Where Does this Michigan Team Rank All-Time?

0:00Hey sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows and originals across every ESPN network in service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN and limited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up then start streaming in the ESPN app. So all of ESPN all in one place, sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbond, his national coffee cake day, Tony. Just has him, Sarah Lee, myself this morning. Are you a coffee cake guy? I'm Tony Koenizer, no. 100% beef cake, baby. Beef cake, that's me. Does Sarah Lee have beef cake? Do they make that? I'm not, I'm not certain, but I am certain of this Mike that nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee, right? No, you just respect, maybe it's in the 70s, maybe beyond?

1:00Yeah, 50 years. Has to be 50, but that's slogan. Has to be 50. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, Victor Wemba Nyama goes down, Wilson Contreras threatens the brewers and Scott Van Pelt joins us from Augusta for five good minutes. But we begin today with last night's NCAA championship game, which Michigan won 69-63 over UConn. This is Michigan's first championship since 1989. It's the big 10s first championship since 2000. It's the first time ever that Connecticut has lost the NCAA final. Previously, they were 6-0. Neither team shot well last night, but it was a competitive game. Wilbond, how do you see this Michigan team? Tony, as a great team, a great team that beat worthy challengers. Goodness knows, UConn is the most worthy of challengers, given what we know about their recent history, and I want to give Kudos to Michigan's athletic department for winning first in college football a couple of years ago, the national championship.

2:00And now basketball is a big 10 alum. I'm both proud and jealous, I must say. But Tony, if we're talking about comparing these Michigan teams, and that's what we always go, to other teams produced by the University of Michigan and basketball, great teams, they're not with the fab five of Chris Weber, Joanne Howard, and Jalen Rose, not to me. And then not even with necessarily that 1989, which had multiple pros and a couple of guys from more than a dozen years, and this team will have pros. And I give Dusty May all the credit in the world in this new era for pulling guys, the first one out of a trans, all out of the transfer portal, all of them. And putting together a title team, you got to do that on the run. That takes a certain creativity, a certain discipline, a stick to it if it's good for them. But am I putting them above the fab five? No, I'm not. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So yesterday on this show, I said that I thought that Michigan could win and should win, but that seven and a half points were too much for me. So I believe I got that right.

3:05Yukon did everything they could do defensively. Michigan rolled into this game, having scored 90 points or more in five straight NCAA tournament games. Five straight. I mean, and they were held to 69 points by Connecticut. If Connecticut shoots well, they win. But Michigan plays defense too. Michigan held Connecticut. I believe the 31% shooting from the field, 27% 3, 9 of 33. And that's the worst game we're shooting game Yukon had all year. What do I think of Michigan? Now, I think they're a worthy team. I think they're big and they're strong and they play inside basketball. Mike, they got 61 of their 69 points, either from the paint or from the foul line. That's that's really impressive. They dictated the way the game should be played. And I also think this, I think that they are better than Michigan state. They are better than Illinois. They are better than Purdue. They're better than Iowa. They're better than Nebraska. And all those big ten

4:05teams, one at least two games in this tournament. So Michigan, and this is a, I'm not going to go back into terms of eras, but I'm going to say that this is a really good team and give Dustin a lot of things. They took Florida Atlantic to the final four a couple of years ago, three, four years ago, whatever it was. And now he's won a national championship. I will tell you this, though, Mike, I wonder how they're feeling at Duke. Because Duke beat Michigan in a neutral side game. And if they had held on and beaten Yukon, maybe they're in the final, maybe they win that final. Yeah, yeah. I think at Michigan right now, they're pounding their chest a little bit, standing on the top of the world. They earned it. They deserve it. Congratulations. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Let's move to last night's injury to bow your heads. Victor Wimbanyama. He and Paul George collided early in the second quarter. When we left with an injury, do his left ribs returned briefly and then departed for good before the half after playing a total of just more than 15 minutes,

5:08tone. What are the potential impacts here? Okay. So I don't know the extent of the injury. I mean, client to say it's not that serious, but you know, I don't know if he had to miss a playoff game or two. It's a long time to the playoffs for him because the planes have to go through. So I'm not worried about that, but we did talk about Don Chitchin Reeves being lost to the Lakers for some time on yesterday's show. So I'm not going to make some categorical statement here because I don't know about this. I think the larger issue for me is how the NBA is wrapped up in knots with this 65 game rule in order to get any postseason awards. You got to play 65 games, right? So 65 games. If you don't play it, you can't be the MVP. You can't be an all NBA team. You can't be the defensive player of the year, which Wemba Nyanum certainly would be. At the moment, I don't think the NBA makes a distinction between load management misses or injury misses. They're

