013: March Madness - Upsets, Underdogs, and the Paige Bueckers Era

It’s called madness for a reason. In this episode, we’re diving into the biggest NCAA tournament upsets, bracket busters, and standout moments from both men’s and women’s March Madness. We break down wild stats, Cinderella stories, and the chaos that makes college basketball’s postseason so addictive. Plus, we spotlight Paige Bueckers and the powerhouse performance that’s launching her to the top of every WNBA draft conversation. Bonus: our bracket-obsessed coworker Jess joins us from her honeymoon in Portugal to dish on Final Four favorites and Aperol spritzes. 

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Chapters

• 01:43 – Sports Moments That Make Us Yell at the TV
• 09:46 – Wait, What’s an Upset Again?
• 15:02 – 12 Seeds: The Cinderellas of March
• 21:23 – Women’s Brackets Deserve Your Respect (and Picks)
• 29:13 – Sweet and Sappy Tournament Moments
• 38:12 – Paige Bueckers: Buckets and Comebacks

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01.602)
When it comes to page Becker's, what I found is her efficiency. Teryn, have you heard of the 50-40-90 line? No, it's like a threshold. I had never heard of this. Yeah, yes.

of

Speaker 2 (00:13.454)
Is it like, let me guess, let me guess. 50 % shooting from the field. 40 % three point line. Yeah. 90 % free throws.

Keep going.

Speaker 1 (00:25.704)
she's not missing two free throws in a freaking row. Never. And by the way, there is no other player in college basketball, WNBA or NBA this season who is hitting this line. Only Miss Paige Becker.

Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:48.386)
Have you ever wondered why people get so hyped about their favorite sports teams? Well, it turns out it's not just about the game. It's about the community. My name is Teryn.

And I'm Ambre. Welcome to Almost Fans, the sports podcast that's fun, a little bit educational, and will give you plenty to say when you're trying to keep up with those diehard sports fans in your life.

Speaker 2 (01:14.242)
Welcome to Almost Fans, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of sports. On today's episode, we're breaking down the madness of March Madness, the upsets, the good stories, and everything in between. But for right now, we're gonna transition into something that we do every single episode, which is our hat trick segment, where we're gonna count down the most annoying moments in sports. And I'm just gonna send it right over to you, Ambre, to get started with your number three.

Okay. I'm going to start off with the theme that we're hitting today. And I'm going to start this off and say, I don't play basketball. However, free throws look so easy. Why would anyone ever miss two in a row? They're free. That drives me crazy. They're free. Nobody's pressuring you or, know, boxing you out and putting their elbows in your cheekbones. Just make your free throws. That drives me. It's so annoying. All up top.

Yeah, it's solid.

Have you seen the new series with, shoot, with Kate Hudson on Netflix?

I want to, it's been saved in my like things to watch for a long time and I haven't it yet.

Speaker 1 (02:23.202)
Good. Something point. I can't remember now what it is, but Kate Hudson on Netflix, she runs a basketball team and there's this player and he does granny shots to hit his free throws and the team makes fun of him, but then they support him. Anyway, man, y'all just make the free throws. That's so annoying when I watch a basketball game and somebody flubs those.

There was a guy that went to Florida that did, think too, I mean, it was a guy and then his son ended up going to Florida and they both did granny chats for their free throws.

I mean, respect, however you got to get it done, you know?

Just get it done. All right, that's a good one. Okay, my number three most annoying thing that happens in sports is when you hit a pop fly with a three-O count. You probably reached for it too. A three-O count for those who don't know means that you have three balls and no strikes, meaning you're about to get walked to first base and instead you reach for a ball that probably is not a strike and you hit a pop fly and then you're out.

That is annoying. Just be patient. You got some to burn here.

Speaker 2 (03:21.922)
Some coaches truly say you are not allowed to swing on a 3-0 count. I've had coaches tell me that.

Yeah, that makes total sense. You can get a free base. It's like a guarantee.

Like, if they throw a strike, make them throw a strike. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. My next one is when a touchdown gets called back because of a holding penalty or really any penalty you're like celebrating and then you see that stupid yellow box pop up on the bottom of the screen. You're like, no, whatever it is. Surely it's against the offense and that touchdown is coming back. It's heartbreaking. I despise that.

Yeah, that's a good one. My number two is when you have a teensy, tiny little toe touching the three-point line. You do all the work it takes to hit a three-pointer, but you get two points. Absolutely infuriating.

Speaker 1 (04:18.68)
for a half a centimeter of a baby toe.

Yeah, just that little tiny bit of your toe touching the line and you're just, yeah, it's stupid.

Yeah, heartbreaking. My number one is fake injuries in soccer.

That is the worst.

