Bakers, Beers, and the NCAA Women’s Bracket | Plus Jeopardy! with Andrew He

Summary

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Casuals with Katie Nolan

Episode: "Bakers, Beers, and the NCAA Women’s Bracket | Plus Jeopardy! with Andrew He"

Date: March 17, 2026
Host: Katie Nolan
Notable Guests: Andrew He (Jeopardy! Champion)
Production Crew ("The Casualties"): Isabella, Chris, Brady

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Episode Overview

This episode blends pop culture banter, NCAA tournament antics, and a deep-dive into Jeopardy! with champion Andrew He. Katie and her Casualties discuss the Oscars with signature irreverence, host an insightful and funny chat with Andrew, then fill out their NCAA Women’s Tournament bracket—using only quirky facts submitted by team PRs. Expect playful digressions, honest reflections on fandom, and a commitment to making sports fun, not homework.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Oscars Recap & Hollywood Banter

[05:05 – 16:06]

• Who Watched?
  Casualties share whether or not they saw the Oscars and their movie preferences.

• Noteworthy Films:

  • "Marty Supreme" received nine nominations but went home empty-handed.
  • Isabella notes how creative the ping pong scenes were, highlighting the blend of sports and art.

• Memorable Oscar Moments:

  • Host Katie draws attention to Michael B. Jordan's onscreen gesture to Jesse Plemons, prompting a discussion about actors’ journeys.
  • Discussion of Kevin O’Leary wearing high-value basketball cards as jewelry and satirical takes on Hollywood displays of wealth.

• Cultural Snark & Rich People:
  Katie and the crew express frustration over Live Nation ticketing scandals and the broader issue of audience exploitation.

Notable Quotes:

• "What an ostentatious show of wealth at the Austin-tatious show of wealth show." — Katie [08:12]
• "The most wasteful thing to go: 'same dress you've already seen, but don’t worry, I did pay for it twice'…” — Katie [10:23]

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2. Jeopardy! Chat with Champion Andrew He

[16:51 – 34:30]

Welcoming Andrew He

• Andrew He joins as a surprise guest, to Katie’s excitement and the crew’s amusement.

Discussing Celebrity Jeopardy

• Katie admits her anxiety about not buzzing in for the Boston question, and the unique pressure on celebrity contestants not to "get the big ones wrong."
• Andrew praises Katie's gameplay, noting: "I think you did amazing. It was a very, very super, super solid game." [17:46]

Jeopardy! War Stories

• Both dissect their most haunting wrong answers—Andrew tells of mistaking a photo of a pupusa for an arepa, much to his in-law’s chagrin, and calling Jay Cutler ‘Tim Tebow’ despite being familiar with him.

Notable Quote:

• "The picture ones are the worst because at home, people, you know, it's way bigger on the home screen.” — Andrew He [21:49]

"Why Are Sports Categories So Hard?"

• Andrew debunks the myth, noting contestants do as well in sports as in other categories, but sports are much more accessible trivia for audiences at home.
• Katie positions "Casuals" as "the sports podcast for Jeopardy! contestants" [25:04]

Behind the Jeopardy! Curtain

• Andrew: Ken Jennings’ supportive manner is highlighted ("He has this way of acknowledging when you got something really tough" [27:59]) and the stress of the mid-game interview is universally agreed upon.

Memories and Pride

• Andrew’s proudest Jeopardy! moment: Missing taping because his son was born during Jeopardy! Masters.
• He shares funny stories about contestants’ backstage camaraderie, citing a heartfelt (and poetic) message from Sam Buttrey:
  • “Tell her my love for her is powerful and pure, like the love of a ship for the ocean...” [31:03]

Quickfire Jeopardy Stats & Sports Fandom

• Andrew mentions advanced stats for Celebrity Jeopardy!, where Katie and Rachel Dratch are "1 and 2" on certain performance metrics [31:54].
• Andrew roots for the Angels and Ducks, "painful," and "hate-watches" NFL, but is a NBA players’ fan rather than a team loyalist.

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3. March Madness – Women’s Bracket & Fandom

[39:58 – 115:00+]

March Madness, Personal Stories, and Listener Input

• Katie shares Hofstra pride—her alma mater faces #4 Alabama.
• News update: Alabama star Aiden Holloway’s arrest and how "possession of marijuana tax stamp" charges work [41:24].
• Listener emails and voicemails explore the emotional calculus of picking or hedging against your team in a bracket pool.

Notable Quote:

• “Better a busted bracket than broken dreams.” — Listener Elizabeth [44:48]

Selection Sunday Funnies & Lower Seeds Hope

• Debates around how far you should advance your alma mater ("Sister Jean Rule" — take at least to the Sweet 16 if you’re 9-16 seed).
• Miami of Ohio makes the First Four—digs at their doubters, and Bruce Pearl’s son’s team missing the cut.

Filling Out the Women’s Bracket (Main Segment)

• Isabella & Katie pick winners using only fun facts submitted by each team’s athletic department.
• Brady cold-emailed 80 schools, receiving 60+ responses. If a team didn’t respond, it’s fair game for playful shade.
• The bracket is filled live with commentary on everything from pet snakes to TikTok chefs, supportive teammates to unique team traditions.

Example Bracket Debate Moments:

• UConn vs. UTSA:
  • UConn’s global player roster vs. UTSA star Ariana Hardaway’s hearing aid triumph.
  • "If the concept of the bit is we’re just going off fun facts… could’ve at least gotten five continents. Four’s not that many!” — Katie [54:49]
• Syracuse vs. Iowa St.:
  • Power of friendship edges out musical talent and weather-related Cyclone nostalgia.
• Notre Dame vs. Fairfield:
  • Pet snakes (not fun!) vs. player cooking Instagram.
• Baylor/Lady Bears vs. Play-in:
  • Running jokes about team names—Lady Bears, Lady Vols, Lady Jacks ("Just call them the Laders!" — Katie [80:24]).

Quick Switches and Banter

• Sassy reactions to schools not submitting facts ("Bye, Lady Bear. Sexist. How dare you?" — Katie [87:06]).
• Isabella threatened with being villainized for her bracket choices, Katie ribbing her for her (innocent) eliminations of HBCU teams.

Most Absurd Facts Featured

• Two different schools have players with pet snakes.
• Team “good luck rubber duck” sits under the SFA Lady Jacks coach’s chair [87:37].
• A player has a hedgehog, some juggle basketballs, other teams rank hotel breakfast quality religiously.
• Georgia Lady Bulldogs’ coach does allegedly “a tremendous Daffy Duck impression.” [112:05]

Calls to Action

• Listeners are urged to join the official Casuals bracket challenge (Yahoo Sports)—link in Instagram and episode notes.
• Reminder that sports can be fun even if you’re just in it for the stories and weirdness.

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4. What To Watch: Sports Viewing Recommendations

[118:01 – 121:45]

Chris highlights a few upcoming must-see games:

• PWHL: Toronto Scepters vs. Boston Fleet (Mar 17, 7pm ET, Prime)
• World Baseball Classic Final: USA vs. Italy or Venezuela (Mar 17, 8pm ET, Fox)
• Full Men’s and Women’s March Madness Slate:
  • Watch Chandler Bing (actual player) for Vanderbilt [120:38]
  • Watch Robbie Avila, aka "Larry Blurred" for St. Louis

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps):

• "It is uncut gems for motherhood: a constant assault on a woman’s attention span." — Katie [05:55]
• "What an ostentatious show of wealth at the Austin-tatious show of wealth show." — Katie on Oscars [08:12]
• "I can't believe you didn't remember that." — Andrew He on missing Pupusas [21:42]
• "Sports is culturally dominant trivia, not always trivia-favorite on Jeopardy." — Andrew [23:07]
• “Casuals is the sports podcast for Jeopardy! contestants.” — Katie [25:04]
• "Tell her my love for her is powerful and pure, like the love of a ship for the ocean." — Sam Buttrey via Andrew He [31:03]
• "If you're a one seed, you absolutely have to choose your team to win the [NCAA] title." — Katie [44:15]
• "Better a busted bracket than broken dreams." — Elizabeth, Listener Voicemail [44:48]
• "Every time I think of Ole Miss, I think of Lane Kiffin." — Isabella [73:00]
• "Handpainted shoes" and coffee clubs: program culture beats stats for bracket picks.

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Memorable Segments (With Timestamps)

• Oscars Recap and Pop Culture Riffing: [05:05–16:06]
• Andrew He Jeopardy Special Interview: [16:51–34:30]
• Listener Segment on Bracket Philosophy: [43:48–46:53]
• Live NCAA Women’s Tournament Bracket Fill-Out: [54:50–115:00]
• Sports to Watch This Week: [118:01–121:45]

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Overall Tone & Style

Warm, witty, and inclusive. Katie and her crew’s tone is joking, irreverent, and welcoming, with plenty of joking self-deprecation, mocking of the sports establishment, and affectionate teasing both among themselves and of their listeners. There is no shaming for not knowing stats; the focus is always on good stories and making sports accessible and fun for everyone.

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Recurring Jokes & Meta-Moments

• Katie clowns on "old men in suits" yelling about sports and bracketology.
• Debates about mustaches, team nicknames ("Lady Bears," "Lady Jacks") and student-athletes’ unlikely side hustles (cookie business, handpainted sneakers, juggling, nail techs).
• The absurd mechanics of NCAA tournament selection and how fans hope/dread "winning the office pool."
• Repeated shoutouts to Jeopardy! camaraderie (Paul Hollywood handshake, trauma over wrong answers).
• Isabella is repeatedly (playfully) accused of eliminating HBCU teams and called a "villain" for arbitrary picks.
• Ongoing ribbing about everyone checking out for family/dog issues during the taping, and about not being able to submit their own fantasy team or bracket.

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Conclusion

A jam-packed, engaging episode: red carpet snark, gameshow humility, and a celebration of sports-as-vibes not stats. Andrew He provides serious Jeopardy! insight with humor and warmth. The Women’s Tournament bracket segment both celebrates and satirizes the usual seriousness of “bracketology.” Accessible, hilarious, and informative—perfect for anyone who wants to enjoy sports without the gatekeeping.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Katie Nolan]

Hey Isabella, did you hear that Ice Cube's War of the Worlds dominated at the 46th? I cannot believe it's the 46th Razzie Awards.

[Isabella]

Razzies is. Is like bad awards.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, it's worst. So he took home the. The movie took home the dishonors for worst picture, worst actor, worst director, Rich Lee, worst screenplay, Kenny Gold and Mark Hyman. And worst prequel, remake, ripoff, or sequel. Ooh, a sweep, I believe.

[Isabella]

Yeah, good for him.

[Katie Nolan]

Well, bad for him. The second paragraph of the Wikipedia page for the Ice Cube. War of the Worlds movie is. War of the Worlds was released on Amazon prime video on July 30, 2025. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and and is considered one of the worst films ever made.

[Isabella]

Damn. I'm sorry.

[Katie Nolan]

Apparently it was like a tech play, I guess. Well, I mean, it's War of the Worlds, H.G. wells. It's based off of that IP. But it was like they invented some sort of technology where nobody needs to be in the same room to film together to make a movie. And it became popular during COVID They came up with this idea and then they sold it. Amazon was a willing buyer. They said as long as we can product place some Amazon in there. Which they did. At the film's climax, the climax of the film, an Amazon employee uses a Prime air drone to deliver Ice Cube's character a flash drive.

[Isabella]

What are we doing?

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, we're using Amazon to get our flash drives is what we're doing, obviously.

[Isabella]

So if you have a movie idea and you'd like to get it back, just make sure you hit up Amazon and make sure they have a Drone in it.

[Katie Nolan]

He'll buy it.

[Isabella]

Yep.

[Katie Nolan]

This episode is presented by gmc. We are professional grade. Hello and welcome to Casuals, a sports podcast that doesn't care what you know. We're just really glad you're here. We share sports with you because we love them and we think everybody can love them. I think we all get the concept by now, but I do feel every podcast like I have to explain it in a way that makes sense. We're glad you're here. Stay here. Don't leave. Don't leave. Let me introduce you to our production crew here at Sirius xm. We call them the casualties. We have Isabella, who's our sports newbie.

[Isabella]

Hi.

[Katie Nolan]

We have.

[Brady]

We have.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, we have Chris, who edits the show. Yeah. Hi. Hello. We're off the rails already. And then Bubba, Bubba, Brady's here. Hey, great. Amazing. Here's what's gonna go on today. Oh. First of all, I gotta tell you how to reach us. You want to reach us? I'm Katie. Did I say that? I'm Katie. I'm the host, CasualSwithKatie Nolan gmail.com. our voicemail 646-801-0043. We usually do stuff with those on the second episode of the week, so send us some stuff on these things on IG and TikTok at CasualsThePodcast. That will come back up later because it's March Madness and we're gonna do a bracket pool, and that's where you're gonna be able to find the info. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk a little bit of Oscars. Whoever's phone's going off, handle it. Get it away from your table. Thank you very much. We're gonna talk a little Oscars with the casualties. Whichever ones aren't in trouble because their phone's going off, not me. Okay, that's good. Claim it then. We're gonna get a special visit. We have a special visit. I know this is not the episode. We do guests. It's a very quick guest spot, and it's with Andrew, he. Jeopardy. Champion. Beloved Jeopardy. Champion.

[Brady]

A.

[Katie Nolan]

A dear friend of mine, although we've, like, met twice. He's gonna come in, we're gonna talk about what happened on Friday. And then, of course, it is March Madness, as I mentioned, and we are going to tell you how to join our bracket pool. We are gonna fill out the first round of the. Our women's tournament bracket on. On air is about Shout Out Bracket. Yeah, Shout out bracket. We've all been saying that it's papa Nooner season. Shout out bracket. Brady emailed every comms department within every athletic department and asked for a fun fact to represent their team. And we are going to use just that to choose the winners of the first round of our women's bracket. That's correct, Brady.

[Brady]

80 different schools. Yep. That's going to be. We said, what is the most fun fact you got?

[Katie Nolan]

And they. And they got back to us that they did. Amazing. So we'll get to that in a little bit. But let's start with the Oscars, because there was a lot of angles, a lot of things that happened at the Oscars. Just who watched them? Casualties. Quick. Yes.

[Isabella]

No, I did all of it.

[Katie Nolan]

Brady. Yes. I feel like you waited till everybody said yes and then you just gave a thumbs up.

[Brady]

Some of it. Then Team USA came on. Then it was in and out.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. So Dan and I were bopping between. It was kind of a nice experience. We filled out our ballots, which we always do. I forced him and then he beat me. It happens every year where I go, you didn't fill out your ballot. Then he goes, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's insane. It's not fair. I also watched a bunch of the movies yesterday. I watched one battle after another and I started. If I had legs, I'd kick you.

[Isabella]

Was it good?

[Katie Nolan]

Really well made. I can't. It's not for me. It is uncut gems for motherhood. It is like constant assault on a woman's attention span and life by things that are outside of her and every. She's failing at all of these tasks and they don't stop coming. It was like, I have to. Dan came out from just the sound and was like, can we get whatever this is off? I do not like what it's doing for my mental health, which I think means it's a great film.

[Commercial Announcer 2]

I just.

[Katie Nolan]

Rose Byrne was great in it. But anyway, the Oscars happened last night. We were bopping around through them. Let's talk about some of the big storylines. Marty supreme blanked.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Tough.

[Chris]

I will say that.

[Katie Nolan]

Now, nine nominations. You. Wait, you didn't see it or you did?

[Chris]

No, I haven't seen it yet.

[Katie Nolan]

I haven't seen it either.

[Isabella]

Oh, really?

[Katie Nolan]

And you have, Isabella?

[Guest (Andrew He)]

Yeah, I have.

[Katie Nolan]

And you liked.

[Isabella]

I liked it. Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Now tell us because it's a sports movie. Yeah. How was the sports of it for you?

[Isabella]

It's. It was sick. There was a point where Marty blows on a ping pong and, like, has it raised in the Air. And I was like, that's sick on the ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, did I not return?

[Katie Nolan]

No, you did. It was. We were just making sure everybody was on the same page. And so that was your favorite part was when it blew up.

[Isabella]

That was my favorite part of the movie.

[Katie Nolan]

Sick. Hell, yeah.

[Isabella]

No, it was good, but, yeah. Nine award nominations, nine nominations and none.

[Katie Nolan]

I know. Best picture, best actor, best director.

