Sweet 16 Part 2 & Baseball Begins

0:00looking for these better days. It is Friday, March 27th. I'm Scott Sidenberg. Here's what you need to know to make today a better day. Major League Baseball opening day in the books. A rough start for Paul Schienz. Two great finishes and two not so great games. And last night's sweet 16 action. We'll get to that. And more here on this episode of Better Day, presented by Fandall. Could it be a quick pod? We did so much breakdown of the sweet 16 over the last couple of days. We did one pod with Colby Marcio, who, by the way, had a free play winner up on betterday.com with Illinois plus the points plus two and a half. Illinois wins outright against Houston in absolutely embarrassing effort by the Houston Cougars last night. Final score in that game was 65-55. The game goes way under. But Houston had, it was 24-22 at the end of the first half. And then Houston had 26 points with about 12 minutes left in this game. Like it was just an embarrassing effort from Houston.

1:03Had nothing to do with the sight lines and the arena. Like this is the same building that they scored 82 points in earlier this season and shot 50% from the field. No, this was just bad strategy last night. Calvin Samson, I don't know what he was doing. I'm not going to question the guys, a Hall of Fame coach. But Houston got to the free throw line one time. They shot two free throws last night. That's it. They did not attack the basket at all and watching the broadcast late in the game. You know, they're down like seven, eight, nine at the end and possessions are at a premium. And you know, obviously they just want to run and chuck up a three and then do a quick foul. But then it was sharp who kind of just attacked the rim and got a layup and Stan Van Gundy who's on the broadcast is like, where was this all game? And that's when I tweeted it out. Yeah, where was this all game? They did not attack the basket. But I don't want to take anything away from Illinois. Their rim protections great. Their size is impressive. What a great season it's been for them.

2:04What a great effort it was defensively last night. They didn't shoot that great themselves. Like they were 43% from the field. Nine of 23 from three. When it was all said and done, Houston was nine of 32 from three point range. But Houston, yeah, just two free throws on the night. Rebounds 43, 34 in favor of Illinois. And it was just a really impressive performance. One sided the entire way. Same thing for the Arizona game against Arkansas. Completely one sided. Arizona scored 109 points. Get this. They beat Arkansas 109 88 last night. Arizona made just five three pointers. They were five of eight from three point range and they scored 109 points. I'm sorry. What? Yeah, that's right. They had five three pointers and scored 109 points. Just an insane performance from the team

3:05that I have winning the national championship. And very happy that they won, covered and advanced. Not happy that Houston is out because I've been singing the praises of this Houston team playing at home all week. We did full previews of the sweet 16 with, as I mentioned, Kobe Marcio earlier this week, Joe Cerralo as well and AJ Hoffman. Plus Kobe and Jake Hassan did their sweet 16 preview. It's all up for you guys right now up on the better day. Podcast feed and we've been sending out the plays and the breakdowns in the newsletter every day. In today's newsletter, we also recapped what everybody's plays were for the sweet 16 games coming up here tonight. We'll get to those games in just a moment. Last night though, we had two, one great finish, one really good finish. The great finish was Trey Kaufman, Ren's tipping in the closing seconds as Purdue got by the 11th seed Cinderella. Yeah, for lack of a better term. Texas 79, 77, the final score. And then in the big 10 battle, it was Iowa defeating

4:09Nebraska 77 71. All of these teams shot lights out in the first half. They were a combined 14 of 25 from three point range in the first half at halftime. We gave out a live play to better day premium members on the second half to go under 70 and a half. We also recommended if it was 70, you can play it. I would have even played it at 69 and a half. Well, whatever number you got, it didn't even matter. The second half naturally was much lower scoring than the first half, only 59 point scored in that second half. Iowa wins 77 71 defensive breakdown for Nebraska late in the game, led to a crucial possession there for Iowa. But now the big 10 gets three teams. And we knew there were guarantees to get at least one team because Illinois and Houston playing each other, but three teams now out of the big 10, or excuse me, with Iowa and Nebraska playing each other. But three teams in the big 10 are now in the elite eight.