It is the reason why my husband says he hates watching soccer because you see and you watch it, it's even better when the channel will slow it down into slow-mo and you'll see somebody just stand next to a player and the player goes flying backwards with arms and elbows and legs and knees and everywhere and flops on the ground and then the ref calls something and they just pop right up. we're going to go. Nope, I'm solid.

Speaker 2 (05:04.526)
I thoughts on this. The reason why this happens is because they don't let soccer players come off the field and then come back onto the field. So change that rule, change that rule so that if someone gets injured, they can come off the field or if they're tired, because really what that is, is they're tired. They're just resting. They want to rest. So they lay down on the ground. I mean, some of them are faking it to try and get a foul. Yeah, they're trying to get a penalty, right? There's different things, but like,

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:34.668)
A lot of times they're just tired and they want to lay down and have a little nap. So they pretend like they're hurt and then they pop up because they're like, okay, I can breathe now. just like, let's change the rules so that we can let guys come off and women come off and come back on. Let's be honest, it happens way more often in men's soccer than it does in women's. All right. My number one is back to football is when a player is running the football into the end zone and they start celebrating too early.

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:04.342)
And they either drop the ball before they cross the line or they're just being dumb and they get tackled or the ball gets knocked out of their hand. They're an idiot, first of all, and now everybody knows it. So yeah. So annoying when guys do that.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:22.51)
but part of me also feels like that's the best. That's a consequence. That's a solid look like, yeah, a total punk.

for being an idiot.

Speaker 2 (06:34.702)
For sure. Can I tell you my alternative? My alternative is Brett Favre's retirement announcements. Which one? Exactly.

Yeah, tell me your alternative.

Speaker 1 (06:47.278)
You know what? You just can't let go of any moment to poke at the Brett Fav-ness. You'll never poke a hole in my armor, a Brett Fav love, despite all of his transgressions, his many life choices. Still on that wagon.

You know, I can't.

Speaker 2 (07:07.854)
many, many life choices. Good for you. You stay true to you.

loyalty, loyalty.

Speaker 2 (07:18.69)
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All right, everyone. Welcome. We are so excited to jump back into March Madness and joining us today is our friend and colleague in our day job. Ambre's in mine. Jess is joining us as our March Madness league commissioner at work. She loves basketball. She actually wanted to be a sports broadcast announcer growing up.

She also loves the Badgers. She loves an Aperol spritz like no one else I've ever known. She's also so very committed to the Almost Fans podcast that she is joining us today on her honeymoon in Portugal. So thank you so much for being with us today, Jess.

thank you. That was such a good intro. I hope I can live up to the hype, but I am so excited to talk about Merch Madness and I just miss you guys so much already.

Speaker 2 (08:48.526)
It's only been a few days, but you know, she misses us. Okay. Jess is not here to be interviewed. Honestly, we love her and she's just here to join us and talking about the tournament because she is that big of a fan and she's always down to add in like to our witty banter and back and forth. So Jess doesn't have like any specific interview questions that we're going to ask her, but she's just going to join in with our conversation. It's almost over for the 2024, 2025 season, but it's

Still top of everyone's mind. And I think this topic today is pretty relevant and will be for years to come because today we're talking about what makes March Madness truly mad. The upsets. It's what keeps people glued to their brackets and honestly just yelling at their TVs. So we're going to start out with what is an upset. An upset happens when a lower seated team defeats a higher seated team.

Pretty easy, makes sense, right? And it actually happens more often than people think. On average, we see about 8.5 upsets per tournament. But some years are a little crazier than others, like in 2021 and 2022 when they each had 14 upsets that year. So I'm gonna start out with a very quick quiz for Ambre and Jess, who can get it first? Who's got the quicker?

math skills. Can you guess how many games are played in total in the March Madness bracket, including the playing games?

God, long silence, long, long.

Speaker 1 (10:26.73)
silence. Math was not my major.

You said math.

Okay, four playing games. Okay, right?

or plus 32 plus.

This is gonna take years.

Speaker 3 (10:41.902)
206.

255, no, there are 71 games.

Speaker 1 (10:51.118)
That was painful.

So four games for the playing games and then 67 main bracket games.

Right, Teryn, this is not not even fair. Jess has had at least six glasses of wine today. That was a mean trick.

Has her April spits currently in hand. So yeah, there it is. If you're seeing this clip live and she pulled it up, it's there. Okay.

I thought you said Q1, not March Madness. Q1 Madness, there's gotta be 200 and something games.

Speaker 2 (11:19.307)
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:23.81)
Yeah, like how many games throughout the whole entire season for all the teams? Yeah, exactly. okay. So what are some of the most memorable upsets? Some of the best moments in tournament history come from some of these really shocking wins. And there are two big ones. Do either of you know what to, I'm going to say.

