Season 5 Episode 9- Stewart Mandel, Ryan Lambert, Mike Johnson

On the ninth episode of the fifth season of The Sports-Casters hosts Steve Bennett and Don Russ welcome Stewart Mandel (Fox Sports), Ryan Lambert (Puck Daddy, College Hockey News) and Mike Johnson (Pro Wrestling Insider). Starting the show with 3Things, Steve and Don talk about the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the overhaul of the Saints and Bills, and look ahead to Wrestlemania XXXI. The book club takes a first look at Eleventh Heaven by Rob Miech, and Steve has a quick chat with Yale hockey players Anthony Day and Mike Doherty. The show ends with One Last Thing. -Stewart Mandel is making his seventh appearance (00:25:46) on the podcast. Stewart joins us to talk about the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament and to look ahead to the rest of the tournament. Mandel talks about a wild first day and why he thinks so many favorites won the rest of the weekend. Mandel speculates about who could give Kentucky the best game, talks about the players he is most excited to see on the grand stage, and gives his predictions for the final four and the national champion. -Ryan Lambert is making his first appearance (00:53:26) on the podcast. Lambert covers college hockey for the Puck Daddy blog on Yahoo Sports and offers his opinion on the field of sixteen chosen for the NCAA tournament. Lambert explains why he thinks the pairwise is an acceptable way to choose the field, discusses the committees decision to move Providence to the East Regional, and talks about the players not named Jack Eichel that he is excited to watch this weekend. Lambert says that the NCAA should drop automatic tournament bids, ranks the conferences from best to worst, and explains why the thinks seven or eight teams could win the national championship this year. -Mike Johnson is making his first appearance (01:32:52) on the podcast. Johnson squeezes in The Sports-Casters just before he steps onto a plain headed to California for Wrestlemania. Johnson talks about main stream sports writers covering wrestling, the challenges of his job Wrestlemania week, and being one of the first people to have wrestling podcast. Johnson talks about the possibilities for the main event, what the WWE will do after the show, and predicts who will win the big matches on Sunday.