5:10There is the potential for two more because tonight Michigan State plays UConn and also Michigan taking on Alabama. So the possibility of five of the eight spots in the elite eight belonging to the big 10, why is that so massive? Well, the big 10 has not won the NCAA tournament since Michigan State in 2000. That's right. 2000 was the last time a big 10 team won the national championship. And we have the potential. We know that they're guaranteed at least one team in the final four because we already have and we have another big 10 matchup here in the elite eight. And that is Illinois against Iowa. I saw a stat online where it's just the second time, I believe in tournament in the tournament, where there's conference games in both the sweet 16 and the elite eight, meaning like playing a conference opponent. So Illinois and Iowa guaranteed to have one big 10 team

6:11in the final four. And then your other matchup in the elite eight is Arizona against Purdue, the one two matchup in the West region. That should be a fascinating game. And hopefully we get Arizona in there. And we'll see if Duke wins tonight. We'll talk about the games coming up here in just a moment and Michigan if they can win and get through to the final four as well because our largest investment that we made or I should say my largest investment that I made prior to this tournament was the bet that we talked about on the live stream. I believe it was with Steve Fesick a couple of weeks ago for our better day premium members. And it was the amount of one seeds to make it into the final four. We bet over one and a half one seeds in the final four. At the time on MGM, it was minus 125. It then since shot up to almost minus 200. But that was my biggest investment was the over one and a half one seeds to make the final four. Still alive, three one seeds still alive here in this tournament.

7:13Let's see what happens in the elite eight tonight here. In the sweet 16, these odds courtesy of our friends over at the Fandals Sportsbook. Duke, a six and a half point favorite over St. John's total of 141 and a half. Michigan, an eight and a half point favorite over Alabama, total of 173 and a half. You can, one and a half point favorites over Michigan State, total of 134 and a half. And Iowa State, a four and a half point favorite over Tennessee, total there of 139. And a half and still no word on the availability here of Joshua Jefferson for Iowa State. There's no, they call it a game time decision, but no official word on his availability. We will find out that later on tonight and see if that line moves as we get closer and closer to tip off of the nightcap tonight between Iowa State and Tennessee. For a full breakdown of these games, you can listen to our previous episodes this week right here on the Better Day podcast feed.

8:15Like I said, we did a full breakdown with Kobe Marcio, a full breakdown with Joe Sorralo, a full breakdown with AJ Hoffman. We will summarize everybody's picks in the newsletter. So you'll be able to read that up on betterday.com or if you are a subscriber, it just gets emailed to you in the morning, same time as this podcast gets released. And so the picks or the leans, plays, picks, whatever you want to call it, will be there in the newsletter from a consensus of what everybody said over the past couple of days here with tonight's games. You guys know where I stand. It's St. John's in the under for me in this one tonight. I don't think anybody has disagreed with me on that. We've had a couple of disagreements with all these other games, but yeah, it is St. John's and the under for me in this game with tonight. Made the league baseball opening day was yesterday and the day got started with one of the more interesting outcomes that I don't think anybody expected to say. Paul Schienz did not make it out of the first inning

9:16as the New York Metz roughed him up for five runs in the bottom of the first inning. Now it wasn't all his fault. Was Schienz great? No. Was he off his game a bit? Maybe did his performance in the world baseball classic lead to his struggles here early on? I don't know that's up for debate. Was he missing that? No, the Metz fouled off a bunch of pitches against him, but his defense let him down, specifically Onio Cruz, who misplayed a line drive slash fly ball that led to a bases clearing triple and then he dropped a fly ball on the sun that led to some more runs. So instead of the Metz maybe scoring two runs in that inning on what could have been a sack fly and then a pop out, then the score would have been 2-2 and Schienz stays in the game. Five runs by the Metz in the bottom of the first inning and Schienz gets pulled after just 37 pitches and 2-3 of an inning he gets charged with five runs

10:17and it's really BS that he gets charged with five earn runs because he shouldn't have because it was Onio Cruz. That's really a play that a major league baseball player should make, but hey, the official score card ruled it not an error and so the runs do score there. Well, Pittsburgh did have one error, but five earned runs were charged to Schienz there on that play. I agree with the decision. I really do. I agree with the decision to pull Paul Schienz there because it's the first day of the season and yeah, things were not going well for him. The two misplays by Onio Cruz, five runs and already scored at that point could you come back and win the game short but do you want Schienz to put some unnecessary stress on his arm? Absolutely not. At that point you knew that he was likely to get emotional because things were not going his way. His defense was not doing him any favors and you just didn't want him to overdo it here