Ha

Speaker 1 (11:44.29)
Are you going to say the one with the none? came to every game and they kept winning and they kept dedicating the game to her. Based on your response, I'm guessing that's not one of-

Oh, that is a list of two.

Grand Canyon, one of them, feel like...

That is one, but the two that I'm referring to are the two times in history where a 16 seed beat a one seed. So it's happened only two times. And the first one happened in 2018, the university of Maryland, Baltimore County, know, UMBC, everyone's favorite team. Yeah, no offense to them, but they made history by defeating the number one seed of Virginia first time ever.

Yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (12:29.358)
And then the second one happened just five years later in 2023, Fairleigh Dickinson, second time in history where the 16 seed beat the Purdue Boilermakers and they beat them 63 to 58. So yeah, before that, not a single 16 seed has ever beat a one seed prior to 2018. So it was O for 154 against one seed.

Wow. Where is the school of Fairleigh Dickinson? Okay. Small town somewhere in the middle of the Northeast maybe.

No idea.

Speaker 2 (13:05.294)
clue whatsoever. Yeah. In the middle of BFE probably. Okay. So let's talk about how often these upsets actually happen. So a number one seed actually wins about 80 % of their games overall. So, um, 79.8 % and at least one number one seed has made it to the final four, 11 out of the last 12 years.

Great.

Ha ha ha.

Speaker 2 (13:35.18)
So basically, number one seeds are just like Taylor Swift showing up to the Grammys and walking away with another album of the year. It's not guaranteed, but at this point, would you really bet against her?

Yeah, it's probably going to happen.

Not, yeah, not betting against Taylor. Nope. Okay. Jess, I have a quiz question for you. How often percentage or number wise I'll give you either. Do you think all four teams in the final four are number one seeds in the men's tournament at least?

twice.

You know that one, huh? You know that little statistic. two times in history and guess what? That second time is this year. This year we have all four number one seeds in the final four. The only other time this ever happened was 2008.

Speaker 3 (14:13.792)
Yeah, I knew that one.

Speaker 1 (14:31.894)
Wow. Good job.

Subject

Like longer like does it feel like? If you think back if they win 80 % That it would happen more often, but it's different. Yeah

super wild. know. I feel like it's like sort of anticlimactic. You're like, wha wha. All right, we got, but good job with the dudes in a room picking who was the number one seat.

Yeah, those dudes didn't even know something it turns out.

Speaker 2 (15:02.002)
Great. Number one seed Florida in the final four. We're rooting for them big time. All right, Ambre and Jess. Now I'm going to share some of the most confusing and interesting of all the NCAA basketball upsets. It's the classic pick in every bracket. Ambre, do you know the upset that everybody talks about? Do you know, Jess? It sure is.

No idea.

I think so. Is it the 12th season?

So the 12 seeds have beat the five seed 55 times since 1985, which is a 35 % win rate. Yeah, like weird. It's just like one of those weird statistics that you just would not expect. There's only been six tournaments since 1985 where all four number five seeds survived the first round. Also a really interesting statistic in 2013, 2014 and 2019.

That's amazing!

Speaker 2 (15:59.51)
Three 12 seeds won in each of those tournaments. So three out of the four.

One for final four.

No, they won in the first round. They beat their five seed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 12 seed is kind of like that surprise hit movie that no one saw coming. We're talking Pitch Perfect, Guardians of the Galaxy. The number five seed is the big budget favorite, but the 12 seed, they sneak in and they steal the show. So that's a big one that people talk about. should probably in future, make sure you have a 512, at least one in your bracket. You had one this year, didn't you Jess?

the first round.

Speaker 3 (16:36.134)
There's something about it. I feel like it's like this urban legend of like the 12 seed and the like a five seed feels cursed to me. Yeah, I don't know why but when I see it, I'm never confident in the five. I'm always like I just have a feeling for 12 and I know like they say, you know, there's stats to back it up. But I also I'm just like when McNeese won or when I saw them I was like I have this feeling they're gonna win. I just felt it in my soul. Yeah.

Jess just knew she felt it. Yeah. I'm honestly like picking two out of the four of them each year is gives you a really good shot of making sure that you at least hit, you know, one of them. So you might hear this that oftentimes the 12 seeds, they come from schools that are called mid major conferences. So they're division one, but they're not coming from a power five conference. So do either of you feel confident that you could name the five?

I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (17:34.862)
Power Five conferences.

No. Right.

I'll just, I'll rattle them off for you. So the five Power Five conferences are the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, the PAC 12. The PAC 12 kind of has been dismantled, but they're trying to rebuild it back up with some other teams. These schools, these mid-major conferences, not Power Five conferences, they're often less funded, probably a little bit underrated because of that, because they're just not the well-known schools.

