Bracket Picks with Eamonn Brennan, Plus Do We Buy the Surging Lakers?

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Get your brackets out.

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So we're going to try to do some work for you and build you a final four.

We're going to talk about upsets, the easiest path for the one seeds,

the way the committee looked at different conferences.

We're going to do the five 12 stuff as well in both land.

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The brackets are out, so let's help you fill them out.

And we're going to check in again.

Just had them on recently, even Brennan.

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Check it out, subscribe, bubble watch.

I was all over the last couple of days, far more educated.

Look, I think it's kind of a national holiday now.

If the brackets come out, but then for everybody to get upset.

But we knew this bubble was incredibly weak.

So before we get to like some final four picks and some of the thoughts that I had,

because I was pretty locked in.

I was watching way more college groups this past week than NBA.

I love the conference tournaments.

But I don't know.

It's kind of nice sometimes, and it feels like hey,

it looks like the committee got it right.

Yeah, that was kind of the thing really the last few weeks,

but especially leading into this election show.

After VC won in the A10 title game,

that was kind of the last bubble team that might miss.

And you kind of thought like, oh, they're close enough to the bubble

that if VC, like I think they should be in over the Auburns and Oklahoma's

and Texas' of the world, whatever.

But if they lost what the committee just say,

eh, they're a bubble team, we'll just slide in,

you know, Dayton instead.

And that removed kind of that potential scenario for people to get upset about.

And then by the time you got to the selection show,

there was so much consensus around the bubble.

And so many of these bubble teams,

like we've talked about it for a couple of weeks now,

the gap between the very best teams in the country.

If you look at efficiency ratings and Evan Miyakawa

on his site, Evan Miyakawa put this out a couple of weeks ago.

If you look at just like historical efficiency ratings,

the gap between the number one seeds and the bubble this year

is as wide as it's ever been.

And so that's, you know, a function of a larger conversation

about the sport and how talent and resources

are kind of constantly filtering upwards now with NIL.

And the biggest, most resourced programs in the country

kind of be able to plug guys from every which place,

lower in the totem pole.

But it also just produced kind of a night of watching.

You know, I saw a couple of people commenting like,

you know, there's not a whole lot to talk about with this bracket.

Like, what, you know, where's the outrage?

Just kind of like, yeah, it's kind of nice, honestly.

I, you know, in my experience,

writing about this stuff for a long time,

people kind of stop caring like an hour after the selection show anyway.

Like, oh, yeah, team didn't get in.

Okay, whatever.

Like you, you get angry about it for half an hour

and then everyone starts putting their bracket together.

So it was kind of nice to just like immediately turn to

the most exciting month in sports, at least in my view.

Yeah, that used to be the thing.

It maybe was because we had less,

but it would just be you'd watch the selection show on CBS

then you go write to ESPN and then you have the four coaches.

And it was usually for major programs would come on and then complain.

And as much as I love Dickey V,

like he would, that was the whole foul or thing.

Like over 20 years ago, I even interviewed Fowler about it.

I think it was an O2 maybe because I just remember like,

if I tell it was just so mad that different teams

and then finally Fowler's like, who are you replacing them with, man?

Like we have a, we have a defined number of teams

that are going to be in this.

So yeah, we didn't really have much of that stuff.

But I mean, back to your other point,

not only the NIL part of it,

it imagines like if you have a pulse,

it can make a couple of threes in year to mid-major,

then a power five school is just going to say,

hey, come to us now where I imagine the movement upwards.

It has a lot to do with that as well, too,

because they're just just stripping these teams

of anybody that shows any talent whatsoever

in the last couple of years.

Yeah, and I mean, we have it.

It goes in multiple directions.

You know, like a guy like Penn,

TJ Power had 44 points in the Ivy League title game.

He started off at Duke.

And he's kind of gradually worked his way back in the sport

as things have not worked out at the high measure.

So like multiple levels can benefit anecdotally.

From the NIL stuff, but it does feel like, yeah,

I mean, the combination of the very top teams,

your Arizona's, your Duke's, you know, et cetera,

Florida, being able to not only recruit all the best guys,

and you've got this crazy freshman class coming in,

and Duke's got a handful of them,

and Arizona obviously as well.

But you can combine that with the international guys,

that those programs have a better chance of recruiting

and having a pulse on,

because they have the resources to go scout the Adriatic League,

right?

They can keep in touch with players and their agents.

There's just more capacity for different kinds of staffs

at the very high level of sport to do that.

Plus the money.

And so yeah, the team sort of,

even I think your more mediocre high-mid major programs

are having a tougher time.

And you throw in, I think too,

you know, a guy like Todd Golden at Florida,

incredibly smart coach,

and has kind of pushed the game in different directions,

like going super big in college basketball.

I think you look two, three years ago,

he's like, oh, college basketball is all paste in space now.

It's finally cut up to the NBA,

you know, the tempos faster,

guys are shooting more threes, it's more efficient.

That's still true,

but you know, you look at the top programs in the country now,

and the rim pressure on both ends of the floor

is the common denominator among all of them.

It's just like Michigan's super dominant

on both ends of the floor.

Offensive rebounding rim protection,

scoring easy buckets.

Duke, same deal, Arizona, same deal, Florida,

to like the extreme.

So all of that stuff kind of combines to a level where,

yeah, it just feels like things are getting pressured upward,

you know, in one direction,

and really separating, well, you know,

historically, really, really high level elite teams,

in terms of their efficiency metrics,

from even like the 30th best team in the country,

and then you go down to like the 150th,

and it's just wider than it's ever been.

All right, so we're trying to figure out the final four part of this,

and we know that last year with four one seeds in,

like we're usually, I don't know if you call it,

lucky or not lucky,

but I think a lot of us are what we said,

like everybody loves Cinderella

until the final four shows up,

and you go like, oh, wait,

this team's favored by 11 against this team,

like I just want North Carolina, and Arizona,

or whatever, I mean, pick whatever blue bloods

that you want to plug in there.

As you're trying to map out your final four pass,

like, are you, I mean, is there any way to ignore what we saw

last year in realizing that we have four one seeds

that all fit those profiles of these massive efficiency ratings

historically, because I mean, there's something tightest

than I were talking about just last week

that I didn't know until I was doing a little bit of research on it,

but if you look at the Ken Pomp stuff,

like the differential and where the ratings are for these one seeds,

it kind of matches what it was last year,

even if there's probably two of the teams

that I think last year's teams were better than this year's.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's true.

I think, you know, like you think about a team like Duke,

and they've got a little, you know, some injury stuff,

and availability of Caleb Foster is a big,

once you get to the sweet 16 elite, they might show up.

You know, they've been hammering pretty good teams generally,

but they maybe quite haven't been at the level that they were

at full strength.

So maybe that throws a little bit of uncertainty

just into their overall perspective.

But I mean, I think another thing to consider too is like

the two seeds, this is the strongest batch of two seeds ever.

You know, there's like a, you know,

Will Warren, my colleague at Baskin Review,

where I do the podcast,

wrote about just like all the seed lines

and kind of where they rank historically.

And, you know, this is a plus 31 adjusted efficiency margin per Ken

Palm average number two seed line.

And I think that checks out, you know,

I have my doubts about Yukon.

I have my doubts about Purdue, deep in the tournament.

But I was state for most of the years,

a team that you look at and say,

why can't they win the national title?

Great guard play elite defense.

Jefferson is probably a pro.

Mom Salovitch is the best shooter in the country.

Like, that's a national title content

right up in the mix with some of the, you know,

with the dukes and the Michigan's and the Arizona's and Florida.

And Houston is kind of in that mix as well.

And Houston is not what they were last year.

You know, they had a lot easier time with Jay Wanroberts last year,

you know, getting easy buckets and not needing to just hammer the offensive glass.

And their offense gets a little stagnant.

But the difference is this year is they've got Kingston Flemmings,

who is a lottery pick guard,

who can bail you out of a lot of possessions,

particularly when it gets tight down the stretch in NCAA tournament games.

And so I think that kind of sprinkles a little bit of NBA level talent

over their usual formula of really good defense.

You play like crazy hard and rebound the ball.

So I think the two seeds,

you know, last year's one seeds were amazing.

The two seeds were pretty good,

but not like kind of in the mix with them.

And I think there's a little bit more parity this year.

Because like we talked about,

everything is getting pulled upward.

And so the, you know,

the Houston's of the world or the Iowa State to the world or whatever

can benefit from that as well.

So that introduces a little uncertainty where, you know,

I don't know if Yukon is the team to take down Duke in the elite eight,

but Kansas might be, you know,

St. John's might be on the four and five line.

And so there's good enough teams

at some of these slightly lower seed lines

that it might not be quite as much of a walkthrough

as it felt like at points last season.

I'm glad you brought up Iowa State

because watching Big E's tournament games

and then watching Big 12 tournament games

was incredibly jarring.

Your reminded me when the SEC was awesome in football,

where you'd watch like Tennessee

and even Mississippi State or something

and you'd just go like,

all right, now I'm gonna watch Purdue against Nebraska.

But now I can't say that anymore

because the Big Ten's run for the last couple of years.

It was, from a basketball standpoint,

it was really jarring.

And I'm still a bitch.

And I look, I even like TCU

and they're Big 12.

So I was like watching them going,

dude, I kind of like this team.

I like what they run.

I like punch.

I like their size, maybe not like their guards as much,

but I don't know if this is as simple as the committee

is looking at it going,

yeah, you're absolutely right.

That's why I was state to two,

considering some of the non-conference losses.

Michigan State, Duke, Houston,

having Kansas as a four

and having St. John's as a five in there as well.

The Big E's was now that I've watched a bunch of it.

It's like, this league is,

it's not the Big 12.

It's not the Big Ten.

It's not even the ACC,

which was obviously a top heavy league this year.

But do you think that reflected that?

Like a BYU's a six in St. John's as a five.

