WTKA Roundtable 3/26/2026: The Lawns of Tuscaloosa

Things Discussed:

• Wisconsin out, Texas in: Brian still wants the entire university excised from the Tournament.
• St Louis didn't have a second big, didn't have the guards to do what Wisconsin did.
• Good news for Sweet 16: ISU (minus Jefferson) and Alabama (minus Holloway) don't match up.
• Beautiful basketball: Dusty to Craig, no way to guarantee it's that pretty.
• Yax be a star time.
• A yard never looks that good unless there are major basketball feelings going on.
• Threes are random, five-out shooting teams (Wisconsin, Alabama) have random results, but you need a guard (e.g Nick Boyd) who can take advantage of the space created by pulling the center out. Labaran Philon is a dude, gotta fight through screens.
• Thing about Alabama is they only have one big—most of the team are 6-8 wings, and they can only play Sherrell 20mpg. Don't force TOs. Can't rebound! They should get ravaged in the paint. Texas, Georgia, Zaga, Purdue all got massive OReb rates.
• Long rebound luck game: where do the missed quick threes carom? Need to have everybody put up a poster dunk in practice and prepare to get back after.
• Also without Holloway they only have two guards on the roster. They play fast, might run Philon out of juice.
• Painful basketball teams: Will Wade back to LSU? Ben McCollum turns basketball into an Iowa football game.
• Funny how if you just asked, in a neutral state, if both Alabama's football and basketball coaches would rather be at Michigan they'd take you up in a heartbeat.
• Iowa State: Dead in the water without Jefferson, no way that injury is okay by Elite Eight right? He couldn't put weight on it. Tennessee are bullies up front, fear them more than non-Jefferson ISU.
• Hockey: This stupid tournament format means we can't make predictions because being the #1 overall seed doesn't matter—you go to Albany and get Penn State in the 2nd round.
• Women's Basketball: Like their chances to beat Louisville because we can pest them out of the building, but beating Texas in Texas is tough. Put a "4" over the quarter number on the scoreboard so Swordsy thinks it's the end of the game.
• UNC a threat to take Dusty? His new contract should be a $7.5M buyout (saw $4M reported?) but that's not as big as some others. Think if we survived Indiana we survived UNC, which is Job #2 in a worse conference than the Big Ten, where Michigan is Job #1.