:What game are we most looking forward to? It's a stacked Sweet 16. It is. I'm excited for the Sweet 16. Duke St. John's. Duke St. John's is up there for sure. That Friday, I mean, Friday night is going to be special. Arkansas, I mean, Iowa, Nebraska.

1:12:03Big Cat:Do you think Duke St. John's is going to be the matchup of the richest alumni bases? No. Possible matchup of any two teams in this tournament. In this tournament, no.

1:12:18PFT Commenter:Michigan-Penn.

1:12:19Big Cat:You think Michigan over Duke? Yeah. I don't know.

1:12:23PFT Commenter:Are you talking about gross? Because Michigan's so much bigger.

1:12:27Big Cat:I would say average.

1:12:30PFT Commenter:You got Larry Ellison. He's technically Michigan, even though he didn't go to Michigan. His girlfriend. His girlfriend went to Michigan. I think so. What? I think Duke-St. John's. You think so? I don't know. I mean, Michigan-Duke, then, would be the number one. Michigan's definitely more than St. John's.

1:12:48Big Cat:I think total. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not average.

1:12:50PFT Commenter:Oh, I think Michigan's average is higher than St. John's.

1:12:53Big Cat:State school, I think there's a lot of people to get in. Scholarship Duke, it's like you got to.

1:12:57PFT Commenter:No, no, St. John's, I'm saying. Or St. John's. If it was Michigan versus Duke, it would be.

1:13:02Big Cat:We could probably even look this up for Wednesday. Yeah, can you look it up?

1:13:06PFT Commenter:Zach, can you look it up right now?

1:13:07Big Cat:Can you look that up?

1:13:09PFT Commenter:Highest average salary? Schools?

1:13:17Big Cat:How do you look? Arkansas might be sneaky up there just from the Waltons. Okay. The Purdue's and the Jerry Jones.

1:13:24PFT Commenter:Penn is four. Yeah, Penn. All right, we need the full list. Top 50 schools by average. All right, let's see. Vanderbilt. Oh, yeah, we forgot about Vanderbilt. Yeah. We forgot about Vanderbilt. Michigan is 35. Where's Duke? Duke's not there. Is that universities? Oh, Duke's 18 or 16. So Duke Penn or Duke Michigan or Duke Vanderbilt? St. John's I don't even think is in the top 50. I don't know if St. John's is known like that. Is it? I think it's just Rapoli. Oh, yeah. Just changing the average. That would make sense. Mike Rapoli is probably having a great time. Shout out to Noble. Yeah, Friday is going to be incredible.

1:14:16PFT Commenter:Yeah. St. John's, Duke, Alabama, Michigan, Michigan State, UConn, Tennessee, Iowa State. Tennessee, Iowa State is the least appealing. That's going to be an awesome game. St. John's is an 83 % acceptance rate. Yeah, I didn't think St. John's. You were treating St. John's like this.

1:14:32Big Cat:No, I was completely wrong about that. I assume we have a co-worker that says a lot of things about St. John's, and I took them all as fact, and I thought that they all worked at very powerful hedge funds on Wall Street and made a ton of money. No.

1:14:45PFT Commenter:I think it's like a good city school, but it's not. Yeah.

1:14:48Big Cat:I mean, 84 % is crazy. Yeah. That's a crazy high admission rate.

1:14:54PFT Commenter:Yeah, you got sourced by Boston. I did. I think there's probably like... You got sourced by Boston.

1:14:58Big Cat:There's probably like three guys that went to school at St. John's that Rico does not like.

1:15:03PFT Commenter:That probably told him straight up, I make more money than you.

1:15:06Big Cat:Yeah, and then Rico hung on to that for a while. But in terms of games I'm looking forward to the most, I would say, yeah, Duke St. John's.

1:15:13PFT Commenter:Friday.

1:15:14Big Cat:Oh, for Friday?

1:15:15PFT Commenter:No, no, I'm saying Hank's right. It's just Friday.

1:15:18Big Cat:Friday is going to be incredible. Friday is great. Arizona-Arkansas is going to be a great matchup. yeah, Illinois, Houston, another great matchup.

1:15:25PFT Commenter:It's going to be, this is why this is where the tournament, I understand it. We, I, I a hundred percent agree that it would have been nice if we had one or two upsets of from the 13 to 16, right? Like what? Just even one 13 seat or 14 seat just to give you that moment on Thursday afternoon or whatever it is. But now that we're here, this sweet 16 is fucking awesome. Yeah. I'm okay with this. Right. I really am. Yeah. Okay, PFT, why don't you do a couple more ads, and then we have Zach's Sweet 16 thoughts, and then we'll do who's back of the week. Hey, Illinois, Stellablu Coffee's new canned lattes are here and in a store near you.