The committee's saying,

hey, we just don't like these Big E's teams.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think

Rick Petino talked about it today.

I think there was a little bit of St. John's,

you know, like, hey, we're a five seed.

We've lost, you know, whatever one game since January.

And we just won the Big E's title and beat UConn for the second time.

And underlying metrics wise,

St. John's hasn't really kind of been at that elite level all season.

Maybe five's a little low for them,

but I think Petino kind of said like,

yeah, I mean, we got to get the Big E's better

because we'd have a lot more, you know, quality wins.

And the Big E's was a three team league this year.

And I think even, you know, UConn,

despite the excellent season that it's had,

is not UConn of two years ago or three years ago, right?

Like, they're a very good team with some clear flaws and a weird

from a talent standpoint.

Even like, I can't believe there are two,

I can't believe they have this good of a season.

Yeah, well, that's coaching.

I mean, look, the thing that doesn't get talk,

well, I guess it does get talked about in college hoop circles,

but like those, you know, Donovan Klingon

and the level of talent they were able to roll out

three years ago and two years ago when they went back to back titles,

particularly the second year was kind of crazy.

And the part of the reason they were so dominant in that run

is not only did they have great talent,

but they ran the best stuff in the country.

And they continue to run really, really good stuff.

It's just the players aren't as dynamic

and aren't as diverse in their skillsets.

And so it's a little bit less impressive to watch.

And I think it's interesting to watch with UConn

and we'll see if this follows in the tournament

because, you know, they've lost one tournament game in the last three years.

And they lost last year by a bucket to the national title,

to the team of one of the national title in Florida.

And I think within the program, and they've talked about,

they talked about a post game after the St. John's game.

They're kind of eager to get out of the Big East

because in addition to the Big East not being high level,

you know, through the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth teams

in the league this season, it's also super physical league.

And St. John's is happy to play that way and, you know,

value a gazillion times a game and force the rest to call it.

So I think UConn wants to get out of that

and be able to run its stuff a little bit more flow

and see if they can kind of get into a rhythm in the NCAA tournament.

I'll be interested to see if it holds up.

But yeah, I don't, UConn to me was not,

was not at their level of, you know, despite their seed

of what they have been in, you know, the title seasons.

And St. John's is like really good team, great defense.

Patinos obviously are genius.

But the core problem with that team that's existed all year

in terms of guard play is still kind of there.

And so they kind of have to, to muddy it up a little bit more

even as they, as they play up tempo,

like they really have to guard and play hard for them

to get to their max outcome.

Even though they got a big on UConn and you kind of had

a little bit of a run there in the second half,

you're like wondering if the faucet is going to shut off

offensively for St. John's, because you've seen it before.

But the physicality of, of that game, you know,

the part of it, you kind of love it

because of the old big east thing.

But at the same time, like, then I watch Arizona later

at night going, this is way more fun.

Like this is so much more fun.

And I'm blown away by Arizona's depth.

I mean, when you think about depending on which night

that you've watched them, if you were, and again,

I'm admitting that not super locked in all season long,

but depending on the night, you could have like four or five

different guys, but like, well, that must be their best player.

And Bradley wins player of the year despite not having like

overwhelming stats, but then you see how much he settles them.

There's so much about them that I like.

And not to compare him to the thunder necessarily,

but like the thunder's whole thing here is everybody

can chute pass and dribble.

And it feels like Arizona can attack you with four or five

different guys and then has the size to match up with some

of the other guys as they get deeper in this tournament.

I mean, Michigan's enormous.

Duke's got player of the year, Florida's huge as well.

But at least like Arizona has somebody that's in the fight.

And Crevoss, if you need another body to match up with some

of those other teams, but I can't, look, I'm picking Arizona

to win the whole thing just because I'm so impressed

with how many different ways they can attack you with

guys that are comfortable with the ball their hands.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, Arizona's been fascinating all year

because we kind of got to a point where you started to take

them for granted a little bit.

It's like, oh, this Michigan team might be historically good.

And what a job Dusty made did sort of piecing this together.

And I think if you looked at Michigan's NIL

spend and like what they, you know, I don't have any like firm

numbers, but just through the grapevine.

I think if if you looked at what they spent on certain guys

and the value they got, like they did the best job of basically any

program in the portal this past season and are, you know,

doing a lot of analysis to try and understand the market in NIL

that I don't think a lot of coaching staffs

have caught up with yet.

Duke obviously with with Booser and the freshman and John Shire

maturing as a coach and looking like one of the best coaches

in the country now after kind of just running like the best

practices playbook for his first couple seasons.

Has been a fascinating story.

But yeah, I mean, Arizona has just chugged along the whole season.

They started off and co-opied looked like their best player.

You know, the first night against Florida this freshman.

You're like, oh my god, like I had no idea.

I knew this kid was good.

I had no idea it was this good.

You know, I'm Braden Burries struggled early in the year and has

been great sense.

Obviously Bradley was there.

Was there player of the year in the league?

Dolorso is awesome and played great in the big 12 tournament.

He looks like their best player for like 10 minute stretches.

I mean, he's just 100% motherfucker too.

So go ahead.

He's he's excellent.

Yeah, and and you know, another guy is Toby Awaka, who was,

you know, this was talked about during the big 12 tournament a couple

of ways, but looking at it early and earlier in the year,

was they're starting big last season.

You know, co-opied comes in like maybe he'll start next

the coaching to Kreevas and maybe not this season.

But co-opied comes in much more dynamic player can play away

from the rim a little bit more.

And so Awaka goes to the bench and he comes in and he's the

best rebounder in the country, rate wise.

He's number one in offensive rebound rate.

It's like up by like 2021 percent.

Really, really good defensively.

So they throw him in and he just gobbles up everything at the rim

for five minutes at a time and then comes back out of the game.

They put Karchenkov or whomever back in

and and give you a different look.

So yeah, they're there.

I'm leaning a bit toward Arizona because of like you mentioned,

their depth and the different guys they can throw at you.

And the fact that, you know, Bradley can have an off night.

It's not a huge deal.

They've got Delo or so.

They've got buries.

They can, you know, they can do lots of different stuff.

And they are, they've been so good all year with the, you know,

they lost two games.

One of them was at Kansas on a Monday night,

which, you know, Bill self's like 41 and 0.

And his last, you know, big 12 Monday night games.

So just chalk that one up as an L.

But otherwise, they've been incredible.

And there it's it's hard to see them anywhere,

but very deep into the bracket unless, you know,

they just have a brain fart at some point,

which has happened a time you'll win in recent tournaments.

Which region would you want to be in if you were one seat?

I'm looking at it now.

I mean, I probably Arizona's is probably the most favorable.

I mean, I'm a little bit, if I'm, if I'm any tournament team,

I'm a little bit scared about seeing Arkansas

because of the way they can score.

And because the ball is going to be in a cuffs hands so much.

And we've seen it a gazillion times with guards

and the tournament that are that good of just running the game, right?

It's just like this guy's going to have a 40% usage rate this game.

He's going to take every shot.

He's going to run the gym.

And Arizona's guys, they can throw it at that.

But that would, you know, he goes for 40,

which he's, you know, he's done in the past,

you know, a couple times this season.

And you're just, you're looking at it like this.

You're in a fight all of a sudden.

But, you know, looking up and down there,

their potential like Villanova Utah State in the second round,

you know, Villanova hasn't beaten a good team all year.

They were the third best team in the Big East.

Didn't beat either of the good teams.

Beat everybody else.

They're kind of, they kind of are what they are.

Wisconsin has beaten good teams if they got that far.

But, you know, I wouldn't be super worried about them.

On the other side of the bracket,

Gonzaga isn't at full strength.

Without Bradenhof, that's a tough matchup.

And Purdue, look, I like Purdue.

I've liked them all year.

They came in as the number one team.

But they are a little limited.

And they're a little bit, you know, in terms,

particularly in terms of physicality in the back court.

That would not, you know, if I'm Arizona,

I'm looking at that like, we can probably handle these guys.

They're good.

They'll do lots of tricky stuff.

And Matt Painter, I thought had an incredible big 10 title game

in terms of the tactics that he used against Michigan.

And the way he was able to get Mara out on an island

and pick and rolls and stuff.

And Michigan didn't really adapt as quickly as they could have.

But look, Arizona, for the reasons we discussed,

you sort of look at their bracket.

It's hard to find too many teams that would keep you up at night

with the possible exception of a dairy say cuff, you know,

50 burger that ends your season.

Does the lack of depth for Arkansas bother you?

A little bit.

But I mean, I think depth is a little overrated.

Other than foul trouble, you know,

and they're not a particularly aggressive team.

Defensively is their biggest problem.

You know, they just, they go up and down.

They don't guard super well.

A cuff defensively, I think.

Now that we've gotten a little closer to the draft

and more people are tuning in or seeing some of the things

he does defensively, which aren't great.

But that's kind of the whole team.

The death thing doesn't bother me because I think, you know,

we have a lot of past evidence of teams that basically

go six or seven deep once they get to the tournament.

Even if they're a little deeper than that early in the year,

a lot of coaches like to refine that.

And everybody's got clear roles.

Everybody comes on for their, their usual rotations.

You can switch things around a little bit.

I think if you're a team like Arizona and you have the Jews

to play different guys and match up in different situations, great.

But, you know, John Calipari is more than happy to roll out.

Six, seven guys and just kind of hope that, you know,

A, everybody's healthy, which it seems, you know, to be the case.

Obviously, and then you just don't hack guys.

And they don't guard that way anyway.

So it kind of doesn't matter for them.

For the tournament, was you rather have a cuff for Kingston Fleming's?

I would rather have a cuff.

I think Fleming's is great.

After this week to pick somebody else.

The week I just had.

Yeah, I mean, he's sensational, dude.

He's, and not only is he effective, but he's just like my favorite player

in college basketball to watch.

You know, just a classic like, if I was 10 years old,

being obsessed with college basketball the way I was,

he'd be like, I'd have his jersey.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'd have his post run my wall.