[Isabella]

On my Oscar ballad, I nominated them for cinematography, but then I was like, actually, I changed my mind. Would you change it to Sinners?

[Chris]

Hey.

[Katie Nolan]

And they won, right?

[Isabella]

Yeah, they did, yeah.

[Chris]

First female to win a cinematography award.

[Katie Nolan]

I believe that I think we would say woman in that situation, but I

[Chris]

know that was the article I read.

[Katie Nolan]

I know what you were going for there. But at least Marty supreme gave us Kevin o' Leary on the carpet again. You know, Kevin o' Leary wearing a different basketball card around his neck, which

[Brady]

means he thought this was a good idea the first time.

[Katie Nolan]

What was it the first time? I don't remember. This one was the.

[Brady]

It was a Kobe and LeBron, like two autographs next to each other. It was Kobe and somebody. I think it was LeBron.

[Katie Nolan]

And now this one card. This one is a 2004 Exquisite Collection All NBA Access Pass Card featuring Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. I. Somebody's gotta pull on it and run. I don't know what else to say. Like, what an ostentatious show of wealth at the Austin tatious show of wealth show. How could you possibly go? Way to tell me you're so boring that there's nothing to. You got to wear a lanyard to start conversation with people. Because otherwise everybody would go, who are you again? Why are you here for like. All right, thanks, safdies. I appreciate that we have to deal with that. I just. I'm getting mad at rich people. This. Did you see the Live Nation story that leaked this week?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

The chats between. There were these two ticket directors, basically people who sell upsell stuff for Live Nation. Live Nation. And due to some court case, their stuff got published. And it was a private chat between two regional directors of ticketing for amphitheaters, boasting about their ability to raise ancillary fees like parking and lawn chair rentals and VIP access and still get people to pay for it. They said, I gouge them on ansel prices. These people are so stupid. I almost feel bad taking advantage of them. And then someone said, robbing them blind, baby. That's how we do it. And that's why we have to pull on his necklace. And that's why we. Because we got to start correcting. Some people are just. If we're robbing blind, can it please be Kevin o' Leary wearing a very expensive, dangly piece of something from his neck. Just yank it and run. What is he going to do? Chase you?

[Isabella]

I think the funniest thing that everyone should do is that when you talk to him while he's wearing it, don't look down at all. Just look at his eyes. Completely ignore it.

[Katie Nolan]

What if they were to put their hand up to make it so that they could.

[Andrew He]

No, no.

[Isabella]

Put your shades on.

[Brady]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Be like, please, oh my God, your necklace is hurting.

[Isabella]

It's really too bright.

[Katie Nolan]

Get away. And then also stop talking to him. Why are you talking? Don't talk to him. Go talk to. Talk to Timothy Chalamet, who I really do think I know he's getting a nice hug, you know, because she looked beautiful last night. I found it very interesting. She wore a dress she has already worn before, just in a different color. And I get it. If you know what works for you, it works for you. But like, just wear them.

[Isabella]

You're against outfit repeating.

[Katie Nolan]

No, I'm for it. Just repeat the actual outfit. It's the most wasteful thing to go. Same dress you've already seen. But don't worry, I did pay for it twice because it's not the same actual dress.

[Isabella]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

I would love her to suddenly be a budget. I wear the same dress twice queen. But that's not going to happen. Right? Favorite moment of the night for me. Tell me you noticed. This was when Michael B. Jordan won best actor. And as he was leaving the stage, they took the camera from the wing and you can see that he gestures in the front left to Jesse Plemons, his former co star from Friday Night Lights. Aw. I. That made me so emotional. I don't know if you guys saw that if we talked about this here, but the press leading up to they had an interview between the two of them, like reminiscing on their Friday Night Lights to. And I don't know, they just seemed like it was like a nice. They were remembering all their happy memories and also like, look how far we've come. These are two of our best actors. Now. A lot of people were like, Jesse Plemons really should have been nominated. He was incredible. I haven't seen Begonia yet either. Stavi, please. I'm sorry. I'm gonna see it. Okay, But I just thought that was so. I don't Know, that made me really emotional.

[Chris]

Yeah, they both seem like two genuine dudes, too.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I'd be really upset if they were.

[Chris]

Maybe something will come out. Who knows? But they seem from the outside to be really pleasant people.

[Isabella]

It does suck that that's always on the back of your mind.

[Katie Nolan]

If I were to find something else

[Isabella]

out about this, I'd be pretty upset about it.

[Chris]

Gotta put that asterisk in front of it. Otherwise, people are gonna come back and say, hey, remember what you said about

[Katie Nolan]

this guy, Michael B. Jordan, former Garbage Time guest.

[Chris]

He came on Garbage Time.

[Katie Nolan]

He did our Thanksgiving special. So it was just wraps. We just did, like, best of wraps. And he, like, tossed to the things with me, and I think he just looked at me the whole time in this weird studio that had, like, an old turkey in it. He was just looking at me like, lady, what the fuck is this? And I said, I'm bringing my Michael B. Jordan home to Thanksgiving. So that's my brag. So congrats to him for winning. Leo? No, Leo with a mustache. Pedro Pascal, no mustache.

[Isabella]

I didn't notice this.

[Katie Nolan]

You didn't notice that Pedro Pascal didn't have a mustache?

[Isabella]

I didn't.

[Katie Nolan]

You didn't notice then you didn't see because you wouldn't notice?

[Isabella]

No, my eyes were on him. I just. It didn't register it.

[Katie Nolan]

It's so. Oh, wow. Mine registered it.

[Isabella]

Is he less cute?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Sorry. Ah, Pedro, I love you, dude. I don't care. I love you, but I. Something. I guess I'm finding out I'm a mustache gal. Devastating. For me, this is a devastating step into my 40s is that now I see a mustache and I go, well, hold on a second. The fact that it was Davis Schneider of all baseball players, that gave me pause. I've seen since the moment I went, hello. Why a mustache? So I am old. The rumors are true. Leo looked good.

[Brady]

Does Dan know this?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, Dan one time had a. You know, during the pandemic, he had that big, long beard, and then he shaved it down to all the comical ways. He stopped at every stop. We've all done it. And he. And when he got to mustache, I went, well, now, hold on. And I think he thought it was, like, trying to be funny. So then he shaved it off. And then later in the day, I was like, what did he. I thought we had talked about it and we were gonna. And he was like, oh, I was just joking. And I was like, same.

[Isabella]

You're like, please, please.

[Katie Nolan]

Definitely same. Can you bring it back? A very Funny bit, though. We should do that bit again sometime soon. I think we should run that prolonged bit. We should run that bit back over

[Chris]

the period of a year or two.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, I don't know what it is. The tie. Did you guys see the tie? Brady, were you on it for that? I wasn't see, we had just flipped back and saw the awkward end. And we said, something has happened. And so we re to watch it and saw Kumail Nanjiani handled it very well. I'd say he handled it much better than he has handled getting a body like that. He's been so uncomfortable about, like, am I hot? I'm hot. Get over it. I'm hot. Please don't. I don't want to be hot. Where you're like, which is it? What are we doing? And he handled this with like. He opened up the envelope and he said, it's a tie. I'm not kidding. Everybody take a deep breath. It's going to be okay.

[Isabella]

And then I thought it was a bit and I was like, oh, no, no, no, no.

[Brady]

Should have called in Mark Derosa to explain the rules to everyone.

[Katie Nolan]

Did he do anything extra dumb since this all has happened?

[Brady]

No, I think he's been on best behavior. He has actually run away from.

[Katie Nolan]

Once he called in the Osama bin Laden guy to talk to the locker room once he was like, let me call the guy who. There are disputed accounts of him having taken part in shooting Osama bin Laden. Let's definitely get him in here. That guy who called that weird. The TikTok influencer kids. He called them his concubines. Bring him into the locker room. I think that would be a really cool thing to do for sport. That's all the big stuff from the Oscars, right? Did I say all the big stuff?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

One by the.

[Chris]

After another one. Best picture.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Great. And I didn't see it.

[Chris]

It was good.

[Katie Nolan]

I liked it. Hated Sean Penn's character. And I've said that before, you know, so at least he wasn't there. And at least what's his face dunked on him. It was kind of crazy. Maybe it's. I don't know. When the presenters find out who the winner is, I'm under the understanding that it's when they open up the envelope that the presenter does not know ahead of time.

[Brady]

But I think they changed that after the moonlight debacle. Right?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

I don't remember what changed, but I do know that who is it that I'm think it's Macaulay Culkin's. What's his first name? Kieran Culkin. He said, like it on the red carpet. I hope the person I'm presenting to is here. And then they weren't. It was Sean Penn, and he wasn't there, so it's kind of interesting. All right. And that's really all that happened this weekend. Right. There wasn't anything else that we would have gotten like an email about? Right.

[Brady]

I think we had one big event, especially people watching things on tv. Chris, you want to get to the email from John?

[Chris]

Sure. John said, hola, Katie, Isabella, Chris, and Bubba Brady.

[Katie Nolan]

Is that how you say ola in Australia? Ola.

[Chris]

That's how we pronounce it, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Great. All right.

[Chris]

That's how we all pronounce it. Have been catching up on the episodes and heard this afternoon about the Shameless. Not really shameless because it's his badass flex to be on Jeopardy. Celebrity Jeopardy. Plugged today and was able to catch most of Double Jeopardy and beyond. Congrats on the win. Katie was rooting for you the entire time, but loved your reaction of not being able to buzz in before Mark for the Boston question. Also, don't apologize for being competitive. You're playing a competitive game. P.S. as a Yankees fan, I enjoyed you having to answer the Mariano Rivera clue.

[Katie Nolan]

Dude, the worst. The worst. And you could see it on my face. I am, though, just glad that I knew because, of course, your worst nightmare when you do things like this celebrity Jeopardy, Is that you're gonna get a sports question wrong and you're like, well, this would really be bad for me. Joining us now, truly an honor to have him. Here is a Jeopardy. Champion, a favorite in the Nolan Soder household. As we say, every time he comes on screen, we say he him. It's Andrew. He. Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew, thank you for coming on Casuals. Welcome to the show.

[Andrew He]

Thank you so much for having Katie.

[Katie Nolan]

I have so many things to ask you. I have a billion questions. The first one is, is everybody leaving? Why did you all leave?

[Isabella]

I thought maybe you wanted some special time.

[Katie Nolan]

Sweet. But it's okay. Andrew, first question. How did. How did I do on Friday?

[Andrew He]

I. You want to get right into it. I think you did amazing.

[Katie Nolan]

I did.

[Andrew He]

I think it was a very, very super, super solid game.

[Katie Nolan]

Thank you. And may I say, it sucks because I'm behind in my. Okay, so Dan and I watch Jeopardy. On dvr, and Dan travels for work, so there are long stretches of time when we are not watching Jeopardy. So we are way behind. But it was obviously Spoiled for me that you won the JIT this year, the Jeopardy Invitational tournament. We keep trying to make JIT happen. Um, and I think I might have,

[Andrew He]

like, participated in that spoilage because I. I tried to give you a shout out at the very end and then of course, people would, you know, kind of forward that, send that along. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry to spoil my own.

[Katie Nolan]

Of all the ways to have it spoiled. I was actually like, at first I just saw that you wrote it and I was like, oh, my God, what an honor. And then I saw someone go, did you see he won the jit and he shouted you out. And I was like, wait, no, I hadn't seen that he won the jit, but congratulations on the jit actually, I

[Andrew He]

was actually terrified because I think the last time we spoke, I was supposed to give you a pump up speech. And you know, they recorded it, I think, but it was kind of like, Aaron, judge level word salad.

[Katie Nolan]

No, it was not. Don't do that to yourself.

[Andrew He]

Thankfully you did. Thankfully you did not need that and you were able to. To dominate your game all by yourself.

[Katie Nolan]

Listen, I. It was very stressful to me. I don't know if this. I'm sure it's a. It's harder to do what you do, which is real regular Jeopardy. Because you have to take the test. You have to actually know everything. The questions are harder. Right. But there is a uni difficulty to celebrity Jeopardy. And I wonder if you agree with me on this, which is that, like, it's not really about getting them right. It's like making sure you don't get really bad ones wrong. Because, like, people will then know that I didn't know something that I probably should have known.

[Andrew He]

I mean, I think I have a ton of respect for, you know, obviously anybody who goes on the show, but especially any celebrity who goes on the show. Because there are just those moments where, you know, if it go. If the question goes dead, all three people don't answer it. You know, like, kind of like you. You had a quote that was, that was like, can you please edit out where. We didn't know because we didn't get this thing.

[Katie Nolan]

We didn't get Tupac. They said posthumous rap album. It should have been like the immediate.

[Andrew He]

But to be fair, I don't think that that was like a super top tier Tupac song title.

[Katie Nolan]

So mansion. I know it too. Like, once they said I was like, no. Mortifying.

[Andrew He]

But yeah, but no, I totally, I totally agree. I think, you know, you really have to Kind of put yourself out there and, you know, like, I think you had a question about A Tribe Called Quest and you knew it, but you.

[Katie Nolan]

Too late.

[Andrew He]

You know, you just were a little bit gun shy because you don't, you don't want to say the wrong.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, you don't want to be wrong. Credit to Ken, I will say Ken really helped me out there because he knew. He saw that I knew it and then he gave me a chance to say it before he revealed it, which I think technically to a viewer, it's like you get the same cred. I didn't get in. In time, but I did still technically know it. Just really not my best. Do you have any wrong answers throughout your many Jeopardy. Runs and appearances that still haunt you to this day?

[Andrew He]

I have so many. There's. There, there's from all dimensions. So there was one where. So I have an in law. She's. We've, we've like, she's Salvadoran, so we've made Salvadoran food together. And she taught me how to make pupusas. And then there was a question.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, no.

[Andrew He]

About pupusas. And I said, there was a picture. They showed a picture of a pupusa and I said, arepa. And now she, she can't, you know, she can't. She basically can't look at me now. She'll always remind me, you know, when I see her a couple times a year and she'll. She'll be like, I can't. I can't believe you. I can't believe you didn't remember that.

[Katie Nolan]

The rare Jeopardy Clue that is just a. It's like the floor where they just show a picture and go, what's this? And you went wrong thing.

[Andrew He]

The picture ones are, the picture ones are the worst because they're the ones at home where people, you know, it's way bigger on this. On the home screen.

[Katie Nolan]

So true.

[Andrew He]

There was one where. There was one where I. They showed a picture of Jay Cutler and they were like, basically, who is this? And I said, tim Tebow. Even though I, you know, I, I have watched like very Cavallari and all that stuff. And so, yeah, I got a little, I got a little bit of stuff from sports media about that.

[Katie Nolan]

I have a theory, though, that they like intentionally, when the question is essentially or the response is essentially like, who is this? And it's a picture. I have a theory. They pick a picture that is not at their be. It's not the stereotypical picture of them in your head. Like, it's a weird angle or they're. Something's a little different when they choose so that they're not too easy. And so maybe that's what happened with your J. Cutler. Yeah.

[Andrew He]

And they do this, like, weird, like, Ken Burns zoom sometimes. Yes. But. But for this Jay Cutler one, they. They literally showed Jay Cutler, and then they showed, like, knives next to it. So, like, it's cutlery.

[Katie Nolan]

Tough. It's tough.

[Andrew He]

And it was. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

[Katie Nolan]

Why do you think Jeopardy. Contestants in general seem to struggle so mightily with sports categories?

[Andrew He]

Yeah, I think this is a. I think there was one of my friends who was a Jeopardy. Contestant. He just wrote like, a big article on Defector about this, and he was basically debunking that a little bit. He was saying, on. On average, the contestants do about as well on sports as they do on the other categories. It's just that sports questions, they're the ones that are super accessible to the viewing audience, and they're the one. You know, sports is so dominant culturally that, that a lot of times those are going to be the questions that people know, and so those are going to be the ones that people can chime in on. And also the question. The sports questions tend to be a little bit, you know, they're not going to go for, like, a deep. As deep in, you know, as they go in Shakespeare as, you know, they'll. They'll ask you, like, who the NBA MVP was.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

And a lot of people. That was a recent question on Jeopardy. And people didn't get that one.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I remember seeing one recently. I think they showed. I don't remember the question, but it was like a picture of Russell Westbrook. And everybody was so triple stumper. And I was like, ah, come on.

[Andrew He]

I, I think it is you. You definitely have player. You definitely have players who are, you know, kind of like, oh, sports ball. You know, I'm. I'm. I'm. I. I can't study that, you know, because it is.