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1:16:51Big Cat:And this episode is also brought to you by Chevy. And Chevy knows that football season's over, but you know how it goes. The minute the big game ends, we're already talking about what's next. Free agency, the draft, who gets paid, who's grinding. Because for football guys, there's no offseason, and that's exactly why they roll with a Chevy Silverado. The Silverado is the truck that shows up every time, built to haul, tow, take a beating, but smart where it counts with modern tech that makes life easier. It's got big screens, available camera views that help with towing and parking, and a cabin that feels right whether you're road tripping, heading to practice, or loading up for the weekend.

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1:17:43PFT Commenter:Okay, Zach, before we do that, I just... Todd Golden said in the press conference they were trying to foul up two?

1:17:53Big Cat:He said that last year that he thinks it's a better play if you foul up two because the worst thing that can happen is a tie and you have a chance to win the game. That's insane. I think it's some analytical thing.

1:18:08PFT Commenter:How about don't have a – I mean, Ty Golden blew that game with the – I'm watching the playback. Maybe that's what they were trying to do because they got three guys caught in the backcourt, and that's why – That's what I'm saying.

1:18:19Big Cat:It was the easiest three-on-two that Iowa could ever set up.

1:18:22PFT Commenter:So maybe that's what they were doing. They were – I mean, again, Ben McCollum did a great job of getting Bennett Sturtz open to get the ball. But what was the plan to have Bennett Sturtz get – he's like an 85 % free throw shot. Fouling up two is crazy. You know how crazy he is? Steven Che thinks it's a good idea. Oh. Yeah. Crazy like a fox. He's said this before. You might see Todd Golden do something unconventional tonight in the championship game. For example, Florida might foul with two-point lead in 22 seconds remaining in the game. As told in the Athletic, goes back to a 2019 Final Four meeting with Golden and Ken Pomeroy, the godfather of college basketball analytics.

1:18:57PFT Commenter:Pomeroy had stopped pitching optimal end-of-game decisions to coaches because he found them too risk-averse. Knock Golden in January 2020 as the coach at San Francisco. Golden opted to foul BYU up two points with 22 seconds remaining. They targeted a 54 % free throw shooter. All right. Well, a 54 % free throw shooter makes sense. Complete sense. Bennett Sturz was the guy who got the ball because Ben McCollum drew up a play to get him open. And then you had guys just running out of position and nowhere near like, you know, it's great. How about just play no threes? Wouldn't that make more sense?

1:19:34Big Cat:Yeah. I mean, fouling up two does not make any sense. How much time was left on the clock when they ran that play? It was way less than 22 seconds. Yeah. Okay, 22 seconds I think would make more sense. Yeah. I think than doing it with eight seconds left. Yeah. Like, play defense. How about that? My groundbreaking end-of-game scenario that I would coach in that situation would be play defense.

1:19:59PFT Commenter:Yeah. I don't know. You just got to go no threes. Give up. I mean, you have a better chance of playing no threes and having like one rim protector standing under the basket, right? Yeah. That's weird. That's very weird. Okay, Zach.

1:20:15Big Cat:I do have a 16 sweet facts for us. Let's go. Okay.

1:20:19PFT Commenter:Yes.

1:20:19Big Cat:My first one's going to be Arkansas. Research from Arkansas's alum, Robert Maurer, directly led to the creation of optical waveguides, also known as fiber optic cables, which some may consider the backbone of the internet. I just want to say thank you, Arkansas, for the internet. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah, shout out Arkansas. So not Al Gore. No, he was a big part of it. Okay. Duke, there are 28 players with a one-and-done season who attended Duke. Their combined earnings strictly through contracts in the NBA is$1.6 billion. If they wanted to combine that, they could be one of the richest people out of the top richest 3 ,500 in the world.

1:20:53Big Cat:The brotherhood. Wait, so all of them combined would make them a top 30 rich guy? That's just one-and-dones. That would make them top 3 ,500 in the world, just the one-and-done guys.

1:21:02PFT Commenter:So 28 guys have gone to Duke for just one year and been like, I got to get the fuck out of here?

1:21:07Big Cat:Yes. Okay. That seems like a problem. It seems like the move to make is to quit Duke. Yeah. So you're saying if you quit going to school at Duke, then you'll be rich. There could be a huge upside on getting there and just deciding, I'm out.

1:21:19PFT Commenter:Yeah. In like six months' time.

1:21:22Big Cat:Got a fact here for Illinois for us. Major contributor this year, Andres Toydjakovic, is originally from Thessaloniki, Greece. There's legends of hidden treasure buried beneath the streets of Testoniki. Some say that a pirate's treasure is hidden in a secret chamber, while others claim that a king's gold is buried beneath the city hall. So if basketball doesn't work out, he could become a treasure hunter back home.