And I'd be begging my parents to, you know,

tape on the VCR every Arkansas game.

It's on national television, whatever.

He's just, he's so fun to watch.

He's a classic ball handling scoring guard that, you know, like,

look, Cam Booser's the best player in the country.

Does Cam Booser move me in an aesthetic way?

No, like, he's just a battering ram who's super effective.

And that's, that's great.

But I give me the area's a cuff, like as a, as an entertainment experience, for sure.

Booser moved me when I sorted through his synergy possessions.

Oh, it's great.

It wasn't the video.

I just looked through it and I thought something was wrong.

I thought I was on like Tim Duncan.

I was like, what happened to this page here?

And then I was like, oh, all this stuff is real.

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I love that you talk about Purdue because when Purdue's right,

even though Cluff, I was like, shock, he was only 24 years old.

I mean, that guy was just beast and then you have Brandon Smith,

who's just running the game.

So like, when he is running the game at Point Guard with Painter,

and you just think of like, this is just classic Purdue.

Like, everything seems to have a plan.

And against that front line for Michigan, which I think I want to spend some time on them here

a little bit, I can see anybody falling in love with Purdue

after their big 10 week.

But is there anything here, especially with tech

missing their best player on the five line here?

Alabama is the four.

It feels impossible that Michigan's not in the elite eight.

Yeah.

No, look, I think the thing with Michigan and the Purdue game,

I suppose the little bit of this is if you can,

if you can get Mauro away from the rim and you can stretch them out a little bit,

which Purdue was able to do in ball screens because of the way

Traycoffman run plays in the short role and the things that they can throw at you,

they're pretty, you know, Purdue is pretty unique in that way.

And TKR's got that little like shove shot from the, you know,

from the 15 feet and in that basically nobody else takes or attempts these days.

So they're a unique challenge.

But yeah, Michigan is their purpose built to not get upset.

You know, that they are designed to so thoroughly dominate the rim at both ends of the floor

that they have a really high floor kind of no matter what.

Like they haven't needed to make threes really all season.

You know, that that was the thing about the Duke game when they played Duke late in the season

here in DC that really stuck out is for the first time I had Michigan fans of my life being like,

oh, well, we didn't shoot it well.

That's like, yeah, but you guys don't need to shoot it well.

You can shoot 22% from three and still win by 20 because you have 40 layups in the game or whatever.

And that's the thing about Michigan that that makes them, you know,

kind of impossible to see getting upset, particularly in that region.

And you're right, like Texas Tech is missing JT top.

And they've been really good without him impressively.

So, you know, BYU has obviously taken a dip without Richie Saunders.

Those are the two big injuries and Caleb Wilson at North Carolina.

That's hurt these teams noticeably.

And we thought the same thing would happen with tech.

I think their ceilings limited without top.

And but Christian Anderson's been so good that they've been able to kind of sustain.

It's hard to imagine them though against Michigan unless Anderson just goes crazy,

you know, in terms of ball screen efficiency.

Keeping up with them and Alabama is the same.

Alabama is like the anti-Michigan in a lot of ways.

You know, they will shoot a ton of threes.

They'll get up and down the floor.

But they are the ultimate variance team.

And if they go 18 of 35 from three or above, you know, you're in for a difficult game

because they'll shoot them from 25 feet.

And that's that, you know, they'll just shoot over the top of Michigan as much as they can.

But Michigan will get dunks and layups and offensive rebounds and putbacks.

And they'll kind of block everything at the rim or, you know, dissuade it in the first place.

And so, yeah, that's the thing with Michigan.

And it's kind of the thing with Florida as well as just like, we're so big.

We're so physical at the rim.

We prevent easy shots.

You don't get layups.

We can extend our guys on the perimeter because our interior guys can, you know,

still affect shots eight, nine feet away from the rim.

So there's, there's really nowhere for you to go.

And it gives them a super high floor.

Or even if they have a crazy night or they get nervous and, and, uh, you know,

start turning the ball over, they're kind of probably going to be okay.

If it chalks out here where Illinois gets past Penn and then the winner of North Carolina,

VCU, granted with, with Kale about here.

And then on the other side, you get the 17 St. Mary's A&M, the winner of Houston, Idaho.

Do you like Illinois's chances against Houston?

In theory, maybe the wrong way to ask it, but yeah, in theory, I do.

Because I think Illinois might be a better team than Houston, you know, like they,

they have more, certainly more offensive weapons and they have, they, you know,

they're bigger and they do a lot of things really, really well.

But I think, you know, the Michigan game at Champaign a few weeks ago, uh, for myself.

And I think for, for Illinois fans, I talked to kind of, it has, it kind of put me off them

a little bit because it's just like, they just didn't, they just weren't at the level.

And that's probably fine, uh, in, in the first couple rounds of the tournament here.

But I think that's the sneaking suspicion for Illinois fans that they're just like,

just a tear below. And I don't really know how to quantify that because numerically,

you look at them and like, this is the best defensive team Brad and Arroyd has had,

at least in a very long time. Um, they have every sort of peace offensively.

Wogler has been incredible all year, although, you know, in the Michigan game in particular,

uh, you know, got bullied by a 23 year old grown man in the Axel Bendenberg was like,

picking him up for court and just like, all right, come on, dude, this guy's like barely 18.

Can you leave this kid alone, please? Um, so there, there's a little bit of that with them where,

where he's so young and and still kind of like, he kind of can look like Bambi a little bit

sometimes despite how good he is, where good teams like a veteran team like Houston will really

get into him. So that, but I just, you know, I don't know. I don't have a good way to quantify it.

It's just kind of a vibe with Illinois where I feel like, would I, would I bet any significant

amount of money to them being Houston, even if I think they're maybe better? No. And I don't,

I really can't tell you why other than I just, that's how I feel. Yeah, when you look at the,

I'm glad you brought the two seats here too, but like if I'm, if I'm going through it and I'm

thinking about the number ones, I'd rather be Duke staring at Yukon on the other side of this,

then Houston, then Iowa State, and even Purdue. And when the East gets brought up,

I think a lot of it becomes like, oh, well, look at the names. Okay. Well, yeah, you're right.

It's Duke. It's St. John's. It's Kansas. I mean, if you want to start growing historically,

you could go like Louisville, Michigan States, your three C and UCLA has been on a bit of a run

here. And then Yukon on the other side of it, but yeah, just kind of dropping in. It was like,

I think you're just putting together like teams that have been awesome over decades as opposed to

like, who are they right now? And Michigan States, like an interesting one, because I think there

was a time there when you're looking at them against ranked teams and you're going, all right,

so you're going to beat everybody, but then you're not going to beat these teams, but then they get

Illinois, they get Purdue. And then it leads to a UCLA team. And again, it's been finished

and strong here. So is Michigan State potentially overlooked as we they have a better seed than

than so many of these other teams? And I don't know if they're overlooked. I mean, I think the

I think two of the panelists on the ESPN show last night, as I was kind of casually had it on

in the background, picked them to go to the final four, which feels like a very, well, it's Tom

Iso and it's Michigan State. So why not kind of feeling to me? I mean, look, I like this Michigan

State team. They are also one of the low variance teams that that grab a ton of rebounds and guard

really well. So they give themselves a floor in every game. And Jeremy fears, you know, I think

it's a it's a bit of a bummer because most of the discussion about him when he has popped up in

discussion in college basketball this year is about been about like, is he a dirty player? Is he

kicking guys? Is he tripping guys? And because there've been a number of incidents that that look

pretty, you know, pretty sketchy, it's overshadowed how insanely good he's been. I mean, he's got

the he's got a 53% assist rate. Like they, if you took Jeremy fears off this team, Michigan

State would not score the ball ever. Like they they everything runs through like ever. They have

nobody else who can create a shot. You know, Cohen Carr is the best dunker in college basketball,

but on offense, he kind of stands like he can't shoot. And he's the guy that the teams play off of

and he's there for his athleticism and his defense. And the occasional fast break dunk, which

just, you know, or a lob dunk, which kind of blows your mind. But in terms of like a possession by

possession, usefulness on the offensive end, like it, you know, he's he's several levels below

what a lot of other teams at Michigan States sort of tear in the sport or what other three seats

have available to them. So they're kind of a weird one in that. I do feel like there's a there's

a limiter on you. Okay, you've got one guy who creates shots for everybody else. And that's how

the offense gets it done. And then we guard like crazy on the other end. I feel like there's a

ceiling there, but like I look at them against a team like Louisville, which doesn't guard anybody.

And just likes to get up and down and shoot a bunch of threes and hasn't beaten any good teams

really all season. And I feel like that's the kind of game that Michigan State will be looking at

be like we are going to punk these guys. You know, that they are not ready for for the intensity

of what this game is going to be. But beyond that, you start to get into, you know, I mean, look,

I'm not super high on Yukon. UCLA had a nice finish to the season. UCF is a tricky team that could

maybe, you know, get into the to the elite data of the sweet 16. But I can see why people might

want to pick Michigan State at least deep into the field. If not, if not beating Duke, I don't

think they have the the minerals for for a Duke win. But they are they are a low variance team with

one incredibly good guard. So, you know, who knows? I can't help but think did Mitt Kronen pissing

everyone off. Riley this team. I think Michigan State game, right? Because I mean, they had no

sense he threw his own player out. Then he admitted that it was a mistake, but then after player

to the other reporters, it don't raise your voice to him. Like the dude couldn't have been like

less raised as any jurors like right in there, you're perfect. Heaven's in. But I'm just,

I mean, just when you were like, all right, I can't do with Mitt Kronen anymore. You're like,

this guy's a culture center, man. Yeah, I think I honestly, I wonder I kind of have joked about

this. I kind of wonder how much truth there is to it him doing all of that. But then apologizing

and like apologizing to the player, really admitting he got it wrong, apologizing to the media,

and the kid had transferred from Michigan State. Right. Right. And and he was like so,

I don't know, he was like his intent was like, I thought he made a dirty play. So I was mad at him

in the moment. You know what I mean? Like I thought he was trying to try and to hurt somebody.

