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The hosts of WCCUSN, a student-run sports radio station, discuss upcoming matchups in the NCAA tournament. They give their predictions for each game, including UConn vs Stetson, FAU vs Northwestern, San Diego State vs UAB, Auburn vs Yale, BYU vs Duquesne, Moorhead State vs Illinois, Washington State vs Drake, Iowa State vs South Dakota, North Carolina vs Wagner, Mississippi State vs Michigan State, St. Mary's vs Grand Canyon, Alabama vs Charleston, Clemson vs New Mexico, Arizona vs Long Beach State, Baylor vs Colgate, and Dayton vs Nevada. Welcome to WCCUSN, Coastal Carolina's student-run sports radio station. I am Jackson Shockey here with Charles Richard Brachel IV, aka Quadro, aka Ricky. That would happen to be my name. That would happen to be your name. I'm gassed. Yeah. I am exhausted. I feel like an Olympic diver at this moment, just having to hold my breath for a very long time. That's what you meant. Yes. I thought you were going swimming or something. Yeah, I'm going to swim. It's nice out today. Oh, it's beautiful out. I got sunburned somehow. This is the 3 o'clock edition, oh my gosh, edition of Sports Uncaged. Yes, it is. And we didn't really make a plan coming into the show. What's new? I mean, the script was written for us. For us? What is happening? Are we good? Are we in the forest? Like, God. Tiger? Tiger? Anyway. I hardly know her. We're going to go into March Madness today and go through the first round of match-ups. We're not going to start that until this next segment, because obviously two and a half minutes isn't very long to get into it. But there will be three 10-minute segments of March Madness talk before the tournament gets started tomorrow. Technically, it's already started with play-in games, with Howard beating Wagner. Howard did not hit a three. Wagner beating Howard, sorry. Yeah, Howard did not hit a three in the last... They missed three straight. They missed three straight. You get two offensive boards and you can't get one to go? And all three of the shots were wide open. None of them were contested. Maybe the first one was a little... All of the closeouts were late. Like, that is the biggest indicator of a team being good, is being clutch in those situations. If they couldn't beat Wagner in that situation... They weren't beating anybody else. But they were down big most of the game. They made a really good comeback. And then Colorado State curbsomped Virginia by about 20. Which I love. I love seeing that. After everyone was complaining. I hate Virginia. Yeah. Because I'm a Duke fan. Yeah. But, yeah. All right. So we got about 10 more seconds left here in this segment. We will get into the first round after this break. Thank you for listening. Welcome back to WCCUSN, Coastal Carolina's student-run sports station. I'm Jackson Schotke, here with Ricky Brachel. I'm not doing the rest of that name. I wouldn't either. We're getting into the NCAA tournament. Let's get right into it. UConn Stetson. Stetson, obviously. I think it's Stetson. Of course. Obviously. Not saying that they have zero chance. Because, obviously, in March Madness, you always have a chance. But there's only been 216 seeds in the history of college basketball to win a game in the NCAA tournament. So... Yeah. UConn's currently the best team in the country. I don't see them going down. I really don't. I say we just move on. Yep. FAU Northwestern. This one's interesting. 8-9. I like it 8-9. I'm going Northwestern. FAU has looked pretty bad all year. The thing about FAUs, they've only lost to Illinois and Memphis. Memphis is good. And they beat Memphis, too. Northwestern also lost to Illinois. Lost to Purdue. Lost to Michigan State. Lost to Wisconsin. They were bad in Big Ten play. I'm going FAU. Fair enough. Then we've got the classic 5-12 upset pick that you could take between San Diego State and UAB. I'm not falling for the upset here. I'm going San Diego State. Yeah, no. Feels like every year I have San Diego going, like, at least three or four rounds. Yeah, they usually at least make it to the Sweet 16. Yeah. But, hey. Who knows. Auburn-Yale. We already discussed this. Auburn's on a tear. And Yale's just not that good. Yeah, and they just won the SEC tournament. BYU and Duquesne, as I like to say. Duquesne. Duquesne. I like Duquesne, actually. See, no. I'm a BYU guy. I'm going BYU in this one. Just because they played in the Big 12 and were very competitive in the Big 12. They were. They split games against Baylor, split games against Iowa State, and beat Kansas. That's a pretty good... Now, Kansas has looked pretty bad, which we'll get into once their matchup comes up. But speaking of, Duquesne has lost to St. Joseph's. Played close against St. Bonaventure. Right. Lost to Dayton. Yeah. I'm going BYU. Right. Now, next matchup is a 3-14, but it's not a typical 3-14, because Moorhead State has looked really good this season. They come in facing Illinois, who obviously, very good team, just won the Big 10 tournament. One of their guys, Riley Minix, I apologize, Riley, if I'm pronouncing that incorrectly, but that is how it's phonetically spelled. 