1:21:44PFT Commenter:Okay. All right.

1:21:45Big Cat:Like that. Quick one for Michigan State. As of today, March 22, 2026, none of the starting five players for Michigan State follow Sidney Sweeney on Instagram. Michigan State Spartans may be out on heavies. Did you do the research yourself on that? Yeah, just type in, go to followers, double check Sidney Sweeney. Wow. Nobody follows Sidney Sweeney. Yeah, starting five guys are just maybe out on big titty. Big naturals. I have to imagine they're one of the only starting lineups that has that fact about them.

1:22:14PFT Commenter:That's crazy. Hey, Zach, Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20 % off for first purchase. Q-Zip's, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. You follow Sidney Sweeney, right?

1:22:26Big Cat:There's a great chance. What do you mean? I'd have to check. I can't just say that straight away that I do indefinitely. I definitely see Sidney Sweeney on Explorer page and through different vessels of swiping through Instagram, but I would have to confirm on my phone. What percentage of Part of My Take members follow Sidney Sweeney, I wonder?

1:22:48Max, do you?

1:22:49PFT Commenter:I would say hi. Max, I do.

1:22:53Big Cat:I don't think I do. What's your guys' problem? I don't think I do. I just like that one dress. hand up. I might be out on Big Naturals because I don't follow Cindy Sweeney on Instagram.

1:23:02PFT Commenter:Wow, so you kind of played yourself. You opened up a world. Max and I respect Big Natties.

1:23:07Big Cat:Yeah, I do follow.

1:23:09PFT Commenter:Hell yeah, I follow.

1:23:09Big Cat:I respect your content.

1:23:11PFT Commenter:100%. Have to. Okay, good Michigan State facts. Something to consider.

1:23:16Big Cat:Yeah. Just something to think about. I'm more of a Darius 8-Cup man myself. I've got one here for Houston for us. Houston has now matched the record for the biggest blowout he's proud of himself I'm just looking at I'm just looking at memes and Macs it was a good one we got a University of Nebraska wait what was the one you just said Houston has now matched the record for biggest blowout in the tournament history with that being a 59 point over Texas A &M they've delivered this kind of point higher on three different times in school history twice to Tex dropping 125 on Texas Tech in 1966. They only scored 52.

1:23:59Big Cat:That was a 73-point differential. And then they beat Florida Tech 120-54 in 1980. That was 66 points. Also defeated Alcorn State 113-54. Max, you've got to stop cycling through the Sidney Sweeney Instagram. Or don't. Yeah. I mean, it's very distracting. I'm cool with it. We do this all the time. When we bring up Sidney Sweeney, we kind of have to go through it. We look at Sidney Sweeney. Yeah, we have to go through it. Yeah, we've got to see what's new. Yeah. Yeah. She's got a dog? Dog.

1:24:24PFT Commenter:Cool dog. Very cool dog. Imagine being that dog.

1:24:28Big Cat:It's a cute pup. Yeah. Okay. I've got Texas here for us. Some are considering saying that Texas Longhorns have selfish tendencies on the court after ranking 289th in assists this season, averaging under 12 per game. They also contribute to Texas being the number one state-consuming state in the nation. Shout out to Texas. They're eating good.

1:24:45PFT Commenter:Love that. Love that.

1:24:47Big Cat:We've got the University of Nebraska here. At the University of Nebraska, players on the men's basketball team, along with fellow students rub the feet of a bronze Archie the Mammoth statue on campus for good luck. Furthermore, I've counted six businesses specializing in pedicures in a 1.9 mile radius of Nebraska. They may be in foot fetish territory.

1:25:04PFT Commenter:Ooh. Okay. Feet guys.

1:25:07Big Cat:A lot of feet guys over there. Purdue, in all college basketball only two players have started every single game for their school in four consecutive seasons. Both of them go to Purdue, that being Fletcher Lawyer and Brain Smith. Yeah. Yeah. Experience matters. That's old school basketball. They don't bring that big fucking drum to basketball games, do they? I don't think so. They should do that for the Sweet 16. Yeah. For Michigan, you know, Michigan is located in the double peninsula state of Michigan. Being the Great Lakes state, Michigan has four more Great Lakes than it has NCAA National Championships.

1:25:37Big Cat:Not the best water to ring ratio there in Michigan. Okay. Also a lot of nuclear power plants for some reason. I think it's the fresh water. Yeah. Memes, you okay?