[Chris]

It is.

[Katie Nolan]

It is.

[Andrew He]

I think if you look at it

[Katie Nolan]

objectively, a really good point.

[Andrew He]

It is the hardest. I think it is the hardest for someone with no, you know, with no gentle, like kind of gateway, like a casual podcast, to kind of bring you into the fold. It's very hard to. To know what to. Because it can be so broad. You know, they can ask you about what Russell Westbrook and they can ask you, like, what these hockey trophies are.

[Katie Nolan]

And

[Andrew He]

so it is pretty tough. But, yeah, I think it's more of a meme than anything. And, you know, there's always, like, a jocks versus nerds kind of dynamic that always exists.

[Katie Nolan]

So that's why I like to think of casuals as the sports podcast for Jeopardy. Contestants. And you're really helping prove that that's it, really.

[Andrew He]

I think it really is. I think I talked to so many people, so many contestants. You know, I have a. I have a long list of messages I shared. I shared that I was going to be on your podcast with, you know, one of our tournament group chats, and people were just like, oh, my goodness. Like, um. And I'll share some of those messages with you.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, hell yeah. Andrew. Oh, God.

[Andrew He]

It is the perfect audience.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Uh, we. We. I actually got to meet and work with Matt Amodio for something for Jeopardy. And I love him. He's so great. He.

[Andrew He]

He's great.

[Katie Nolan]

He. And then I watched him in some tournament. Uh, Michael Davies has me lost in the schedule of Jeopardy. Especially cause of the DVR of it all. But he, like, ran a baseball category, and I, like, stood up, and I was like, let's go, Mattimonio. I was so proud.

[Andrew He]

He. He is for sure. He's for sure. I think when he was doing press for his original. For his original run where he won, like, 38 games in a row, they gave him, like. He went on these sports talk shows and they. They gave him, like, really tough baseball trivia. And he is really. He is really. He's not a baseball casual whatsoever.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

So that stuff is wheelhouse for him. But it's great that you got to meet. I really. I. I love the guy. Uh, you know, he knocked me out of Jeopardy. Masters season one.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, so you hate him a little bit.

[Andrew He]

So, you know, but I. I actually. I got him. So.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Good. So now it's even. So now it doesn't even have to come up. Do you. What is the memory from all of your Jeopardy. Experience that you're, like, proudest of? Is it from, like, your original run? Is it from the, you know, relationships and stuff you've built through? I guess, like the. The champions of it all?

[Andrew He]

Yeah. I mean, I think the really easy answer is that when we're taping the first season of Jeopardy. Masters, that was in 2023. We actually had to interrupt taping because my son was born, or my son was being born, so that I will never forget that entire day. Like, Ken had to tell an entire audience of whatever, 200 people, like, sorry, we know you waited in line for a couple hours to come see the show, but we've got Some. Not some bad news, but some good news that we have to postpone this.

[Katie Nolan]

Damn.

[Andrew He]

So that. That. That one is permanently seared. I think maybe more recently, I think as I played more and with the clues that are higher. Difficulty. Every time I go back, I just want Ken to. To. He has this. He. He has this way of acknowledging when he thinks that you got something that was really, really tough. So he goes over all the clues like the day before, and I think he says he kind of plays along, and you can tell, like, he is still. He could still play.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

He would still get 50 out of 60 questions. 55, maybe. But occasionally you'll get. You'll. You'll toss out something. You'll. You'll just, like, find something in the crevice of your brain. And he'll give, like, a wow or like, very nice, and it'll be very genuine. And it's kind of like the. The way it feels is kind of like your elementary school teacher pinning your piece of art, you know, on the wall, and you're like, yeah, I am. You know, I am good at making hand turkeys. Thank you. You know,

[Katie Nolan]

it's like Jeopardy's Paul Hollywood handshake where you're like, yeah, I went above and beyond. The inverse of that is when they do the, like. No, that wouldn't make any sense. When they. Basically, the fact that disproves why what you said was the stupidest guess you could have guessed.

[Andrew He]

Yeah. And they make it into a YouTube clip. But I think that would have happened a lot more under Alex, I think.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

Alex Trebeka, he was a lot. He was a lot snarkier in. In that way. But Ken is. He's really supportive because, you know, he knows exactly what it was like to be. To be back there. And I feel like maybe you probably had that experience too, where he. He's just like a very great guide through the whole experience.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

No matter what you say, even if you say, like, terrible, you know, terrible answers, you don't. You know, you know, you blank on the easiest stuff. I. The thing that I struggle with the most is, like, the interview segments and every interview.

[Katie Nolan]

Stressful part.

[Andrew He]

Honestly, super duper stressful.

[Katie Nolan]

Like, you're in the middle of doing. You're trying to lock into a zone, and then they're like, tell us about a time that you. And I'm like, I don't want to. I'm trying to remember the order of the presidents.

[Andrew He]

Exactly. And. And, yeah, I like, every time you see they. The editors do such an amazing job. They're such unsung heroes. Like, every time you see me give an anecdote, you know, that I flubbed, you can just know in the back of your mind that I flubbed something. I said sentences in, like, the wrong order, so the story doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And. And Ken definitely is, like, part of that. He's just like, you know, he. You've seen him make mistakes before. He has to do retapes too, so he really knows what it's like. And he's like, you know, everybody just calm down. Like, just start over again. This is. This is not like a live taping.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

You put your best foot forward.

[Katie Nolan]

Very funny to hear you say that because I've always been like, wow, Andrew's interviews are so charming. The friendships that you have with the other contestants, the. The year that, like, whatever it was, when Sam was, like, cheering for you from the crowd, I was like, this is the greatest show on earth and I love these people and I want them all to be my friends. You've always come across as nothing, but

[Andrew He]

I think we really want to be your friends. You know, I think I. I just. I have a message from Sam. Can I read it?

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, please.

[Andrew He]

Let me see.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella, you would love Sam. Sam Buttrey. He's so adorable and so smart and so funny and self deprecating. He's the best.

[Andrew He]

He says, tell her my love for her is powerful and pure, like the love of a ship for the ocean. And I'm carrying a cargo full of love and devotion, which I think is just the. Is just the lyrics to Rock the boat.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, but it works. But you know what? It worked. You know, I didn't know that.

[Andrew He]

What.

[Katie Nolan]

What are the lyrics to Rock the Boat? Andrew, He. Thank you so much for swinging by and for all of your support. You've made me feel like I belong on the Jeopardy. Stage, which I know is not.

[Andrew He]

We didn't even.

[Brady]

We.

[Andrew He]

We didn't even get to talk about your game. But it. It was fantastic.

[Katie Nolan]

It was fine. It. I was.

[Andrew He]

It was really. It was really.

[Katie Nolan]

Rachel Dragon. Smart as hell.

[Andrew He]

Yes. And I will tell you, I know that Casuals is not a stats oriented podcast, but there are advanced stats for Jeopardy. That were put together by one of my friends from a previous tournament.

[Katie Nolan]

Who. Who.

[Andrew He]

He works for the Dodgers. So you can trust.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Andrew He]

That his stuff is legit and I can send it to you after. But on some metrics, you and Rachel dratch are like 1 and 2 in. In a lot in in some metrics of Jeopardy. One of them, one of the ones that I think is the most important is taking what you know and being able to convert it into points. So that takes into account the buzzer. How, you know, are you a gunslinger who's just like Yosemite Sam, you fire off, like, all the time, or are you, like, kind of like throwing darts? Triple 20 every time. And so you're more like, you know, you have very high accuracy. You're super good on the buzzer. I. I can't believe we're gonna. You know, we need three more weeks or three more months before we get to see.

[Isabella]

I know.

[Andrew He]

Whatever the next one is.

[Katie Nolan]

The waiting is painful. Yeah, it's painful because it's like I can't even. That's why I can't really talk about it too much. Cause I can't. I don't want to give. I don't want to say. And so we're just going to leave it. But maybe in four months when it airs, maybe we'll. You can come back on and we can talk about that one, too.

[Andrew He]

I would love to. I would love to be on, and I'm just super relieved that you know that. Yeah, just that pump up speech didn't ruin everything. You know, I would love to tell you about, like, my high school white rappers, you know, contribute to that bracket, you know.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Katie Nolan]

We're going to get it together. We're gonna. We're in March Madness now, so we might as well just get a white rapper high school bracket together and get it done. It's. It's our market. I think it's what we're here to do. Andrew, he. Before you go, actually, who do you root for? Who are all your teams? I see an Angels hat on you.

[Andrew He]

Yeah, that one is very painful. I root for. So I grew up in SoCal. I root for all the Anaheim. I root for the Anaheim team, so I root for the Ducks and the Angels, which is very painful. In the NFL. I root. I basically hate. Watch the NFL. So I. I root again. I want. I root against a whole bunch of. Yeah, I'm a massive hater.

[Katie Nolan]

Sick.

[Andrew He]

What did. What else did I miss?

[Katie Nolan]

Basketball.

[Andrew He]

Yeah, basketball. I'm the opposite. I watch. I don't have a team, but I'm a lover.

[Brady]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

I watch the players that I like like the most.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, that tracks. That makes a lot of. That's a smart way to do it, I think if you don't have an immediate allegiance. Thank you so much for coming. And it's so nice to see you, as always, and send my love to all of the smart people that you're friends with, who I watch on TV and admire.

[Andrew He]

For sure. You are an absolute legend. I'm. I'm so happy. I got to. Got to come on. Thank you so much for having me.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. He. Everybody, the smartest person I think we'll ever have on our podcast. And then here come the casualties. Out of hiding. You guys all ran away. You could have stayed on. Andrew would have chatted with us.

[Chris]

That's true. We want to let you do your thing.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, thank you so much. It's hard interviewing really smart people, you know, because, like, they're really smart, and you don't want to make any mistakes. But I do love that. It's a universal thing, being haunted by stuff that you got wrong.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Andrew He]

Oh, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. The. The Good Will Hunting of it all. I don't know if you guys saw, but the question was basically about Good Will Hunting. And Rachel Dratch buzzed in and said it was Harvard. And when they said no, I went, well, that's what I was gonna say. So what? In my head, I'm like, it's not mit, is it? And it was like, boop, boop, boop, mit. And I was like, it is.

[Brady]

I could've said, you and Rachel screaming at each other. The two from Boston screaming from across the. Across the world.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was. It was a good. A good episode, and we secured the win. And now we wait, as Andrew said, 16 months, I think, until the next round airs, because there's a lot of episodes, and they're only airing every Friday. Um, but there's a lot of good. It's, you know, Celebrity Jeopardy All Stars, so it's people who have done Celebrity Jeopardy before, so it's a lot of famous people, and it's a good cast, so everybody should check it out on Friday.

[Brady]

Want to plug the foundation while you're.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, yeah. I played for the Trevor Project. You know, there was. They defunded the National Suicide Hotline, stopped offering specialized services for LGBTQ community members. And that is horrendous to me. Trevor Project picked up the slack on it, and they still offer that, like, crisis intervention and suicide prevention services for that community specifically, which is so important. I feel like the way a society treats people that are having a hard time is. Is one of the metrics I judge a society by, and we aren't doing a great job. So Trevor Project is. And I wanted to play to bring some money to them so they can, you know, help out a community. That means a lot to me. So shout out to the Trevor project. Okay? Huge thanks to Andrew, he for coming by. Let's go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we are gonna fill out the first round of our women's March Madness bracket live using nothing but fun facts that Brady got from their athletic departments. This is Casuals. We'll be right back. Let's be honest, a lot of bras and underwear, they're uncomfortable, they're unflattering, and they're impractical. You know when you've been wearing a br all day and like the wires have been digging into your side or your like thong's been riding up on you all day and it just, you can see it under your clothes. But the Fits Everybody collection from Skims will totally change your opinion on what bras and underwear can be. The Fits Everybody collection from Skims molds onto your body so it feels like you're wearing nothing at all. The Fits Everybody thong basically melts into your skin. You're gonna forget that you're even wearing it. It's the type of comfort you have to experience for yourself to believe. If you've been hearing all the Skims hype but you haven't tried it yet for yourself, this is your sign. I hate to admit this to you, but I at this very moment wearing the Fits Everybody thong and it re I really have forgotten that I'm wearing it. It's such light material. Shop Skims Fits everybody [e-mail] after you place your order, be sure to let them know that we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our Show Casuals in the drop down menu that follows. That's S K I M s dot com. Have you ever wished you could make something happen just by thinking about it? Well, WIX may have just answered your prayers. Wix's new Harmony editor makes it so easy to create a website ex how you imagined it that it's almost like you're just thinking out loud. Experience the new Way to Create Websites WIX Harmony is a hybrid website editor that offers the perfect blend of AI and precise drag and drop tools, introducing the world to the next generation of website creation. Switch back and forth between AI prompts and hands on editing to build the exact website you want the way you want. WIX Harmony is packed with some of the coolest, most useful AI features and agents built specifically for small businesses, including arri, an AI agent that helps you create your website and take care of business so you don't burn out and rest easy knowing that your Wix site is backed by 99.99% uptime and enterprise grade security. No add ons required. Check it [e-mail] Harmony everyone deserves to be connected.

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[Katie Nolan]

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[Katie Nolan]

Welcome back to Casuals, the podcast that seriously, I mean it, you guys. You don't need to know anything. Okay. We are. It's all mostly vibes and we're gonna guide you through it. Anyway, before we get into our women's bracket, Isabella and I are gonna fill it out live on air. I'm very excited for this. I love any part of a podcast where it's just us reacting to stuff that other people had to get. Brady had to send the emails and do the cold calling, not me. And so we just get to react. I'm very excited. Before we get to that, there's some men's storylines we've been following. Selection Sunday obviously was on was yesterday for us. Don't make me do this. Two days ago for you if you're listening. Three days ago for you if you're watching on YouTube, it happened. And let's update the stories we've been following. Hofstra, my alma mater. Go Pride. We're projecting a 13 seed and that is what they got. They are 13th. They face off against a four. That four. Specifically Alabama. So Hofstra won the CAA tournament and now they will face off against number four Alabama on Friday on TRUTV right after and I suppose also four impractical jokers will be our game and I'm very excited for it. I told you, I got my Hofstra shirt out. I'm ready to go. Alabama's a football school as far as I'm concerned, so this really is none of their business. So why don't they just go ahead and lay down, get out of the way and let Hofstra take it, because we need it more. It just means more to everyone.

[Isabella]

Roll Tide.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Thank you. Roll Pride. Yeah, sorry.

[Isabella]

I love that. Way too much.

[Katie Nolan]

Roll Pride. Yeah, I did, too. It occurred to me in the moment. Bit of news I saw heading in here. Don't know if you guys saw this. Alabama star Aiden Holloway has been arrested on a felony drug charge four days before his team is set to play in the NCAA Tournament. Holloway was arrested Monday morning. Again, that's today for us, but it's yesterday or two days ago for you. And transported to the county jail after agents with the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force searched a residence near Alabama's campus and, quote, recovered more than a pound of marijuana paraphernalia and cash. Holloway has been charged with first degree possession of marijuana and failure to affix a tax stamp. Now, that sets off my alarms because from my understanding, that's one of those charges that they give you when they want you to. It's like a stamp you're required to put on a certain amount of drugs that does not get you out of any sort of trouble except this law. And so it's like not having it very common, not using it properly, very common. And this feels like one of those laws they made so that you can get in more trouble when. Why would you buy a stamp and put it. Why would you be like, illegal drugs and put a stamp on them just to help the cops out? I'm not really sure what they think

[Chris]

is you're definitely not buying those stamps from the FBI at all.

[Katie Nolan]

Right?

[Brady]

So there's something you legally have to do to your illegal, and that won't

[Katie Nolan]

get you out of trouble. Won't get you out of trouble. Except that one specific trouble invented to some. So I don't know. This gives me a little bit of pause.

[Isabella]

Get the stamp. Just in case, please.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm gonna put stamps on every drug I own now. Just in case. Just in case. I don't want to get this extra. His bond was set at 5,000. It's unclear from jail records whether he's still being held. So that is just something to keep an eye on. I. I had heard in passing that's their leading scorer. I didn't fact check.

[Chris]

Second leading.