20 points per game, almost 10 rebounds per game. 21 and 10, basically. Yeah, 21 and 10 if you round up from .8. So, that's a dominant performer. Their second highest performer... Sorry, I just got a brief notification, got distracted. 15 and a half, .6 rebounds. So, it looks like they perform at a high level. Some notable games for them. They played Alabama at one point, got blown out, but that was also in November. Yeah, that's football season. Purdue also got blown out by Purdue, again in November. All of these blowouts were very early in the year. Very early on in the season. So, I'm not saying it's a lock, I'm still going to go Illinois here, but I'm not saying that I'm a thousand percent confident in that pick like I am with the Auburn Yale pick. And I'm going to go, based off your lack of confidence, I'm going Moorhead. Okay, alright. I think I like Moorhead this year. They made it last year, right? Yeah. And then got beat. Yeah. I'm feeling some distance for Moorhead this year. Now, Washington State versus Drake. It's a 7-10. I'm going Drake. Yeah, I'm going Drake, too. Tucker DeVries, however you say that, 22 points a game. Pretty good. Pretty good. Now, Washington has had some good wins this season. They actually swept their series against Arizona. That is huge. That is a massive thing. But also had losses to teams like Colorado. They lost to Colorado twice. Question, has Drake played anyone? Nevada. He's good. They're in the tournament. In December. Indiana State was pretty good all season. They just didn't get selected for the tournament, and they swept them. Three of their biggest wins are close games against Bradley. Right, but they win. Yeah. I'm going Washington State. I changed my mind. I've got Drake, and then we've got Iowa State, South Dakota. It's Iowa State, yeah. So that is the east region, and we did that in exactly five minutes of this 10-minute segment. So we can get all of them. So yeah, we can probably get all of them, and possibly go into the round of 32 a little bit. Okay. West, North Carolina, and Wagar. Wagar? Wagar? Wagar? I hardly know her, but. North Carolina is the pick there. Yeah. Mississippi State, Michigan State. I've been struggling with this pick every single bracket that I fill out. I feel like this is going to be the best game of the. Round of 64? Yeah. There's a possibility of it. I'm going. It's tough because Mississippi State has the size, but Michigan State has the coaching in Tom Izzo. I don't like betting against Tom Izzo. And the guard play of Michigan State, obviously, is very good, as Tyson Walker is averaging 18 points a game for them. Only blowout this year for Michigan has been against Wisconsin. They blew out the Baylor Bears. They did do that. That's pretty big. And Mississippi State actually swept Tennessee this season. That's impressive. I'm going Michigan State. They took one out of three against Auburn. I think I'm going to go Mississippi State just because of their size. I think I'm thinking too much about it, and I don't like picking against Tom Izzo and Marge Madness, honestly. Fair enough. Next, we have another 5-12. That's St. Mary's in Grand Canyon. Usually 5-12s can be very, very hard to pick. This is the easiest. I'm going Grand Canyon. It's Grand Canyon. St. Mary's, they looked very good to start the season and as the season went on and then have just fell off increasingly. Their offensive production is very low, and that's something that Grand Canyon excels at. Grand Canyon's notable wins this season, they beat San Diego State once and then a lot of conference wins. They held their ground against South Carolina, only losing by seven. I like that, too. I don't think it's close. St. Mary's just doesn't have the scoring, it looks like. Alabama-Charleston, as much as I would like to pick Charleston just because they're near here. Going Alabama, that team's way too fast. It's Alabama. They're so fast. It's the SEC. It's the SEC. Now, this one that I've been picking