1:25:47PFT Commenter:He just pulled up the Sidney Sweeney dress picture and PFT almost passed out. I did

1:25:53Big Cat:He's good content He looks back I appreciate He's looking back in his chair It's a great dress You know me I'm a fashion guy Yeah I fashion his life Jesus Christ He did it again

1:26:04PFT Commenter:It's a great dress Knocking him out Okay

1:26:09Big Cat:I've got Iowa State here The first female lawyer Arabella Mansfield Is from Iowa She went to a different college In Iowa Because it was in 1866 But there's a good chance She would have went to Iowa If it was around then Shout out to women

1:26:20PFT Commenter:Yes.

1:26:21Big Cat:Shout out. Here at St. John's University, it was found in 1870 in the dark, because they did predate the invention of the light bulb. They also surprisingly were around before the telephone, automobile, and airplane. Okay. Cool. Tennessee, Bishop Boswell went to the same high school as Drake May, and Jacoby Gillespie also really enjoys building Lego sets. Oh. And Iowa, our coworker, Stephan, has to be stoked, because Iowa did win. Me, as a Florida native, not so stoked.

1:26:50PFT Commenter:Yeah. You were rooting for Florida.

1:26:53Big Cat:Tough pull.

1:26:53PFT Commenter:That was a tough pull. We're now watching Sidney Sweeney underneath the water. Yeah, it's good photography. Yeah. How do they get that? Wow, that's crazy. Yeah. Solid swimmer. Imagine being in that water. She could sell that water. Sorry for your loss, Zach. I forgot you were rooting for Florida.

1:27:12Big Cat:All good. And also, sorry for your loss. I show speed. Got his ass kicked in football. Crazy that they got him to play the most famous person in the world to play flag football.

1:27:22PFT Commenter:Zach says we'll get to that later.

1:27:24Big Cat:Okay.

1:27:27Big Cat:UConn here. Starting player, Terrace Reed Jr. is not only insanely good at basketball, also a talented saxophone player. His mother gave the decision. She told all her kids, look, you're going to be basketball players, but we're going to do more. So they said you could play choir, maybe an instrument. He tried the choir for like a year, wasn't really into it. Tried the trumpet for a little bit, also not into it. Landed on the saxophone. Now keeps the saxophone at the practice facility because he goes and practices saxophone late night and doesn't want to wake up his roommate. So he keeps it close on the court so he can go back to it.

1:27:56PFT Commenter:He was awesome. He had 31-27 against, we should have mentioned that, against Furman. Insane stat line. Insane. And then he had 10-13 tonight against UCLA.

1:28:09Big Cat:Walking bucket. Yeah.

1:28:11PFT Commenter:Well, walking rebounds too.

1:28:14Big Cat:We've got Alabama here. That's got to be a – is that a record for most combined points and rebounds in a tournament game?

1:28:21PFT Commenter:Let's find out. You keep going.

1:28:23Big Cat:I think I saw that it was, like, since the 60s. Maybe since, like, was it Elgin Baylor?

1:28:30PFT Commenter:Keep going, Zach.

1:28:32Big Cat:I've got Alabama here. Guard Jalil Bathia is the only player in the Sweet 16 with a Powerade Jam Fest dunk contest win under his belt. Entire tournament. That was all 16. The Jam Fest. Jam Fest, yeah. Wait, what did he do? He won the Jam Fest, the dunk. Yeah, he's the only guy in the tournament with a Jam Fest dunk contest win.

1:28:52PFT Commenter:You know, the Jam Fest. The Jam Fest dunk contest.

1:28:55Big Cat:Yeah, the dunk contest for the McDonald's All-American game. McDonald's All-American. That's a great name for a dunk contest, Jam Fest. Surprised that wasn't taken already.

1:29:07PFT Commenter:Bill Walton had 44 points. I wonder how many rebounds he had in that game, the game that he shot 21 for 22 from the field. That's insane. Damn.

1:29:15Big Cat:R.I.P.

1:29:16PFT Commenter:Yes. Good facts, Zach.

1:29:18Big Cat:I like it. Thank you, sir. Who do you have to win?

1:29:20PFT Commenter:Now that Akron's out, who do you have to win it all?

1:29:24Big Cat:I'm going to go St. John's.

1:29:25PFT Commenter:Okay.

1:29:27Big Cat:The light bulb thing? What was that? Was it because of the light bulb? I mean, a pretty strong invention.

1:29:33PFT Commenter:I feel like a lot of these colleges might have predated the light bulbs. Light bulbs.