6:08just counting the 65. And Wemba Nyanum is at 64. All right. So he's got to play one more game and he wants to play. But Mike, can you imagine how terrible it would be if he played in that game just to be eligible for the awards and got hurt further? Be terrible. Yeah. Yeah, it would be, Tony. It would be you get all these possibilities now. And you know what? You know, you know how much I love Victor Wemba Nyanum and this whole season for me has been about watching him. But he had some games in there that were probably load management too. So I mean, you know, so be careful what you do along the way. And that's not directed only at him, but maybe the coaches and the executives and the people who make these decisions now on winning how long to sit people out. So you know how I feel about load management. It's a scourge of the league. It's it's loads him. And so you might get bit by it yourself. Luckily, and you mentioned this, Victor Wemba Nyanum has two weeks. He's got the, you know, the sort of this week. This is the last regular season week. And the play in time

7:12because San Antonio wouldn't play until the weekend like Saturday, Sunday of the following week would be game one of a playoff series. So in terms of him missing playoff time. You know, Tony, that's all I care about. It really is for me. It's his selfish now for somebody who loves pro basketball and who's followed this league is his whole professional life. This regular season, this regular season was a massive disappointment on a hundred levels. And if the NBA can't figure out how to get its players fully engaged as much or more than the fan base, too bad when it comes to the awards, which I vote on. I hate seeing it tied in knots, but maybe that's what this league deserves right now. I'm just going to say this, Mike. This kid said he wanted to be the MVP. He said this out loud. This is a kid who wants to be the face of the league. And right now, it looks like the league is preventing him from doing that. And I would reach out to Adam and Silver and say, what's going on here? What's going on? Let's move to baseball. And last night's threat

8:15by Red Sox first baseman Wilson Contreras to take out a random Milwaukee Brewer. Contreras was hit in the hand in the third inning by Milwaukee pitcher Brandon Woodruff. If you're going to first base, Contreras yelled at Woodruff. And then he slid hard into second spikes up and tore the uniform of Milwaukee shortstop David Hamilton around his left knee. After the game, Contreras said, quote, they always say, I'm not trying to hit you. That gets old. So next time they hit me, I'm going to take one of them out unquote. Well, but Contreras is threat fair or foul. It's not just fair. It's required. It's baseball. It's been around 150 years. We've seen people stand on dugout stairs and yell at everybody on the opposition, including the other dugout. And that's Hall of Famers at times yelling at Hall of Famers. They've hit him a million times because he's been on rival teams, the Cubs and the Cardinals, his whole career, even as his brother was on the other team. And they they know what they're doing. The Brewers know what they're doing. So I would

9:16go full Bert Campaneras on the Brewers if I was Contreras. And that means batsling in like it laryn la gro back in like 1977. You want to you want to throw a weapon at me? I got one to throw at you. Okay. And I hear you. And I know you say that a lot as a Cubs fan and and and I understand that. Do I have to bring up the specter of Dustin Padroya MVP second baseman? And Machado basically ended his career with a slide not unlike Contreras' slide yesterday. I understand why Contreras says this isn't a number shocking to me. He's been hit 131 times in his career. He's been hit by the Brewers 24 times. That's 10 more times than by any other team. He's been hit by his pitcher Woodruff six times. And I understand that because when he's with the Cubs and the Cardinals, they play each other a thousand times a year. Yeah. I get that. And I get his pain. But to say I'm going to take one of you out. That strikes me as to me. It's going a little bit far far. I mean, if the

10:16threat is just to the Brewers, then I think it's manageable because now he's a Red Sock. They're not going to play each other that much. But if I'm an infielder on the Brewers, I go to my pitching staff today. And I say, hey, don't drill this guy. I got a whole career to think about. But Mike, what if his threat is to the entire league? What if the next team that hits him, he goes crazy. And by the way, his brother is the catcher, right? At the walkie. What if he takes him out at home, play? What if he takes him out? What? Let's take a break, baby. Coming up. Well, there's Scott there in Pell Tower fields in Augusta without Tiger without Phil. We'll also ask him about defending champ Rory and world number one Scotty, as they head toward the start of play. It's on his baseball. Can I ask you something? You hate, you hate NHL fighting, but you like baseball fighting. How do you know that? No, I don't like fighting. But if you hit me with a baseball, I'm coming at you. I'm coming at you.

11:18From 30 for 30 podcasts. Brian Pada, senior defensive lineman for Miami, gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. A hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing what's about. This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction. It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver. 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships. Buried cash. And a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts.