And he just clearly lost his head in the moment. But then I think coming back out and apologizing

and surely he did it like in front of the team, too. Like because if you're going to do it in the

media, obviously you're going to, you're going to go back to your locker room and be like, guys,

look, I had a long thing. I sat down, you know, I had a whiskey or whatever on Sunday night. And I

realized I've completely lost my mind. I need a deep breath and I need to be less mean to you

and to the rest of the world. And I honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the team was like, okay,

sweet. This thank you coach. Like that's awesome. We'll lock in because that's what they've done.

They've been great. And it's coincided really, too. I mean, if you want to dig into it, it's like

it's coincided with Donovan Dent becoming the guard that UCLA thought it was getting when they

pulled him out of New Mexico. You know, he has his flaws, particularly in that he's a, a, you know,

six foot two ball dominant point guard who can't shoot. And so everything has to get at the rim.

But his assist numbers in the past, you know, in their run, really, since the Michigan State game,

when they beaten Illinois, beaten Nebraska, obviously beat Michigan State in the tournament,

have been elite. And so he's had a little bit of an injury concern at the big 10 tournament,

but I think it's going to be fine. And so that's, that's really what to watch with them.

Because if he continues to play the way he's been playing, they've shown they can be just about

anybody. Five 12s. We've got Wisconsin high point St. John's Northern Iowa. We've got Vandy,

McNeese, and then Texas Tech and Akron. Do you have one you like?

You know, it's interesting because this is, as we mentioned earlier, the gap between the five

seats and the 12 seats is historically large in terms of efficiency numbers. Like we've never had

a 512 set of, of games that are less likely to be upsets, even though that's the one that,

that everyone picks every year and rightly so, because there's always one. You know,

I took Vanderbilt to go to the final four at the beginning of the year, just kind of as a fun

large because like you get asked to do your preseason predictions and they asked for the final four,

and it's always kind of inherently silly to me. So it's like, well, what seat are they going to be?

Like who are they going to be playing? Who are they going to play? Like we have no idea,

you just throwing names out, but I threw Vanderbilt. I was just kind of like, I think this team's

going to be better than people expect and they have been. So I won't pick them even though I'm a

little bit, I'm a little bit worried about them. We were kind of looking for a 12 maybe.

No, I'm talking, yeah, I'm saying like a 12 to like a 5, I can see getting upset, you know what I'm

saying? So I don't know. Let's go with high point, just because I think they're pretty good and

Wisconsin is just so up and down. Like has beaten the best teams in the country, has had some

questionable performances while just throw high point in there. Rap looked like Steph Curry out

there. That was yeah, that was like an all time half. All right, well, let's close on this and

as silly as it is, at least we have the bracket in front of us here. If we were workshopping,

you know, you're just sitting there whiteboarding it out. Like where are you leaning? And I'm

with you on like the bracket stuff. Like if I had to do one, it's better to win the office pool by

going chalk historically. I don't think there's much debate there, but it's just not very much fun,

you know, it's like meeting somebody and it's like, hey, you know, what do you like sports?

We're like, yeah, I'm a Cowboys, Lakeers, Yankees and Duke basketball. Awesome. So if you're like,

yeah, I've got to, I've got the 401 seeds. If you were getting creative here, how do you think you,

you know, look, this isn't your final work. Let's give us a first draft version of what you think

your final four may be. Yeah, you know, if I was getting creative, I would, I would look at Virginia

as a potential final 14 because like you're really worried about Iowa State and your hope in

Michigan gets knocked off somewhere else in the bracket, which I don't think is going to happen.

But in terms of size and rim protection and the ability to throw multiple bigs at a team like

Michigan, Virginia is, is that team, you know, they've got, you got onion. So coming off the bench,

who's the best shop walker in the country. And like he's a luxury for them. A little bit of the way

Toby O'Walk is for Arizona, you know, they just bring them on for five, six minute stretches and

have absolutely no fall off on their backline because they're, they're starting center grunglow is,

is that good as well. And they've got an elite sort of all ACC guy and ties to Ritter. So I'm,

I mean, Virginia doesn't have too many flaws. And they're, they're a team that they can somehow get

past and Iowa State team that we talked about earlier. I really like elsewhere in the bracket to get

a little bit creative with it and non one seeds. I mean,

mentioned Vanderbilt, maybe Vanderbilt. They've played really well, like particularly early in the

year in neutral court formats for whatever reason. They just like ran everybody out of the gym. I think

what now that they're out of the SEC cheering a little bit, they could get back to to some of that.

And we've seen them beat Florida. You know, they just did it on a neutral floor and they beat them

handily. So there's a, you know, there's proof there. I don't really like anyone in the east

besides Duke. I can't, I can't get there with Yukon. You know, Yukon is a kind of team. I don't

think it's going to happen. But because they've had so many games where they've let bad teams hang

around, they're the type, pardon me, they're the type of team that you could see getting upset

earlier than they should based on their, their talent and their level. Maybe Kansas, you know,

if they're in Peterson, just goes nuts. And they are Kansas now, like we talked the last time

was on. We were talking about the weirdness with, but they're in Peterson. That's kind of gone

away. You know, he's been doing more interviews. He's been talking about how he had like these crazy

full-body cramps. And that was what the problem was. And he seems like super well integrated with

the rest of Kansas now in terms of tactically on the offensive end. It isn't just, okay, when Darin's

in the game, he takes 40% of our shots and everybody kind of stands around. So that's an interesting

thing to develop because we, you know, Kansas is a foresee. They lost a bunch of games, but they

haven't really been whole except for the last, you know, seven, eight games of the season. And so maybe

they're better than their numbers and their seed and their seed look. And then I'm sticking with

Arizona. That's not fun, but the West Regional, Arizona is probably my title team. And, you know,

like we said at the top of the hit, like I, it's really hard to see them even being in too much

of a close game until they get to the second weekend at the very least. Sounds like we're both going

with Arizona too. I think we might be. Yeah. Uh, make sure that you check out human bread and

substack buzzer by human bread and, uh, he's been pumping out the content every single day. And

we appreciate it, man. Enjoy the tournament. Thank you. Reese's is teaming up with basketball

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of March band is grab it at 7-11. This segment is presented by Microsoft. Are you ready for

Lakers week? The momentum is going to happen. We are in it. They're winning games, the three

seat in the West. And I'll admit throughout the year, every time I watch a Lakers game and the

graphic comes up, I'd always be like, man, that record feels so much better than how I feel about

the team. I've talked about their record against teams that are 500 or better that's below 500.

It's not necessarily like an eliminator. The absurd clutch record where they're winning like 80%

of their games. I was like, is there something that's actually a little misleading about that?

Sure, they can argue about injuries, but so can almost every other team, other than maybe Minnesota.

So if you look at where they're at right now in the three seat in the West, because this is going

to start, if they keep playing like this, and we'll see what happens with Houston next couple games

here, but they keep playing like this, then it starts turning into like, all right, are they

a contender in the West? Like, I'll just, I'll say this first and foremost, I think Oklahoma City

and San Antonio are so much better than every other team in the NBA, including the East.

I'd be shocked if the Spurs are not playing the Thunder in the Western Conference finals.

But because we have a three next to the Lakers, then it kind of changes a little bit of like,

hey, if there are three seats, like seating can be really misleading at times and how you'll feel

about a team. It's like, hey, we were the two seat, hey, we were the three seat. Okay, but what

were the rest of the records like? Because if you look at three through seven in the West,

they're separated by only three games in the last column. But even if you are still a little

lukewarm on the Lakers, who behind them in the West that they could be playing in the first round,

who do you actually like right now? Let's go through these three teams and sorry in advanced

opinions. Denver, who they beat over time, and it was a terrific win by the Lakers because they're

up big. They blow the lead, you know, look at it blow the lead. Denver comes back and you're like,

all right, Denver's going to pull this off. Maybe we'll write the ship here a little bit and then

the Lakers end up winning it over time. Denver's 18 and 17 since January 1st, offence is fourth,

defense is 22nd. They have the eighth most clutch losses in the NBA this season. They're 17 and 18

is a clutch team where normally they're terrific in the clutch because you just trust their

execution as much as any team in the league. If you look at February 1st on against these good

teams, they lost against OKC. They lost to Detroit. They lost an overtime or the next. They lost

to Cleveland. They lost to the Clippers. There's a Golden State loss in there. They lost to OKC

and overtime when SGA didn't even play in the overtime. They lost to Minnesota. They had that

awful Nick's game or they lost by 39 points. I know Murray left with the ankle injury, but still

because I don't know if this Nick's team is like wow on us right now. Then they lose to OKC again

and LA in overtime. That's 11 losses against good teams since February 1st. Like at some point,

the switch has to go on for me to trust that you could actually get through the West. And right now,

I do not trust them. Yes, they did beat the Lakers earlier during the stretch and they beat Boston.

You could argue Boston's ending a road trip in there. It felt like a pretty good win at that time

and that they beat San Antonio. But when Banyama did not play in that game. So Denver is a team

that I can't do it right now with them. Great. At Houston's right behind the Lakers in the

seating. The Lakers are going to play Houston twice this week, both in Houston. It's Monday

and then it's Wednesday. You'd imagine that they probably just split them. But if the Lakers

win both of those, considering who Houston has been, four and four in their last eight,

they're 22nd on an offense since January 1st. There's eight teams worse than Houston.

On offense since January 1, all of those teams are tanking or should be tanking. Minnesota,

what the fuck was that yesterday? OKC is using their 28th different starting lineup

against the most stable five man lineup that we have in the NBA with the Timberwolves.