[Katie Nolan]

So, secondly, thank You, Chris, always my facts guy. And so just something to know, and I don't want to. I. Please. I'm not bringing this up to say that that's an advantage for Hofstra. I wouldn't say that. A man's been arrested, and that's not cool. But their second leading score won't be in the game. I'm not. Again, I'm not. I just was reporting the. It's not my fault. I had asked you guys, though, how far you take your own team, your own school, your alma mater into the tournament, and we got some responses. We got an email from Keith, Chris.

[Chris]

We did. Keith said, if you're the chaplain of an 11 seed, like sister Jean in 2018. Yeah, 2018. I don't know why I stumbled over that. In 2018 for Loyola, you go to the sweet 16. So the sister gene rule, two extra rounds. So if you're a nine through 16 seed, you have to choose sweet 16 for your team. If you're a five through eight seed, you have to choose elite eight, a three to four seed, you have to choose Final Four. And if you're a one or two seed, you have to choose your team to win the title.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I think if you're a 1 seed, you absolutely have to choose your team to win the. I think also that would go down to, like, if I were a four seed, I'd say I'm winning the title.

[Isabella]

Yeah, same.

[Katie Nolan]

I'd feel pretty confident about that, probably.

[Andrew He]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

But Sister Jean rules. That's a good rule. That's not. And that would mean that I'm taking them to the Sweet 16.

[Chris]

The Hofstra Prize, which is. Which is sort of what we landed on last week. I think the sweet 16 is.

[Katie Nolan]

That's two. That's two times I write them down as the winner. Or three.

[Chris]

Yeah. So the round of 64, the round of 32 to get to the sweet 16.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Okay, I could do that. We also got a voicemail from Elizabeth. I heard.

[Chris]

We did. Let's play it.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Guest (Andrew He)]

Hi, Katie and the casualties. This is Elizabeth from outside Philly. Regarding your question about how far you take your team in March Madness, my philosophy is, better a busted bracket than broken dreams. So it's. I've always lived by that. I'm a die hard, obsessed Duke basketball fan, and so I always take them as far as I realistically think they will lose. And I'm a pessimist, so I've had them lose earlier than they have sometimes. But I'm also a realist. But I will also say that the closest I ever came to to winning a bracket pool because despite watching a lot of college basketball, as you probably can imagine, a lot of amateurs win, and people that watch it don't do well. I know Paula did a whole episode about this, but I was in an office pool with $500 on the line, and it was in 2015, when Kentucky had a nearly perfect season. So most people had Kentucky winning, but I genuinely thought they were going to lose to Wisconsin. They couldn't make it all the way and be perfect, and that Duke would lose to Wisconsin because they'd already be Wisconsin earlier that season. So it was $500 on the line between someone who had Duke beating Wisconsin and then I had Wisconsin beating Duke. And of course, everyone assumed that I would want to win the money, $500 more than I'd want to see my team reach the glory that I dream of every day. And I've never been happier to lose $500. And so I don't think I'll ever get close again, but that's my philosophy. Love you, mean it.

[Katie Nolan]

Bye. So she's saying, love you, too. Mean it, too. She's saying that she didn't pick Duke and Duke did win and she lost.

[Chris]

Correct. Essentially hedging her bets.

[Katie Nolan]

I think that's really. That's really kind of sweet. I think I'd be pissed if I was like, I lost the $500, and it was because I betrayed my own school. Why did I do that?

[Chris]

I've only ever gambled against my football team, and I've come up as a winner most of those times.

[Katie Nolan]

So that's a real.

[Chris]

I get it. I get what she's going for approach.

[Katie Nolan]

I think I'm too emotional for this. I think, yeah, I think I might be too emotional. I know I'm too emotional for this. Perhaps Miami of Ohio, the controversy there, that they had the undefeated season, but people were like, well, it was against nobody. And then everybody else was like, well, nobody wanted to play us, so it's not really actually our fault because we're actually too good. And you didn't want to lose to us because that would hurt you too much. And then Bruce Pearl said dumb stuff, and Bruce Pearl's son inherited that team from him. What happened to Miami of Ohio, and then also what happened to Bruce Pearl's son's school?

[Chris]

Miami of Ohio made the tournament, but they're going to be in the first four games.

[Katie Nolan]

So they're playing the player ability to win that. Go get them. Go get Them Redhawks. Right, Right. That's what they are. The red hot.

[Chris]

Exactly. And Bruce Pearl's son's Auburn team did not make much madness. You hate to see it.

[Katie Nolan]

My goodness, Brady, you opened your mouth like you were going to say something. Did you have something to say?

[Brady]

I whispered dang. Very quietly. It was an internal. Dang Bruce.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, poor Bruce and his son.

[Chris]

But Miami Valhalla now play smu. So they. They were regarded by the committee as the fourth worst at large bid Miami. So there were three other teams that the committee sort of thought of as worse than them. But because once they made the tournament the way that the selection committee, they said they scrubbed all the teams after they had chosen their field and that after their scrubbing, which is essentially looking

[Katie Nolan]

at their washing vigorously, we know what a scrub is.

[Chris]

Looking at their resumes and comparing them with the teams directly above and below them, that.

[Katie Nolan]

Why'd they have to tell us that?

[Chris]

Miami of Ohio down.

[Katie Nolan]

Why'd they have to tell us that? Why do we need to.

[Chris]

Just for some clarification as to how they went about their decision making and why Miami of Ohio is now essentially the worst ranked at large team, even though initially when they put them in the field, it was as the fourth.

[Katie Nolan]

And I feel like Miami of Ohio, look, is that exactly what you wanted? No. You don't want to have to play in. I know we're calling it the first four now, but those are play in games and you don't want to have to do that. But you're in a position where all you got to do is what you've been doing. So now you've got the chance. Just win, baby. That's all you got to do. Keep winning. Show people that you were meant to be in and just win, win, win, win. Your whole way through, they tried to count you out. You were inevitable. Show them how inevitable you are. And then again, Auburn, sorry to you that you didn't even make it in. That's unfortunate, I'm sure. Maybe you could. Maybe you can.

[Chris]

Sucks.

[Katie Nolan]

Maybe you could run the nit. How's that work? Is that how that works?

[Brady]

Probably so much better of a speech than Aaron Judge.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I'm hyped, by the way. I didn't. I was getting there long and I never went back. Andrew, he gave me a great speech. It was not like Aaron Judge at all. I was nervous asking for it because I was practicing the capitals of every country in my head and they were like, come out and do a social video. And I was like, I don't want to. I want to keep drilling down on the facts. And then when they surprised me with people who I like, really like, I was like, well, wait, I'm not ready to meet you. I'm trying to learn the capitals and the presidents. I thought it was a great speech. I thought it was a great speech. I'm looking at my water. It's just so far away from me. I'm wishing that I could be like Matilda and bring it towards my hand. But I think maybe I'll find a break at some point and go get it. Okay, the women's NCAA tournament starts Wednesday with the first four matchups. And then on Friday we start first round action. So we decided that we would fill out, you know, Isabella drafted her. She drafted the podcasts fantasy football team this year live on air. And so we figured we would as a, as a pair, I guess, because they're going to provide the. But we're going to make the decisions. Isabella. Yeah, we would fill out the women's bracket here on the podcast with some information. And we don't want to overload people with information. We always say you don't need to know anything to be into sports and we don't want to, like, drown you in, like, actual stats. So what Brady did is he reached out to all of the comms teams in these athletic departments and asked, what's the, like, most fun fact about something going on at your program right now? And heard back. Back from. How many did you email? How many did we hear back from?

[Brady]

Emailed? 80. 68 teams made the tournament and of those 68, I got 60 responses here. So I got 60 fun facts.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. And then the eight teams that didn't, will you let us know when that's one of those teams so we can say something mean about them instead?

[Brady]

I will absolutely let you know.

[Katie Nolan]

Great.

[Brady]

They had their chance.

[Katie Nolan]

I love that.

[Brady]

And they had more follow ups than they wanted.

[Katie Nolan]

Damn. Oh, I bet. I bet you followed up. Just following up here. Just following up here. As we do record today, as per my last email, as per. Circling back on this, bumping this. Just pinging this for you. Just pinging this for you. Guy who's probably very busy. Guy or gal who's probably very busy right now.

[Brady]

Thanks so much.

[Katie Nolan]

We are hosting a casuals bracket challenge. Are we doing men's and women's tournament, Brady?

[Brady]

No, we're just doing women's tournament.

[Katie Nolan]

Really? We should do both. You can do both. I mean, why not? But we started with women's because Brady's an ally. And so we are hosting our Casuals bracket challenge. You can fill out your brackets and compete against us. And by us, I mean it's this bracket that we're filling out right here. Correct. This is our podcast's bracket.

[Brady]

Do Chris and I not get brackets or is this all one joint bracket?

[Katie Nolan]

It's one joint bracket. Did you get your own fantasy team in the fantasy league?

[Brady]

No.

[Katie Nolan]

No, Brady. So come up against us in the Casuals bracket challenge. Go to Yahoo Sports. Here's the ways to get it. Okay, number one, you can go to Yahoo. Sports and you can search Casuals the bracket challenge. I feel like that might not work. I'm not just hedging. In case that doesn't work, go to the link in our Instagram bio. I will remind you we are at CasualsThePodcast or wherever you're listening to this. You can check the podcast episode notes. And that includes YouTube. We will put this in the YouTube episode description notes so that you can join our bracket challenge. Get your brackets in women only because Brady hates men. Let's go ahead and start here. Maybe Chris will come back, hopefully because he is part of this. And we're gonna start. Isabella, do you have your bracket?

[Isabella]

I do.

[Katie Nolan]

You've got it right there in front of you.

[Isabella]

Lots of words.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, absolutely. Lots of words. Let's find out. Let's find out what they mean. Are you gonna write? Can you write and keep track for us? Us when they win?

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, great. Let's go ahead and start with region number one. We've got the Fort Worth region.

[Isabella]

Okay, I see that.

[Katie Nolan]

So we're going to start with Yukon versus the University of Texas San Antonio. That is a one seed versus a 16 seed. They will play on March 21st. The Yukon Huskies, obviously they're defending champions. They're 34. Zero this year. They're on a 50 game winning streak led by AZ Fudd. Isabella, you're very familiar with AZ Fudd.

[Isabella]

Oh, yes.

[Katie Nolan]

And national player of the year front runner Sarah Strong. They are the overall favorite. Yes. This is the number one. Number one seed.

[Brady]

Number one team in the country.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, they're real good. Real good. UTSA. Those are the roadrunners. Meep. Meep out of San Antonio, Texas, obviously 18 and 15 was their record. They won the American Conference as a six seed. Brady, please give us our fun facts for these teams.

[Brady]

Fun fact for the Yukon Huskies, who was. They were busy as hell. Thankful that they got back to us. The Yukon Huskies have players born on four continents. North America, South America, Africa and Europe. Including the Spanish born Sarah Strong.

[Katie Nolan]

Interesting. Nobody from Antarctica or Asia.

[Brady]

The UTSA Roadrunners. From their comms team. The first thing that comes to mind is our senior point guard Ariana Hardaway. She lost most of her hearing in the first grade and has grown from being embarrassed about her hearing loss to confident and now wears a special hearing aid on the court.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, I love that. Just a coincidence.

[Brady]

Last name, coincidence, last name. As far as I know, they would have told me. I'd think.

[Katie Nolan]

Or maybe not. And we don't. Who cares? It's about her. I love that. That's a feel good story.

[Isabella]

That's utsa, right?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. And listen, I really think we'd be really screwing up our bracket here. But if the concept of the bit is we're just going off the fun facts. Could have at least gotten five continents. Four is not actually that many. There's only seven, right? There's only seven. Yeah. Is Andrew. He still here?

[Isabella]

I say let's do utsa.

[Katie Nolan]

Can't let her do that. Can I let her do that?

[Brady]

You have veto power.

[Katie Nolan]

I know, but I don't.

[Isabella]

You do have veto power. A week make it to Yukon. Oh, I already decided. I wrote it down.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm sorry, I just can't.

[Isabella]

I don't know what's the right spot to put it.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Good job, ISABELLA ON WRITING UCONN DOWN. Let's move on to the the 8 versus the 9. It's Iowa State versus Syracuse. Do we have an update on where Chris is?

[Isabella]

I think he's a. Tori.

[Katie Nolan]

Has anyone seen Chris?

[Brady]

Because his computer is rebooting. He is safe.

[Katie Nolan]

No way.

[Brady]

Which was. It's. The timing is insane because like North Carolina is under a. Is under a tornado watch. So Chris just disappeared and could not have come at a worse time. He is fine.

[Katie Nolan]

He's okay. Should we continue through this and you can just take his facts. Okay, great. Let's do all this. Stays in. By the way. Iowa State versus Syracuse. They play March 21st. It's the Iowa State Cyclones who were 22 and 9 seventh in the Big 12 against the Syracuse Orange 23 and 8 sixth in the ACC. Fake Chris from Iowa State.

[Brady]

I'm not doing the accent.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, great.

[Brady]

From Iowa State. A fun fact would be that Audi Crooks, their dominant low post player. Audi Crooks can play five musical instruments. Acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, drums and trumpet.

[Isabella]

Okay, great.

[Brady]

All right. From Syracuse.

[Katie Nolan]

And trumpet is strange.

[Brady]

You know, Layla Falia and Dominique Darius were Both recruited by UCLA coming out of high school. Dominique called coach Corey close and accepted her one night with. The same night Layla's mom told her to sleep on it for a night. When Layla called to accept her offer the next day, they no longer had an open scholarship for a guard Dominique had accepted before her. Wait, so UCLA offered both of these players a scholarship?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Brady]

One of them took it. And when the other one tried to take it, they said, nope, we only had one. Bye. Now they're both teammates at Syracuse and playing their final season of college.

[Isabella]

Okay, I was gonna say. I was like, where's the fun in this fight?

[Katie Nolan]

This is fun. Cause now they're together.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Guest (Andrew He)]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

They occupied the same spot on another team, but now they're both on this team and best friends. Did you say Brady? And they have sleepovers all the time.

[Brady]

We can infer that.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's infer that. That makes me the most comfortable.

[Isabella]

Okay. Can I give an irrational reasoning?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

Okay. So I like Iowa because number eight's my favorite number. And Cyclone. Once I threw for the Brooklyn Cyclones.

[Katie Nolan]

That's so true.

[Isabella]

You're so right. I mean, and.

[Katie Nolan]

But for me, it's the power of friendship. And that those. Those girls being best friends.

[Isabella]

Whatever. Orange next.

[Katie Nolan]

Wow.

[Isabella]

Yeah, whatever.

[Katie Nolan]

I actually just remembered how much I hate filling out a bracket. Let's move to the five. I actually hate this. I hate this. Five versus 12. We've got Maryland versus Murray State. Now, I believe last year I may have caped up for Murray State. Maryland. This game will happen on March 20th. It's the Maryland Terrapins. Brady, I'm sure, will tell us all about them. 23 and 8. They were sixth in the Big Ten. The Murray State Racers won the Missouri Valley Conference. They're obviously based out of Kentucky. Brady, what are our fun facts?

[Brady]

Maryland's fun fact. Their leading scorer, Olachi Okananwa, runs a fashion and style Instagram account called Stylin with Lucci. She goes by Gucci. Lucci.

[Katie Nolan]

Damn.

[Brady]

Okay, Murray States. Fun fact. They're just the second team in Missouri get Missouri Valley Conference history to reach the 30 wins mark.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that's. That's like. That is like. It is fun.

[Isabella]

I don't know too much.

[Katie Nolan]

It is fun, but it is like, sort of like a negative on, I think, their conference maybe. Does it feel. Is it reflecting? Almost.

[Isabella]

We got to go with the Terrapin.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's go. We're because of Brady. Because it'd be rude of us to play in his face and choose Murray State. So we have to go. Sorry, sorry. Thank you for getting back to us. All right, moving to the 4 versus the 13. You really wish Chris was here for this. We got North Carolina, number four. North Carolina versus Western Illinois. It's the Tar Heels versus the Leather Necks. Brady, is that a what? Is that a turtle?

[Brady]

It may be a turtle. It may be a reference to the Marines. I didn't know recently.

[Katie Nolan]

The Marines. The leatherneck Marines. Okay. I don't know. I know I'm not that deep in the culture. Tar Heels versus Leathernecks. The Tar Heels, third in the ACC this season. Western Illinois won the Ohio Valley Conference. Chris, do you got a fun fact for us?

[Brady]

Random fact from the Tar Heels. Multiple players on their team run a TikTok account and call themselves the Blue Ballers. Handle is blueballers1.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Brady]

Fun fact about Western Illinois, they are one of the few so schools to not have any players hit the transfer portal for 2024.