12:25It's Master's Week and we are thrilled to be joined from Augusta by a great friend and our bald brother, ESPN, Scott Van Peltz. Scott, so let's start with this. No tiger. No fill at the masters for the first time since 1994. How does it feel to you without them there? Tony, it feels different certainly because this is a place that more than any other in this game, I think, invites people to reflect on memories. It's 40 years since Jack and 86 and that will obviously be discussed and remembered throughout this week. But so much of Jack, beyond 86, you go back in time with Jack and Arnold and Gary and it's black and white pictures maybe, right? Which takes us into the past in history. Tiger and Phil lived all of what they did and vivid, vibrant color and they've won eight of them combined. And so it feels the same in terms of

13:32a sense of optimism and joy to be here on the property, but it's undoubtedly different. Their presence changes things even though they would certainly not want to be described as ceremonial, just seeing them if you're a patron or if you're covering it is something that gives you a little jolt and that will be missing this week undoubtedly. Well, one guy that won't be missing of course is defending champ Rory and Scott Tony and I've been wondered about this like all year. Is he good? Does he burn to win it again or add to his total what's been around Rory for a long time yourself now? What's your sense of him as defending champ? I'll say the three hardest words for any of us to say in this business, Michael. Honestly, I don't know and I'm fascinated to I'm fascinated to find out and I'll tell you why. I think forever this place represented a finish line of sorts, right? To join that fraternity to finish the race and become a grand slam champion. When you saw him fall to his knees and then literally face first on the green, I said to him when

14:34I saw him at the PGA championship at Quail Hollow, I said, seemed like you were holding back more in that damn than you knew until you let it burst and he said it's true. And so having completed that, where's the motivation? Is he's good still as good as anyone? I don't think we doubt that. I just don't know where's the fuel tank in terms of want to and so I don't know what we'll see. Unencumbered by that untethered from that that boulder he was dragging behind him. Is he freed up to just go bananas? Wouldn't surprise me. But if he's content, that wouldn't either. So, I mean, it's a lousy answer, but it's an honest one. No, no, it's a great answer. All right. So, we're wondering about Scottie's chapter two before a different set of circumstances. He, and we all three of us know what this is like. He's his life, his professional life has been interrupted by being dead. And I don't know if he's a diaper changer. I certainly was. But, but where, where's Scottie right now? Is he the world number one? Or is, is he dead right now?

15:37We're going to have to put that off for a little bit. I think we found that, that we know this to be true, that he is, he has a ravenous appetite to compete and he loves to win. But then that isn't what fulfills him. That doesn't complete him in any way, shape or form. I remember he went to the open championship last year and was like, ah, and then after he won, he won. And he's, and they were saying, are you happy you won? Because they were legitimately curious if that was it, it all satisfying to him. And so, I, I know what, what fuels Scottie. It's his family and his faith. First and second and whatever order, combination of the two. But he's a hell of a fighter and he's a great player. His issue this year, Michael, has been real simple. He's got that one odd round where he's sort of pedestrian. And then the other three, Scottie, Sheffler. So one of these weeks, maybe this one, he plays four Scottie Sheffler rounds and he puts on the green jacket again and you go, well, of course. But I don't think the dad thing is it is going to in any way be a

16:37net negative. I think it's a positive for sure for Scottie. We will get you out of here on this. Who are the contenders in your mind that you are intrigued by particularly this week? Zander for sure. Patrick reads the name I keep hearing. This golf course might be very firm. If the weather should be spectacular, wouldn't surprise anybody if he competed here as a past champion well and perhaps one again. I hope, and we're not supposed to root, but I hope Justin Rose has a chance to win again. Twice in his life, he played 72 holes, got to Sunday evening and no one was lower. And then he didn't win either time because he lost in playoffs. I'd love it if you won. But the guy I'm picking is Bryson. I think this is a place where you learn the golf course over time. He famously said par was what, 67 and everyone is like, is that right? And maybe the golf gods didn't smile on that idea. And he's figured it out some finished tied for fifth last year and he arrives having won a couple of times on live. So his form is really good. I feel like

17:39Bryson's a guy comes Sunday evening. I don't know what the size is. He's a big fella, but I believe like I believe Bryson could be your master's champion. Scott, it's a great pleasure for us. Thank you for coming to show. Appreciate it. Enjoy yourself this week. Thank you and enjoy yourself. Thanks. Thank you, men. Sports Center at the Masters begins at New and Eastern tomorrow. Let's take one last break, but still to come. Fernando Mendoza makes an unusual decision with respect to the NFL draft. And don't say he releases the statement about Friday nice issues with Gina. Wilvon, you changed diapers. You don't strike me as a diaper changer. You just told me right away. You know who got me there? You know who convinced me to do it from day one? Stuart Scott. Stuart Scott. Really? He said, do it. When did you stop? Get fired on your tie when you walk out the house. Do all of it. Stuart convinced me to do it and I'm grateful.

