Nancy Mace Is Boots On The Ground As War Rages, Cavinder Twins Double Team Lane Kiffin & Angel HATES Caitlin!

While the rest of the country was focused on Iran, us patriots snuck on through another week, and now we're safely into the start of a big weekend. 

AND we get The Players for the next two days?

AND we get USA-Canada tonight? 

AND we get conference tourneys? 

AND we get NBA basketball?!

Wait. One of those ain't like the others. Can't quite put my finger on it, though. Oh well. We'll figure it out later. 

Welcome to a Friday Nightcaps – the one where Nancy Mace is boots on the ground in the Middle East as war rages. This is called putting it all on the line, folks. Take notes. 

What else? I've got the best #content from a loaded week, the Cavinder Twins are all aboard the Lane Train, and I'm not sure there is a Tarik Skubal fan on the planet at this point. You guys – mainly TIGERS fans – are DONE with this dude. 

I don't blame you. 

Grab you some Canadian whiskey, dump it all the way out and put the disposal on for good measure, and THEN settle in for a Friday 'Cap!

You guys do NOT like Tarik Skubal 

It goes without saying, but losing to Canada tonight would be maybe the most humiliating thing in the history of American sports. I can take losing to them in hockey. That's fine. 

But baseball? Absolutely not. The USA is currently -1000 favorites, which means diddly given I'm fairly certain we were close to that against Italy earlier this week. 

The stage is set for US-Dominican in Miami on Sunday with Paul Skenes on the mound and a trip to the WBC Final on the line. Don't screw this up, fellas. Looking at you, DeRosa. 

OK, let's get this class going …

One guy who will NOT be in the dugout, at least to my knowledge, is Tarik Skubal. We hit on it yesterday, and I asked you folks to give me a pulse check. 

Where do you land on Tarik ditching his USA brothers to return to Tigers camp and pitch against minor leaguers to get ready for the season (and not get hurt)?

The results were, frankly, overwhelming:

From Charles L:

This is a sports version of stolen valor. He doesn’t actually want to put himself out there for his team or teammates; he hasn’t really done anything of note, but by God, he’ll take all the glory if they win the whole thing. There are plenty of other pitchers who would have been more than willing to do whatever needs be done to help Team USA win.

Strike 1!

From Aaron M:

I live in Detroit, am a huge Tigers fan, and I personally can't wait to see him leave the city. Once he voluntarily took himself out after 6 innings in a tie game that was a clinching game vs Seattle in last year's playoffs, he was dead to me. 

See you later Skubal. Good luck on the Dodgers.

Strike 2!!

From Jake W:

I've been a Tigers' fan my entire life, and Skoobs is losing me a little more every day.  He's a Boras guy, so I guess none of this should be surprising.  Since everything I read seems to point to there being no season next year and there's no chance he's going to re-sign with the Tigers, he might as well go out and BALL during the WBC and put that on his resume.  

This trying to have it both ways stuff?  Not gonna work.

Strike 3, you're out, Tarik!

What a week of #content!

Good to have Joe Ryan aboard! I will say, I think it's weird that the WBC allows teams to just call in players in the middle of a tournament for something other than an injury. I feel like we need to just set the rosters before Game 1, and that's what you get until the final out. 

It's an odd tournament. The rules. The tiebreakers. This. The fact that it's not at a set time. I feel like we can go two years without the WBC, or we could go five years without it. Again, it's all just odd. 

Nevertheless, we now have the correct PATRIOT on our roster. Look out, Libs. We're coming. 

OK, let's get to the best #content from a big week. A very nervous Scott Bessent leads us off!

Lane, Nancy & Angel!

What a week. We're all over the map right now. Heads HAVE to be on a swivel. What the hell had Scott so spooked? Do we even want to know? Probably not. Gulp. 

Couple thoughts …

1. AI seems to be right on track. Frankly, ahead of schedule. It was good knowing you guys. 

2. I think Kyler, while very tiny, will thrive in Minnesota. But, yes, very small. 

3. Jim Cramer just confirmed the upcoming recession, which I'm super bummed about. But, them's the rules. Inverse Cramer is never wrong. 

4. Good to see the Cavinder Twins still producing #content! Speaking of …

Let's rapid-fire this Friday class into a big, patriotic Friday night:

My God. Lane Kiffin is such an animal. I hopped off the Lane Train last year during the Ole Miss nonsense, and I'm not back on it … yet. But, fair is fair, and this is peak Lane Kiffin stuff. 

Randomly hanging out with the Cavinder Twins – nothing to see there! – and then stuffing Carson Beck in a locker on a random Friday in March? Goodness gracious. What a haymaker. 

Is it an odd thing to post given Carson just beat the team you abandoned in the semifinals a few months ago? Sure. But, it's Lane Kiffin. Content is content. He's a content machine. Or an attention whore. 

Either or!

Next? Let's stay on the court and check in with Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark!

For those who don't know – and that's all of you – there's some sort of qualifier going on in Puerto Rico right now. I don't pretend to know, nor care, what they're qualifying for, but when you have Caitlin and Angel on the court together, it's gonna grab my attention. 

The big conspiracy going on today is … not much of a conspiracy at all? I don't know. It certainly looks to me like Angel is just ignoring Caitlin Clark every chance she gets. What do y'all think? What do y'all SEE? Tough to argue. 

Let me know!

OK, that's it for today – and this week! Let's end it on a high note with Nancy Mace going on a rescue mission to Israel like an absolute patriot. 

God, I love this country. 

See you Monday. 

OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).

Is the Lane Kiffin act tiresome at this point? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.