So Ambre, I have a quiz for you. Which of these teams is not considered a mid-major school? So they're part of a Power Five Conference. So I'm going to list off four schools. You tell me which one you think is part of a Power Five Conference. Gonzaga, BYU, Florida Gulf Coast, or San Diego State.

Okay, let's go.

Speaker 1 (18:33.741)
BYU.

Yes, good job.

Who's between that and Gonzaga?

I thought Gonzaga was a one that might get you. It's tricky. Yep. So BYU is part of the Big 12 conference, but the other ones are-

have that obnoxiously colored football field. It's blue, right? I'm pretty sure. it's like,

Speaker 2 (18:53.408)
Is that people?

Boise State. That's Boise State.

Okay, then I just totally made a lucky guess there.

Yeah. Yeah. No logic. think, I think it's Boise state, but that is, that was a good guess. BYU is the, it's Brigham Young. They're the Mormon school.

Yeah, you can't drink there, right? Nope.

Speaker 2 (19:13.942)
They coffee either Mormons. Yeah.

No coffee? What? Nothing hot. Nothing hot.

So like, what do you think happens at a BYU tailgate?

Reading things?

Oh, they probably eat. They just eat like a lot of chocolate wings.

Speaker 3 (19:29.153)
Jesus!

No offense to Mormon people. That's great for them. I don't know how we do it without coffee in the mornings. guess if you've never had it, you're not missing it, right? But yeah, so some of those schools, like Gonzaga, they're a notoriously good basketball school. They're not a power five conference school. Okay. Some other notable upsets. 11 seeds beat a sixth seed.

small

Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:55.502)
actually about 37 and a half percent of the times. They also have had some history of going deep into the tournament. UCLA went from an 11 seed to the final four in 2021. And actually an 11 seed is the lowest seed to ever make it to a final four, but it's only happened about six times in history. A 13 seed has a 21 % chance of beating a four seed.

Furman over Virginia in 2023 was one of those classic stunners. And then the 15 seed beating a two seed, very rare, but it is starting to happen a little bit more often. St. Peter's shocked Kentucky in 2022 and they also went to the elite eight. So final takeaway from all of this is you should definitely pick a few upsets in your bracket because history says they are coming in.

the men's tournament, which is going to lead me into our next topic, which is how dare us talk about March Madness without talking about the real March Madness, the women's tournament.

Ladies!

Speaker 2 (21:10.216)
I saw something on Instagram or something the other day and it was a woman and she was like, from here on out, I'm going to call it March Madness and the March Madness men's teams.

You

I like that.

Yeah. So in terms of the women's side of this, number one seeds, they win 85 % of their first round games. So pretty much don't you dare, don't you dare one seed to win their game. It's pretty much on like, like the most unlikely thing that they're going to lose. Okay. Ambre, this is a question for you. What is the lowest seed to ever have won a women's NCAA tournament?

Not today.

Speaker 1 (21:52.622)
12 seed.

Ooh, great guess. No. Three seed. What? Yeah.

Nobody lower seated than a three seat has ever won the women's tournament. Does that mean that there's like a huge gap? I mean, there's like these excellent, excellent teams and then a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge gap and then everybody else.

Correct.

Speaker 2 (22:17.388)
Yeah, pretty much. That is pretty much how it's been throughout history.

You have to wonder then for women's tournament brackets, like are they more likely for people to win them more often? You know, like you kind of see the stats for men's like after two rounds, there's zero brackets left. You'd think for women having that kind of number towards the higher seeds, maybe people get those right more.

They are. There was a, I keep up with it a little bit, but, and I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't until the elite eight, wasn't, there was like one bracket still left with a perfect bracket until the elite eight this year, I think. So it does happen a lot more often. think when the men's were out, like there was no more perfect brackets, the women's still had like 50. Wow. So yeah, it is a lot more common that people have a better

you know, picture of who's going to win on the women's side.

Hang on. When you say by whatever level there was only one bracket left, is that in like all of the world and all of the recorded brackets and all of the platforms and that's insane with all of like the different permutations that people can pick. I mean, starting with what 68 teams, know, there's like not that many different combos. I mean, there's millions of people who fill out brackets. That's insane to me that there's

Speaker 1 (23:44.81)
such a low percentage of success of somebody getting everything right.