all week, Clemson-New Mexico, I have been hammering that New Mexico upset. Really? Yep. I don't not like it. I mean, blew out San Diego State once, lost to them the next time. Clemson does have wins over Alabama and UNC this season. Very, ooh, this is a very evenly matched team. Oh, yeah. The main difference in this game that scares me is the play of P.J. Hall, ACC first team all-conference. But Clemson's defense, not great. And New Mexico's offense, really good. Pretty good. Like, they're outscoring Clemson this year by four points, which isn't a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, it is a lot. Yeah. I'm going with the Lobos. I'm going to go with the Lobos, too. Got about two minutes here, three matchups to go. One of them's a lock in the Arizona-Long Beach State game. I'm going Arizona. I feel like Baylor, Colgate's a lock. Baylor's very, very good. Might be. Might be. But Colgate always likes to make it a little scary every time somebody plays them in a tournament. But I'm going Baylor, but I'm not saying it's a lock. I just don't see the scoring from Colgate. They're being outscored by Baylor this year by ten points. Fair enough. Dayton, Nevada. That's a very evenly matched game. It is. And, ooh, Nevada's 3-1 against the top 25. Dayton's 0-1. Wow. I feel like that's huge. That is only one opportunity against the top 25 for Dayton, but Nevada being 3-1. Having four opportunities and going 3-1 is more impressive to me. Dayton's BPI rank is higher because of the conference they play in. It's not a great conference, but it's better than the Mountain West, which the Mountain West is getting disrespected, in my opinion. I do agree with that. I really don't know who to go here in my brackets. I've been splitting it every time. I think I've been leaning towards Dayton. I don't mind it, but I like Nevada a lot. I'm going Dayton. I'm going Nevada. Arizona, Long Beach State, Arizona won, yeah. And we finished up that West region with about 30 more seconds left, so we cut it off perfectly because me and Ricky are just those guys. We're just better, I think. Obviously. If only there was a woman here, we'd be much worse. No offense to Gabey. Full offense. No. All right, we'll be coming back with the South region of the round of 64. This is Sports Uncaged on WCCUSN. Thank you for listening. Welcome back to WCCUSN, Coastal Carolina's student-run sports station. I am Jackson Chalky here with Charles Richard Brachel. The fourth. The fourth. Yes, that's me, a.k.a. Ricky. We did it together that time. We did. That was cute. Best of friends. All right. Now, the South region. Houston, Longwood. Houston. It's not a debate. Sure. I'm positive. I am positive. Let's move on to the 8-9 instead. It's Nebraska, Texas A&M. Another interesting matchup. You could say that's a better matchup in theory. One could say that. One could say that. They are very evenly ranked by BPI. Nebraska has wins over Purdue and Wisconsin this season. A&M has wins over Kentucky, Tennessee, and Kentucky again. They actually swept Kentucky, scoring the same amount of points both times with 97. I don't know. I am feeling hot, hot, hot. No, probably TAMU. I'm thinking TAMU, too. It's a complete toss-up. None of the stats are giving me any indication. Advantages or anything like that. No. Going with the maroon. Going with the maroon. The Aggies. Wisconsin, James Madison. Not JAMU. It might be JAMU. Well, they won the Sun Belt, right? They did, but the Sun Belt is also terrible. Not good. I know. They did go 30-something. Wisconsin played very well in the Big Ten. I'm thinking Wisconsin. There's obviously a beautiful opportunity for an upset here with the 5-12. Like, in certain brackets, I have been picking JAMU just for the upset pick. It can be close. Yeah. I am not confident. No, definitely not. Why do I know the name Bickerstaff? T.J. Bickerstaff? Was there a coach with that name? It seems like there would be. J.B. Bickerstaff is just his birthday, actually, 10 days ago. That's good for J.B. Happy birthday, J.B. He is 6'6". He is the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Well, that would be why we've heard of Bickerstaff. Anyway, I'm going Wisconsin. I am going Wisconsin as well. It's one of the scarier 5-12s, but I don't think it's going to JAMU. It's Duke against Vermont. Yeah, it's Duke. It's Duke against Vermont. Texas Tech, NC State. I like this. NC State was on a run. I'm going NC State. D.J. Burns. Did you see his quote? No. I like to model my game after Wilt, but too bad I was given a Zach Randolph bod. Yeah, I did see