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For most of his life, host Sky Stickney couldn’t fill out a March Madness bracket. Picking anyone other than the Oregon Ducks felt like betrayal, and for sixteen years the faith behind that had a name: Coach Dana Altman. Last week, after 37 seasons as a Division I head coach and 16 at Oregon, Altman retired. He leaves behind a Final Four, five straight NCAA Tournaments, players like Payton Pritchard, Dillon Brooks and Chris Duarte, and a program he built. But leaving forces a reckoning and Altman’s was honest. This bonus episode is a tribute to the coach who shaped a generation of basketball fans, and to what the game asks of the people who give their lives to it.  Sky sits down with Coach Jon Frazier, who won an Oregon State Championship at Summit High School and then walked away to be with his family. They talk about the cost of coaching, the courage to leave, and what it means to step away before the job takes the people you love. Thank you, Coach Altman. In Dana we trust. Coach Jon Frazier is a resource for coaches through Proactive Coaching Reach him at [email protected]. Bucket is on Instagram: @[email protected]

When we first sat down with Lucas LaBounty in Season 1, Episode 2, "The Standard," it was the very first interview of this show. A conversation with a kid from Thurston High School about what it means to inherit something bigger than yourself. Lucas had grown up inside a program built on continuity. Coaches who stay. Habits handed down. Expectations absorbed more than announced. He waited, earned his role, and then carried it, trying to make his own mark while protecting something that existed long before him. After our conversation, he won a second straight Midwestern League Player of the Year. Oregon 5A First Team All-State. And now: a new chapter at Western Colorado University 7,700 feet up in Gunnison, CO on a roster full of new faces. We check back in with the guy who started it all to find out whether the standard travels, how the fishing is in Gunnison, what happens when the kid who inherited a culture has to start over in a new one, and whether the path that got him here (wait, earn, reap) is the same one waiting for him at the next level. The second of our Check-In Episodes. Follow Lucas: @LucasLabounty@westerncolorado_mbbBucket is on Instagram: @[email protected]

In October 2015, Hurricane Patricia exploded into the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere in under 24 hours. Twenty-two years earlier, a different storm did the same thing over the Gulf of Mexico, burying the American South in snow nobody saw coming. Meteorologists have a word for what happens when something grows far faster than anyone built a system to track it. Jakyi 'Kyi Kyi' Miles had Division I offers before he started high school. NIL deals before he could drive. He's the top-ranked point guard in the 2028 class, playing for one of the best high school teams in the country, and he's still a kid figuring out what kind of person to become inside all of it. Hurricane researcher Jason Dunion has flown directly into some of the most violent storms on record. He joins Bucket to talk about rapid intensification, the eye of the storm, and what it actually takes for something growing this fast to hold together instead of tearing itself apart. If you've enjoyed this season, we'd love your vote for the Signal Awards: Best Documentary (Sports): https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signa5_entrant_finalistnotification_092926&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2026/shows/genre/documentary-sports Best Indie Podcast: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signa5_entrant_finalistnotification_092926&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2026/shows/genre/indie-podcast Follow Kyi Kyi: @kyikyi_milesFeaturing music by @Nasteeluvzyou, our second BeatStars × Bucket Challenge winnerBucket is on Instagram @bucketpodcast · [email protected]

Signal to Noise | Bonus A nor'easter, a lot of New York pizza, and a lot of courts without nets. Bucket is a 2026 Signal Awards Finalist in Indie Podcast and Documentary (Sports).  Listener's Choice voting is open through October 15th You Can Vote for BOTH categories here:  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signa5_entrant_finalistnotification_092926&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2026/shows/genre/documentary-sports https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signa5_entrant_finalistnotification_092926&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2026/shows/genre/indie-podcast The next ten days get busy: a storm that grew faster than anyone could measure, a man on a ladder in Queens, and an old friend checking back in. Pressure's dropping.

