u/No_Decision_3500

Dusty May assembled a roster through transfers and NIL, went 37-3, won five tournament games by double digits, and beat UConn in the final. Cadeau, Lendeborg, Mara — none of them were recruited out of high school to Michigan. That team was built exactly the way people complain about.

And it was one of the most cohesive, well-coached teams we’ve seen in March in years. Held UConn to 31 percent shooting. Made 25 of 28 free throws. Won going 2-for-15 from three.

The portal isn’t the problem. Bad roster construction through the portal is the problem. Every offseason we watch programs hemorrhage their entire rotation and wonder why they can’t build chemistry. Michigan figured out how to use the same tools everyone else has and actually won.

Penn State lost 70 percent of their roster this portal cycle. Tennessee is running back an entirely new starting five next year. That’s not the portal’s fault — that’s programs with no retention strategy blaming the system instead of themselves.

Been rewatching a lot of 80s WWF lately and every time I come back to Steamboat I end up in the same place — this man should have been a multiple-time world champion and the booking just never let it happen.

His WrestleMania III match against Savage is still one of the most technically perfect matches in the history of the company. His series with Flair in ’89 for the NWA title is genuinely some of the greatest wrestling ever put on tape, three matches across Chi-Town, New Orleans, and Nashville that would hold up against anything in any era.

And yet in the WWF he was capped. The IC title was his ceiling. Part of it was Hogan’s shadow — everyone was, to be fair. Part of it was his own request for time off, which the company apparently punished him for.

But when I watch that Savage match now and think about what a Steamboat vs Hogan world title program could have looked like in 1987 at the peak of Hulkamania, it genuinely feels like one of the great roads not taken in wrestling history.

Does Steamboat belong in the conversation for the most complete in-ring performer of the 80s, or does the lack of a WWF title reign permanently cap his legacy in casual fan memory?

I keep seeing PSG installed as favorites and I genuinely don’t understand the logic. Not saying Arsenal win — I’m saying the gap people are assuming isn’t there.

Arsenal went through 14 UCL matches this season with ten wins, four draws, and zero defeats. 29 goals scored, six conceded. Nine clean sheets — the most of any team in the competition. That’s not a team that got lucky or had an easy draw. They knocked out Leverkusen, Atlético Madrid twice, and went eight-for-eight in the league phase.

PSG’s route to the final did go through Liverpool, Chelsea, and Bayern Munich — three enormous clubs — so the pedigree is real. But I keep coming back to how tight their semifinal was. They scraped through Bayern 6-5 on aggregate , which is extraordinary football but also kind of proves they can be hurt.

The narrative is that PSG’s counter-attacking speed and ability to carve through a press makes them unplayable. But Arsenal have faced disciplined defensive blocks all tournament and figured it out every time. Arteta’s structure is built to absorb pressure and punish on transitions too.

My actual take: this is closer to 50/50 than the market suggests, and if Arsenal score first in Budapest, PSG’s “inevitability” disappears instantly. Anyone else think the favorite tag is more reputation than form?

Watched Game 6 again last week — the one where Starks drove left and Hakeem got a hand on that three — and I kept thinking about how warped the public memory of this series is.
Everyone remembers Starks going 2-for-18 in Game 7. Fewer people talk about what Hakeem actually did to Ewing across seven games. Olajuwon held him to .363 from the field while shooting .500 himself. Ewing was a near-50% shooter in the regular season that year. That’s not Ewing choking — that’s Hakeem executing one of the greatest individual defensive performances in Finals history while also averaging 26.9 points.
The Knicks lost because they had one Hakeem-caliber player and Houston had… Hakeem. The idea that Pat Riley’s defense somehow failed or that Ewing came up small misses what was actually happening in the post on every single possession. Ewing wasn’t getting beaten — he was being systematically destroyed by someone operating on a completely different plane.
My actual controversial take: If John Starks shoots anywhere close to his regular-season numbers in Game 7, the Knicks probably win AND Ewing’s legacy looks completely different today. We’re having very different conversations about his Hall of Fame tier. The whole thing turned on about four missed mid-range jumpers from a shooting guard. That’s it.
Anyone else think the Ewing reputation rehab is overdue, or is there a version of this series I’m not accounting for?