All right. We are 24 hours, 25 hours exactly away. 25 hours, 15 minutes. I think 1215's first tip on Thursday.

These first four games, two good games last night. I mean, they're exciting games. And we do get Miami of Ohio tonight in a first four game.

But the tournament as we know it starts on Thursday

afternoon and runs in really through one of the best weekends on the sports calendar this

first weekend in the NCAA tournament. Joining me right now is Tate Frazier. Tate covers the sport for the ringer at Tate

Frazier on X, on Twitter, and all of our conversation about the college basketball tournament

is presented by Bud Light here on the team 980. Easy to drink and easy to enjoy. So Tate, we were just talking about

this. Max and I were. How many teams do you think legitimately can win the tournament? And is it

fewer than typical for this particular tournament? Yeah, I mean, first, it's great to be here.

Great to talk about the madness. I'm ready for it. Like you said, 25 hours, 15 minutes. We're counting down the clock right now in real time. Yeah, I do think that this year it's obviously a top heavy, as it always is, right? It's going to be a little bit chalky. I think there have been some years, right, with the Yukon team in 2024. I think there probably was one, maybe two teams that could have won it in

2024 when you just kind of see like maybe Purdue if Zach Edy has an incredible game

and he did play well in the championship game, but I thought it was a pretty much one team that was going to win it.

We saw it throughout the entire year.

I think we're around probably seven teams that you could talk yourself into this year that could win the national

championship just based on the brackets now and how they've broken. And we obviously have some

injuries to a Duke team. We have some question marks there that could come into play. Arizona

in the Sweet 16 has a tough setup. Florida, having Houston in Houston, potentially in the elite

eight. So I think we have about seven teams that could actually win the whole set. So give me the seven.

Okay. Let's run through them. I mean, I think Duke, all the one teams, I think are obvious. I think Houston,

I would throw into that mix as well. I think Gonzaga, I would throw into that mix, and then I would throw Iowa State into that mix.

Man, you're the second person in the last 12 hours that has told me Iowa State's going to make a deep run.

Why not Purdue is part of that mix with what we have come you know, come to believe about this tournament, that

...