18:44Happy time. People. Happy 47th birthday, Adrian Beltrade. Beltrade was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2024. Beltrade played third for the Dodgers, the Mounders, the Red Sox, and the Rangers over 21 seasons. The most years Beltrade had with any one team was eight with Texas. Over the course of his career, Beltrade batted 286 with 477 home runs and 1,707 RBI. Beltrade's biggest number was 3,166 hits, 18th all-time. Beltrade led the majors with 48 home runs in 2004 when he was playing with the Dodgers. He also had 120 on RBI that year, a personal best. Beltrade was a five-time gold glove, a four-time silver slugger. Tony among third baseman, he's ahead of Ron Santo in Brooks Robinson, which is hard for me to imagine, but he's third behind Mike Schmidt. We all knew that. In Eddie Matthews, if you remember, 512 for Eddie Matthews, I think 548 for Schmidt, but still, that's that's the hell of a career.

19:48Happy anniversary Syracuse. On this day, 23 years ago, the orange led by freshman Carmelo Anthony and Jerry McNamara, who hit six threes in the first half, beat Kansas for Jim Beheim's only national championship. Anthony and McNamara will be reunited for the upcoming basketball season, as McNamara was recently named head coach at Syracuse, and one of his players is Carmelo's son, Cayenne. Cayenne Anthony was a reserve guard last season, playing 18 minutes a game for A.G. and Autry, another fine form of Bayhine player who was fired after three seasons of 49 and 48 record and no postseason appearances. That was one great season by Carmelo Anthony, a freshman before that many freshman had that kind of impact on the game, and then Carmelo was next great, the next year's rookie in Denver, and he got cheated out of the rookie of the year war, because people decided to forecast LeBron James' career. Carmelo, national champion, this should have been rookie of the year. Happy trails to all but one lady,

20:49Val. The Tennessee women's basketball team is in shambles at the moment. Two seniors are graduating. Every other player with remaining eligibility is in the portal, and nearly the entire recruiting class, once ranked number 10 in the country has decommitted. This leaves only incoming freshman Gabby Minas. Second year head coach Kim Cawdwell made headlines earlier this season, when she said her team, quote, has had a lot of quit in us, unquote, before going one and eight down the stretch. What she called them, quitters? Now they appear to have quit on her. I'm not saying she's a bad coach. I'm saying that situation is a disaster. It is, Tony. Look, I have no idea if the great volunteer, Candace Parker is interested in a coaching career, but I tell you what, if I'm a University of Tennessee's athletic department, you got to pick up the phone and call Candace Parker. Whether it's as a consultant, whether you want to make her tell you know, you got to get this thing turned around. That's the person I first think of. One omission, Cubs starting pitcher Cade Horton will have season ending elbow surgery.

21:52Look. That's the two to press the finish to show now. Let's keep going. All right, let's go to the big finish. We don't have much to do. Do you want to stay the released statement saying she spoke with Gina Warriema that one moment does not define a career in asking everyone to turn the page. Your thoughts. I knew Don Staley would find the high road is too bad. Geno can't. Juan Soto was out for two to three weeks with a right calf strain. Big deal. Of course, it's a big deal. I understand it's 162 games. This is one of the best players in the league. You know, all of baseball. Come on. Fernando Mendoza will not attend the NFL draft. We'll instead celebrate with his family in Miami. That surprised you. Tony, when we know about him so far, that scene's consistent so far with him. We'll go a lot more over the next. I don't know a couple of decades. Max Scherzer, your boy left the J's 142 loss to the Dodgers last night with four armed tendonitis. Are you concerned? I'm concerned, but Max is not concerned. It's just more piano playing for the Warrior God. Get everything shipped. Shake. Last one

22:56Scooble, Yamamoto and Cantra. Skins crochet the miz and Schlitler all pitch tonight, you and treat. Scooble and Skins, Tony. Oh, yeah, it's a great group of Scooble and Skins is where I'm going to start tonight trying to watch those guys perform. I'm going to watch the mass. We're out of time. We'll try to do better the next time. I'm Tony Kornhizer. I'm Mike Lobon. Same time tomorrow on Knock her heads.