[Katie Nolan]

They like it so much, they stuck around. I like that. I like a little bit of loyalty.

[Isabella]

Me, too.

[Katie Nolan]

But I like. I like. I like sports relationship metaphors more, I think.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

And I just. I got an affinity for the Tar Heels.

[Isabella]

I mean, all I know about a Tar Heel is Bill Belichick. So part of me is like, do I want to?

[Katie Nolan]

Right, Right. What about the line Carolina Blue Kids picks from a Jay Z verse on a Foxy Browns song? None of that's ringing any bells for you, so that's fine. We're gonna do. We're still gonna do the Tar Heels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. All right. Then we move to the 6 versus the 11. It's Notre Dame versus Fairfield. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish, led by ACC player of the year Hannah Hidalgo and Fairfield Stags, who won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference difference. The Mac, right? Is what we're calling that. The Mac.

[Brady]

Notre Dame.

[Katie Nolan]

Sorry.

[Brady]

Notre Dame's fun fact. Starting center Malaya Kohl's has a pet snake.

[Katie Nolan]

Well, that's not fun.

[Brady]

Oh, Fairfield Stags. One of our Roadrunners. The term we use for forwards, Megan Anderson, has an Instagram cooking account at. Chefing it up with Megan.

[Katie Nolan]

I love that. Very long, though. Chefing it up with Megan. That's like a ton. That's like a sentence, honestly. And you can't go by the Roadrunners because that's utsa, so you gotta stop. You can't within your own mascot call. Different position, different mascots. Because those mascots exist already. Right. We got Roadrunners. Oh, I see. Nobody else wanted to Be critical to these fun facts. We were supposed to just go. Sounds awesome. Isabella, who do you choose?

[Isabella]

Serious. The thing is, I like the fun fact, but I feel like you're gonna overrule me and I'm gonna have a problem with it.

[Katie Nolan]

They both were fun facts, though.

[Isabella]

You didn't like the Snake?

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, yeah. No, I didn't. But I do like Notre Dame, so.

[Isabella]

I know.

[Katie Nolan]

I knew it.

[Isabella]

I was gonna choose the Stags, and you're gonna be like, no, like, Notre Dame is better.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Is that me? Is that you doing me? That's such an interesting. How long have we been working on that? Would you say it's pretty good?

[Isabella]

Like two seconds?

[Katie Nolan]

It's really good. Good. Let's put Notre Dame through.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. Number three.

[Isabella]

I love how this is just Katie's bracket and Isabella gets to hold the controller on point.

[Katie Nolan]

This next one. All you.

[Andrew He]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Number three. Ohio State versus number 14, Howard. Ohio State Buckeyes and the Howard Bison. I don't think I ever knew that they were the Howard Bison. The Buckeyes were fourth in the Big Ten, and the Howard Bison won the MIAC. The Mideastern Athletic Conference. They were 26. 7, same record. Both of these teams, Brady, fun facts from the ME Acts.

[Brady]

Ohio State's Jaloni Cambridge and Ella Hobbs enjoy building Lego sets.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Brady]

Jelani will sometimes build sets on longer plane rides.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. I wonder what type of set she's doing on a plane ride. Like, if it's a longer plane ride, I'm assuming that's like six, five or six hours. So you could probably really get, like, a.

[Isabella]

With what space?

[Katie Nolan]

Well, it depends on if you do something like, let's say, the bouquet. You could do a flower at a time. The problem is those really don't travel well, so you gotta have somewhere to put a flower when you're done with it. And that might be kind of annoying, but I love. I like the commitment to the. To the art. What else, Brady?

[Brady]

For Howard, I'm gonna go with two facts here. The one they gave us. Our starting senior forward, Zaniyah Thomas is drawn to neonatal nursing and influenced by her great grandmother's and great grandmother, great grandmother's and great great grandmother's legacy in nursing. But here's a fact. From their media notes on their website, senior Niall Miller. Three individuals she would invite over for dinner are model Winnie Harlow, rapper Dave east, and JonBenet Ramsey.

[Katie Nolan]

Well, now, here's the thing.

[Isabella]

Maybe we didn't need this.

[Katie Nolan]

Well, it's just that where I don't know Dave east. Actually. I'll also say. Is anyone else familiar with his work?

[Brady]

I only know the song he has on MLB the show. And that is a song on MLB the Show.

[Katie Nolan]

Do you know what it's called?

[Brady]

No, I don't.

[Katie Nolan]

Great stuff.

[Brady]

This isn't going anywhere, Right?

[Katie Nolan]

So I. The. So JonBenet famously not coming to dinner. But maybe the question was alive or dead. But then even still, I go, I got a follow up of all three. Why? You know, you're just curious.

[Isabella]

Are sounding a lot, a lot better in this moment.

[Katie Nolan]

Well, and it's. And here's the thing. It's totally up to you.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

So I'm gonna let you choose.

[Isabella]

I. I'll go. I'll go with Ohio. Wow.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella hates HBCUs. That's crazy.

[Isabella]

Oh, my God. They're gonna clip that and be like, damn haters.

[Katie Nolan]

Tough optics on that. But hopefully, you know, I've empowered. It's her bracket. She was right. I do need to let her pick.

[Isabella]

Okay, you wanna. You wanna start some beef right now?

[Katie Nolan]

It's the 7 versus the 10. We're still in the first quadrant of this bracket. The 7v10 Illinois. Illinois v Colorado. March 21st is the game. It's the fighting Illini versus the Buffaloes. The Fighting Illini, I believe is a. Is. Is based on a tribe. Yes.

[Brady]

Yeah, it's a tribe.

[Katie Nolan]

Which is the tribe that Illinois is named after. So the Fighting Illini from Champaign, Illinois. They were 21 and 11 ninth in the Big Ten up against the Colorado Buffaloes, who were 22 and 11 sixth in the Big 12. Fun fact time.

[Brady]

Illinois hired Jackie Alexander as an assistant coach in the 2025 off season. She served as an army officer for three years following her undergrad career at West Point. Colorado Buffaloes were the only team to give a fun fact for literally every player on the roster.

[Katie Nolan]

Whoa. Buffs. Above and beyond. A buff and beyond.

[Brady]

Freshman forward Sophie Zadel. She was in orchestra for nine years and plays the violin.

[Katie Nolan]

And that's the one you chose, was the most fun.

[Brady]

Yeah. They weren't elite facts, but there was a lot of them.

[Katie Nolan]

They were fun.

[Andrew He]

Ish.

[Katie Nolan]

All right, Isabella, what are you doing with that information?

[Isabella]

Am I supposed to know who Jackie Alexander is? I didn't know who.

[Brady]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Isabella]

Oh, okay. Okay. Is that a known person that I should know?

[Brady]

No.

[Isabella]

Oh, okay. You guys said it like. It was like, oh, you guys.

[Katie Nolan]

What is this on me for?

[Isabella]

Oh, sorry. Okay, I'm gonna choose the Buffies. The Buffaloes.

[Katie Nolan]

The Vampire slayers through to the next round.

[Brady]

Well, that's gonna stick forever.

[Katie Nolan]

Important win, the Colorado Buffies. That's right. Go get them. Slay, Slay queens. Moving on, number two, Vanderbilt versus number 15, High Point. March 21st. This game. Most of the games are that day. I probably don't have to keep saying it's the Vanderbilt Commodores from Nashville, Tennessee, led by SEC player of the year Michaela Blakes against the High Point Panthers, 27 and 5. They won the Big South.

[Brady]

Vanderbilt traveled roughly 20,500 miles this season with trips to Paris, St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands. Oh, that is St. Thomas. And New York City.

[Katie Nolan]

For what?

[Brady]

Tournaments?

[Isabella]

Just got time travel.

[Brady]

They traveled 20,000 miles this year.

[Katie Nolan]

Nobody else did any of that.

[Brady]

That seems like a lot. I can't imagine.

[Katie Nolan]

That is a lot.

[Brady]

No one else gave me a total mileage, but that feels like a lot, right?

[Katie Nolan]

Great.

[Brady]

High Point. Number five on the High Point roster. Shana Pashi runs her own nail business here on campus. She paints other student athletes and students nails.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella.

[Isabella]

Oh, that's fun. Isabella. That's really fun.

[Katie Nolan]

We love an accessible nail tattoos for the girls.

[Isabella]

Yeah, we're gonna have to go with Panthers for that one.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. High Point Panthers, pants up. Great. All right, we're moving to the second region, the Sacramento region. Here, our number one seed is UCLA, going up against 16 seed Cal Baptist. The Cal Baptist Lancers up against the UCLA Bruins. The Bruins were Big Ten champions, led by Lauren Betts, who is how tall, Isabella?

[Isabella]

Six seven.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right. And the Cal Baptist Lancers from Riverside, California. So two California teams here won the WAC, the Western Athletic Conference with a record of 23 and 10.

[Brady]

Fun facts from UCLA's comms team. Three of our student athletes, Charlize Ledger Walker, Gabriela Jacques and Lauren Betts, join the UCLA spirit squad for a halftime dance routine.

[Katie Nolan]

A hands time daft routine.

[Brady]

A halftime dance routine at the UCLA men's basketball game on March 3rd.

[Isabella]

Okay, fun.

[Katie Nolan]

Wait. Okay. Sick. I want to see.

[Brady]

And Cal Baptist Lancers, their women's team, has made multiple 3 point shots in 421 straight games. Games.

[Isabella]

Whoa. All right, Isabella. I'm going to go with ucla.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah? And why is that?

[Isabella]

I don't know. It sounds fun.

[Katie Nolan]

Hey, Chris.

[Guest (Andrew He)]

Hi.

[Chris]

What are you guys up to?

[Katie Nolan]

How's the tornado?

[Chris]

Tornado's fine.

[Katie Nolan]

It's just your. Your laptop.

[Chris]

Laptops on the other hand.

[Katie Nolan]

And we won't get into it.

[Isabella]

Are we Sacramento 2 or 4?

[Katie Nolan]

Sacramento 2.

[Brady]

Sacramento 2.

[Katie Nolan]

We. We. We've been just sitting Here in silence, waiting for you. So are you ready?

[Chris]

That's what I figured and hoped.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

We're gonna pick up where we left off. You just missed your chance. So it's gonna go Brady again and then we'll come to you. I don't want to throw off the order that we had. Moving on. Now that she's picked ucla, we're going to Oklahoma State. The eighth seed versus the nine seed Princeton. The Oklahoma State Cowgirls, Yoo forward facing. And the the Princeton Tigers who won the Ivy League 26. Three was their record represent. Why'd you say that?

[Isabella]

He used to be a Princeton boy.

[Chris]

I used to live in Princeton. We went very regularly.

[Katie Nolan]

So it wasn't for the Ivy League part because I was like that. I feel like you should have said sooner. Anyone who went to the Ivy League mentions that so much sooner, don't they? All right, so we've got Oklahoma State versus the Cowgirls versus the Tigers.

[Brady]

For Oklahoma State, two famous dads. Joe Girardi's daughter Lena is a freshman on the Oklahoma State roster. And Brock Hewitt's daughter Macy is. Is in her second year.

[Katie Nolan]

Means nothing to Isabella. Carrying on the next fun fact for Princeton.

[Brady]

Full bias. I love this one. For five years, the Tigers have ranked breakfast at each hotel they stay at.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Brady]

Emily eady, class of 29 took over this season for Katie Theers in 20 of 2025, who did it for two years. Fort Myers and Harvard are at 9.4. Are the two top rankings of any breakfast this team has ever eaten.

[Katie Nolan]

9.

[Isabella]

I love that.

[Katie Nolan]

And you know why I love that? Because if that ice cube movie that lost every. Won every losing award is to be believed. They said data is the. Is what the alien machines are gonna come here and try to eat. I believe is what I gathered from the plot, just from watching the horrendous trailer. It's that data is their food. And I love a team that collects their own data. That's super useful.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

At a time when data is food.

[Isabella]

Let's go with Tiger.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Great. Go Princeton.

[Isabella]

Shout out Jersey.

[Katie Nolan]

Don't you love though, that the men's basketball team at Oklahoma State is also the Cowgirls? I love that. I think that's great and really, really progressive. All right. Number five. They're not. Yeah, I was just joking. Sorry. There's a. There. Are there still lady teams? Are we gonna bump into a lady team now? Brady's gone. What's going on? Okay, Chris, we bump into any, like, Lady Vols or anything later in this bracket? Before. So I don't waste this story when I could tell it probably to her later.

[Chris]

Going through this real quick, I think

[Katie Nolan]

wasn't Baylor the Lady Bears.

[Brady]

We did plenty of other lady teams going on.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Great. So that's all I was asking. So we'll get to those in a sec, Isabella. And we'll can really cover it then we've got Ole Miss versus Gonzaga. It's a five versus A. Or Gonzaga.

[Isabella]

Love Gonzaga.

[Katie Nolan]

They get mad. It's Gonzaga. Yes.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. 5v12 March 20 it's different. The Ole Miss Rebels, who were 23 and 11, eighth in the SEC, take on the Gonzaga Bulldogs from Spokane, Washington, who were 24, 9 and won the Western coast West Coast Conference tournament. The Wick. The Wicca. The Wiccan Chris.

[Chris]

Yeah. For Ole Miss. Their center, Desiree Kyles, has a pet ball python named Sasha.

[Katie Nolan]

Why are we doing this again? Why are we doing this again? I don't want to pet snakes that we already had a pet snake.

[Isabella]

Jesus. Okay. God.

[Katie Nolan]

That means these women are buying mice. I know.

[Chris]

Good point. Or they just have a severe infestation.

[Katie Nolan]

Or they've got a problem that they found a creative solution.

[Isabella]

Really? Like, love the beauty of snakes.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, but you still have to feed them mice. You still. You can't just bypass the part that is you feeding them mice.

[Isabella]

All right, whatever.

[Katie Nolan]

Your hater of buying and feeding with mice. Yes.

[Chris]

Gonzaga for the Zags. Both Enish Bettencourt and Lauren Whittaker have played for national teams. Lauren has been on the senior national team for New Zealand and hopes to play in the next Olympics.

[Isabella]

Hell, yeah. Okay, that's cool.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella, what do you think?

[Isabella]

Every time I think of Ole Miss, I think of Lane Kiffin. So. But they look like the better ranked team. And I know that's a completely different. Different sport. Let's do the snake.

[Katie Nolan]

So we're doing Ole Miss.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

You love Lane Kiffin. Oh, my God. Okay, let's move on.

[Andrew He]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Brady's gone. I mean, what's going on? We can't.

[Chris]

One of those days.

[Katie Nolan]

Number four, Minnesota versus number 13, Green Bay. This is on March 20th. The Minnesota Golden Gophers, who were 22 and 8 and fifth in the big Ten, take on the University of Wisconsin. Green Bay. Phoenix. That's the. The phoenix. The bird that flies out of fire. I assume. A little confusing because there's a lot of cities. It's Green Bay. Then you get the. But they won the Horizon League with a record of 25 and 8. Chris, what are our fun facts? Here because Brady has left for Minnesota.

[Chris]

The players on their team are huge fans of the Broadway show Hamilton. So much so they went and saw it on Broadway when they played at Rutgers this past season.

[Katie Nolan]

This. This fun fact is from the. This. This year, right?

[Chris]

This is what we received this weekend.

[Katie Nolan]

I love that. I love that. New generations. And then what else?

[Chris]

And for the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Phoenix, they have two pairs of sisters on the team. You got Juliana and Christina Womet and then Callie and Cami Pepler, and then they have another pair of sisters signed to next year's freshman class.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, not yet. So not yet.

[Chris]

Not yet.

[Katie Nolan]

Not yet.

[Isabella]

But they currently still have one pair.

[Katie Nolan]

One set of sisters.

[Chris]

Two pairs of sisters and then a third pair.

[Andrew He]

Third one coming. That's on me.

[Katie Nolan]

I thought you were. I am impressed.

[Isabella]

Okay, we gotta do that.

[Katie Nolan]

This is also getting kind of close to, like, this school. Gotta think for sisters. What's going on here? What are we doing? What are we doing? Sports families. They got a good lineage of sports families who have multiple girls who can ball out. We love that.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

Shout out.

[Katie Nolan]

And while they have two pairs, they can get to stomping in their Air force ones. Isabella, who did you want to pick in this one?

