Did the road game get the freshman?

Is this her final day before the holiday? Yes. Who is this? I think I know who it is. It's Ariana Grande.

It is Ariana Grande. Uh-huh. Yes. I try to change it up.

You know, there's a lot of Christmas options. Yeah, she's got a great voice. Yeah. Incredible, incredible voice.

And a long ponytail. Yeah. I don't know if it's real or not, but. I mean, maybe. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. You know who else has a long ponytail? Who's that?

Brendan Marks has a long ponytail. I made that up because I know he doesn't. Uh, but he covers Duke. He also covers Carolina.

He's got a really cool piece about the Michael Jordan effect on the athletic, but he also covers Duke and they played last night. Carolina plays tonight against Michigan. They're down there in Charlotte. We'll talk about that tomorrow, but let's talk about the Blue Devils. Not so very good trip to Winston-Salem. Brendan, how are you? Hey, I'm doing all right. I think I'm probably doing a little bit better than Duke fans are right now.

Wow. Yeah, it was. It was not good. They hadn't played in a while and it looked like it last night, but I don't think that's really the reason why they lost. I mean, is it easy or too easy to just say, hey, a whole bunch of freshmen got their first taste of a road game in the ACC. Is that in any way responsible for what we saw? Yeah, I certainly think that it being the first road game for guys like Kyle Philipowski and Mark Mitchell and Tyrese Proctor.

I certainly think that played a part. Kyle Philipowski certainly did not have his best night. I mean, after the stretch he was on to start the season, he looked almost unrecognizable yesterday, but the guy who I was kind of surprised that personally was Jeremy Roach. I mean, he's the kind of guy who in those sorts of environments, especially knowing that none of your teammates have really played on the road before, like you're supposed to sort of step up and set the tone and he did not do that. I mean, I don't think he scored his first points until like, you know, a minute left in the first half and just struggled all over, you know, three of seven from the floor had five turnovers. Like he looked all out of sorts. And so I don't know if that was lingering impact from the toe injury that caused him to miss the UMES game. But yeah, certainly the freshmen freshmen were not to the level that we're used to seeing the map, but but Jeremy Roach wasn't there.

After a game like this, what is what is John Shires? Maybe you can't burn the tape. You have to use it because there are obviously some things you said. I know I know you tweeted out that this will not be an easy tape to watch. Is it not an easy tape to watch? Because maybe some of the mistakes aren't easily corrected. I think the thing that's so that was so frustrating watching the game.

And you know, for me, it was in my COVID state from the council last night, unfortunately, and not actually in Winston-Salem. But, you know, with about nine minutes left in the second half, Jalen Blake starts coming on and you're getting this sort of career best performance from him. And I mean, that dude is normally a spark plug. And like you like the momentum is right there. And rather than take it, you see Duke, you know, rushing up early shot clock threes or, you know, driving into traffic and having a turnover, giving up easy pick and roll lobs on the other end of the floor.

Like it was always right there. There were seven points away and just unable to get the stops and to close it out. And, you know, I think, you know, Ryan Young struggles. I think that obviously he was playing more minutes than he normally would with Derek lively out.

But I don't know that he was as effective as we're used to seeing him be. Like I mentioned, Philipowski and Roach had five turnovers a piece like Duke is a team that has a very thin margin for error because they don't have that elite talent that they have had in past years. They have incredible talent, but it's not the Zion level.

It's not the Paolo level. And so when you have multiple guys who don't sort of play up to their traditional standard, Roach, Philipowski, Procter, et cetera, Jacob Grandison to nine, like it can it's just really hard. I don't know that Duke has that much margin for error, especially when they're already shorthand. I think the other thing for me anyway, is that Duke's been pretty good defensively and they allowed I mean, I know it might seem like it's not that bad, but they allowed Wake to shoot almost 50 percent. Duke's been dynamite guarding the three. They weren't awesome at guarding the three. Not that Wake shot 50 percent, but Duke had been around basically been sub 30. So I just think that maybe their defense wasn't as good. They I think they have to get easy baskets in order for them to be a good offensive club.

Yeah, I completely agree with you. And like, let's not forget, this is the number one offensive rebounding team in the country. And they got out offensive, rebounded yesterday, got out rebounded overall. And like you're saying, the defense has sort of been the calling card so far. And I understand they've had a long layoff and now have another long layoff.