But I will say, do you remember in school, back when you were probably in like kindergarten or first grade, remember when like you had that problem where it was like, Martha could be wearing a red shirt and a skirt, and then like you could have all these different possible combinations and you're like, maybe there'll be like six and then it's like, oh no, there's 78 combinations. And you're like, what? How is that possible? It kind of reminds me of that. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that it is crazy. And so some of the upsets on the women's side that you don't see nearly as often. So the 12-5 upset is between 20 and 25 % of the time. So very rare. mid-major schools, they struggle a lot more than they do on the men's side. think big part of that is funding. mean, right. You have like women's sports are already low funded generally more so than men's side. And then you add in that it's a small school.

you're just not getting the same type of talent most likely. And I'm interested to hear more. We're hopefully going to have some people to talk about NIL deals. And I'm wondering how that is also going to even more so broaden the gap on the women's side, right? Cause there's going to be far fewer women's players that are getting some of that funding and that notoriety. And I wonder if that's going to make a big difference as well.

It'll just broaden the gap even more.

Speaker 2 (25:12.172)
Yeah, I'm interested to see how that goes. It's great. I do think that it's cool to see some of these women getting paid, but yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Only three double digit seeds on the women's side have ever made the final four. Three in history. Some major players on the women's tournament. So players slash teams basically. Yukon with coach Gino Ariema, South Carolina coach John Staley.

the goat and then LSU which is coach Kim Mulkey. She's very high energy. What do you want to say? Like, what's the word to best describe her Jess you think?

Speaker 2 (25:56.834)
eccentric. But like, she gets a lot of hate because she is a bit nuts. Her players love her love her. So that's where you

crazy sequined full-body suits, right? Okay. Correct. Yeah. Man, that's awesome.

Sometimes they just pander her and her face is just like, just total glare. Just doesn't care. She's like, I am over this. I'm over this. It's so great.

Yeah, she is something, but again, her players love her and they would run through walls for her. yeah. Okay. So biggest takeaways for the women's bracket, maybe for next year, when you're filling yours out, you and do fill out a woman's bracket. think we talked about this in the last one, but don't you dare forget about our women. So when you're filling out a woman's bracket, you're way safer picking those top seeds, especially later in the rounds when it comes to, you know, going further into the tournament.

And then the final four this year for the women's bracket. my gosh. We were so close to having all number one seeds in both the women's and the men's tournament. didn't look this up, but I wonder how often that's ever happened if that they have all number one seeds or if it ever has, I guess, I don't know. But the interesting part about this, which kind of a sad is that Yukon was the only number two seed who was in the final four as the big time underdog.

Speaker 2 (27:23.052)
Yukon, right? I say that as I roll my eyes a little bit. But because they beat USC and our girl Juju is out of the touring ACL. So we're going to get a little bit more into that. So I won't go too deep into that, but it is interesting. Like I, it could have totally happened. I think the chances if Juju hadn't torn her ACL that we would have had all eight number one seeds in the final four. I think that there was a, there would be a much higher chance.

Granted, mean, Paige Becker's, she's on fire, like unstoppable. She plays for Yukon and she had like 31 points against USC. So anyways, very interesting stuff.

Speaker 1 (28:03.726)
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Okay, so I wanna finish my time with something that we love, Ambre and I, and I totally stole this from the Bobby Bones show because both Ambre and I are huge fans. Cue the music. No, I'm just kidding. We're not that high tech. We're calling it Tell Me Something Good.

Speaker 1 (29:13.346)
NARUH!

Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I was breathing it with me. will. She's not afraid to sing. She'll sing, she'll rap, she'll do all the things. Okay. So these are good stories from this year's tournament that I just love and I can't stop thinking about and I want everyone else to think about them too. So I have four of them. The first one, the Juice Boys. Either of you heard of them? Okay. Oklahoma State's women's basketball team has their own

Mm.

now.

Speaker 2 (29:42.446)
hype squad of male team managers and they're called the Juice Boys. It's Max, Ash and Brayden and they're known for their energetic and entertaining presence at games, helping to get the Cowgirl fans fired up and they bring so, so much energy and they make every game even more fun. But they stole the spotlight this year in a viral video that was of them in the locker room. I can only assume.

pregame running and jumping onto a mini trampoline and doing that thing that the football team does the where they jump on the tables and they smash the tables. The bills. Yes. It was the bills mafia thing where they run and they jump on a trampoline and smash this table.

the bills. Yeah, the bills, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:31.828)
That's phenomenal. do, wait, I have a lot of questions now. What do the Jews boys wear and are they officially sanctioned by the team? Are they just like crowd people that are there?

Yeah. They're team managers. So they like practice with the team. They sit like, I think they sit behind the bench, right? So they're part of the team and they're just the hype guys. Like they, I, my guess is that they're just the three best friends and they love what they do. And they're just there to hype the girls up and they're called the juice boys.

They were great.

Okay. Number two favorite, tell me something good moment of this tournament is the referee moment that went viral. Did you see this? Okay. Ambre's not spending time on the social media this year.

one.

Speaker 1 (31:17.656)
I just, I wait for Teryn to just tell me the good stuff. right now.

