Episode 1 is live. This week we cover the Masters, the NBA MVP race, tonight's national championship game, and a lot more. Here is everything we got into.
The Masters โ Can Anyone Actually Defend at Augusta?
Three times in ninety years has a defending champion won the Masters. Nicklaus in 1966. Faldo in 1990. Tiger in 2002. The success rate is 3.3 percent. And defending championships across every sport is getting harder, not easier โ analytics, technology, and film mean the field catches up faster than it ever has. The NFL repeats 15 percent of the time. The NBA is at 23 percent but nobody has done it since the Warriors in 2018. MLB is at 12 percent.
Rory McIlroy won last year in a playoff over Justin Rose, completing the career Grand Slam on his seventeenth attempt at Augusta. The question this week is whether the motivation that drove him for a decade is still there now that the monkey is off his back. He withdrew from Bay Hill with a back issue. He skipped the Texas events leading in. His prep looks nothing like any previous Masters build. We will find out Thursday.
For your pool: Scheffler at +500 is the safest pick โ four straight top-fours at Augusta, never finished outside the top twenty. Bryson at +1000 is your aggressive play. Justin Rose at whatever price you can find him is your sleeper โ he lost in a playoff here last year after shooting 66 on Sunday and has fifteen top-25 finishes in twenty starts at Augusta.
NBA MVP โ SGA Has Already Won It
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wins the MVP and it is not close. He broke Wilt Chamberlain's record of 126 consecutive 20-point games, has played every night, and has done all of it without Chet Holmgren. OKC is on pace for one of the best records in NBA history. The award follows winning and durability. He checks every box.
Wembanyama is doing something historically unusual at 21 years old โ 24 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks per game. His time is coming, and soon. But until San Antonio passes Oklahoma City in the standings, the conversation starts and ends with SGA.
UConn vs. Michigan โ National Championship Tonight
Michigan is the first team in NCAA Tournament history to score at least 90 points in five straight games. They have won by an average of 21 points per game this tournament. They are a 6.5 point favorite.
And then there is UConn. Nineteen straight wins in the Sweet 16 or later under Dan Hurley. Every time the Huskies have made the Sweet 16 under Hurley they have won the national championship. No program has won three titles in a four-year span since the 1972 to 1975 UCLA Bruins. That is the company Hurley is chasing tonight.
The whole game comes down to tempo. Michigan plays at one of the fastest paces in the country. UConn plays at one of the slowest. Two of Michigan's three losses came at 63 possessions or fewer. If UConn can grind it down, they have a path. If Michigan pushes the pace, it could get ugly fast.
Watch Lendeborg in warmups. Watch Karaban's shot selection early. Those two tell you everything about how this game is going to go.
Also This Week
The robot ump era arrived in MLB and immediately created more chaos than it solved โ the Red Sox burned both challenges by the third inning and lost in extras. The World Cup field is fully set and Italy has missed three straight tournaments while the field expanded to 48 teams. The Buffalo Sabres ended a 14-year playoff drought โ the longest in NHL history โ clinching on the same day as the Final Four. And NASA's Artemis II is circling the Moon right now, the first time humans have left Earth orbit since 1972.
Listener Takes
This week we heard from two listeners on whether Duke losses are the most celebrated moments in sports and NBA awards picks heading into the final week of the regular season.
Got a take? Submit it at glueguypodcast.com. Sixty to ninety seconds โ sports, life, whatever is on your mind. The best ones make the show.
โ Cannon Simmons, The Glue Guy Podcast