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Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (March 29, 2016), we try and understand Syracuse’s miraculous run to the Final Four in both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments, Ben Lindbergh joins the crew as we preview the 2016 baseball season and wonder whether this just might be the Cubs’ year, and we gab about the Cricket World Cup with Cricinfo’s Andrew Miller and ask whether there is greater parity in the shorter, 20/20 form of the game than there is in test matches. Plus, we check in on our bracket competition and find out which of our hosts is in the lead going into the last weekend of games.
Stream the episode by clicking the play button, or subscribe using one of the podcast clients we’ve linked to above. Links to what we discuss are here:
- Neil Paine explains how the hell Syracuse made it to the Final Four.
- Reuben Fischer-Baum and Neil Paine discuss the parity in this year’s men’s NCAA tournament.
- Kate Fagan’s tweets about whether UConn’s women’s team is ruining the sport.
- There’s an 85 percent chance the Cubs won’t win the World Series this year, says Neil Paine.
- Rob Arthur asks whether 2016 will herald the end of balance in basketball.
- The Royals will look to be projection breakers once again, writes CBS’s Matt Snyder.
- The Guardian’s Vic Marks says anyone can win this year’s Cricket World Cup.
- Sexist discrimination is happening in cricket, according to the Telegraph’s Jonathan Liew.
- The English cricket team is rough and aggressive but raw around the edges, says ESPN’s Andrew Miller.
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