Talk about that with Finch. It's an overwhelming number. How many minutes that you've had

their five guys play together, right? So it's Go Bear. It's Randall. It's McDaniels. He actually

did play yesterday. You may have missed it. Devin Chenzo and then Ant. They're up 53-47 at the half

at OKC. SGA has four points with zero free throw temps at the half. OKC shooting 32%. So you're like,

wait, how are you? How are you not up 20 in the spots? Because Minnesota refuses to take the game

seriously against the same opponent or superior opponents. This is the second time in a week

where they start the game with this lazy ball maintenance. I don't even know if that's really a

term, but just incredibly casual handoff. Say, here you go, man, let's see if you'll get open.

An SGA and all these other dudes, granted SGA is not even close to being their best defensive

player, but whether it's Wallace, whether it's Dora, whether it's Caruso getting in there,

every single guy in the perimeter, if there's a big that's extended out, they get their hands in

there. They'll get physical with you. You have to play to match the intensity when you have the ball

against OKC and the Timberwolves didn't do it against the Clippers when they turn it over five

straight positions seven times in the first quarter. They turn it over 25 times yesterday. Ant

got stripped by Wallace, just bringing the ball up. He had another turnover in transition. Randall

drives in the paint. He gets tied up. Rudy had a stretch in the third quarter where there was a

lob that SGA kind of gets in there. It's a bad lob. There's another block on Rudy where it was a

foul on SGA. Then there's two other plays or Rudy. It's like, are you seven one or not?

So even if I wanted to have his side on a bad lob or a foul that wasn't called, it's still like,

man, this is why no one passes to you. We've covered all this stuff again.

Ant started the game with five turnovers against five field goal mix. I've never seen him get

stripped one on one, bringing the ball up like he did against Wallace. Then he had another turnover

in transition to so it's like even you're getting a game or OKC is gifting it to you here. SGA is

a complete non-factor. We know that they're dapped in the double bigs and then they decide like,

hey, let's do some non SGA minutes to start the fourth quarter and let's not have any of the

bigs out there and then see what happens and they gain eight points on the lead. So it's like

whatever OKC does, it seems to just work, but it's incredibly frustrating to watch the Timberwolves

team based on the expectations of making a two straight Western conference finals. And then I see

this week, you weren't ready against the Clippers, you weren't ready against the Thunder, you're not

matching their intensity. And just as a side on JD McDaniels, he played 16 invisible minutes

yesterday. I don't, it seems like as soon as he's not getting touches and maybe that's just on

everybody kind of the old rule of get the big man a couple touches early. So he's engaged

because JD McDaniel's life should be simple on offense. All the attention is on Ant.

Everything that Timberwolves are running in their half-core possessions is trying to find a way

to get door off of Ant and then start the offense. And then you have like Randall's been struggling

from shooting, but he was actually getting it going a little bit yesterday. And Jane stepping

out of bounds twice, get cooked on defense. Just, you know, I imagine I know he had foul trouble

in the first quarter, but he he's a really frustrating player because even if it's like, all right,

look, you're not going to touch the ball. You're not going to create off the dribble. I don't even

know that he necessarily could be able to do that. But he should be with all the attention on Ant

or even Randall and their playmaking ability. There should be just easy drives for him to dribbles

his size, his touch. And it's almost like he checks himself out of the game mentally and then

finch did it officially by taking him out of the game. So you've got all of these issues there.

Those are the three teams that I'm supposed to take serious right now.

I think I like Houston the least out of all these teams. So look, Minnesota has always turned

the basketball over. They turned it over a lot in the last two years, but yesterday was was gross.

So I want to start looking at some night lineup stuff that I was doing on NBA's stat

page this morning because I'm wondering as I look at like the best five-man lineups, which I think

is an important thing to think about. Like we get caught in seating, certainly matchups will

matter because even if Minnesota is matched up with the Lakers in the first round, it's kind of hard

to ignore like how overwhelming it felt the size difference. And it's eight and solve all of that

now. You know, I mean, at least there's a body to throw out there. And eight and was terrific

in the overtime. I thought defensively against Yokech. Like I watched the positions again, one for

four against him. Poor eight, though. I know. Like I actually felt bad for him. He blocks Yokech

in overtime. And then the ball is just kind of like there and he easily could have grabbed it.

And then he doesn't. And it's like head in his hands. It's like he just blocked the best player in

the world and overtime. Stayed down. It was terrific. And there's it's like if you had a wife,

I don't, but if you had a wife and you made a breakfast and bed and you just like gave her a

root beer, she's like there's there was no juice. You're like, ah, you know, he did everything

right. Yet there's still some part of it where it's like, how could you not grab that? So, you

know, look, that's something to think about if it's Minnesota LA in the first round here. But

looking at some of these five man lineups, we know that like Minnesota is a plus 10 with their

five guys, Detroit's a plus 13 with their five guys. The nicks are plus 3.7 in over 400 minutes

with the five guys. And it's like that might be alarming. The Brooklyn nets are plus two.

Points in 307 minutes with their five best players. Uh, Dio Man doesn't play anymore.

Charlotte is plus 28 net rating with their five best players. And these are the lineups of like

legitimate minutes, hundreds and hundreds of minutes played by these five guys, right? So,

Charlotte's is really easy. Diabode bridges Miller, Canipal, and Lamella Ball plus 28. Their

offense is 134.7, which is the best of any of the 25 offenses sorted by minutes, most minutes,

behind only Denver, which is 136.7. So, you're kind of like, well, you know, does Denver, if it's

those five guys, are they still so unstoppable with those five that that's what you need to look at

for the playoffs? Because then it's been it back to the Lakers and you're going, all right,

there are, they have this momentum. I've just dogged all the teams behind them. You know, Phoenix is

an injury thing on top, everything else. But again, there are only three games behind the Lakers in

the seventh spot. But then I look at the Lakers five man units, 226 minutes played with LeBron,

Luca, Reeves, Aiton, and Smart. And it's a negative 5.5 on the season. All right, what if we sort it

from January 1st, you know, kind of do the Pacers thing from last year. It's like, you know,

sometimes you're just going to wake up and realize like these teams are completely different.

Well, since January 1st, it's negative 4.8. So that's the group that's going to be

run out there that I'm going to pick against other teams in the West now because they have this

momentum. If you do a month by month in February, it was a dominant group plus 17. But then back in

March, it's like negative nine points. So I'm like, what am I supposed to do with this? Now, I would

say smart hitting threes completely changes who they are that he is open all the time. Because

defensively, you could just see it, whether the teams, it's two to Luca. Sometimes it's two to

rives. LeBron's still going to take a ton of attention. I don't know what Marcus Smart's

uncontested shot rate is right now. It's probably never been higher as an entire career, even playing

with great players in Boston. He is wide open all the time. And that is one of the things that

defenses are going to just go into games saying we can live with that. If he gets hot, it changes

everything for them because there's so much of it that's been, you know, really good. When I

looked at the five man lineups and went back to last year, I was like, is there anything from last

year that warned us about teams that we're going to be great in the playoffs or disappointing in

the playoffs? I mean, there's a Boston one in here. We're with porzingis. The most porzingis

played lineup, which is all the regulars in porzingis. Basically, that was an even lineup, which

is horrifying. A net zero with horror. They were plus 17. Didn't really matter. Porzingis was

terrible in the playoffs and look, they ended up losing the next. They were going to lose the next

event. It was healthy. I feel pretty certain of that. OKC had a heart and a Stein lineup with

no shit that was plus 16. The Pacers had two different lineups. One was with Turner,

Ciacum, Neesmith, Nemhart, Halliburton. It was plus 11. And then if you replace Neesmith with

Mathur and it was plus 12 and like established, like hundreds of minutes. It's like, that's a really

good number. The Lakers had an awesome lineup with Luca, but it only played like, I think

100 minutes, but it had Rui and DFS in there and that number. So some of these numbers can be

like a little like, hey, but usually what you'd like to see is who are your established five

and is that lineup with 200, 300 minutes? Is that shown that that's a pretty awesome number?

Because I've had even, like, marginal teams tell me, hey, when we have our five out there,

like look at our net rating or whatever. And here's kind of like, I roll. But if you're talking

about teams like getting out of their conference and getting through multiple rounds of the playoffs

or just even, you know, playing in an Eastern or Western conference finals, it's like, can I see

something there? And even if the Lakers thing doesn't necessarily shout at me right now that there

is this five-man group that is really scary. And I'm not even trying to compare it to the Thunder

or the Spurs. I'm comparing to everybody else. The problem is I'm comparing it to all these teams

behind him that even if I have to look at the Lakers differently in a positive way, I'm looking

at the rest of the teams behind him negatively. Microsoft co-pilot, the AI assistant that actually

helps you get stuff done. Co-pilot works across Microsoft 365 Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook,

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the credit. Learn more at Microsoft.com slash M365 co-pilot. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari,

355 Cabriela. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can

possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell

you what's required. Live advice, live advice, R-R-H-E-M-L.com. We've got Seroody, we've got Kyle

who, Kyle, floors yours, your sceptre. No, I don't want to do it anymore. Are you talking about

the text this week? Yeah. All right. Certain times of the night and the weekend things feel

like bigger deals than they are. And then you get a little bit further back. And they don't seem

like such a big deal anymore. Anyway, I was a big, big Saturday for me. Was that a local bar in

town. The owner is like a, was like a retired Johnny's guy. But since I've been coming in, he was

like getting a little closer and closer. And I came in on the Big East tournament title game and

brought him a hat that I got from the Creighton St. John's game. And I was really excited. And I

figured, you know, Ryan has even been hitting me with some text on Johnny's game days. And I was

like, I think we are like, you know, coming to this crescendo moment. And I, I face time you

guys, I step out for a smoke. I think it was after the win. I don't know. Again, it's a little foggy.

I step out for a smoke. I'm like, I'm going to call my guys. It was just me alone out front

for some reason. No one else was around. So I was like, I'm going to call my guys and nobody

answered. And then I sent you guys a little what for in the text. And that's it. And now,

and then, you know, Sunday morning, I went to do like a regular adult sort of kids birthday party.