that. Everybody was like, bro, you're about 60 pounds heavier than Zach Randolph, but okay. Don't care. Zach Randolph was good for a minute. Oh, yeah. He was a top center. It's NC State. I really have a hard time not believing in the magic. Of D.J. Burns. They swept through the ACC tournament. Swept the three best teams. Beat Virginia, Duke, and UNC right in a row. I have to go NC State. Yeah, it's not an option. No. Kentucky, Oakland. Kentucky. It's Kentucky. It's Kentucky. That offense is going to run Oakland out of the gym. Rob Dillingham is going to drop 25 points. Paul Shepard is probably going to have like 15. Antonio Reeves will do his thing. It's, yeah, it's wraps. Yeah. Florida versus, what's that, Boise? Boise slash Colorado. See, my problem is I believe a little bit in Boise State. I don't believe in either of those teams to beat Florida. Florida just went to the SEC championship. I mean, I'm picking Florida, but I feel like if Boise State wins, I think they could give Florida a run for their money. Blue and orange versus the blue and orange. Yeah. The only other team with a colored field. Yep. Yep. Give me the Gators. I'm taking the Gators. But I want to put it out there that I think Boise State could run the table. Marquette's winning that against Western Kentucky. And, again, with five minutes to go in this segment. What are we, perfect? I think we might be. We will get into the Midwest region, and then we can probably spend the next ten minutes going through the round of 32. Yeah. Purdue is winning. Purdue is winning. Is that Montana State and Grambling? That is definitely who that is. Neither of them beating or coming close to beating Purdue. No. Let's go to the 8-9 Utah State and TCU. This is another kind of toss-up to me. TCU has played a lot of top 25 teams and only gone 4-7, which is not bad. The reason they've played so many top 25 teams, though, is because they're in a good conference. They are in the Big 12. Utah State, though, their stats are about even other than the top 25 thing. I'm going Utah State only because of their BPI rank. I'm going to go TCU just to oppose you. I like that. Gonzaga McNeese. Now, give me a moment. I have been the biggest McNeese rider who ever exists, bro. Me, personally, I hardly know. I hardly know. McNeese, if you guys don't know, is the former head coach at LSU who was fired because of a scandal. He is a Power 5 coach at a Group of 5 school in McNeese. I wouldn't even say McNeese is a Group of 5. McNeese is worse than a Group of 5. But he has led McNeese to a 31-3 record. And this is a Gonzaga down year, even though they're still a 5 seed just because they won their conference tournament, because they play against literal cities, not even states. Nope. They play against Portland and San Francisco twice a year. Big schools. Big schools. Awesome schools. You know, the Northwest where all the Hoopers live. Big, big, scary, Pacific Northwest. Yeah, exactly. McNeese is coming in, and they are going to beat Gonzaga, I think, by at least 10. Okay, 10 is pushing it, but I have McNeese, too. I have McNeese by 10. I'm also the biggest Gonzaga hater to ever exist. That's fair. I feel like I've spent a lot of time putting Gonzaga deep into these tournaments. And you shouldn't. It never pays off. Everybody's like, yeah, Gonzaga's a really good team. Almost a blue blood. They've never won a national championship. They don't have a national championship. They've been to a couple. They're big on the Final Four. They are big on losing to UNC in the Final Four. Yeah, they are. They love doing that. They're really good at that. I would be good at that. The only time they face good comp is pre-conference games where they go actually play people in tournaments. And then the first three rounds at March Madness. And then the first three rounds at March Madness. They play five good teams a year and are ranked top 25 every single year. Yeah, no. It's McNeese. I don't like Gonzaga. Now, Kansas-Sanford. Scary. I think I might pick Sanford. I'm still going Kansas, but I don't think Kansas gets past the round of 32. I think they beat Sanford, but I don't think they get past the round of 32. They are short-staffed. One of their guards, McCullers, just announced out for the tournament. He's their leading scorer. Yep. Dickinson has 18 and 11. Hunter Dickinson. That's why I think they're getting past Sanford, but I don't think they're getting past anybody else unless Dickinson just obliterates McNeese in the second round. Kansas swept Tennessee, beat Houston and Baylor and Texas. And then lost in