George M. Johnson (18:50)
Anyways, I could go on for at least an hour and I might do it on the Herd Monday. About this loss, definitely one of the three worst losses I've suffered as a gambler. Not from a monetary standpoint, just because of what the upside was. Leading by so much throughout the game, folks, this one really hurt. And again, I haven't given Houston enough credit. Their defense was relentless. Crier was excellent. Kelvin Sampson, just a perfect press at the end. But again, Houston didn't win this as much as Duke blew it. Now I will give my guy, Preston Johnson sports Cheetah a shout out. He's in our our Calcutta group. And we had a group text like, hey, who would we rather face, Houston or Tennessee? And I was like, I don't want to see Tennessee. You know, that's just sick. SEC team they're battle tested. I'm not that worried about Houston. Their game ending situations, their meltdowns, inability to score, and of course, what happens. We have to face Houston and they end the game. Great. Now, remember, Houston was getting revenge for last year. Ironically, last year in the Calcutta, we had Houston shed goes down in the first half with the ankle injury. And Duke wins, I think, by three or four, although it never felt particularly that close. I'll talk about Florida in a minute. The Florida Auburn game. That was an excellent game. And I'll talk about tonight. I. I forgot. I probably should have shouted them out at the beginning. Congrats to the UConn women. They blew out South Carolina in the national championship. I confess, I didn't watch the game and shout out to Alex Ovechkin, who is now the leading scorer in NHL history. He surpassed Wayne Gretzky with a goal on Sunday. Unfortunately. Guys, listen. And I got asked this by a dad here this weekend in Salt Lake City. So, Jay, how are you up on all this stuff? I mean, look, do you see that Dodgers come back last night? I'm like, I. I did not. I'm like, I. I can't be up on everything. Like, I couldn't name for you 10 NHL players right now. The only NHL connection. This is real. This is not made up. So in the men's league playoffs, we were having to face Timofey Mozgov in the semifinals. And Mozgov and I have become friends. We had like a shooting contest the other day. He won. Shocker. And that same night, Ovechkin was playing at the LA Kings. Ovechkin, Russian. Mozgov, Russian. And Mozgov told me, oh, I'm going to the game with my family. I was like, oh, that's. That's just great. We end up winning the semi final. And that. That's basically all I've got on event. You know, he's a great. He's a great story. I. I'm just not a huge hockey guy. You know, you get a little older, you get the family. You just can't do everything. Like, March Madness is great. And I'm already thinking, like, oh, man, I guess I gotta cash out the account. You know, Like, I'm not gonna. I'm just not gonna be really gambling on baseball. And I'll do some NBA, you know, I have some Lakers futures. I have some other NBA futures. We'll talk about that as the playoffs get closer. But, yeah, anyway, so real quick, Florida, Auburn. Oh, an interesting nugget And I have so many notes I have here again taken while watching girls volleyball, 12U volleyball, I should say. But both of the semifinal winners, Florida and Houston, trailed at the half by six and eight respectively. And at halftime, my buddy Nico text me, hey, hey, I know we're on Florida. You think we add to it at half? And I was like, yeah, I don't know, man. Auburn looks just really freaking good. They just, I mean, they were just dominating and they weren't missing shots. It was essentially a clinic. And Auburn just looked like the better team. I'm not gonna lie. They looked like the better team. And I didn't add to it. I just stuck with my Florida. And that, that paid off because, you know, Mr. Walter Clayton Jr. Decided, hey, you know what? I think I'm gonna go Shabazz Napier or Kemba Walker in this NCAA tournament and Walter Clayton. So I submitted a mock draft for NBA on Friday. And I don't look at mock drafts before submitting mine because I don't want them to impact how I thought, think about players and positioning. And I had Walter Clayton like in, I think the top 22. I like his game a lot. I know he's on the older side. I know he's been around the block, shall we say. And you know, the NBA loves potential 18, 19, 20 year olds as opposed to the 22, 23 year old guys. Because sometimes the 23 year old players are, you know, dominating 19 year olds. And I don't care about any of that. Walter Clayton is a freaking student. The guy had 34 points. I have it here in my notes. That is the most by any player in a final Four game win since 1981. I mean, Clayton just took over that game late. Nobody could guard him. He had five of eight threes. He's hitting impossible threes that I'm like, why are you shooting at? Oh my gosh, what a shot. Like, he was extraordinary. Bruce Pearl tried the kitchen sink. I mean folks, Bruce Pearl. They did the hard double on screenshots. They threw not only guards at him, but they threw Baker Mazzara, who is a long, twitchy defender. They threw him at him. None of them could stop him. And Florida came back, stormed back in the second half. They were really, really tough getting to the foul line. Now, they didn't shoot it great from the line, only 70%. But Auburn was worse, 69. But they made five fewer free throws. And Florida, relentless on the offensive glass with their bigs, they're just too big. That's why they're my pick pick against Houston and we'll get to that shortly. But this. I just love this Florida team. Now a quick note on you know one of my favorite players, Tahad Pettiford, the freshman from Auburn. I also have him in the mock draft. I'm irrationally high on him. I totally understand that not everybody feels the same way, but it was one of those oh shucks, he can't hang with Clayton. The moment's a little big. It might help him to come back to school. He had a 1 of 6 shooting night, 0 for 4 on threes, did get to the line, made all his free throws but three turnovers, three fouls. Just not the kind of performance you need from a stud freshman when other guys aren't delivering. Broom was excellent in the first half and then I don't really even know if he scored in the second. He just didn't do much. Auburn, as they like to say, the water got turned off and Auburn's offense just shriveled up. 46 in the first half, 27 in a second.