Like, do like adult activities. And I was just like, man, I really don't care as much as I did.

And I think we're still going to have to talk about this because I was like, I'm going to

hash this out with you boys on Monday. The juices were flowing on Saturday. And I just just

needed my guys. It was a nice win. It was dominant. You know, there was that little glimmer of

Yukon hope in there for a moment, but wasn't there right away? Responded nice.

I kept the fun. Erasing embarrassing night in Hartford.

I don't have I face time. I think I face time to group 10 minutes after that because I felt

bad. I was on my father. Yeah. All right. That's a good mind. Yeah. I thought my dad was a mistake.

So I didn't pick it up. But the kind of one I the kind of one I felt bad about because I was I

I was in I was trying to put my daughter to sleep. She's just have she's just not, you know,

she goes with the big girl bed. She just likes to get out all the time. It's a problem. We bought

her this like panda squishy light things so she can kind of like do that, but she gets out of bed

all the time. So I try to figure that out. And I get back and I see the miss face time and the

tax. And I was like, Oh, no, I'm and here's the thing. My wife went to Yukon. She I let her watch

the game. It was kind of blown anyway. So it didn't really matter. So I feel like my excuse is

valid for Ryan. I just straight up didn't pick up. I figured it was some mistake. I just,

you know, my Saturday night brain thought you guys looked at that and went, Jesus Christ.

No, I would love to not even that was Saturday night brain. But you know, Sunday was like,

of course, not man. What's wrong with you? It's like, why did you commit to talking about this on

life? Anyway, no, my dad and I every now and then we'll like, there's a big, big East game. We'll

watch it together and we'll just be on the phone. Speaker phone. Hell yeah, dude. Speaker phone.

But then usually within the first five minutes, he starts pitching that like Derek White and

Tatum didn't play in a game. And I'm just like, yeah, I know, I know, man, you know, I get it,

buddy. All right. So we have lace, they don't lace them up the way they used to.

So because that game was a blowout, there was a lot of other discussions, a lot of other topics.

We hit a million segments. So then, uh, then when I got off the phone, I saw the

miss call and I called the media and I felt bad because I was like, uh, you know, but again,

it's really more of a Yukon guy though. So, you know, I'm not a Yukon. No, I mean, you know,

my wife went to Yukon. I grew up kind of a Yukon, but I didn't go there. So I don't really like

claim Yukon as a thing. And I, you know, she's witnessed a ton of national championships. I like

you guys being happy. So I was kind of like, yeah, I figured you would pick up for that reason. But

yeah, I almost worked tank. St. John's tank today. But well, we had to do the bar stool draft

things. So I was like, all right, you know, maybe we don't wear a tank top, although it would have

fit in on that. I don't know, we probably would have got my overtime for sure. Yeah, I don't know

when that's coming out, but we got hoes a little bit in that draft. That's a tough, it's a tough

spot. You have to have one pick after us. Maybe two. A nine seat or worse to see how they got

and we want, we had to be one of the last picks. If you go that way, I don't know, but in or

else, the randomness of competitiveness, who knows? Okay. Uh, a couple of emails here.

I think I may just read this one because it's six, seven, two, six,

and being a comp, Daniel Tyson, we have huge listeners. Was it a family get together a few

weeks ago and a watching basketball? My 90 year old grandmother, Nick's her playing. I asked my

grandmother, she could name five current basketball players and we didn't get past LeBron.

That's pretty good one though. She's watching the game. Did somebody see that tweet where it was like,

hey, over a couple of years, we have a actor named LeBron. Was it Michael B James? We may have

ourselves a debate. LeBron P James. Yeah. Michael B. Jordan LeBron. No, Michael B James. Yeah,

Michael B. Jordan. I could have delivered that a little bit better, but I thought that was

I thought it was clever enough. Yeah, it was clever enough that I, you know, plays into it.

First take. Happy for Michael B. Jordan. Yeah. I love Michael B. Jordan. He has my

MVP trophy from the flag football game though. It's a super cool fucking bullshit.

I think he still has it. Or do you think you remember that? Do you think he moved once and

was like, fuck this? I saw him at the Soho House like debated going up to him. Be like, hey,

you still got my MVP trophy? I didn't. There's a chance you knew it. Good move, I am.

Who knows? Maybe it was the wrong move. Yeah. You should have, you should have tweeted out last

night like, you know, this is the best, you know, this finally beats that the MVP trophy from the

flag football game. That's right. Finally, you finally topped that accomplishment. Yeah, finally,

it took you long enough. Yeah, man. This is happy for him. I like, I think everybody likes him.

Yeah. All right. Moving on, Shambot face. So she's watched the game, pretty into it,

making comments about different players, etc. Then suddenly there's a quick cutaway to Landry's

Shambot on the bench. She lets out the loudest shriek I'd ever heard from her and goes,

eek. Look at that guy. He doesn't even look like a basketball player. At this point,

I start dying of laughter. She has no idea why. I spent the next few minutes explaining the

concept of Shambot face to her. There's now a 90 year old lady walking the earth with Shambot

face in her lexicon. I hope you are proud. I'm going to be honest. That's incredible. It kind of

is starting to suck. Like I brought it up years ago, because I was just like if he looked

people as a nice face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He had a stretch where he was

falling. And by the way, he's back to it. And the irony of ironies is just last week I worked out

with his trainer. And I'm like, man, he is cooking. And he's like, look, his shoulders are healthy.

He's like, you have no, like his shoulders were messed up. He's like, he's healthy. And he's

playing awesome hoops again. I was watching the game last night. I think Brown went with him

over bridges. Unless there's something I'm missing from last night's

game against the Warriors, where man, the Warriors, just every time you're like, there's no way

they have a chance in this game. They've done an awesome job of being competitive the Warriors.

And then it's like, okay, now we're running geysanthos under a minute by so side, like go, go cook,

buddy, even though he's been terrific. So that was a little next Warriors for you. So I could have

mistakenly uptaping this morning, forgotten a bridges fact, but the point is Shambot has been

terrific. And I was like, if he looked like Michael B. Jordan, I think he'd make more money.

Honestly, granted he has been hurt for a little bit here. So I kind of feel guilty about

because we may get Shambot on the pot because of the relationship with the trainer. So I kind of

have to be like, hey, so I don't even know how the fuck I'm going to ask that question.

I have to. You definitely, you definitely do. What would that be more awkward than having like

the Marcus cousins on? Well, I knew the cousins thing was going to go bad, but I knew that I also

wasn't going to not ask him about the times. Totally different vibes. Yeah, right. Shambot seems

like a little more. I expect the cousins not have a good time before the thing started. So I don't

know what you say, like you just go to Shambot and you say, like, hey, there's like the chance that

you could have been like in a Lord of the Rings thing. And you just look a little different.

I think he's like an Elven. I'm kind of going to stop talking about this. Yeah.

Because then it's going to get, I mean, his trainer probably already knows. His trainer couldn't be a

nicer guy too. Long, sinewy, Jack. That is cool that that guy's grandma knows now two NBA players

and one of his landers. But like, I do think I think there's we're such visual people. We

yeah, the context really helps. If Alex Caruso looked different, like other than a what's going on

with this guy? So you have a rash. Why is he's already balding? Like, I'm going to draft a guy

in the first round. He's already fucking balding. I can't do that. You know, like you just,

you start to think like, and then it's like, Hey, Caruso's awesome. So, you know, be careful.

All right. I think we've covered it. Yep. I think we've covered all that.

Do we need more now? I don't think we need anything. Sorry. I should just get to the next one.

Probably. Yeah, probably should already got a Caruso in one fire.

We get to have a engineer. My engineer said that I shouldn't read this email, but I'm going to read it.

5.11. 185. 25 years old. Jim stats. A heart condition. Casey from Maxing out. More of a high

rep guy. Low weight guy. All right. Fair. And be a cop. My friends have affectionately compared

me to George Neang during pickup. Well, I, that's one of the best compliments because Neang

come out there and fucking dime you up all day, post you up hill hit threes. He'll make the right

rotations. Everyone could use a little bit more Neang. I got married to my now wife about a

month and a half ago. After dating for two years, she had some issues with her parents over

the last few years. Essentially, she's been growing and changing as a person while her parents

have stayed the same. They live in a different state in the US so I can imagine seeing their daughter,

their daughter change with each visit could be quite jarring. This will be helpful context

related by my wife is wrapping up school. We're currently living off of my income alone. I'm paid

well, but not killing it by any stretch of the imagination and we're saving to be able to buy a house

in a few years. Anyway, this past weekend, we were driving out to dinner with one of my wife's cousins

that lives in the state. Once you get to call from her dad, we'll call him Tony. This is an

uncommon as Tony will call her often check in. My wife usually has these calls play over the

car speaker so I can join in. This time, Tony leads with, Hey, I know you guys pay for YouTube TV

since you watch a lot of sports. We were wondering if you could add us to your account so I can use

it as well. End quote. At first, I thought this was fine. I was expecting some sort of offer to split

the cost. It became apparent as the conversation went on. This was not the case. Tony mentions that

paying almost $90 a month was getting too steep for him to keep paying, especially with all the

other subscriptions he pays for and that'll save him a ton of money if he's able to just jump

on my subscription. Again, zero mention of splitting the bill. My mother in law, let's call her

Denise. Chimes in and says, quote, tell them it's because we're still paying for her phone bill

and Netflix. All right. While true, the phone bill is cheaper with my wife on their plan and the

Netflix sub was a Christmas gift requested by my wife. It was practically the only gift she got from

her mom for Christmas. The combined cost for both of those services per month is not even close to

the $80 I would pay per month. Denise grew up in hard circumstances, but will often use the

quote, I do X for you. You should do X for me manipulation tactic on her kids. It happens several

times during wedding planning and drove my wife up the wall. Anyway, I mentioned that I was planning

of reducing to just the cheaper sports plan because it's all I use is just for sports to which

my father-in-law asked me to get the news and sports package since he wants to watch the news

on my sub. So now he's making demands and has made no offer to pay. All he said is that it'd be nice

to have some money back in his pocket, which I know damn well will just be spent on Amazon.