the Big 12 tournament to Cincinnati. A deafening silence speaks for that. That's not good. I really am wanting to pick Sanford here. I feel like I'm going to get beat, but only by one because I don't think Kansas will make it past 32 anyway. I'm going to pick Sanford. All right. We've got a minute left here in this segment, so we've got to rapid-fire these last four picks. Well, Creighton and Tennessee are winning. Creighton and Tennessee are winning their matchups. South Carolina-Oregon, it's an interesting matchup. Oregon has a lot of length. South Carolina has been inconsistent, but I still think South Carolina takes the win. I'm not certain. USC got murdered by Alabama, 74-41. Oregon played Alabama as well, only lost by eight. Now, that was much earlier in the season. That was before Alabama was Alabama yet. Yeah. I'm going Oregon. All right, 25 seconds left in this segment. We've got Texas-Colorado State, who we watched wax Virginia last night. I'm going Colorado State. I am going Texas because they have that guard from Oral Roberts last year that tore up the tournament. Now, with 12 seconds left, we will be going to commercial break. We will talk to you in the next one about the round of 32. Welcome to WCCUSN, Coastal Carolina's student-run sports station. I am Jackson Shockey here with Ricky Bracco. We have decided, instead of taking you through the round of 32 since we had differing opinions, we're going to fast forward to what our most confident final four pick is. I have about ten different brackets right now, but I'm going with the one that I am most confident in, the one I've entered in my money leagues. So let's go with the East-West matchup. Who have you got in the East-West? Okay, you got to preface yours. Keep in mind this is my first bracket that I filled out, and I did it purely with the power of imagination and vibes. So going back to the Elite Eight, one of either San Diego State or Moorhead State were going to make the final four, and I have Moorhead. So I have number one UNC facing number 14, Moorhead State, in the final four. Now, UNC is winning. I couldn't put Moorhead in the final, sadly. But UNC is very, very good at basketball, and Moorhead's just not good enough to make it to the final four, though. Sure. My East-West matchup is completely and utterly different. It is Iowa State versus Arizona. Iowa State, if you guys aren't paying attention, just blew out number one-seeded Houston by about 20 in the Big 12 championship game. Iowa State's looked really good all season. The Cyclones have been using the 3-and-D method, which I really like. And then Arizona, in the transfer portal this offseason, got UNC transfer Caleb Love, who's been doing his thing, averaging 18 points, five assists, three and a half rebounds. Very complete player. Like I said, Iowa had an upset win over Houston this season and beat a lot of good competition in the Big 12. Arizona has notable wins. They beat Duke in preseason play, only lost to Purdue by eight, beat Alabama, had a lot of good-quality wins. So my pick here is going to be Arizona. I just am confident in the Wildcats making it there. Now we'll go South-Midwest, and I'll start with that. I'm going Houston-Tennessee in that option, and I'm going Tennessee and Dalton Connect to upset the Houston defense, who Dalton Connect, in my opinion, is the most NBA-ready player in college basketball right now, averaging 21 points on five assists. Tennessee this season, a lot of notable wins. They beat Kentucky. They beat Alabama twice. They beat Auburn once. So a very battle-tested team, and I think also their guard play by Spiegler is really important because he's a great facilitator of the offense. So my national championship is Arizona-Tennessee. Yeah, mine is not as scientific. It's Creighton. I like Creighton a lot. They're a three-seed, averaging 80 points a game, ranked ninth by BPI. I like them a lot. Them white boys, they can strap it. Ricky's raking. My bad. NC State is my other Final Four team. I believe in them. They murdered the – The power of friendship, guys. The power of friendship. The 145-win Dodgers against an 87-win – 87-win Marlins. The Marlins upset the Dodgers and the NLCS with the power of friendship and jazz chism. I honestly don't even know if he'll be healthy. No, probably not. But I like the way they just ran through the ACC tournament. They come in. They don't really face a ton of competition on the way. 11 seats this year, I've got good spots in the tournament. There's not a lot of big comp around them. The only team that they really have to