1:29:37Big Cat:There's a few, definitely. No telephones. How would they call their dealer? Like I know they had candles But that's still pretty dim Yeah

1:29:44PFT Commenter:Right And some One person sneezes

1:29:47Big Cat:How do you like know Where everybody's gonna hang out After the game Well I don't know

1:29:51PFT Commenter:If they were playing Basketball then Because basketball Hadn't been invented

1:29:55Big Cat:Yeah maybe chess Checkers you know No that's what you're talking about

1:29:58PFT Commenter:With the game

1:29:59Big Cat:I mean any game You know just after games After games

1:30:02PFT Commenter:Where are you gonna go

1:30:03Big Cat:There's a competition And it's like beers Yeah

1:30:06PFT Commenter:We don't know where we're going

1:30:08Big Cat:That's gotta be a tale As old as time

1:30:10PFT Commenter:All right, let's finish up with who's back of the week. It's brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard ice tea made with real brewed tea and 5 % alcohol. Twisted Tea is a perfect drink to keep the good times going all day and all season long. Whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, catching a game at the stadium or at the bar, or day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. We love the half and half. We love the peach, the original Twisted T. All right, Max, stop with the Sydney Sweeties.

1:30:42PFT Commenter:It's enough, Max. It's too many. Hank. My who's back of the week, it's Tom Brady. It's football. Oh, yeah. Football's back.

1:30:51Big Cat:Football's back, yeah. Football's back.

1:30:52PFT Commenter:Yep, thanks. They had the flag football event this past weekend. Tom Brady played in it. I mean, he could go out next year in the league and probably get 4 ,000 yards, 30 touchdowns. Did he win the game? They did not win the game. They got smoked. Oh. What happened? I mean, they were going up. It was kind of like pros versus shows. They were going up against, you know, flag football is a different form. Pros versus also pros.

1:31:19Big Cat:In this circumstance, the pros were the Joes. Yeah. The pros were the professional flag football team. Yeah. And this was their Super Bowl.

1:31:28PFT Commenter:Now, do we think that if they had trained, they would beat them? or is it definitively flag football, we got to send those guys?

1:31:37Big Cat:I think that if you gave the pros like a solid two weeks of practice with coaches that coach flag football, I think the pros could be better.

1:31:48PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:31:49Big Cat:But it would take like there are differences in the game.

1:31:52PFT Commenter:Well, I saw that one clip of the guy basically moving his hips and having everyone miss his flag. It's like that guy knows what he's doing.

1:31:59Big Cat:Right, like Shakira could dominate.

1:32:01PFT Commenter:Yeah. Who are the quarterbacks? How did Jalen Hurts play, Max? Threw a deep ball to Devontae Smith. I saw Joe Burrow threw a pick six. That was tough.

1:32:10Big Cat:Yeah. I saw Joe Burrow almost got lit up on one play. And then Bengals fans. Flag football? Bengals fans were pissed that he was playing. I saw Barkley. Wait, did Jaden play? Yeah, Jaden played. Did he? He looked good. Is he okay? He looked really good. Real good. His mom let him play. That was a funny joke that Tom Brady said. We all laughed.

1:32:29PFT Commenter:Yeah, I didn't watch a second of this. No, I was not about to watch the Fanatics, Logan Paul, flag football work that they were trying to put on during March Madness. Goodell was there. Who? Roger Goodell. He was there? Yeah.

1:32:45Big Cat:Doing what? I don't know. Probably checking him out. Scouting talent.

1:32:49PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:32:50Big Cat:I mean, I was impressed. I saw some of the highlights of the flag football players doing the little shakes, getting away from would-be tacklers. They're super talented.

1:33:01PFT Commenter:Did the weird throwing guy play?

1:33:02Big Cat:Yeah, yeah. Was he awesome? He was talking shit.

1:33:05PFT Commenter:Love that.

1:33:05Big Cat:Talking a lot of shit.

1:33:07PFT Commenter:Wait, and so which team did Logan Paul play for?

1:33:10Big Cat:The losers. Okay. Yeah. He was on one of the losing teams? He was a big-time loser. Got it. And then he apologized to Tom Brady after the game. For? I feel like you know a lot about this. For their fake feud. I saw one thread, one very important thread.

1:33:23PFT Commenter:There was just a bunch of details about it? Yeah. Okay. Good. Who's back? Do you get another one? Just crazy long lines at TSA at airports. Yeah. It looks like a nightmare. Yeah. True and utter nightmare. Is that for a TSA pre-check? Well, they're all in strike, yeah. So what about Clear?

1:33:43Big Cat:I don't think Clear works either. I think Clear helps.

1:33:46PFT Commenter:Clear's got to help.

1:33:47Big Cat:It helps, and it depends on what airport. Did you know that there's a new pre-check for the pre-check?

1:33:54PFT Commenter:No. Oh, wait, I think we talked about this.

1:33:56Big Cat:Yeah, touchless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's touchless pre-check is the new pre-check.

1:34:00PFT Commenter:Yeah. I think we did talk about this. Yeah. All right. So thoughts of person who went flying right now? It's not fun.

1:34:07Big Cat:Especially if you're an F-35.