Okay. So it was a first round game in the East conference, Oregon versus Liberty and the official, name is Roger Ayers. He pretended to wipe up some water off the ground to stop the clock just so that they could get Liberty bench player, J.C. Schirer Jr. on the floor for his NCAA tournament. Like, cause I think he's just a bench player and they're just about to lose by 30 points.

And he stops the clock just so that this kid could get in for one minute of the game. So sweet.

That's so heartwarming.

I did see that now that you say that, Darren. was like, there could be so many ref moments, I was like, that is so sweet. And he was like, I think there might be some water here. We need to take a time out. And that was so cute. And you could tell that the player was just so like, see? Now? He knew.

Speaker 2 (32:10.826)
Wait, really?

They did like a brief handshake where he kind of seemed to acknowledge that, you know, it wasn't real. And then, yeah, so it went viral and it was just a really good like sportsmanship moment. You know, let's let the guy get in. I thought that was really cool. All right. My third tell me something good moment of this tournament is the cutest story of all time. Jason and Jace Richardson. Do you know this story?

Uh-uh.

Maybe when you tell it. Alright!

So G.

Speaker 2 (32:46.328)
Jason Richardson played for Tom Izzo at Michigan state 25 years ago. And now his son, Jace Richardson is doing the same full circle moment. 25 years later, they both play for the same coach.

I did see that.

That's incredible that that coach is still going strong and doing good stuff too.

Tom is right. Like he can't be, I mean, I'm sure he's not going to be doing this for tens of more years, but super cool that they both got to play for the same team and the same coach. And they got to go to the tournament. mean, Michigan state tends to go to the tournament a lot. So there was a good chance, but he's a freshman and he is one of their best players. And it's really cool to see that story. That's my third one, my fourth and final. doesn't feel like a tell me something good moment because it's

Juju Watkins tearing her ACL is not good news. We don't like this news. This news actually sucks really bad. But the way that the entire basketball world has rallied around her has been so incredible. like, I mean, people making videos and other women athletes giving her their number and saying like, I'm here to support.

Speaker 2 (34:02.198)
you. A good example is like Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe. They have their own podcast and both of them have torn their ACLs and they were just like talking about her and how she's gonna be fine. Like it's gonna be really hard and it feels like the hardest thing you've ever gone through because wow I mean like their team had a chance to win it all this year and then they lost her and she is their backbone but yeah it's

Honestly, so much love and support that she's received has been unreal. And I believe it's one of those stories that's going to continue to bring light and a bigger reach to women's basketball in general. mean, more stars going into the WNBA following Caitlin Clark. mean, there's a handful, Juju, Pagebackers of Yukon, like so many others that are just about to bring more eyes to women's sports. But I think her.

having that moment and people seeing it happen on TV was something that I think brought the community of women's sports together. So even though we don't like that she did it, it's so sad. think seeing how many people have rallied around her has been really cool. So that's my insight on Upsets and March Madness. Do any of you have any big memories of Upsets?

can't remember specifically like, upsets, but I just remember being such a fanatic of merch madness ever since I was in high school and always having my bracket. In fact, I always have a paper bracket and I print them off with me and I bring them with me even to Portugal. They're damp, let me tell you, they bend around because

Everywhere you go.

Speaker 1 (35:39.374)
That is such dedication.

Speaker 3 (35:46.882)
There's just nothing like a paper bracket and maybe I sound like the millennial that I am, but there's nothing like taking your pen and making a star, making a check. There's just nothing like it. Are both of your final two teams still in?

I have the Gators winning, so that's my only team of the final four that I have left. Ambre, I'll look at yours because I know you don't know off the top of your head.

Yeah, I don't really even know how to access it.

love that, view

Thanks.

Speaker 1 (36:17.608)
You know, the one that I did on espn.com, I had Duke winning the paper one because we do that at home as well. Jess, we have a family stack of everybody's brackets. And I think that my oldest son, overachiever, and also really wants to win 20 bucks. I think he's the only one who's actually following. But I had Florida to win on my paper bracket at home.

Yeah, I have three brackets. So I have Duke winning one, Florida winning the other, and Auburn winning the third.

So you still have a chance. have three chances. It feels like cheating. You have a 75 % chance. Hold on.

I'll die, I'll die.

can't believe money of Houston won it. Yeah. She had three brackets and she could have picked any teams and she picked three of the right teams. Well, thanks Jess. Thanks for being here with us and for chatting with us about our March Madness brackets. hopefully we have some good stuff coming on the next time we talk about March Madness.

Speaker 1 (37:10.773)
I suppose.

Speaker 3 (37:25.048)
So exciting. I'm excited to see who wins. Hopefully I can watch it, but maybe not because I can't get any television yet.

on a cliff in Portugal with an infinity pool. We don't feel bad for you.

