WTKA Roundtable 7/17/2025: Find Your Superpower

Things Discussed:

• Playoff expansion: SEC and Big Ten are trying to strongarm their 2-loss teams in without having those teams play anybody.
• Seth: Don't care anymore, because once you go past six teams it's an invitational and you've got a playoff champion, not a season champion. Did Team 12 have a better season than Team 1 if they get eliminated? If not you're not a season champion.
• What we should care about—and here's where our needs align with Puppet Petitti and the TV exec with his arm up Tony's ass at the moment—are better games. I like having a Big Ten Showcase where you play the best games that weren't played, and do that in every league, and THEN use that information to make your small playoff field. You can also expand that concept to a national invitational round of matchups. Just get rid of the bracket, which is too rigid, and say these are the matchups we think we need at the end of the season to make our field. The losers can then still play in the bowls, so you aren't stuck with Middle Tennessee State on December 31st when Tennessee ended their season in December in Columbus, Ohio.
• Is Penn State a fraud? Sam: easy schedule. Seth: Michigan's 2023 schedule was the same, with the gauntlet at the end. Just need to come up with a tinpot scandal for them—suggestion: go after them for tampering.
• Why is PSU a favorite? Seth: because Big Ten powers are spending to retain their best players, and getting players because their fans are their superpower. PSU is like us (cultish); Michigan won Bryce in part because he saw how awful LSU fans are to their team, and had been around enough Michigan losses like that to see that Michigan fans stay behind their guys. Penn State fans are the same way. They are behind their dudes. I don't think James Franklin is a top-five/championship-caliber coach, but Penn State fans are a top-five, championship-caliber fanbase, and when you have a superpower you can win.
• Michigan basketball: The issue is their best five lineup isn't a shooting lineup.
• Shooting from the guys who aren't shooters: via Dusty via Sam they *say* they can do it: Cadeau is a 40% shooter on catch-and-shoots, Gayle found his stroke again, Yaxel says he's going to show it, Morez and Mara also say they can shoot but weren't allowed to. We believe Grady can shoot, Cason can shoot, and Burnett can shoot, but you don't have any lineups with those three.
• X-factor is LJ Cason and whether they can maximize Mara by having him go hard for 20 minutes and letting Morez take the rest.
• Might want to figure out lineups instead of a five and backups with different players taking on more creation so they don't have to be shooters, while always keeping 2 guys on the court who will knock down an inside-out.
• Shoot more slop please; this team can rebound, so a 40% shot from two might be more like a 50% shot in reality, and that 1 PPP is a heck of a lot more valuable than the 0 PPP you get from a turnover.