1:34:09PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. Touchless ideas, voluntary biometric. They have all of our information, everything, pictures, everything. Yep. Just give up. Okay. PST.

1:34:22Big Cat:My who's back of the week is interesting stats.

1:34:25PFT Commenter:Okay.

1:34:25Big Cat:I've got a very interesting stat here. and one just to keep an eye on. So, Zach, could you just continue to update this stat over the next couple games? If you haven't watched the NBA, this stat might not have come across your desk. Jokic, since Joel Embiid won the MVP, has 87 triple doubles. Joel Embiid has played in 91 games. So Jokic has almost as many triple doubles as games that Embiid has played in since he won the MVP.

1:34:55PFT Commenter:Wow.

1:34:56Big Cat:So it's a stat that we should keep an eye on and monitor and see if he can get four more of them, because then that would tie him.

1:35:05PFT Commenter:Wow.

1:35:05Big Cat:Which would be an interesting stat.

1:35:07PFT Commenter:Max has gone to his happy place. He's brought back to Sidney Sweeney.

1:35:10Big Cat:He's bringing back to Sidney Sweeney. Wow. Memes, you would agree that that would be a wild stat, right, if we had a graphic that said 91-91, right? Yeah, very wild. Memes, why were you mad at Florida today?

1:35:23PFT Commenter:No, he's just number one. Oh, he's back to number one. Yeah, he's number one. What'd he do?

1:35:29Big Cat:He's just talking about the dead cap with Justin Fields and Aaron Rodgers for the Jets.

1:35:33PFT Commenter:So he's doing his job. He's doing his job. He's number one. I can tell you're mad. I'm not mad. Right. But he's number one. But you are a little bit mad. No. You responded to him. You're like, you're number one? He's number one. That's why he's always number one. Okay.

1:35:50Big Cat:My other who's back of the week is J.C. Tretter. so you might remember that uh the nfl and the players union had a little uh a little do to do a couple months ago and then they just had an election for their new representative for the nflpa and they elected jc treader the guy that said oh congrats he was trying to never become president of the nfl good for him and i don't really understand everything that happened um so i reached out to front of the program pablo tori to see if he could give us 10 words or less for us and our audience to understand what happened he said uh union wants to give suicide bomb another try god is his description that's a good way to describe it of what just happened i did a little research into jc treader because i was trying to remember uh exactly what i knew him for i had never seen this story uh but he went on the ross tucker podcast and he was saying that He was talking about the running back situation with how running backs are not getting paid and what they can do to increase their leverage.

1:36:51Big Cat:I forgot that he went on Ross's podcast, and he said it would be a smart strategy for a player to fake an injury to sit out of practice as well seeking a new contract. He seemed to recognize his error during the show, saying, I don't think I'm allowed to ever recommend that, at least publicly. But I think each player needs to find a way to build up leverage to try to get a fair deal. So this guy has – And then he got sanctioned by the league. He lost to – he lost like – I think it was like arbitration or something like that. He's a moron. He's a moron. So it looks like Roger Goodell now has his doofus set up as they go into the next CBA that I think is going to have to be ratified in the next couple years.

1:37:32Big Cat:So, yeah, if I was an NFL player, I would not be too confident about my representation right now.

1:37:38PFT Commenter:No, definitely not. Okay, my who's back at two. One is women's ice hockey because the Wisconsin Badgers won another national title. Five in seven years. Dynasty. A lot of Ohio State chatter. They were trying to go for dueling dynasties. Uh-uh. Five in seven years is crazy. That's a dynasty.

1:37:56Big Cat:Yeah. That's sad that they were like, if we win, then we're also a dynasty at the same time. No.

1:38:01PFT Commenter:No. No. So, congrats to the Lady Badgers because that's a hell of a run. I think we also had four women who won gold medals and then like 30 days later won a national title. Back to back.

1:38:15Big Cat:I was super impressed with Bucky, too, getting out on the ice, wearing the skates. Skates, yeah. Yeah. That's got to be tough to pull off.

1:38:21PFT Commenter:So listen, we're just a women's ice hockey school now. That's fine. They fucking win. Five out of seven is awesome. And then my other one is rivalries. Did you guys see Luca and Goga? I did. Unbelievable. So it goes that Luca and Goga Bittes from the Magic, they got into it, and Luca got a technical. Apparently, Goga said to Luca in Serbian. In Petace? Yeah, Petace. He said in Serbian, he said to him, I will fuck your whole family. And then Luca was like, yeah, I don't play with that, which makes sense. And then Petace was asked about it today or later on. He said, I have all the respect for Luca and what he's done.

1:39:05PFT Commenter:I really respect everybody's family where I come from. It's really sacred. We really respect each other's families. I would never directly say that.

1:39:13Big Cat:So he didn't directly say, I will fuck your family.

