Hello and welcome to the game theory podcast.

I'm your host Sam Vassini.

We're presented by The Athletic.

Today on the show, Matthew Penny is back in the building.

We're going to talk about the Sweet 16, the Elite 8, a few different NBA prospects that we saw over the course of the weekend playing college basketball,

some coaching hires that have occurred.

And then we're going to debut a new segment at the end of the show,

recruiting stories with Matt Penny. Penny, how you doing, man?

I'm great. I'm excited. I'm still wired from the late night games. I haven't come back down to

earth. And I'm hoping to ride this out for the next whatever six days. Then we're done. So I'm

enjoying it while we're here. It's just the best. So before we get into any of that, I wanted to

just talk real quickly about this very interesting Russell Westbrook quote from overnight.

I thought it was just totally fascinating.

It seems like he's in like a back and forth with Stephen A. Smith.

Because Stephen A. Smith is doing what Stephen A does in terms of being like an entertainer

that comments on basketball, which is great. Like Stephen A does in terms of being like an entertainer that comments on basketball, which is great.

Like Stephen A, like I have no beef with Stephen A. He's fucking hilarious, I think. But, yeah,

just like refuses to give Russell Westbrook credit, which is also absurd to me. And on Stephen A. Smith's comments, according to Fred Katz, who I assume was like just

transcribing what was a Zoom call post game from the Warriors' game last night, Russell

Westbrook said, I've been playing basketball for my whole life.

Like my wife mentioned, it's important that you don't let people deter you from your goal,

deter you from your plan, deter you from the things that you have as destiny in this world.

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