beat is – well, they do have to beat Kentucky, but then they don't have to beat anyone until they get to Houston. That's big. But also, if they're still rolling and Houston's shown that they can lose – They show they struggle on offense sometimes. Like their defense isn't enough all the time. I like NC State. I really don't think they beat Houston, but for the power of friendship, I think they have it. I think they beat Creighton. I really don't think so, but I really want – As the national champion. But I'd rather not have a 1-3 matchup in the finals. I want that 1-11. I have a 2-2 matchup, so I can't really say anything. And then Tennessee is my national champion. I think it would be a great offensive battle of Caleb Love and Dalton Kinect. I think that would be a really fun national championship to watch. But I think Dalton Kinect, like I said, he's my – He's my – He's one of those players that, like, obviously he doesn't go to the school that I support. But once he does go to the NBA, I want to track his career and see what he does. Like I'm very high on Dalton Kinect and his complete game. I've watched him terrorize Kentucky twice this season. There was a point I watched Dalton Kinect play against Kentucky. They still lost this game by two. But they were down 15 with about five minutes to go. And Dalton Kinect scored 13 points in five minutes. Wow. Yeah. Put the team on his back. He scored three threes, an and one, and a dunk in five minutes. And we heard a song about clutch shooting. And Dalton Kinect is one of those guys who will take over the game. Yeah. And he's not unwilling to pass it. I mean, his assist numbers aren't high. He's got two a game. I've seen him make a play in a situation where it's required. The thing is, that's just not his game. No, he's a scorer and he knows that. And that's what his coach knows. They all know he's a pure scorer. Yeah. My finals was UNC, NC State. For not being boring, I'm keeping the train running. The biggest, best Cinderella story ever, if it were to happen, is NC State upsetting number one North Carolina in the finals. With the power of friendship and a dream. Yes, and Zach Randall. Realistically, my bracket's just for fun. But I don't hate the idea of a team running the table this year. Last year, the combined ranks of the Final Four was 26. Kyle Obanchero from the Orlando Magic posted his bracket. Who do you think he had winning it all? Duke, where he went to college. But I like his Final Four picks because he's got two of mine in there. He's got Arizona and Tennessee in there. He has Duke beating Tennessee and UConn beating Arizona. And then a Duke-UConn natty, and Duke wins. What? Creativity on that bracket. You can't say anything. You just picked D.J. Burns and the power of friendship to win a national championship. Okay, at least that was creative. It picked Duke and he's in UConn. I mean, he's a Duke guy. That just makes sense. I don't care. I pick UNC. Hey, let's look at these upsets he's picked, though. He picked the Grand Canyon upset. Tell me he picked McNeese, and I'll be happy. I'm looking. He did not pick the New Mexico upset. Those are going far, man. He picked my Drake upset. He picked your Duquesne upset. Okay. He picked Yale upsetting Auburn. Okay. That's not happening. No. Honestly, though. Your power of friendship team doesn't make it past Texas Tech. Daring it. Daring it, Johnson. He has Colorado upsetting Florida. Yeah. Yeah. I like Florida losing. He did not pick McNeese. He went with Gonzaga. I really don't think Florida gets that far. And then he has Oregon upsetting South Carolina. He has Oregon in his Sweet 16. I like that more than anything. And he has TCU in his Sweet 16. And Grand Canyon. I don't think TCU gets there. And San Diego State. His Sweet 16, he's got TCU in the Elite 8. I don't like that. Whatever floats your boat, palo. Yeah. I love him because of what he did at Duke. But that is just an interesting pick. You could say that. Definitely. How much time we got in our segment, brother? 45 seconds. 45 seconds. I really think this is going to be a good March Madness. It started with a great game yesterday. Wagner-Howard. A terrible game, but a good upset. Kind of. I think a lot of people were assuming Virginia would take that game. Yeah. They went scoreless for an hour. 13 minutes of that game, they didn't score a bucket. On top of the real time elapsed. It's like an hour. It's crazy. Virginia's offense was non-existent. We might do an outro segment. We might not. We'll be back. We love you so much. This is WCCUSN. See you later.