Not even a little bit.

Thanks guys, this was a blast.

Thanks, Jess.

Speaker 1 (37:45.758)
Now it is time for the She's Got Game segment, our favorite part of the whole podcast. And today our She's Got Game recipient is somebody who has already been mentioned. I've had to bite my tongue so many times. I bet you know. names several times. Paige Becker. I mean Paige Buckets. I mean Paige Becker. Her nickname is Paige Buckets.

but I want to tell you about Page Becker's and you're probably going to know a lot of these things, but maybe our listeners won't. I want to describe this story, our She's Got Game segment today, like a movie about Page Becker's. If this movie had a title, it would be Buckets, colon, the Page Becker's story. The genre of our movie would be sports drama slash coming of age queen. Opening scene, the setting is

Hopkins, Minnesota, where she grew up. She's a six foot tall, skinny kid with a quiet fire. The first time that coach Gino, the coach of the Yukon Huskies, saw her play, he said things like, she looks really skinny. She looks kind of fragile. However, she still kind of looks that way. However, this is a quote from him watching her. You could see.

that she and her teammates had a connection. And a lot of times the best player on the team doesn't necessarily have a great connection with the rest of the players. So that was like a really cool first impression when Gino was trying to decide maybe, you know, if he was going to be recruiting her to come play for the Huskies. That was one of his first impressions. Tall and skinny, but also like a really cool leader and really generous in terms of sharing, you know, assists and supporting her teammates. So that was the opening scene. Act one is called

the rise. She's recruited to Yukon. Yukon, like let's be real. It's like the powerhouse of women's basketball. Teryn, is Yukon like pretty good or like stupid good? Like stupid, stupid good. Yeah, stupid. So how stupid good? Yukon women's basketball in 2025, it is their 24th visit to the final four. This means that they've made it to the final four about half of all time.

Speaker 2 (39:47.886)
Stupid good.

It's super good.

Speaker 1 (40:05.954)
Like all time, all times that there was a women's March Madness tournament, they were there every other year, essentially. I mean, powerhouse. And Coach Gino is like crazy good. He is the winningest coach in division one basketball history. And he's been the coach at Yukon for 39 seasons, which is just a couple of years after that was possible, like after the tournament began, right? Longer than I've been alive, not by much, bye bye a little. Okay. So it's still act one.

You've been alive.

Speaker 1 (40:35.598)
Paige enters the scene and delivers. As a freshman, she takes that team to the final four. Act two is called The Fall. Okay, so it's the middle. I know, right? It sounds so painful. It's the middle of her college career and injuries hit hard. Homegirl is just plagued. It's like an ankle. It's a knee. It's an ACL. She misses her entire junior season because of a torn ACL. It is just...

heartbreaking, all of the sort of things that kind of just follow her around, all the super bad luck. So now fast forward to her senior season, the Huskies are crushing it. She is at the helm of that ship and they're doing a great job. She wears knee pads on most of her games now, which I had a lot of questions about this. I was curious and she's not the only player. There's a lot of players who do this. I'm not talking about like the full.

leg spandex. I'm talking about actual knee pants sort of inside spandex leggings. Anyway, they're really good for yes, if you fall, they will cushion your fall, but also they help prevent injury. You know, so when she's jumping, landing, pivoting quickly, it's just more support to protect her knee. Anyway, that's act two, the fall, all of the injuries. Very sad. Act three, of course, is named the return.

her senior year, like I mentioned, she's healthy this year. Healthy, unstoppable, and hungry. Like we hungry, name that movie.

I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (42:08.397)
You never know my mo-

quotes.

So out of the blue.

We hungry. What's his name? I don't know his name, but he says it too. He's with Paul Walker. It's a Fast and Furious movie. I think it's number two with Ava Mendes. Anyway, she hungry. That's Paige Becker.

I think I stopped watching The Fast and the Furious after like, you know, 87.

Speaker 1 (42:37.378)
I'll pretend you didn't say that you haven't lived if that's actually the case. Okay. So pagebackers is a guard. I never remember what this means. What is a guard, Teryn?

It means she is on the perimeter typically, so she is a shooter, she's a ball handler, she's not a big post player.

The player would be like a super tall person who's up near the basket a lot. Okay. it. I always have these questions. What exactly makes her good? I want to know. What exactly? Yes, I can see stats and stats and stats, blah, blah, blah, blah, what actually makes her good? When I think about her compared to some other NCAA college women's basketball players that we've highlighted, Caitlin Clark, she crushes it with the threes. She's a super good passer. Juju Watkins, really solid and powerful and will

put a body on you and can get a shot off almost no matter what. When it comes to Paige Becker's, what I found is her efficiency. Teryn, have you heard of the 50-40-90 line?