[Isabella]

I want to do Green Bay. Green Bay. Joaquin Phoenix.

[Katie Nolan]

Nice. Hell, yeah. All right, we're picking an upset there. 13 over the 4, the 6 versus the 11. It's the Baylor Bears. They're no longer the Lady Bears.

[Isabella]

Oh, they were the Lady Bears.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. But I don't think that was how we felt about it. But maybe it is. Maybe it is now. I don't know. Just sometimes it was a little weird when they would take the school's mascot and then the women would be the lady verse version of them. And you'd just be like, what if we were also just.

[Isabella]

Oh, like they didn't do like they were the late.

[Katie Nolan]

They were like the Baylor Lady Bears. Instead of being.

[Isabella]

They would basically the Bay.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

Gotcha.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

Oh, yeah. That's weird.

[Katie Nolan]

The. They were 24 and 8. Third in the Big 12. They are up against. Oh, yeah. This is. We don't know yet because it's going to be a play in game. So the 11 seed is either the Richmond Spiders or the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They have their play in game on March 8th 18th. So, Chris, do we have for all three of these teams?

[Chris]

We do.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, let's take a listen to the special facts.

[Chris]

Firstly for the Baylor Bears, the Bears have the third longest active streak of appearances in the NCAA tournament behind Tennessee and UConn. And the second longest active streak of appearances with at least one win behind only UConn.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, and Brady's back. So, hi. This is just, I guess, how it's gonna go today. So we're all. Isabella. Who do we want to pick?

[Chris]

Do we have. Give me the facts for Richmond or Nebraska.

[Katie Nolan]

Keep going with. Give me those then.

[Chris]

Now your fun fact for Richmond. Spiders. Maggie Dougan's mum is a Hall of Famer at Lasell and is also the head coach of Cardinal o' Hara High School in Philadelphia. Maggie Dugan won a state title under her mom her senior year of high school.

[Katie Nolan]

That's cool.

[Chris]

Pretty cool. And for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Nebraska's first team all Big Ten point guard Brit P. Brit Prince is one of the nation's best shooters. Earlier this season, Prince made a school record 56 free throws, men's or women's basketball, including her first 54 attempts in big Ten play. I just checked as well. She finished the season shooting 90.5 from the. From the free throw line. So very, very good free throw shooter is Britt Prince.

[Isabella]

So how are we doing this with. If we choose one that has two teams?

[Chris]

Just choose either of those two teams or Baylor.

[Brady]

You just need to pick one of those three. Three teams, really, to advance.

[Katie Nolan]

I don't know. I. I don't like spiders.

[Isabella]

I know.

[Katie Nolan]

And I don't like Nebraska. Okay, so. But I don't like Baylor. So this is really. I'm gonna leave this one to you. I think I have to abstain for moral reasons.

[Isabella]

All right, let's see some facts over here. Okay. Atlantic 10, you know, that's big.

[Katie Nolan]

Huge.

[Isabella]

We got the Big Ten. That's big as well. But they got a Big 12.

[Katie Nolan]

They were 12th in the Big Ten.

[Isabella]

So not great.

[Katie Nolan]

You know.

[Isabella]

Yikes. Let's go with the Corn Huskers.

[Katie Nolan]

Great. That's the opposite of. That's great. That sounds great. Let's put Nebraska down there and let's move on to the next. It's so hard to not be in control and yet be expected to be in control. That's what I'm really struggling with.

[Isabella]

You didn't have to. You didn't have to.

[Katie Nolan]

The fact. I don't know these facts. Facts. And I'm sort of banking on them being good facts. And I'm also. We gotta. We're just moving, and then everybody keeps leaving, so I don't know what to.

[Chris]

But if they're bad facts, you can use that against the school.

[Katie Nolan]

Totally.

[Chris]

They're Saying, you know what? They're terrible.

[Katie Nolan]

Totally. Number three, Duke versus number 14, College of Charleston. This is on March 20th. We don't know when. Check your local listings. It's the Duke Blue devils from Durham, North Carolina, who started 3 and 6, but ended up 248 and they won the ACC. And the Charleston Cougars from Charleston, South Carolina. 27 5, won the Colonial. The CAC the Colonial Athletic, they love. They really took the whole CAC down. The Colonial Athletic Conference and as Cougars are want to do. So let's hear their fun facts from Brady.

[Brady]

All right. You were worried about bad facts. I got you for Duke. Sophomore Toby Fournier's mother was on the original Degrassi High. She was Lucy Fernandez.

[Katie Nolan]

Wait, who?

[Commercial Announcer 2]

Wait, who?

[Brady]

Lucy Fernandez.

[Katie Nolan]

Give me some. Give me. She dated who and got into a big fight.

[Brady]

Oh, God, I wish I knew.

[Isabella]

Same Lucy Hernandez.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella's on it while you keep going.

[Brady]

Brady for Charleston Cougars. We have two sets of twins on our team. Taylor and Taryn Barbeau.

[Katie Nolan]

What a one up. Not just two sisters. You got two sisters. We see you. That. We raise you. We got two sets of twins.

[Brady]

The Philosophers.

[Katie Nolan]

Nice.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

And Antoines. You know, that's the Charleston Cougars.

[Isabella]

The Degrassi fact is. Really.

[Katie Nolan]

Do we know who the character is?

[Isabella]

Lucy Fernand. Oh, so this is like the OG Degrassi, which I've only seen one.

[Katie Nolan]

Wow. She just called us all old. Pretend that you know it and read what it says they did. As a character.

[Isabella]

Yeah. Hold up one second.

[Brady]

Is that the Drake one?

[Isabella]

What?

[Katie Nolan]

I think Drake was newer class.

[Isabella]

No, this is like OG OG Degrasse.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, like Canada Aired in Canada, only that was like.

[Isabella]

I think it was in the 80s when this came out.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, I'm also too young for this. Never mind.

[Isabella]

Okay, okay.

[Katie Nolan]

But congrats to her daughter for making it to the tournament. You'll be the Pete Crow Armstrong of your team.

[Andrew He]

Ah.

[Katie Nolan]

Now, Isabella, what would we like to do here?

[Isabella]

Yeah, I still like the do grass.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

So Duke.

[Katie Nolan]

So it's Duke. Can't go wrong there, I don't think.

[Isabella]

Yeah, but we'll see.

[Katie Nolan]

And then we've got Texas Tech versus Villanova. This is a 7 seed versus a 10 seed. The Texas Tech Lady Raiders.

[Isabella]

Interesting.

[Katie Nolan]

Versus the Villanova Wildcats. Now, Lady Raiders just call them the Laders. I don't know if that's okay with everybody, but they finished fourth in the Big 12 while Villanova finished second in the Big East. Chris, what are our fun facts here really quickly? Sorry. Yes.

[Isabella]

Is Texas Tech atm?

[Katie Nolan]

No, that's Texas A and M, which is different. Texas Tech is Texas Tech.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

What does she know about Texas Tech?

[Isabella]

Nothing.

[Katie Nolan]

She might.

[Brady]

Patrick Mahomes went to Texas Tech.

[Katie Nolan]

Yep.

[Isabella]

Okay, cool.

[Katie Nolan]

Didn't Kiss Sexbury coach at Texas Tech?

[Brady]

Kiss Sexbury?

[Katie Nolan]

Cliff Kingsbury.

[Brady]

Oh, yeah. He coached at Texas. I played and coached at Texas Tech.

[Katie Nolan]

That's right. So those are the. That's just to ground you in the Texas Tech of it all. Thank you.

[Commercial Announcer 2]

Thank you.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's go ahead and give us our fun facts, Chris.

[Chris]

For Texas Tech, their graduate senior Snudder Collins spent all of last year selling Nissens in Oxford, Mississippi, before coming back to Lubbock to finish her last season of basketball.

[Katie Nolan]

Selling what now?

[Chris]

Nissan's.

[Brady]

You know, like the Nissan Sentra.

[Andrew He]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Nissan's. Chris.

[Chris]

Correct, I believe. Let me read it again.

[Katie Nolan]

Chris. This can't be Australia. Australia's saying Nissen Sentra. Wait, no, there's no way. You're just saying it wrong and blaming it on it.

[Chris]

Nissin.

[Katie Nolan]

Nissin.

[Isabella]

Okay, okay. I was like, is this a drug I have not heard of?

[Andrew He]

Yes.

[Brady]

Their fun fact was that she spent all of last year selling drugs.

[Katie Nolan]

I thought of Ramen. What's the ramen company I'm trying for?

[Brady]

I think it is as Nissin is the ramen company.

[Katie Nolan]

I was like, she sold ramen. And then I was. I did it. Nissan's. So she was a car salesperson? Yes, all last year. You're gonna have to finish the rest of the fact because I was stuck on the Nissan of it all.

[Chris]

In her final season, she's second on the team in points per game and earned Big 12 sixth player of the year honors.

[Katie Nolan]

Hell, yeah. Oh, I love. Oh, I wish they could see the zoom.

[Isabella]

They can't.

[Katie Nolan]

But there's. They just did fireworks for me. I don't know why. Okay, is that. That's one. And what's the other fun fact? Villanova.

[Chris]

Villanova starting forward Brynn McCurry is one of the most well rounded players in the upcoming tournament. Here are some facts about Brynn McCurry. Named second team all big east and was the league's most improved player. Black belt in karate. She does skeet shooting as a hobby. She's ambidextrous. She has a 3.87 GPA and is Dean's list every semester. She played basketball, volleyball, and threw javelin in high school. And she's overcome two ACL surgeries, one in high school and one in college.

[Katie Nolan]

What's her name?

[Chris]

Bryn Macari.

[Katie Nolan]

Go off. Brynn McCurry.

[Chris]

Impressive.

[Katie Nolan]

Jesus.

[Chris]

Yeah. First of all, there's a lot going on in Brynn McCurry's life.

[Katie Nolan]

Brynn, where do you get off making me look lazy as hell? And I don't appreciate it, but, man, that's really impressive. That's Villanova. So Texas Tech Lady Raiders or the Villanova? Regular Wildcat.

[Isabella]

Yeah, let's do the Wildcats.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, we're doing Villanova. We're crazy like that. All right, now we've got number two, LSU versus number 15, Jacksonville. Isabella, what do you know about the LSU women's basketball team? Oh, Kim Elke. That's right. I haven't heard about her in a minute. How she did fashion icon Kim. Well, she's Kim Mulkying.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

275 was their record. The Tigers finished with this year fourth in the SEC, led by Flaje Johnson. The Jacksonville Dolphins, 24 8, won the Atlantic sun tournament. The asked Brady, what are our fun facts here?

[Brady]

This is our first. We made it this far. This is our first ever bowl. Neither one of them submitted a fact.

[Katie Nolan]

Didn't get back to us.

[Isabella]

I was rooting for you.

[Katie Nolan]

Do you think it's because of Kim Mulkey? Do you think Kim Mulkey was. Was upset about the John Marco clip that we had with about her? Do you think she was?

[Isabella]

Did we get some positive criticisms, though, on some of her?

[Brady]

Between that and Blaine Kiffin, we may be blacklisted in Baton Rouge.

[Katie Nolan]

Dan got pitched flaw J for his podcast, and I was like, hello. Why aren't we getting flage for our podcast?

[Brady]

I have thoughts about that. I reached out about last year.

[Katie Nolan]

Interesting. Well, then I think LSU might get upset. I know I am.

[Isabella]

What the hell?

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella, what do you think? You think you could root for the number 15 dolphins?

[Isabella]

I don't want to.

[Katie Nolan]

You want to do LSU, that's fine. It's your bracket, too.

[Isabella]

I'll do. I just wrote lsa. Why?

[Katie Nolan]

Well, because you didn't really want to write lsu, but you knew that it probably was the right call. All right, so that's that regional. Now we're going regional number three, Fort Worth.

[Isabella]

Oh, God. What's Fort Worth? Where's that at?

[Katie Nolan]

Texas. Okay, so let's start with the one seed is Texas. The Texas Longhorns. And they will face off against the 16 seed. We don't know yet. It's the winner of Missouri State versus Stephen F. Austin. It's the Missouri State Lady Bears or the Stephen F. Austin Lady Jacks. Wait, they're just the Jacks. The Stephen F. Austin Jacks.

[Brady]

I think they're the Lumberjacks.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Brady]

For some reason, they replaced the word lumber instead of lady.

[Katie Nolan]

What if they replaced the word jack? So it was the Lumber ladies?

[Brady]

Yeah, Lumberjills.

[Chris]

It does sound better.

[Katie Nolan]

The Lumber Gals. The Lumber Broads. All right, well, it's the Lady Jacks. I don't know about all that, but they finished 25 and nine. They won the Southland Conference. The Missouri State Lady Bears were 22 and 12 and 1. Conference USA. That's the Coosa. That's why I call that the Coosa. And the Texas Longhorns, obviously number one seed, 31 and three. They upset South Carolina to win the SEC tournament. Chris, you've got fun facts for us here?

[Chris]

I do. I got a couple for Texas. The first one is Taya Sidberry took a conservation trip to Thailand, where she gave mud baths to elephants, which is pretty cool. But also, Justice Carlton has her own cookie business called J's Rollin and Dough, which I like quite a bit.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, nice. All right, now, is this actual cookies or is it a raw cookie dough? Because I know that's a new thing they're getting in on.

[Chris]

Is it really?

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, people sell it. People sell raw food.

[Chris]

I had to confirm.

[Isabella]

Yeah, it's a thing you can get

[Katie Nolan]

like the way you could get a froyo. You get like a. You get cookie dough and you eat it. But I guess it's not dangerous anymore. I don't. I think the world's ending and we

[Isabella]

just kind of just eat.

[Katie Nolan]

I' e eat the cookie dough. Okay. I'm not gonna let these eggs stop me. All right, that's one school.

[Chris]

Missouri State. Nothing. Nada. They didn't give us anything.

[Katie Nolan]

Bye, Lady Bear. Sexist. How dare you?

[Chris]

And for the Stephen F. Austin Lady Jacks, their senior point guard and best three point shooter, Harmony Dominguez, loves to bake and has a separate Instagram account for her baking, which is at maneysmunchies, which is M A N I E A S M U n C H

[Katie Nolan]

I E S. Thank you for spelling that.

[Chris]

No worries. I didn't know whether my accent was going to make it too difficult to. For people to understand what I'm saying. They also have a good luck rubber duck that sits under their head coach's chair every game.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that's cute.

[Chris]

Good luck rubber duck is very fun to say, by the way, which is why I wanted to include it.

[Isabella]

That's cute.

[Katie Nolan]

You're the fun fact. And so that's a good fun fact.

[Isabella]

That is a really Good one. I was gonna say pick Steven A. Smith. Lady Jack's to the side. And then. But now you're torn.

[Katie Nolan]

The Duck.

[Isabella]

Okay. Stephen A. Smith's Duck.

[Katie Nolan]

I gotta go with that.

[Chris]

Stephen A. Smith's Duck.

[Katie Nolan]

To win this bracket is your bracket. Brady, I must emphasize, this bracket represents you.

[Brady]

We are one bracket.

[Katie Nolan]

We are legion. Number eight, Oregon versus number nine, Virginia Tech. It's the Ducks versus the Hokies March 20th.

[Isabella]

The Ducks.

[Katie Nolan]

The Ducks 22 and 12, 11th in the Big Ten. The Virginia Tech Hokies 23 and nine, sixth in the ACC.

[Brady]

The ack for Oregon. Senior Mia Jacobs is an accomplished photographer and has shot several different Oregon athletic events this year, including football, soccer, and men's basketball.

[Katie Nolan]

Love that. That'll serve you in years to come for Virginia Tech.

[Brady]

Three of our coaches played ball in the wnb.

[Isabella]

Okay, okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Which ones?

[Brady]

Which is accomplishment. Yeah, didn't tell me which one. Head coach and two assistant coaches.

[Isabella]

Sorry.

[Katie Nolan]

Sick. All right, so Oregon or Virginia tech? It's an 8 and a 9, so it really could go either way. And I love that those. Those matchups. We don't get a rubber ducky under a seat. Something that would really help sway us. These were, again, what Brady,

[Brady]

Oregon and Virginia Tech.

[Isabella]

We had the player who's also, like, a photographer.

[Brady]

Nia Jacobs is a photographer. And Virginia Tech's head coach and two assistants all played in the wnba.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, look,

[Isabella]

It's not so easy, is it?