1:39:15PFT Commenter:So he's just telling everyone behind Luca's back that he will fuck his whole family.

1:39:19Big Cat:Your family's going to get fucked. The entire family's getting fucked. Maybe not by me, but it will be. That's some Kaiser Soze shit. Yeah. Isn't that what Kaiser Soze did?

1:39:27PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:39:27Big Cat:Yeah.

1:39:29PFT Commenter:I didn't say it directly.

1:39:31Big Cat:Goga Patase. Yeah. This is going to be, my prediction is maybe the last we'll ever say Goga Patase's name on part of my take.

1:39:39PFT Commenter:No, we got NBA playoffs coming up. We got to get it going. You think?

1:39:45Big Cat:You think Patase? Yeah, he might. You think Patase is a needle mover?

1:39:48PFT Commenter:Yeah. I mean, if he's going to fuck guys' families.

1:39:51Big Cat:Yeah, if he is fucking up. Well, not fucking up. He's going to fuck Luka's entire family.

1:39:56PFT Commenter:This is the point of the year where it's also like Oh yeah, the NBA is playing games against Marsh Madness That's crazy

1:40:01Big Cat:You know what? When we did our NBA preview with Rosillo We made a joke about ESPN talking about the Lakers Possibly having what it takes to win an NBA championship this year And then the next day, on Get Up Sure enough, they ran that story Which was bullshit at the time But now the Lakers are kind of good It happens every year We're going to do this every year But now they're actually kind of good

1:40:25PFT Commenter:Okay, but then they're going to play the Thunder or the Spurs and lose. And everyone's going to be like, oh, man, they lost 4-1, but, man, were they competitive. Right now they're good. Right, but, again, what's going to happen is they're good, but the other two teams above them are better and have been better all year. And younger. Like the Lakers have won 9 out of 10. Guess what? The Spurs have also won 9 out of 10. and the Thunder have won 10 in a row. So, yeah, I'm going to sit back, and when everyone tries to tell us the Lakers are going to win the title, I'll just be like, okay, cool. All right.

1:41:04PFT Commenter:Sounds good. All right, Zach, finish us off.

1:41:07Big Cat:My who's back of the week is household name and globally recognized personality I show Speed.

1:41:12PFT Commenter:Oh.

1:41:13Big Cat:I just thought it was worth touching on here. In that same flag football classic match, did anybody see Speed just going toe-for-toe with Devontae Smith?

1:41:21PFT Commenter:I did not. I didn't even know he was in the game. Because I saw the headliners, and I don't think he was number one headliner.

1:41:30Big Cat:What was the result of that play, Zach? Devontae Smith was running at 100 % speed. Speed looked to be running about 85%, so he had a half step on him. He did score a touchdown. I think I saw another clip of Speed falling down. Did he fall down? Is Devontae Smith his first round, right? 2021?

1:41:50PFT Commenter:Yeah.

1:41:51Big Cat:10th overall?

1:41:52PFT Commenter:9th or 10th, yeah.

1:41:53Big Cat:Speed just playing football for fun, and he's right there?

1:41:56PFT Commenter:Well, not really.

1:41:57Big Cat:He kind of burned him. It's also a compressed field. I saw one clip where he fell down, though, Zach. I thought about you when I saw that. Got right back up. He did.

1:42:07PFT Commenter:It's good, Zach, because he's not that popular. So no one will really know that this happened.

1:42:15Big Cat:D 'Ande Smith?

1:42:15PFT Commenter:No, Aisho Speed.

1:42:17Big Cat:Oh, you don't mean that.

1:42:18PFT Commenter:I do. I really do.

1:42:20Big Cat:Do you think I Show Speed was the most famous person at that field that day? Top five. Oh, you told me. There's a different answer than you gave me. He was top five. No, you asked me about Brady. In an imaginary flag football game.

1:42:34PFT Commenter:Wait, he's top five, so there were five guys that were bigger than Trump?

1:42:38Big Cat:More well-known than Trump there? I might be spitballing at top five. I might take it back and go top one, but our conversation back here was Brady or Speed. That was a totally different thing, Max. I would take Brady. I would probably go Speed. Brady's a big name, though. He's got a lot of rings. Didn't Speed start a show and his first guess was Brady? Yeah, some would say Brady came to him.

1:43:02PFT Commenter:It depends on how you look at it. Oh, man. All right, do we have anything else? I just need to stop eating for a minute. I need to stop eating and looking at a screen for a minute. It's been a long weekend. I had to make a rule on Saturday night that if anyone saw me putting food in my mouth, they could hit me in the nuts. Because I just couldn't stop eating.

1:43:25Big Cat:I left the office on Friday. I went to a birthday party. I went home. I was walking into my back door, and I just puked.