When we first sat down with Kaylor Buse in Season 1, Episode 3, "The Full Measure," she wasn't necessarily a household name.  She was a high schooler talking about competing + recruiting with a clarity most players twice her age never find: prioritizing the human connection, seeing through the empty promises of the courting process before it had even ramped up for her. Then came winning the Oregon 6A State Championship. A dominant AAU season. The national spotlight. Major offers from the best programs in the country. And now: a commitment to Texas Christian University.  We check back in with one of our favorite guests to find out whether the wisdom she showed us back then held up under the weight of everything that followed, and what the recruiting process actually looked like from the inside. The first of our Check-In Episodes.  Follow Kaylor: @KaylorBuse @TCUwbbBucket is on Instagram: @[email protected]

There's a kind of wild thing you can only admire from a distance. You can study it, rank it, put its face on a wall downtown, but you can't quite reach it, and it was never going to answer to you anyway. It just keeps moving. Next thing.  Sky sits down with the youngest athlete he's ever interviewed: Jaiyana Bogen-Jacobs, a five-star recruit ranked second in the nation in the class of 2029, out of Campo Verde High School in Gilbert, Arizona.  And something about her sent Sky looking for a different vocabulary to describe what he was watching. That search led to Amaroq Weiss, biologist, former attorney, and senior wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, and to the true stories of two wandering gray wolves who left everything they knew and walked thousands of miles into the unknown. One found what he was looking for. One went twice as far and didn't. Their journeys became the frame for a conversation about a young player everyone can already feel coming, even though she hasn't fully arrived. This is the Season Two premiere of Bucket, a story about wildness, recognition, and the beauty of something that belongs only to itself. Follow Jaiyana: @jaijai_theathlete2029 Mural art by Antoinette Cauley: @antoinettecauley Featuring music by @RomaBeatz, our first BeatStars × Bucket Challenge winner Learn more about wolves and how to help at SaveOurWolves.org Bucket is on Instagram @bucketpodcast · [email protected]

You don't know who's listening around the campfire. Bucket Podcast | Season 1 Finale. @[email protected]

Some players arrive. Britt Prince chose to build. A homegrown Nebraska kid from Elkhorn North — where she led a brand new program to state championships, broke the Nebraska Class B scoring record, and won back-to-back Gatorade and MaxPreps Player of the Year honors. Then she came home to Lincoln. As a Husker, she's earned First Team All-Big Ten honors, a Nancy Lieberman Award nomination for the nation's best point guard, and posted one of the rarest shooting seasons in college basketball — 50-40-90. She leads Nebraska in scoring, assists, and steals. She got better at everything in year two. Every single category. But this episode isn't just about the numbers. It's about what it means to be a builder. Sky sits down with Britt to talk about the invisible work, the program she helped raise, and the state that shaped her. Then we go somewhere unexpected — because it turns out the philosophy of building shows up in the most unlikely places. Curt Arens, Senior Editor of Nebraska Farmer — Farm Progress, talks about what the land asks of the people who tend it. The patience of planting something you won't harvest for months. The legacy of building something not just for yourself, but for whoever comes after you. And Adam Ward — bestselling author, all around great dude, and one of the most celebrated brick artists on the planet — talks about what it means to build something remarkable and let it go. Three different worlds. One through line. Brick x brick. Brick x Britt.  Follow Bucket Podcast @Bucketpodcast Follow Britt @britt.prince23 Follow Adam @peaceandbricks

We said if. Game 7 said yes. This bonus episode is part two of two... an inside look at the conversations happening inside a friend group right now — the texts, the takes, the things basketball keeps making them consider.  Definitely one for the hoop nerds.  Sky talks with Ryan Arel and Cy Benedict — friends who've been thinking about the 2026 NBA Western Conference Finals a little too hard. The basketball is in there. So is everything else. Cy's article: https://cybdellenback.substack.com/p/the-nbas-western-conference-finals