[Katie Nolan]

I'm going with Virginia Tech.

[Isabella]

All right.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, now we've got number five Kentucky Wildcats versus the number 12 James Madison Dukes. Confusing because that's the name of another school also. It is. It is male. So it is an actual moment where you'd be like the Duchesses. Correct. But instead of doing that, at least they didn't call them the Lady Dukes. Even more confusing, but all right. The James Madison Dukes were 26 and 8. They won the Sunbelt Conference. And the Kentucky Wildcats, 23 and 10, were seventh in the SEC. Let's hear some fun facts for Kentucky.

[Chris]

They've had two straight years worth of Aussies growing up playing basketball on their family farms in Australia and whose families both converted their barns into practice courts. First, Georgia Amore last year, who now plays for the Washington Mystics. She was sixth overall draft pick in last year's WNBA draft.

[Brady]

He's adding facts.

[Katie Nolan]

These are good facts, Brady.

[Chris]

Just. Just for some context. And Amelia Hassett grew up on a cattle farm in Australia, and her family also converted their shed into a place for Hassett to practice.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, where did the cows sleep nowhere.

[Isabella]

Wow.

[Katie Nolan]

Interesting.

[Chris]

All right, and then next for the James Madison Dukes. The JMU women's basketball team spent nine days in Spain this summer, splitting time between Madrid and Barcelona for fun. Guess so.

[Katie Nolan]

Great. Oh, I love that. Barcelona, I think, is the.

[Isabella]

I think we should go with Kentucky.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. Hell yeah. Kentucky it is.

[Isabella]

Let's go.

[Katie Nolan]

Done and done. Moving them on. Number four, West Virginia Mountaineers versus the number 13, Miami of Ohio Redhawks. Worth mentioning, the West Virginia Mountaineers won the Big 12 tournament. That was the tournament, Isabella, where they decided to try out an LED glass floor. And it wasn't until the first game of the men's tournament when people started to complain women already played on it. Women had already played their tournament and complained about how slippery it was. Then they were like, you know what? We're getting rid of this. We're gonna go back to a regular floor for the men's tournament. So shout out to the West Virginia Mountaineers for winning in spite of the facilities, I guess we'll say. And the Miami of Ohio, Redhawks, champions of the Mac with a 28 and 6 record. Brady, let's hear some fun fact facts.

[Brady]

The West Virginia Mountaineers have a new strategy this year of players eating lemon slices immediately before being announced pregame as recommended by their sport behavior health therapist, to shock their system and get their minds focused. Some players, though, say they don't like the, quote, lemon meat, and they just drink straight lemon juice.

[Katie Nolan]

I would do the meat. You got to take the meat. This is miserable and brutal, but it. It'll wake. I like that. I like anything to get an edge, you know, it's like sleep signs. Fifteen years ago, the NFL people were like, you know, sleeping actually helps.

[Brady]

Two facts. From Miami of Ohio, we have 20. Give you verbatim. We have 25 wins this season, a school record. Second fact. Tamar Singer is from Israel. Lot going on there.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Andrew He]

What?

[Katie Nolan]

How's that a fun fact? Also, why does it say they're 28 and 6? Because we're including the tournament, and they're just talking Regular season.

[Brady]

25 regular season wins.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. All right, Isabella, let's. I'm gonna pick West Virginia for us here.

[Isabella]

Yeah, sure. Just do that.

[Katie Nolan]

Because, you know, led. That's right. Led. Sound system. Let's go to number six, Alabama Crimson Tide up against the number 11 Rhode Island Rams. Rhode island is. Let's do. Crimson tide are 23 and 10. They're 10th in the SEC. They're also obviously going against Hofstra in the men's tournament. And then Rhode island rams from Kingston, Rhode Island. 28 and 4. They are Atlantic 10 champions. This is Kelsey in New Hampshire's team.

[Isabella]

Oh, okay.

[Katie Nolan]

So this is her school. So Chris, Kelsey, fun facts.

[Chris]

I regret to inform you both that neither team have any fun facts whatsoever to provide to us.

[Katie Nolan]

Hey, Kels, fix that. Fix that.

[Isabella]

It. But you know what? Just because I like you, I'm going to pick your team.

[Katie Nolan]

Not even Alabama. Yeah. So we're going to put you. Casey, is everybody upset with me? Just the way like everybody keeps like leaving and like.

[Isabella]

No, I just being mean as I was thinking of Katie and then I just said Kelsey. So I went Casey.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Brady]

I had a dog vomit upstairs. That wasn't about.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, what's going on? That's what it was. Well, sorry, Brady.

[Brady]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Moving on to Louisville. Lowellville. It's number three, Lowellville. The Louisville Cardinals versus number 14, Vermont Catamounts. Is that an eye disease? What is a catamount?

[Guest (Andrew He)]

What is that?

[Brady]

Well, how many cats do you have?

[Katie Nolan]

None.

[Brady]

That's your catamount.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. All right, I gotta go. Actually, Isabella, you got the rest of this?

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

The Louisville. Louisville Cardinals 27. Both teams 27. 7. So let's just go ahead and erase that. Nobody cares. You guys are the exact same. And Louisville was second in the ACC regular season. Suddenly we've written that in. And Vermont won the American East Conference. The Ayck. Oh, go ahead, Brady.

[Brady]

For Louisville, sophomore forward Anaya Hardy is a mechanical engineering student. And this past semester they had to change their usual practice times on certain dates to make sure she could get to class ass.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, cool. Love that. Because they're supposed to be students first.

[Brady]

And Vermont, Vermont did not give a. Which made me mad because they beat Maine in the America East Conference championship. Maine had a hell of a fun fact that they have a player. Lizzy Gruber, who runs a TikTok account for fashion for tall girls who are. Who are suffering for confidence in their fashion.

[Katie Nolan]

I love that I have my. One of my really good friends when I was a bartender in that era of my life was really, really tall. And she was all like. She opened my eyes to the struggle, you know, like the first thing people anybody says to them is always like, pretty tall for a girl. And she's like, it is so how's the weather up there? So I can imagine buying clothes. She was always complaining about like, I can't. I'm lucky if they fit. Never mind if I also want to like them. And so love that. Absolutely love that. And they got Eliminated, you're saying by these who didn't even answer our email.

[Brady]

Yeah. At Tall Girl Lizzie on Tick Tock if you want fashion.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Follow her. And we should call up what's his face from Vermont there who we just interviewed the musician and tell him to tell that team to call us back. Isn't. Wasn't he from Vermont?

[Brady]

Noah Khan. Get your together.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Noah. What's up, dude?

[Isabella]

So we're going with Cardinals.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I think we're going with the Louisville. The Louisville Cardinals. That's how they want you to say it. Isabella, could we get you to try that real quick? Louisville. She was really good, actually. You acted like you didn't even care, but you were very good at it. Okay. And then we've got number seven versus number ten. It's the NC State Wolf Pack versus the Tennessee Volunteers. No longer the Lady Vols. The wolf pack were 20 and 10. They finished fourth in the ACC and the Vols were 16 and 13. They finished ninth in the SEC. It's a 7v10.

[Chris]

Chris, what are our fun facts for NC State? Zamoria Jones has 50 plus Lego sets and does a new big set on every road trip.

[Katie Nolan]

Damn. Okay, we. It's kind of similar but. But I do love. I want to know the types that she's had because I'm running out of ones I want to do sometimes. You know they get into like IP where you're like I don't. I'm not a Harry Potter gal so I'm not going to be building this. But I want to know the ones she's got. And then what about for Tennessee?

[Chris]

For Tennessee, their team has to hit a half court shot at the end of shoot around before they wrap it up. One of our senior is Z. Spearman has made several of those attempts from half court this season. Standing with her back to the basket and flipping the ball one handed over her head towards the goal.

[Katie Nolan]

That is fun. But if you are leaving, practice is riding on it. It's like just take a regular one if you could. I'd love it to go in. All right. What do we think, Isabella?

[Isabella]

I mean the Volunteers fun fact was really fun. Yeah, but I guess NC State has a better ranking.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, but that doesn't always mean anything.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

If you really want to, especially with

[Chris]

the 7 and 10 seed. That's pretty relatively close.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay.

[Isabella]

Let's go Volunteers.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's go with the Volunteers. We volunteer as tribute. Oh no, no, we didn't mean. I don't want to volunteer as tribute. Sorry, we didn't mean I volunteer as tribute. If you're calling Isabella, then I'll step in.

[Isabella]

Okay, thanks.

[Katie Nolan]

But if you're calling Chris and Brady, good luck. You guys got this for our district. We believe in you.

[Isabella]

Mm.

[Katie Nolan]

Number two, Michigan Wolverines versus the number 15 Holy Cross Crusaders. That is religious. I don't think I ever noticed just how religious that is. The Michigan Wolverines, 256 was their record. They were third in the Big Ten, the only team to play both UConn and UCLA within single digits. Did they win? No, no. Right Cross. Holy Cross Crusaders out of Worcester, Massachusetts, 23 and 9. They won the Patriot League tournament. So you know what that means? Nothing. What is. What do we got for fun facts for Michigan?

[Brady]

11 of our 14 players have a sibling who was. Is. Will be a collegiate athlete.

[Katie Nolan]

Sorry, they've. 11 of the. Are how many players.

[Brady]

11 of their 14 players have a sibling who is also a college athlete.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. Or will be someday, which is kind of cheap because they got to get in, so we don't know.

[Brady]

And from the Holy Cross Crusaders quote, I actually started at Holy Cross about three weeks ago, so I'm still learning about the team myself. But during the selection show, we learned that one of our seniors, Captain Meg Cahalan, was a high school teammate with Ashley sofolkanich of Michigan. They are playing in the first round against each other.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that is so sweet. The relatable. Like, I actually haven't finished reading the media packet because it is my first day, so I feel it. Yeah. And I would.

[Brady]

You know what? He responded.

[Katie Nolan]

He did. He did. And he's got. It seems he's got God on his side, so, you know, I don't know. I think I do still think maybe we should go with Michigan. With Michigan?

[Isabella]

Isn't that Joey Avery's team? Michigan Wolverines.

[Brady]

Oh, yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Isabella remembers everything. So we're doing that for you, Joey Avery. What have you. What are you gonna do for us?

[Isabella]

Right? Come back.

[Katie Nolan]

You got Hofstra going in your bracket. Joey. Okay, moving on to Regional 4, Sacramento. We're gonna start.

[Brady]

Chris, take this without me. I gotta go parent for a second.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, my God. I mean, I just. And I can't say no, Right. Cause it's parenting. Someone has to do it. But what is in the air today? All right, Chris, you're on. Number one, South Carolina Gamecocks versus number 16. It will be the winner of Southern versus Samford. It's the Southern Jaguars versus the Samford Lady Bulldogs. They won the socon the Southern Conference. The Lady Bulldogs did And the Southern Jaguars won the swac. The Southwestern Athletic Conference. They will face off. And then they will. One of them will take on the South Carolina Gamecocks, who were the SEC regular season champions and are seeking a sixth straight Final Four. Chris, what do we got for fun

[Chris]

facts here for South Carolina? Across the 12 players on the team, they know eight different languages.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, wow. I wonder if Sneaky, like one of them actually knows six. You know, I wonder if someone's doing the bulk of the work there.

[Chris]

Doing a lot of heavy lifting.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, okay, cool. What else?

[Chris]

Southern Jaguars didn't give us anything.

[Isabella]

Okay, bye.

[Chris]

Let's just flick them to the side.

[Katie Nolan]

Damn. Are they also an H? Is Isabella dismissing an hbcu? Again, not a good look for Isabella.

[Andrew He]

Oh my God.

[Katie Nolan]

Next, the Sanford Lady Bulldogs.

[Chris]

Martha Bishop plays both soccer and basketball. She won championships in both sports this year.

[Katie Nolan]

Uh huh.

[Chris]

Pretty talented.

[Katie Nolan]

Is it? Is Sanford in hbcu? Yeah, the South Eastern Conference.

[Andrew He]

No.

[Katie Nolan]

No, they're not. Not so. Okay, Isabella, you can pick them if you want. It's your personal policy. Quick parenting from Brady. We didn't even make a choice.

[Brady]

Lightning speed.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella, what do we want to do here? It's South Carolina. Can we do South Carolina?

[Isabella]

Yeah, I was gonna say I like. I also really like the languages. Fact.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, it is a good fact. It is a really good fact.

[Chris]

I like Don Staley.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, of course. Shout out Don Staley, their coach.

[Isabella]

Oh, that's where she coaches.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, ma'. Am. The number 8 Clemson Tigers versus the number 9 USC Trojans. Tee Hee hee. A tee hee A tee hee hee. The Clemson Tigers finished 21 and 11, 8th in the ACC and the Trojans finished 10th in the Big Ten with a record of 17 and 13. Brady, fun facts. You got them.

[Brady]

The Clemson Tiger players pooled their own nil money to fly in Ruzna Agustinette's mother. Thought I nailed that.

[Katie Nolan]

You had it.

[Brady]

Agusta native's mutter. Ruzna Agustaneta's mother. It was the first time she has been to the States and the first time her mom had seen Ruzna play in seven years.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, from where?

[Brady]

They didn't say.

[Chris]

I think it was.

[Katie Nolan]

I could guess, you know, but you'd want to get it right. She's never been to the States. Her Mutter. Oh boy. And what a tough mutter she is.

[Chris]

Lithuania.

[Katie Nolan]

Lithuania.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

I would have been wrong. Let the record reflect. Don't guess.

[Brady]

All right. If that fact wasn't heartwarming enough, it should win. Cuz USC gave us nothing.

[Katie Nolan]

Nothing from The Trojans.

[Isabella]

All right.

[Katie Nolan]

A little protection. Would it kill you?

[Chris]

Is this heartwarming, though? It feels like it shouldn't be up to the player is to be able to.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, they do that.

[Chris]

Who's making much more money, should be able to help.

[Katie Nolan]

Pool your nil. Money.

[Chris]

Yeah, they're not making much money to begin with.

[Katie Nolan]

From Lithuania. How many flights a day leave Lithuania? You know, is that. Is it a small airport? Small country? Yeah. Capital. Good question. Starts with a V. And

[Isabella]

come on, Jeopardy.

[Katie Nolan]

Either. Is it Valletta?

[Chris]

No, that's Malta.

[Katie Nolan]

So it's Vet. So it's Vaduz. Come on, baby. Nope, It's Vilnius.

[Andrew He]

Yes.

[Katie Nolan]

Aha. Well, it was one of the V ones, so probably not even pronouncing any of those correctly. What are we picking?

[Isabella]

Let's do Tigers.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. Go Tigers. Go Clemson.

[Brady]

Sorry, Ruzna. I really tried.

[Katie Nolan]

No, you had it. And then I think you second guessed yourself so strongly that you fell off the end. And then when you tried it again, you fell off. Mother. So it was just a clear. It was the stress and anxiety. I thought you did a great job for someone whose dog has vomited within the last hour. Let's go to number five, Michigan State Spartans versus number 12, Colorado State Rams. The Spartans finished seventh in the Big Ten and the Rams won the Mountain West. Chris, what do we got for fun

[Chris]

facts for Michigan State? Inez Sotelo from Spain is a daughter of two Olympian javelin throwers. Her mother competed in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and her father in Barcelona in 1992.

[Andrew He]

Whoa.

[Isabella]

Okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Javelin. Both of them do javelin and she went with basketball?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

Huh. Interesting.

[Isabella]

Remind me, javelin.

[Katie Nolan]

Is that trap, long, pointy thing?

[Isabella]

Is that the one when you. When you run and then you jump with it?

[Katie Nolan]

No, that. That's a high jump.

[Brady]

No, that's pole vault.

[Katie Nolan]

That's what I meant. Edit it where I said that. That's pole vault, actually. Right. Brady has to go. That's pole vault.

[Isabella]

I'll look it up.

[Katie Nolan]

Forget it. No, javelin, you throw like a. It's like a spear.

[Isabella]

Okay, okay.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. And then do we get a fun fact for Colorado State?

[Chris]

We do. One fun fact that has become a storyline during the postseason run is that they have a player, Marta Lemonne, nicknamed the Latvian Bear. Marta is from Latvia and competes regularly for their national 3x3x3 team. That's what we're saying, 3x3?

[Katie Nolan]

I don't know.

[Chris]

One day Coach Williams asked, are there any bears in Latvia? And the nickname stuck.