Oh, geez. This is pocket watch. Everyone's pocket watch in each other in their families.

Both my wife and I are silently seething at this point in the car. He always offers to pay for

things. So the fact that he didn't makes me think they're really just wanting us to pay

any of X or whatever a month for my in-laws to have TV for free. This is this is not an insane

thing to ask your new son-in-law. Like, don't get me wrong. I like my in-laws, but this feels like

an insane overreach. If they were in financial hardship, I mean, we're willing to do this as a

favorite. He makes over twice my salary. I gave him a non-committal answer to buy myself some time

to think I'm going to figure this out. Do I just ask him to pay his half, particularly when I

will not be touching the news stations? They did pay for half our wedding. Okay. There you go.

Which has me worried. They'll push back and hold that over ahead for the rest of our lives as

you kind of always for this. I do not want my married life relationship with my in-laws to start

on a sour note. Any advice would be appreciated. This is like the stuff I do for my parents anyway.

Like, I'm trying to get them to do this stuff. I'm trying to like here. Look, I logged into this.

You don't have to watch this with commercials. It's here. It's there. I think when you get older,

you're looking for ways to give back. Now, it sounds like he's newly married and she just finished

school so I'm thinking mid-twenties. Maybe you're not at that point yet where you're trying to

find ways to pay your parents back, especially these are your in-laws, so it's a little different.

But if you're counting the dollar for dollar, you just met these people a couple of years ago.

I mean, they've supported their child through everything. They probably put her through school.

They were supporting somehow. They're still paying her. God, they have cell phone.

So, I think, like, doing the dollars to dollars thing isn't going to match. And this is just

part of kind of being a good family. I think that's what the younger people usually set up to

older people with stuff of this nature. Now, it's a little strange that he's making requests, but

you're going to be things about your in-laws that are strange. And I think you're blowing this

one up a little bit. I think it's totally fine. We're talking about half the wedding. I don't know

how many years of YouTube TV. By the way, you could just threaten to cancel YouTube TV. They'll

give you a promo rate for three months. I just did it. I mean, on the wedding thing, like,

if you're this guy, I didn't realize it's a fucking tab. I got to work off the rest of my life.

Well, it's not. I thought it was because it was your dad. He also said half the wedding, by the way.

So it sounds like, hey, that could mean 15 grand. It could mean 60 grand. I don't know what kind

of wedding they have. Yeah, but it doesn't mean all the grand is what I'm saying. It could mean his

parents' papers. Right. That's what I think I'm saying here. I think there's a bad,

go ahead, sweetie, because you're married as well. No, I'm not fighting this. I'm just I'm not

willing. Yeah, it's not cool. And I would be annoyed, but I would be annoyed, like, to my wife

and other people. Yeah. This is what you guys bond over. Maybe like a year of Netflix is her

career. Like, how much did you spend on her Christmas gift versus how much I'm going to do just

for being nice? It's like, it's on the wrong foot to say the least. The system. I'm going to be

arguing with each other about. I don't even know of all the subscriptions that we have to like,

you know, the HBO's and Netflix. I don't even know which family member even has them. We just all

kind of, I don't know, we have a clean watch. I know we don't have the HBO one because it keeps

asked me if I moved. So that's a bummer. But all the other ones, I know I have YouTube TV because

my buddy kind of mooches off a bit a little bit and I let it slide a little bit because he claims

that it's like for soccer, even though it's, you know, he'll pay me like, you know, $50 a year,

which is probably more than that. He's probably listening to spot right now. So what's up?

But I, you know, I just kind of let it slide. I don't know with the, with the, with the

subscription and the fact that she is paying for the cell phone thing, even if it's not even,

I think you just kind of got to take the out here. It's not that much money.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. And normally it's just kind of like, hey, it's not that much. But

he's supporting this guy's daughter while she's studying. So there's no income coming in there.

It sounds like both parties involved here are, and I don't even mean this to be like critical,

but there's people who just completely lose with money and don't even think about it. And

that's probably not the best way to go. And there's other people that are incredibly tight about

everything. And that can be like kind of stressful and not always the greatest. And so it sounds like,

you know, if we're talking about people involved here, like our guy emailing in.

There's not a ton of money coming in. The whole wedding thing like, did you not want to do that

for your daughter that I married? So my problem with this is, generally, I go like,

ah, it's not that big of a deal. Like you're going to have YouTube anyway. I just have them on

the sub avoid the hassle over just a few dollars. It's not that big of a deal. But he said that

they're manipulative that the mother will be like, if I've done this for you, you need to do,

it's like she's keeping score. There's a fucking spreadsheet apparently in these parents' heads,

the entire time. But was that for planning the wedding though? Did she bring that shit up?

Because like the mom wanted the wedding to go one way and she's like, well, I'm paying for

half of this because I mean, that comes. What email are you talking about? Didn't you say that when

she brought up the, ah, the I did this for you, it's because they were planning the wedding or

is it for something else? No, I think that was just a general, because that comes up when you're

doing wedding stuff sometimes. Right. Like, well, we're paying for half the fucking thing. Can't have

azaleas. All right. You say, no, no, she was saying, I do X for you. You should do X for me,

manipulation tactics on her kids. Okay. It's just part of the general upbringing and the entire

thing here. So like, that's a ballsy thing because like on one side, when you look at this and you go,

okay, it's not that big of a deal. I can have you on YouTube. But like, think about what they had to do.

They had to both talk. The in-laws had to talk and be like, hey, why don't we just call them up

and ask them to pay for our YouTube subscription, you know? Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. And then

hey, we have our Netflix thing for getting that it was a Christmas gift. And yeah, she's still on

the family claim of the phone. So if that money's coming out, we need to recoup that somehow.

Like this shit gets really annoying. And it may be worth it. It may be worth it, even though it's

very new. Seeing how they respond to a little defensive tactics being like, hey,

hand it back to the face, we'll see what's up. Yeah, just be like, hey, look, if you want,

you want me to pay for YouTube and then you're telling me which package you want.

Right. But if you want the package, I don't want, then we're going to split it. Just see,

throw it out into the air. See how he responds. Yeah, that package too is probably only like

10 bucks. I feel like this is not that much. Maybe you just say, hey, I'll pay for the base

package. You just kick in for that. And we're even try to work a deal with them. I don't know,

maybe he'll respect you more for that. I'm just saying coming out from a perspective of like,

I don't want to live like that. And if it's not like dire financially, I just don't, I don't

want to even be in that mode. But he might be living like that. If he gives into this is what I'm saying.

Like it may be more beneficial for him, the rest of the relationship. If it's like, hey,

you know what I mean? Just do push back here once. See how it goes. So let me test.

Yeah, these early stages, you're right. You maybe, maybe this is a set the tone moment.

I forgot that he got married less than two months ago. This could be a set the tone moment.

Does he like you? I guess is the question too. You know, if he does like you,

maybe you have a little bit more leeway. If he doesn't like you, maybe it doesn't really matter.

Maybe this will make him respect you more. I don't know. Look at the big balls on Brad.

Or he could be like, you know, I've been really interested in Paramount. So why don't you just get

like think about something you want and see how he's great. How he survived. It's like, you know,

what I really been talking all about. So maybe, yeah, I'll do this. And then you go ahead and

you get Paramount. I heard maybe you want to wait for the merger with HBO because that'd be great.

Then we can have this and see how he responds to that. Or what you could do is since the mom

got the Netflix thing for Christmas, next Christmas, you can be like, well, we didn't get you a gift

because you know, we're paying for your YouTube TV. So you're a long game card that has to

you just write YouTube. Yeah. And then I owe you that you give me. Yeah.

Then your library is all messed up. You're like, crossfire. How's it going on in here?

Crossfire. Wow. That's NCIS. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you're right. Because I think all the ICS's

I think maybe, yeah, if you don't set the tone here, you could end up like our guy who's

from last week who's supposed to be going down to Orlando pretty soon for the world championships

of dance. Did you get any follow ups? I was going to ask a million. I was really worried about it.

Yeah. And it was it was 99. If it looks seriously, if we got 100 emails on people following up

on the guy in the dance thing, it was 99%. You have to go, that's what being in a relationship is.

But I just don't think I don't think people are fully understanding like what those meets are.

Have you ever watched like five minutes of those on ESPN? Yeah. I have. I think I've gotten

YouTube links to like various family members like, hey, two o'clock or start time. Here's the link.

All right. Yeah. Again, a lot of it was just like the general theme was

grow up. You're in a relationship. This is something you're supposed to do. One guy emailed in

and was like, hey, technically driving in a car is more dangerous thing. And it's like, hey,

I've been with anybody who's afraid that it has anxiety. It's just, you know, yeah,

now the time to talk to yourself into being nervous on a flight. No, is it kind of trying it?

So is it fun? No, it isn't. If you'd like really start going like what? I have noticed,

I don't know how what this makes me because I've been flying a lot recently. I have noticed that

like I'm landing and take off. I was never worried at all. Honestly, sometimes I'm like a

sleeper on the takeoff most of the times. And since I've, Ron's going to laugh at me and maybe

think I'm a huge loser. Since I've had two kids, it's in the back of my mind. I'm like, hmm,

he'll jumbled up on the. This one's up. Yeah. Wow. We're never like, and not even,

there's not even really other parts of my life that impacts. It's just what I'm flying. It's so

strange. I can't believe you think I think you're a, you're a lizard because you care about your kids.

