Crossovers
Bracket guru Joe Lunardi compares NCAA teams to pro golfers, nails Jordan Spieth analogy
For college basketball fans, it's basically Christmas morning. With all due respect to the play-in games, the real March Madness starts in a few hours when brackets will start busting faster than you can say "NCAA Tournament Selection Committee."
Speaking of which, while Joe Lunardi isn't officially part of that group, he's made a career of predicting the field in the men's basketball tournament. There are a lot of people who have problems with him—from Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes to Barstool Big Cat—but the dude does a great job overall. And on the eve of the tournament, he did another great job breaking down pro golfers. Sort of.
This delightful sports crossover happened on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio when Michael Collins asked the bracket guru to compare PGA Tour stars to NCAA basketball progams: Have a listen:
Lunardi clearly isn't the biggest golf fan if he knows nothing about Wyndham Clark, but he nails those other comps. To be fair, Wyndham would have been a tough one, anyway. A newer powerhouse, perhaps? Baylor?
Anyway, we liked the other comps (JT is flashy like UNC as well), but especially Jordan Spieth as Duke. "Love him, hate him, gets the most attention whether he's playing it great or hitting it sideways," Lunardi says. "He's capable of both at any moment. But he's Jordan Spieth and they're Duke, so you keep watching." Nailed it.
We'll even take it a step farther by pointing out Duke's last national title—despite all the hoopla—came in 2015, which was Spieth's best (historic) year. And Spieth hasn't won a major since 2017 and only has two PGA Tour titles since. Which might promp a certain "O"-word chant in some gyms.
But again, nice job by Joe. That was fun. And to get even more into March Madness, we had TNT Sports' Brian Anderson, who will be on the call for Thursday's first game between Michigan State and Mississippi State, on this week's episode of The Loop podcast. Enjoy:
Oh, and enjoy the MADNESS.