11:18and game one of the regular season so I completely agree with the decision to pull him. Metz get the win 11 to seven. Elsewhere yesterday in opening day, Matthew Boyd looked anything but the part as the Cubs fell to the nationals 10 to four. So how about the nationals off to a 1-0 start a team that many including myself have predicted to have the least amount of wins in Major League Baseball. They start off the season with a win 1-0 on the year. Hey, they're in first place and this might be the only time in the season where they can say that. Brewers blew out the White Sox 14 to 12. Jacob Mizorowski have yourself a day. The kid winds up striking out 11 batters in five innings. All in all, the Brewers struck out 20 of the White Sox batters in that game yesterday. Terrible start to the season for the White Sox. Orioles beat the twins two to one. Red Sox blank the reds three nothing. Good start by Garrett Crochet,

12:19who is a favorite for the American League side young award. Mike Trav with a Homer as the Angels blank. The Astros three nothing. Tigers beat the Padres eight to was the Phillies over the Rangers five three. Christopher Sanchez stopped me if you've heard this before. Six innings for Christopher Sanchez with no runs allowed and 10 strikeouts just three hits allowed. Christopher Sanchez is a quality start machine. It's six innings every time. You know what you're going to get. The 10 strikeouts was just a cherry on top. If he's like this for the entire of the season, he will be a side young candidate and the Phillies will have a strong case in the National League. Elsewhere the Cardinals and 97 win over the raise. The Dodgers were shut down for the first couple innings by Zach Allen, but then they exploded in the bottom of the fourth. They go on to beat the Diamondbacks eight to two. And then the Guardians get a six four win over the Mariners in Seattle last night. So all it all overs, and we talked about this. We talked about this for Joe Sarala. We talked about it earlier this week. The March overs were a positive trend.

13:22The March first game of a series overs were a positive trend. Well, overs went seven, three and one yesterday. Favorites went seven and four on the money lines. Let's take a look at the schedule for today in Major League Baseball. The Yankees and Giants are back in action after they had the off day yesterday after opening nights. It will be Cam Schliitler on the mound for the Yankees Robbie Ray goes for the Giants up on Fandall right now. The Yankees minus 124 with a total of seven and a half just to the over at minus 122. The A's are at the Blue Jays in Toronto. Kevin Gosman for Toronto, Luis Severino goes for the A's. And it is the A's, excuse me, the Blue Jays minus 164 total of eight and a half. Kyle Freeland on the mound for the Rockies in Miami against San D'Alcantra. Marlins minus 196 total of seven and a half.

14:22Royals visit the Braves, Cole Regans on the mound for the Royals. Chris Cell goes for Atlanta Braves minus 144 total of seven and a half. You say Kikuchi on the mound for the Angels, Mike Burrows for the Astros in Houston. Astros minus 168 total of eight and a half. Framber Valdez starts for the Detroit Tigers making his first start as a member of the Tigers. Michael King will counter for the San Diego Padres. Padres minus 118 total of seven and a half. The Guardians are at the Mariners, Gavin Williams for Cleveland. George Kirby goes for Seattle, the M's minus 180 with a total of seven. And Emmett Sheen on the mound for the Dodgers as they host the Diamondbacks. Ryan Nelson starts for Arizona Dodgers minus 210 favorites. Total of eight and a half. A couple of interesting games in the NBA tonight. The Atlanta Hawks visit the Boston Celtics. The Celtics, a four and a half point favorite. Total on that one, 224 and a half.

15:23The Oklahoma City Thunder who had their winning streak snapped by the Boston Celtics will look to bounce back tonight as they take on the Chicago Bulls. And we talked about this. It's a great spot to back the Thunder. They're 19 and a half point favorites in this game. But it's thunder or past. Like I can see them blowing out the bulls here. It is traditionally a great spot to back a team that has a lengthy winning streak snapped because they usually just get right back up on the horse. You have the possibility of maybe a tank of Paloza or lay. If you were inclined, it would be the Clippers over the Pacers. We're going to price this out up on Fandole. You can do Clippers over the Pacers. You can throw the Thunder in there over the Chicago Bulls, right? Just because they're 20 and a half point favorites or what not. Let's see. You would do the nuggets over the Utah Jazz Warriors over the Washington Wizards. And then the Lakers over the Brooklyn Nets.