No, no, I don't think it's an odd place to think of like it doesn't, I don't think about that

really in any other part of my life, other than when I'm on a plane. I just wild man, what you

can convince yourself of. I just did a, a breaking bad rewatch and I just finished the plane crash

scene yesterday. I got to say, I'm feeling a little different about the whole thing. Just one guy,

well, all the DHS stuff going on. I mean, just the traffic controllers, the same people that

were affected by the TSA guys, like, I don't know, one little slip up makes you think. Yeah,

I got it. I got to say because I was always, my wife, it gets a little nervous around traveling

or whatever. And I would always just throw her the stat like planes don't crash. Like planes,

like, they just don't crash unless like something hits them or something crazy happens. They don't

just crash. I don't know where this is like something that happens. You just hear about the one

every couple of years when they're millions of fights. Never know if you're going to have a

solely in there or not. But I kept, I kept hitting that. Like when those things were happened

like a couple months ago, I'm like, man, this is, maybe I'm taking the L here. Like now,

if suddenly is it safe to fly? I don't know. But, but that's the thing. It's like planes don't

just crash on purpose. Like they are, it's not something that happens. It happens like one side

of a blue moon and something really ridiculous has to happen for that to go down. Yeah, so that turned

into anybody that has flight concerns. It probably made it worse for you. Sorry guys, a little bit there.

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March Madness Grab It at 7-11. Let's do a daycare beef. Chance, what's going on? Thanks for

eating this. Long time, Mr. Ryan's all the way back to the NBA today podcast. It tails from the

couch. Good old days. They run this screen. No impressive gym stats, but I've run seven half

marathons and currently lift, run and cycle, shout out Peloton regularly, NBA comp, big baby,

big baby's out. Well, looking for you is out. Yeah. Yeah. So something. Yeah.

So here's the situation. And it's mostly for Steve. It seems I've got myself a new daycare beef

and I'm looking for advice on what I should do going forward. I'm a data to girls,

one who used to go to the daycare from 20-21 onwards and is now in kindergarten.

And another who just started there last year will be there for another three years. Last Friday,

like I said, dropping off my daughter while holding the door open for another dad. We're both

black for context since everyone online is a white guy until proven otherwise, right?

So black dads to Rudy year are guy. Yep. Yep.

So another dad and his son holding the door open for him. I say to the dad who I've been

seeing on a regular basis for the past few years, quote, what's up boss? He pauses and I think he's

just going to say hire something light. Instead, he says, quote, it's not boss. That's not my name.

If you don't know my name, they don't say shit to me. And quote, that was right by the front desk

with the administrators around. Not sure they heard dumbfounded and kind of stunned. I just kept

him moving outside and continue to process this and just could do nothing but laugh about it.

Am I a punk for not saying something back and what should I do all the other times? I'm going to

see him ignore him, call him out, anything else. Probably don't start with chief. I was going to say

you should start with chief. You should just go through the role of X of nicknames and just

because that's not that mess and insane reaction. You don't know his name. I don't know. I don't know

any of the parents names there. I see them every single day. I don't know any of their names.

So like the idea that I would just know this guy's name randomly is insane.

Maybe he was in a bad mood possibly. I wouldn't advocate for like, you know,

getting into a confrontation at the check-in desk at your kids daycare, probably not the place for it.

But the subtle little like, what's up chief? What's up dude? What's up my guy? Just keep throwing

those at him after a while. And I'm easy bigger than you too. I guess that's always the bigger

question too. But what's he going to do? Fight you in the daycare parking lot? Probably not.

So I don't know. I feel like that's the move. Unless you guys disagree.

I'll say my black friends will stop me when I call him bud guy pal. And I don't know where I picked

this up. But sometimes it just feels right at the end of a sentence phone call. I'm like, what's up bud?

They're like, oh, really bud? Like, I don't know. It's just just a black friends that really don't

stand a couple of Dominican guys will call me out too. But yeah, my white guys, you know,

also they don't even hear it. You're saying. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, we were talking recently because you know, the baseball thing. But yeah, just like bud guy,

pal, like, you know, they like we have a stopover conversation. And that's just something I've

said. This is good knowledge just to have, I guess. That's something I use your friends and the issues

there. I don't even want to say I just don't I don't think I can put my finger on one.

So you're saying is the white guy is a white we like nicknames? Is that it? Just kind of like the

pet. Is it also pet names? Well, I think it's the weird problem. It's like like bud pal guy.

They kind of seem like they're in a certain class. I don't really know what, you know,

it's like a red black. It's a it's a it's a type of, you know, wine that's like different than the

other types. I don't know. It's just like it seems like harm. It's like I, depending on how you say

it is disrespectful. Can be disrespect. I don't think so. But I guess I guess you and my buddies are

guy. I can say guy way worse than I can say boss. He's right. Right. Okay. All right. Boss is like

usually friends. Boss is somewhere in the bend diagram. I don't know where, but it touches that

group. We should do this like the quadrants. Boss can almost seem patriotic. I say each other.

Boss like you say, like you don't almost say it to like a gas station attendant in New Jersey

or something like you're I'm going to run in and just fill her up. Boss, you know what I mean?

Like it could it could seem like I don't know. It seemed remotely disrespectful to me.

I don't know. It could just seem patriotic. A lot of patronizing stuff. That doesn't

as my dad's tough. My dad's tough. My dad's a cow guy. My dad loves pal. I gotta say,

I love your dad's. If your dad's an HVAC and he's saying hey pal, there's automatic buy it.

Okay. All right. He's a good commander. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think on the job site, different guys.

But pal can be delivered a little with a little sting to it. I think bud is tough. I think

guy is brutal, but I had it really. Man, these are all my cults. But he called everybody guy.

And when he did it, it was really endearing. But he had a way of doing it. Got a good cadence with

it. Yeah. What's up guy? I mean, that's to the point where his nickname was guy. Shout out to

the guy. I usually go, man, just, hey, thanks, my man. What's up, my man? So no chief, I never use

chief. I don't think that. I don't think we're allowed. I don't think we're allowed.

I got it. The one thing I would say is it sounds like this guy was having a really rough day.

And maybe you don't hold it against him. That whole don't say shit. The man who knows what he's

going through. But that's like that math is adding up to he had a shit morning and he knew

a shit afternoon in store for him. And maybe a life. Yeah. Could be. Right. Maybe maybe

fries and stuff too. Fuck that guy. Because if you're going to, if you're going to ask

it, it's at that point in your kids entrance to their daycare. Like cool. Like are you

had a bad day? And it's my fault now because I just like had a friendly, like pretty innocuous

greeting to you. No, I'm not buying that. You guys do just both did a great job here because

I think the ending point of Kyle, like I'll never forget one of the first bartending jobs I had.

I was not even 21. So now I'm like kind of seeing how things work. I've got access to this

lifestyle. And everybody's so much older than me. And it's just kind of wild. And I'm even in

this position. And there was so much work there. What's yes, so much to learn. So many lessons.

It was like taking a summer course on just being older. Yeah. Totally. You're like, I

could be how many hours every day. And there was a guy that we worked with who was older, weathered,

seen some shit. Yeah. Tell me one guy. And another guy came up and called him dude. And he lost

his mind. And then actually said calling a white guy dude is like calling a black guy. No way.

He used the word as you were setting up. And it was all like some of the door guys were black.

And people were just like, he was so unhinged that I don't even know that anybody was mad.

They were just like a spectacle. What is wrong with that fucking guy? And then you got

this like slowly like got more access to him. I'm like something like this guy is fucked.

Like he is in a fight every single day with the world. And so this is not the same thing.

Because I mean, that was ridiculous. But you wouldn't argue the man is fired of dude.

People were just like, what? Yeah, I mean, you want to talk about it to delivery where it's like

the whole you know, just setting up. And it's like, whoa, like what?

And keep people just looking at me like, did he just say that? And then there's like

the further debate of like, that's also not even close. Yeah. But then it's like, you don't

argue the merits of that argument with that guy. So that's the thing. You're like, are we too far gone?

No, he stormed out. He stormed it. He didn't stick around. Because I think he knew like, maybe

nothing here. And wow, everyone else is just like in shock for half an hour going, it's one

thing to do everything that he did. But but then on top of that, like that's the conclusion that

you've come to in life. Yeah. And then guys were like, you have to next time somebody's

season, they have to call them dude. They have to call them dude. And I was like, I'm out.

What it? I don't what would be key be like, what's up, Kang?

That's not my world. That's not my world. I don't know. I don't know. Just asking.

I don't know. Because I would not do that. But I gotta say, I might even

I might even be like, next time it's like, Hey, I'm Kyle. Nice to meet you.

Oh, you don't want to be. I don't want to be friendly with this guy though. I know I'm not

trying to be friendly with this guy. No, do you just leave it? You just totally leave it with him.

I think you go and do it with excitement. I can't wait. Like if you're the emailer, you should

be looking forward to the next transaction with so much anticipation. You should just be like,

I can't like, I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to try a different nickname.

I'm not going to do anything. I may even if I'm stuck in a door shuffle, however it works,

and I've got to open the door form again. I may just give him like a smile, not like a condescending

smile, but like, this is going to be fun. You know, the drop off, you got to do it all the time.

Rarely do you have something to look forward to. So I hear, uh, I think in this spot, it would be

it's going to be like something to look forward to because this guy clearly has a lot of shit

that he's carrying around for you. It's one thing that he got that mad at it, but then actually

ends with don't say shit to me. If you don't know my name, who the fuck says that?

I think there's a lot of avenues to go, but absolutely.

Yeah. All right. Well done. Well done.

That'll do it for the show today. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Kevin. Thanks to Tom.

I'm sorry to Kyle. That's Saturday. Let's go. Oh, man. Let me make you up after the first round.

When do they play Thursday or Friday? Friday. Friday.

Yeah, real nice time. Seven o'clock. You're time for my time.

Hmm. Good for you. So we'll, uh, we'll get suited up. I may even wear a tank top that day.

Just a round. Look out. All right. That'll do it for the show.

Brian Russel will show. Please subscribe.

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