Some of the best conversations happen between brothers who've been talking hoops and life since they were kids.  This is one of those. Sky sits down with his 'brother' Cy Benedict — philosopher, writer, and author of the Substack The Real — and you're a fly on the wall. They get into Cy's recent piece about the Spurs and Thunder, why Wembanyama feels like a breath of fresh air in a league full of optimized everything, and what basketball keeps trying to tell us about the world we're living in. Unexpected audio issues hit, but it felt wrong not to release it anyway — Game 6 of the NBA Western Conference Finals is tonight, and this conversation deserved to exist while the series is still alive. The game has always been a mirror.  Cy's article can be found at https://cybdellenback.substack.com/p/the-nbas-western-conference-finals?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&utm_id=97760_v0_s00_e0_tv3

We used to experience things together. The same moment, the same breath, the same not-knowing. Somewhere along the way, we lost that. This episode is about what we've traded away in the age of streaming, highlight reels, and on-demand everything — and why sports might be the last place where time still belongs to all of us at once.

In an era defined by movement — by the next opportunity, the better offer, the open portal — Keira Hanson did something quietly radical. She stayed. A four-year standout at the University of Vermont, Keira leaves Burlington as one of the most decorated players in program history — a thousand point scorer, a three-time conference champion, an American East All-Conference First Team selection, and a multiple-time NCAA Tournament participant. She arrived from Issaquah High School, where she remains the all-time leading assist leader. And if you know what to look for, that detail tells you everything. This episode is a conversation about what it means to choose a place. To build something slowly. To measure a career not just in points, but in people — in the teammates you elevated, the program you helped shape, the little sister who followed you across the country and now carries what you built. Joining the conversation is Ben Aguilar, Director of Operations at the Berry Center in Newcastle, Kentucky — the organization dedicated to putting the writings of farmer, poet, and essayist Wendell Berry to work in the world. Ben brings Berry's language of place, loyalty, and belonging into unexpected conversation with the modern landscape of college athletics. Together, they help us understand what's quietly being lost every time someone leaves — and what becomes possible for the ones who stay long enough to find out. The third episode of the collegiate mini series.

Before the next episode drops — a pause.  The transfer portal has thrown this mini-series for a loop, and rather than just explain the delay, this felt like the right moment to say something about it. The transfer portal has changed basketball. But this episode isn't really about basketball. It's about what gets lost when the exit is always available — and what gets found when you choose to stay. A personal reflection on identity, heartbreak, and the kind of development that only happens when you remain loyal to the soil.

EPISODE TWO OF THE COLLEGE MARCH MINI SERIES In this episode of The Bucket Podcast, Sky sits down with Fairfield University standout Kaety L’Amoreaux, 2026 MAAC Player of the Year, to explore the moments that shape a player beyond the stat line. From a small-town upbringing in upstate New York to becoming one of the top players in the country, Kaety reflects on the path that led her to the Division I level—navigating recruiting, adversity, and the transition into a leadership role on a team with championship expectations. The conversation moves through the realities of growth: learning how to respond to failure, finding confidence under pressure, and understanding what it takes to compete at the highest level while staying grounded in who you are off the court. At its core, this episode is about something harder to define—the space where preparation meets instinct… where the game slows down… and everything starts to connect. A conversation on flow, identity, and learning how to trust what you’ve built—when it matters most.

EPISODE ONE OF THE COLLEGE MARCH MINI SERIES  Host Sky Stickney sits down with former Washington 4A Player of the Year Jo Lee from Glacier Peak High School, now a freshman at Le Moyne College. After a high school career defined by production, recognition, and deep postseason runs, Jo has arrived at the level so many chase — only to find himself in a new role. What follows isn’t frustration... In a season of waiting, Jo reflects on identity, faith, and what it means to stay grounded when the game stops giving back.  As the conversation unfolds, a different kind of strength begins to take shape — one not tied to minutes, points, or recognition. This episode explores the space between who you were and who you’re becoming… and what holds you steady in between.