16:24That is a five leg money line parlay up on Fandole right now. It is minus 160. If you wanted to throw the Blazers over the Mavericks in there, there are 10 point favorites. I don't really like that. I guess you could take the Clippers out of it. There are only nine and a half point road favorites. Well, if you do that, now you're at minus 350. So you've got to throw somebody else in there in this tank of Paloza parlay. Hey, maybe the Rockets over the Memphis Grizzlies. They're 12 and a half point favorites. That makes it minus 219. So I guess you're better off throwing in either the Blazers or the Clippers. I mean, really the Pacers are the tanking team. So it would be the Clippers would be the team that I would put in there. It might as 119 if you make it six legs. Heck, we throw Portland in there as well. Now we're cooking with gas. I mean, we're not serious about this stuff, but there are people that are very interested in betting these tank of Paloza parlay.

17:25The NHL regular season is winding down. And I saw somebody on Twitter last night and I forgot who it was. So I apologize for not giving proper credit. But they were saying, maybe it's time to have a legitimate conversation about the Vegas Golden Knights not making the Stanley Cup playoffs. And they're right. The Knights have not been in a good form lately. Still in third place in the Pacific Division, though, with 79 points, but they are in danger of falling out because the Kings are right there with 76 just three points in back of them. Don't look now Seattle. There's only five points back with 74 points. So teams are still alive here in the NHL in the final couple of games here of the regular season. Here's what's on your schedule for tonight. Just two games. Red wings are at the Sabers, Buffalo minus 155. Black Hawks visit the Rangers, New York minus 162. Once again, be sure to check out the other pods, the other episodes here on this better day podcast feed

18:29because it's not just our better day pods that we had earlier this week with myself and Kobe Marcio, myself and Joe Cerralo, myself and AJ Hoffman, but also Kobe and Jake Hassan did two episodes of their Off the Board podcast talking Major League Baseball opening day, talking sweet 16. So you want to make sure that you guys check that out. That pod also streams live when they record it live on Twitter, live on our YouTube page and go back and watch the episodes on YouTube, on Twitter, et cetera. Make sure you're following us on social media at better day, at better underscore day on Twitter. You can follow the better day YouTube page as well. We're on Instagram and the Major League Baseball Game Center is live. That's right. The Game Center is live. I forgot to lament about our loss yesterday. I decided to try a ladder challenge to celebrate the kickoff of the Game Center. And I said I'm going to pick one prop edge from the Major League Baseball Game Center to start the ladder challenge.

19:30And the prop edge that I selected was Boba Shit of the Metz over one and a half hits plus runs plus RBI's. Every the Metz, every single player on the Metz went over one and a half hits plus runs plus RBI's with the exception of Boba Shit. He had a sack fly RBI in the first inning, and then he went over four for the rest of the game, including three strikeouts, terrible at bats, even though the broadcast was like, he had some good at bats. Why? Because he fouled off a bunch of pitches. If you watched the pitches he was swinging yet, they were not strikes. The one at bat that really bothered me, and I tweeted this out as well as I was finting about that loss was there were bases loaded and less than two outs. So just put the ball in play. You're probably going to get an RBI, right? Sack fly, RBI, whatever. Just get hit by a pitch and you get an RBI. Just take a walk and you get an RBI. Boba Shit fouled off, I think it was 10 pitches during the at bat.

20:30And I think it was a total 13 to 15 pitch at bat, whatever it was. Anyway, if you go look at the stat cast and you go look at like the pitch chart, almost all of his five swings that he fouled off were pitches outside the zone that would have been ball four on five of those pitches. He could have walked five times in that at bat and cashed for us, but not to be the case. Anyway, I'm done venting about that. We move on to the next day. It is a very, very long major league baseball season, a marathon, certainly not a sprint. But check out our MLB game center. It is free for everybody up on betterday.com right now. You don't even have to be a subscriber. It is free for the public as well as our live odds and score page, free for the public up on betterday.com. And then eventually the MLB game center will be exclusively for better day insider and premium members to learn how you can become a better day insider or premium member and have access to all of our tools, like the NBA game center as well and all the databases that we have.

21:34You can click on the link on our homepage up on betterday.com. I'm Scott Saddenberg. Here's hoping you make today and every day a better day. You can click on the link on our homepage up on betterday.com.