Don't play again until New Year's Eve. But the one guy who I was so, you know, I think it tells a story is a Matthew Marsh from Wake Forest. He's the center that Steve Forbes has.

He's not incredibly high usage. And this was five of five yesterday, had 10 points, only committed two fouls, you know, five rebounds. And that is the sort of rim protection inside that Duke has had in games past, partially because of Derek Lively, but didn't have yesterday. I mean, Marsh was just absolutely feasting in the pick and roll. And so, yeah, the defense to me was probably more frustrating than the offensive side of things. We know that Duke has struggled somewhat offensively, but defensively, I thought that Duke took a step back yesterday, even considering that Whitehead and Lively were out. They got beat by two guys from England?

Is that unacceptable? I mean, at some level, that should be your next piece for the athletic. How did Duke get beat by two guys from the EFL?

Yeah, exactly. So, hey, Cam Hildreth, he loves himself a little pivot inside and Kyle Kapowski swatted one of them away, but by and large, he was able to have some success. I mean, I try to think he's, I talked about, I actually joked about this yesterday, about Hildreth being from a place that's, their club, their local club is in danger of dropping into the northern, to the National League where Wrexham is. They might switch places with Wrexham. I don't know if you watch Welcome to Wrexham at all, but I've become an addict for that show, Brendan Marks.

All right, how much, how long does it take? They finally got Derek Whitehead, it seemed like in the flow of things and Lively is kind of, because he was hurt also at the beginning of the season, he was behind. How much of a setback do we think it really is? Yeah, I think that hopefully not a very big one. You know, if you want to look for the silver lining in this part, in this quirk of Duke's schedule, it's that look, they hadn't played a game in 10, 11 days, and now they're not going to play a game for another 10 or 11 days.

So, um, these guys who were sick, even, you know, it was a non COVID illness, even if it had been, they in theory have time to get back to a hundred percent. Um, so I do think that it's going to be something of a setback, just more so for the fact that, you know, it's more instability. And that's the thing that I feel bad for John Shire, because like, as if his job wasn't going to be hard enough already this year, he's constantly been dealing with guys going in and out of the lineup, be it these two freshmen, be it Jeremy Roach at his toe injury. Um, you know, he's constantly had to sort of shuffle things around and this is just another thing that you add on top of that. So, you know, you hope that these guys are okay. Um, but if you remember around this time last year is when Duke had its COVID pause and stumbled a little bit and it took a couple of games to get fully back up to speed with A.J.

Griffin. Um, you know, I think this could be one of those situations where we sort of see it take a couple of games until Whitehead and lively are back where they need to be, but I'm not worried about Duke in the long run. I just think it's more smaller interruptions that John Shire and his staff have to deal with.

I'm sure it's annoying from that. Yeah, the only thing that's different about maybe this week or last week, if this had happened then, is that basically guys are going to scatter now for the holidays. And so it's going to be a while, I guess, before they get back on a practice court, which maybe is good, maybe is good for all of them. I certainly would not want to practice tomorrow. It's it's cold outside.

Yes, it's brutal. So and look, like I know that Wake Forest people are going to be upset. Duke obviously didn't play as well as it could have, but it's a weird part of the schedule. You were down your two best players first road game. Like, I know that it was a frustrating effort, but like I said, in the long run, I think I still think that Duke has a pretty high ceiling and still has a long runway to get there. But this is certainly a wake up call in terms of, hey, you know, we can talk about potential and getting better, but we've actually got to make sure we're doing this. By the way, it's Worthing FC and they are right now tied for last in League Two, which is the fourth tier of English football. If they don't get out of the bottom three, they get relegated to the National League, which is essentially semi-pro football.

So it's a big deal. Cam, Cam Hildreth blocked all of that out and played very well. So you can I don't know you want to write a story about that. Brendan Marks at Brendan R Marks from The Athletic. You sound good for somebody who's who's kind of housebound. So I appreciate your time, man. If I could send you chicken soup through my brain, I would. I appreciate that. We we are the Campbell's stock prices are going to keep going up as long as I'm ill. But that's OK. It's it's it'll pass.

It is what it is. And I hope that you and everybody else stay safe during the holiday going on. Happy holidays to you, man. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. You as well.