50-40-90 line on the court.

Speaker 1 (43:36.768)
Yeah. No, it's like a threshold, like a line that you can meet. Okay. I had never heard of this. Yeah, yes.

Like, let me guess, let me guess. 50 % shooting from the field. Yeah. 40 % three point line. Yeah. 90 % free throws. Yeah.

Keep going.

Speaker 1 (43:56.11)
What's nine?

She's not missing two free throws in a freaking row. Never. So super efficient. If she's going to take a shot, she's going to make those puppies most of the time. Right. So yeah, just to repeat 50 % shooting completion from the field, 40 % from three point territory, 90 % free throws. Homegirl is super efficient. The name of the game. And by the way, this 50, 40, 90 line as of the time of this recording of this podcast episode,

There is no other player in college basketball, WNBA or NBA this season who is hitting this line. Only Miss Paige Becker. Wham-bam-bam, right? Yeah. Like I said, hungry. She's hungry. Okay, so that was act three. Now I want to hit a couple of subplots that are kind of woven beneath the scenes of this Paige Becker's movie.

Wow. Peace.

Speaker 1 (44:55.95)
and one of them is the Paige Becker's brand. Homegirl can run a business. mean, NIL, in 2024, she was the top earning female college athlete. Holy cannoli, that's amazing. She has over 6 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined. TikTok? Did I say TikTok? I'm gonna try that again. Don't edit this out though, but I'm gonna try that again. She has a combined.

Over 6 million followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Speaker 2 (45:29.592)
Grandma Ambre strikes again.

I miss tic tacs. So good. My mom always had those in the purse, the light green kind. Paige was the first player to design and launch a Nike player edition basketball sneaker. I'm so sorry. I don't love it. It's light blue and light purple. It's super cool because it's her. And I think it says Paige buckets somewhere on the shoe. You know, I'm just not into it, but you do Paige, you know.

You don't have love everything she does.

No, I don't. I do love her style though. She's very androgynous. She wears like men's suits with some kind of crop top belly, you know, showing. Okay. The second subplot I want to mention, another theme sort of woven into this movie of Miss Becker's is her being an advocate. So at the 2021 SPs, do you know what that stands for?

stands for something. I guess I thought it was just kind of like the Grammys but for ESPN.

Speaker 1 (46:33.536)
Is it? yeah, I what it was. I just thought it had an acronym. I didn't look that up. At the 2021 SB's, Pagebeckers was named college athlete of the year and used her acceptance speech to celebrate and honor black women. So here's a couple of things that she mentioned. She said that 80 % of WNBA postseason awards were won by black players, but they receive

show.

Speaker 1 (47:02.934)
a significantly lesser amount of media attention and coverage. 80 % of black women are crushing it in the WNBA, but their white counterparts are receiving a lot more attention. She said that she grew up with a lot of influential black women in her life. Her stepmom is black. She has some biracial step and half siblings. So really neat, you know, sort of watching her use her platform, not just for the game, but also for some good.

A quick iconic quote moment from the Paige Becker's movie at her Nike shoe launch party, which was moderated, no big deal, by your personal fave, Ms. Sue Bird. There was a group of girls basketball team that was there. It was really small and intimate. And somebody asked how she deals with nerves before a game. Hey, when you're really nervous, how do you deal with that? And here's what Paige said. She said, nerves aren't always a bad thing.

It means you care. But a huge part of getting rid of the nerves is just staying where your feet are. The past can't hurt you and the future can't really help you. Just be where your feet are and focus on the present. I love that concept.

down on a plaque or sew it into a pillow.

You should put that in a tattoo. Let's take it up a notch.

Speaker 2 (48:24.736)
Let's do that. I'm gonna get that tattooed on me with Paige Becker's name.

the failed tattoo on your ankle. could just, you know, like make that into that's

That's long quote to be putting on my foot. That hurt.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, small font maybe, or maybe just on your, I don't know, a different body. Yeah, there we go. Be where your feet are on your butt. Okay. I want to close down this movie with, of course, every movie has to have a dramatic montage. So I want to describe to you Paige Becker's montage. She's great at threes, unstoppable at the rim, and an elite pull-up game. She's stylish, confident, humble, astute,

put it on my butt.

Speaker 1 (49:07.832)
stone cold killer on the court and no big deal in 2025 projected to be the number one pick in the WNBA draft. So she's got game. It's Paige Becker's today coming to a WNBA court near you.

you

Speaker 1 (49:32.078)
That's a wrap on our March Madness Upset special. Where brackets were busted, Cinderella stories stole the show, and underdogs reminded us why we love this time of year. This tournament proves that heart hustle and a little chaos can shake up everything. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow us and toss a 5-star rating our way. Catch you next time, Almost fans!