[Katie Nolan]

Interesting. Okay. Asked a question, and then the Nickname stuck. Latvia. Capital? Riga. Don't fucking come for me, okay? I know these countries and I know their capitals.

[Isabella]

Good to know. Good to know.

[Katie Nolan]

Um, okay, so that's Michigan State versus Colorado State. Isabella, your turn to pick.

[Isabella]

I think I've been picking.

[Katie Nolan]

No, you haven't.

[Isabella]

Let's do Michigan.

[Katie Nolan]

Let's Michigan State.

[Isabella]

Yes.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay. Number four, Oklahoma Sooners versus the number 13 Idaho Vandals.

[Brady]

Whoa.

[Katie Nolan]

Love a vandal. They were the champion of the Big sky conference after going 29 and 5. That's their record. And then 247 for the Sooners, who were fifth in the SEC. Brady.

[Brady]

Brady. The Oklahoma Sooners, their All American center, Reagan Beers, went viral on social media after the official account posted a photo of her 15 beers jersey on social media after her brother, Rocky Beers announced his transfer to play football at Oklahoma. After that post, Beers ranked first among all Oklahoma student athletes in Jersey merchandise sales.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I was friends with a Leslie Beers in high school, and everybody. My dad. Dad's favorite thing. Oh, I hope her husband takes her last name. Rocky Beers. That's brought to you by Coors Light. Yes. That's where all that nil money has got to be. Rocky Beers for the Idaho Vandals.

[Brady]

They have the first and only Brazilian head coach in D1 history. Let's go. Direct quote. We have more Brazilians on the roster than any other team in the nation.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay? And as a lady from Framingham, Massachusetts, that speaks to me on a deep, deep level. So I feel like part of me, a really big part of me is really pulling for the Vandals here. Isabelle, if you want to override, I'll let you. But I want to put the. The Idaho Vandals through.

[Isabella]

All right, let's do it. I don't feel strongly of either way.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, let's. Don't you love potatoes?

[Isabella]

Yeah, they're pretty good.

[Katie Nolan]

An Idaho Vandal is just what you call a potato thief. Whoa. Okay, let's go to number six Washington Huskies versus number 11, South Dakota State. State Jackrabbits. What does a jackrabbit make you think of? It's humping for me. Isn't that who they always say? It's like the animal that has, like, cartoonishly fast sex. What a terrible. What a brutal. But I guess they're also quick. The Washington Huskies finished eighth in the Big Ten. They were 21 and 10. The South Dakota State Jackrabbits 27 and 6. They won the Summit League. Congratulations, you guys. Chris, what do we got for fun facts here?

[Chris]

For Washington. Julia Gabrivskaya, who has played in all 31 games for Washington this season, has a pre game routine where she juggles three basketballs and she also has a pet hedgehog.

[Katie Nolan]

Whoa. Giant hands and a spiky pet. What else? To juggle basketballs, you've got to have, like, big hands. Useful for basketball.

[Chris]

Absolutely. For South Dakota State, the team loves to play among us an online game on their phones together and ordered sweet and ordered team sweatshirts to match their individual character colors in the game.

[Katie Nolan]

That's cute. In Australia, they are called sweet shirts.

[Chris]

I was just doing some editorializing.

[Katie Nolan]

Has anyone ever played that game? I've actually never played it.

[Isabella]

Oh, really?

[Chris]

I've never heard of it.

[Katie Nolan]

Among us. Yeah, it was big during the pandemic. I feel like it was when it first took off. We're like, it's basically like mafia. Somebody's the bad guy, but nobody knows who it is and they

[Isabella]

imposter or not imposter.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, that's what it was. Okay, so that's cute. We love team bonding off the court. What do you think, Isabella? The jackrabbits or the Huskies?

[Isabella]

What was the Huskies fact again? Say this really quickly.

[Chris]

Yulia Gabrivskaya, juggling basketball has a hedgehog.

[Katie Nolan]

Sonic.

[Isabella]

I was gonna say Sonic the hedgehog is really sick. So that's a weird pet.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah. We'll do Washington. The Washington Huskies through to the next round. Congrats. The number three TCU Horned Frogs facing off against the number 14 UC San Diego Tritons on March 20. The Horned Frogs are Big 12 regular season champions and the Tritons, 24 and 8, won the Big West Conference. Brady, what do we have for fun facts for tcu?

[Brady]

They're starting forward Marta Suarez hand paints every pair of basketball shoes she wears on game day.

[Isabella]

Oh, that's so fun.

[Katie Nolan]

As a girl who used to hand paint all of her phone cases because her parents wouldn't buy her a fancy phone case and I would use nail polish to paint the ugliest fucking monstrosity you've ever seen in your life. And then I was stuck using it for the rest of time. I really love a hand painted artist. What do we have for the Tritons?

[Brady]

One fun fact is that some of their players have formed a coffee club where every game day on the road, they meet in the hotel lobby in the morning and walk to a local coffee spot where they have a new discussion topic every time. Examples. If you had a business in a strip mall, what would it be if you were a Pastry. What kind of pastry would you be?

[Isabella]

This is too good.

[Brady]

Extra quote, they made an Instagram account at UCSDWB Coffee Club. And verbatim, thanks to you and Katie for covering women's sports.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, hell, yeah. Wait, we have to pick them, obviously. Yeah, we have to cover UC San Diego Tritons. They have to beat tcu, where my friend Andrea went.

[Isabella]

Sorry.

[Katie Nolan]

I feel conflicted. But that's a good fact. Isabelle, what kind of pastry would you be?

[Isabella]

A chocolate croissant.

[Katie Nolan]

Really good. I'd be a cinnamon bun. Oh, cute. Yeah, we are cute. And, boys, nobody cares. So let's do number seven, Georgia. UC San Diego's moving on, Right? You're doing that. You got that? Number seven Georgia Lady Bulldogs. Those are just Bulldogs. Yeah, call them bitches. Go hard or go home. The Georgia Lady Bulldogs versus the number 10 seed, which will be the winner of Arizona State Sun Devils versus Virginia Cavaliers. Both of them finished ninth in their respective conferences. Arizona State in the Big 12 and Virginia in the ACC. And the Georgia Lady Bulldogs finished sixth in the SEC. Do we have fun facts here, Chris?

[Chris]

We do. For Georgia Lady Bulldogs. Their coach, Coach Abe, does a tremendous Daffy Duck impression. Apparently.

[Brady]

Apparently.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm gonna need to hear that. Sorry, Abe.

[Isabella]

Anyone can say they're proof that didn't happen, Right?

[Chris]

So next for Arizona State, Sun Devil senior guard Marlee Washinitz is the first cousin of USA Gymnastics 1984 Olympic hero Mary Lou Retton.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that's fun.

[Chris]

What else for Virginia, their first team all acc. Point guard Kymora Johnson grew up 2.2.4 miles from John Paul Jones arena and used to be a ballgirl at Virginia basketball games.

[Katie Nolan]

Oh, that's kind of cool. That's just like. It's been in you the whole time.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

And now you're seeing it through. That's almost like destiny. That's telling me destiny. You know, tough call. It's tough when you got to do it between three and I don't think it's fair you guys put us in this position.

[Andrew He]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

You know what? I'm gonna bet on the Daffy Duck guy.

[Chris]

Wow.

[Katie Nolan]

After all that.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

You're choosing a the man.

[Isabella]

Why are you villainizing me this whole segment? Yes, I am. Sorry.

[Katie Nolan]

Georgia gets through the Georgia Lady Bulldogs.

[Isabella]

All right, all right. Last one.

[Chris]

Also not a man. Oh, Katie. Abraham. Abramson. Henderson.

[Katie Nolan]

I retract. Good pick. Good job.

[Isabella]

Not an ally.

[Katie Nolan]

I didn't go to my Katie meeting meeting this week, and I did not. I wasn't paying attention to the minutes and I didn't notice that. Yes, of course. Coach Abe is just a nickname.

[Isabella]

So shout out to Georgia.

[Katie Nolan]

Number 2 Iowa Hawkeyes versus number 15 Fairley Dickinson Knights who are in Hackensack, New Jersey. Isabella.

[Isabella]

I know shout out Jersey.

[Katie Nolan]

So this is a 2v15. The Iowa Hawkeyes finished 26 and 6 second in the Big Ten and the fairly Dickinson Nights finished 30 and 4 and had a 22 game win streak this year. Brady, what do we got for fun facts for Iowa?

[Brady]

Ava Hyden is the best cook on the team and invites everyone over to try new dishes. Her favorite thing, creme brulee.

[Katie Nolan]

She ain't hiding at all. She come over to my house. And then what else?

[Brady]

FDU is led by first team all NEC point guard Ava Renninger. Off the court, she was an all conference flag football quarterback in high school school.

[Katie Nolan]

That's cool. Multi sport athlete.

[Isabella]

Yeah, we got to do fdk.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, the fdk. That's what we're all calling the Fairly Dickinson Nights. Fdk. And so FDK makes it through to the next round. Sorry. To Iowa and as Bruce Pearl said, the school where. Wait, was that. Where is Iowa? Where she went.

[Brady]

Where Caitlyn Clark went.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Katie Nolan]

When he said Caitlyn Smith. The school of Caitlin Smith. Well, well, well. That segment took about as long as we thought it was going to. How do we learn a lot though about it? We feel good.

[Chris]

Feel great.

[Katie Nolan]

Great. Isabella, looking over the bracket that you've got filled out there.

[Isabella]

Yeah.

[Katie Nolan]

How's it look?

[Isabella]

You know, lots of Sharpie on it. Yeah, I'm feeling, I'm feeling confident.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah.

[Isabella]

A couple of them. I'm not feeling confident.

[Katie Nolan]

Right. But anything can happen.

[Isabella]

Yeah, exactly.

[Katie Nolan]

That's why they call it's not March orderly basketball.

[Isabella]

I wasn' in my fantasy team all like.

[Katie Nolan]

And look how that happened.

[Isabella]

And I won.

[Katie Nolan]

So you won. So if you've got notes, keep them to yourself, listeners and viewers if a day after because we know what we're doing and we like our bracket. Brady loves our bracket.

[Brady]

Love it.

[Katie Nolan]

I can't wait to fill out the men's bracket this exact same way. And also tell Brady he can't submit his own.

[Chris]

Yeah, that'll be the C block.

[Katie Nolan]

A really fun, fun exercise for me. Speaking of the C block, let's take a break. When we come back, Chris is going to tell us what we can watch if we want to watch a little bit of sports this week. This is casuals and we'll be right back.

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[Katie Nolan]

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[Katie Nolan]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with

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[Andrew He]

But that's weird.

[Katie Nolan]

Okay, one judgment.

[Andrew He]

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[Katie Nolan]

@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for

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[Katie Nolan]

Oh my God, we're back. Long one today, but a good one. A long one, but a good one. It's jam packed with fun, fun stuff. Chris, you always put together a lovely list for us. If we want to watch some sports this week. What we can watch. What is the first thing we can watch this week?

[Chris]

First thing, let's get some PWHL action. Toronto scepters against the Boston fleet. That'll be Tuesday, March 17th at 7:00pm Eastern on Prime. Boston are currently on top of the standings with 39 points, and Toronto are currently on fifth on 28 points. The PWHL is riding some huge post Olympics boom, boom. The games are sold out all over the country. I think TD Garden had a sellout at one stage. They had a sellout in New York as well. So people are definitely going out in droves to watch some women's hockey, which

[Katie Nolan]

is great to see and we love to see it. Shout out Aaron Frankel who has the Caesar salad account for the fleet. Okay, what else, Chris?

[Chris]

WBC final, USA versus either Italy or Venezuela. People who are listening to this will know who wins that game.

[Katie Nolan]

But not us.

[Chris]

Don't tell us. But not us.

[Katie Nolan]

No spoilers.

[Chris]

That'll be Tuesday, March 17th at 8:00pm Eastern on Fox. So you can split screen with maybe the third period of that PWHL match.

[Katie Nolan]

Yes, of course. And the United States made it into the final. How about that? It really seemed there for a second like it wasn't going to. Isabella.

[Isabella]

Sorry. I wasn't rooting for them.

[Katie Nolan]

Isabella.

[Isabella]

I was rooting for Dr. Sorry.

[Katie Nolan]

Why? No, I love this. Because you were gen. You were rooting for a baseball team.

[Isabella]

I was.

[Katie Nolan]

I'm actually, like, looking over the past, the fact that you've betrayed our entire nation, and I'm looking at the fact that you chose, on your own owned a root for a baseball team.

[Isabella]

I did. I was going back and forth between the Oscars in this game.

[Katie Nolan]

I love that. Wait, I love that. Okay, so the United States are in the final, and we will see who it's against. But if it's against Vinnie, can I just say I really love that. Vinnie is, like, getting famous in Italy. They aired the Italy quarterfinal game all over it. Was it the quarter? Because this would be the semi. Yeah, all over Italy, nationwide. And like, Vinnie, our guy is like a hero over there. They're, like, taking interest in baseball because of our friend Vinnie Pasquintino. And, like, that's so cool. And I'm obsessed with it. And if it's a USA Italy final, I just am gonna. I'm not sure. I'm not. I'm not sure. I also think Venezuela's fun and they've got some Reds, so I don't know. Whatever. We'll see what happens. What else can we watch, Chris?

[Chris]

March Madness? All of it. Men's and women's bracket. The men's bracket specifically begins on Thursday. Happy one year anniversary to Papa Noona. Papa Noah came Up with that this time last year. A few games that you can keep an eye on for various reasons. You could watch number five, Vanderbilt against number 12, McNeese State, and root for Chandler Bing, who plays for Vanderbilt.

[Katie Nolan]

Chandler Bong.

[Chris]

Chandler Bing. One of my favorite pieces of information about Chandler Bing on his bio page on the Vanderbilt website. The only information there is. Has never watched Friends Wow.

[Katie Nolan]

Out of the press protest at this point. That is like a. And I won't. And I'm never going to.

[Chris]

Yeah, exactly. You could also watch number nine, St. Louis against number eight, Georgia, and root for Robbie. Robbie Avila, aka Larry Blurred, aka Larry Nerd, aka Cream Abdul Jabbar, because he wears these goggles and he looks awesome when he plays. And he's phenomenal. He's one of my favorite players to watch in March Madness.

[Katie Nolan]

I could tell everything I needed to know about him by his nicknames. I could picture exactly why these are his nicknames. And that makes perfect sense. Sense.

[Chris]

Incredible. And you can also watch number seven, St. Mary's Gals against number 10, Texas A&M, because hashtag God is A. Gale

[Katie Nolan]

always said famously, Chris. And this reminds me, are you off this week at the end of this week?

[Chris]

I'm off Thursday, but we're not recording on Thursday this. This year. So I'll still be here for. For the second recording.

[Katie Nolan]

Is so funny that I forgot that about last year, but I respect it

[Chris]

and that you thought I was joking last year until I didn't rock up to the recording.

[Katie Nolan]

I know. And I was like, wait, he was for real?

[Chris]

Oh, he's actually getting a lot of nooners.

[Katie Nolan]

Yeah, Popping a couple nooners. You got to do what you got to do. Listen, gotta pop that guy I told you about who called into fan service who has jury duty during the. He got out of it. And you know how he got out of it? His fan. He was in. He's in a bunch of fantasy football leagues and one of them had a retired judge in it. And the judge was like, I can get you out of that. And I was like, I love corruption when it's cute. You know, I love when it's like a law and order type where you're like, oh, but it was for his friends. But really, sports saved him from sports saved him from missing out on sports. So that to me, poetic and beautiful. A long one. But you guys made it to the end and boy, do we appreciate it. Huge thanks to Andrew. He for swinging by and. And talking about Jeopardy. In general. He's so smart and so nice and the whole Jeopardy. Family. It's been so wonderful being a part of it. So we'll just stay tuned. Keep your head in a swivel. In three months, when my next episode airs, we'll let you know. We'll keep you guys posted. Big thanks to the casualties and to Brady for sending all those emails to all those comms people and really harassing them in the name of our podcast. Really appreciate that. Thank you for doing it. And for everybody who joins our Bracket Challenge, don't forget to go do that. Check the description wherever you're listening to or watching this podcast. Or you can go to our Instagram and check the link in our bio on behalf of myself and the casualties. And why not Andrew? He as well. We love you, we mean it. And we'll see you on Thursday or we'll see you on I hate this. We'll see you next later in the week. Bye. This episode is presented by gmc. We are professional.

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