1:43:35PFT Commenter:Oh, yeah, you texted us that.

1:43:36Big Cat:I was worried because Max went home sick that day, and I was like, hey, guys, I don't know what's going on. I just out of nowhere threw up. I think it was just strictly from all the food that we ate.

1:43:46PFT Commenter:I think it actually might have been just withdrawal from the 20 minutes that you had to drive and not watch basketball. That might be it, yeah.

1:43:53Big Cat:I missed it so much.

1:43:54PFT Commenter:Your body was like, I can't do this. Just spewed everywhere.

1:43:56Big Cat:James also threw up on Friday.

1:43:57PFT Commenter:Oh, no. Did you?

1:43:58Big Cat:I threw up in my sleep.

1:44:00PFT Commenter:What? Yeah. You okay? Yeah, I'm fine. You just woke up and you were throwing up? Yeah. Oh, no, dude. Yeah, we're scared. I've eaten too much too late. I mean, I've eaten too much too late every day. it's just our UCF Knights were just the most frustrating team ever to watch play basketball

1:44:17Big Cat:on Friday night we got we got cut did did they break the news to you what the very next team after us picked Iowa oh so who took UCF we did we did no but like who whose decision Zach but

1:44:33PFT Commenter:it's a team well no actually wasn't a team game we told Zach take the wheel Iowa was never on his radar so that's the one solace in this is he was never thinking iowa not not for one second not you're not even thinking iowa right now now all i'm thinking about is iowa okay yeah that's true

1:44:49Big Cat:because they did before and we after the ucf game friday we were like there's no other team in it so

1:44:54PFT Commenter:it's fine and it was iowa yeah we were doing the we're trying to do a little monday morning quarterbacking being like well could we have picked a winner yeah iowa i don't think we could

1:45:03Big Cat:have no we picked so late you guys got liu we got absolutely second to last pick yeah also who's back of the week is uh baseball is back we should we should do like our personal team previews you or just predictions on on wednesday on wednesday yeah we could do our predictions for uh who's

1:45:23PFT Commenter:gonna win the world series yeah baseball is back opening day we're gonna be in arizona for opening day. I was pissed when I looked at the schedule. I'm still mad the Cubs have five March games at Wrigley.

1:45:34Big Cat:I know. The Nats. The Nats open up here. I was pissed about that, too. Okay.

1:45:40PFT Commenter:Should we finish off? Numbers?

1:45:43Big Cat:Ten. Sixteen.

1:45:45PFT Commenter:Just one?

1:45:48Big Cat:Just one unless we don't get it, and then let's do two.

1:45:52PFT Commenter:I got pissed so bad.

1:45:54Big Cat:Forty-three. I'll do fifty-eight. I'll do fifty-six.

1:45:58PFT Commenter:19. Did anyone do 16? I did 16. Okay, I'll do 23. A deal. Shane, you have 19? Shane, what do you have? 19. I'm gonna get this thing fixed so it doesn't make this noise. Because it stops after a while. I don't mind the noise. Yeah. But it'd be nice to just leave it off. 53. 53? Anyone? So close. No one. 53. No more. Do another one. One more. Good.

1:46:4749.

1:46:58Big Cat:49 Love you guys Should we do two more for this week? You got anything else?

1:47:08PFT Commenter:You got any happy birthdays? You got anything else?

1:47:10Big Cat:Are we going to do any for this week? No, you have any happy birthdays? Yeah, happy birthday to our good friend Spider Oh, nice Love you, Spider

1:47:18PFT Commenter:Anyone else? Anyone else? His birthday already happened But also, if you're doing already happened birthdays, is there anyone else? March 23rd

1:47:28Big Cat:I'm worried that I'm missing somebody. I'm worried that I'm missing somebody.

1:47:32PFT Commenter:Yeah, Dave Portnoy.

1:47:34Big Cat:Oh, that was yesterday.

1:47:36PFT Commenter:That's Spider's birthday today.

1:47:38Big Cat:Yeah.

1:47:38PFT Commenter:So you wished Spider a happy birthday.

1:47:41Big Cat:Okay, happy birthday to Dave and Spider. But we're doing March 24th, I thought. But you did Spider. Because I didn't have anybody else. Happy birthday to Damar Hamlin. Okay. How about that? Is that good enough for you? No, that's actually not real. It's a clone. It's his second. Well, no. He was born twice. Yeah, but his second birth was in January. He's alive and well. I think we should celebrate the life of Damar Hamlin.

1:48:05PFT Commenter:He played in that game.

1:48:07Big Cat:Congratulations to Damar. Another year with you is so special. Yes. Love you guys.

1:48:27Thank you.

1:48:56Thank you.

1:49:26Thank you.

1:49:57Thank you.