How big was it to get this win on the road?

State at-wake was great.

It was great for a lot of reasons. Wolfpack needed a good road win. Wake Forest presented that opportunity. They had to do it with, just going to say, not minimal, but limited contribution from Terquavian Smith, who was saddled with foul trouble. I think played six first half minutes. But otherwise was a very efficient, effective player in the second half. But man, what a DJ Burns performance. State also played nine guys in the game.

That's a lot. They used their depth. And they've got players coming back.

Actually, I don't think it was nine, but maybe eight. But they have guys coming back at some point. Bryan Geisinger, Pac Pride, Devil's Den, too many.

Bryan Geisinger, my friend. Alright, let's start in with State and then we will get to the Blue Devils. I thought that's a good win because I think Wake is good and I think Wake is an NCAA tournament team. What was your view of the game? Well, first off, it was kind of just like a classic tobacco road game.

It was really fun. Both offenses played excellent in this game and kind of doing different things. But Wake is a good team. They're really well coached.

Steve Forbes is an A-level coach and it is a little unfortunate that it kind of feels like their resume is trending to be just a little too light. You know, once again, I know there's still games to be played and stuff like that, but to get a win on the road, what the third road ACC win that State had this month, including the Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech and for State to do it. I mean, they're down two starters. You know, Jack Clark and Dusan Malhotra just still not playing and after Quavion Smith, you know, basically sit for half the game essentially with foul trouble and for them to go in there and pull out the win was it was really, really impressive. They could have let go of the rope at so many times in the second half. You know, they're down nine points. They're down 10 points, you know, to Quavion's and foul trouble to crazy on picks of his fourth foul. And you could even see early in the second half when winter baby on had three fouls. This is something that C Forbes did a ton last season with, with Jake La Ravia and Alanis Williams. But if you have someone in foul trouble, a guard, they're just going to have, whenever that person is guarding, come up and set a screen for one of their star players.

And you can see them try to have Monsanto go up with their quite a gunsmith on him, set screens for Kim Hildreth and then attack the switch. They were trying to get him to pick up that fourth foul early, or at least, you know, be able to score on him if he was playing passive defense. And so just like some, some clever coaching there, I thought from, from Steve Forbes, but just what DJ Burns was able to do one-on-one wasn't was incredible in the game.

I mean, gold, you know, like, I mean, you know how math works. It's not easy to score 31 points when you don't attempt to three, make only three free throws. You know, like, like you've got to be really surgical down on the block and burns just absolutely smoked. Uh, Matthew Marsh in, in Davian Bradford and in single coverage, especially Marsh in the second half. Like if you go back and rewatch it, um, and, uh, and I mean, we can, we, I don't, we can maybe even talk about this just very briefly, but Wake Forest with about five minutes left, finally Blake. And they sent a double team at DJ burns and it turns into an immediate skip path to LJ Thomas, who continues to make winning plays and he splashes a corner three.

Um, so these are burns had all the answers, man. He was incredible. Uh, Saturday in Winston, how did he not score 30 points a game, uh, in the big South?

It will be forever a mystery to me. Brian Geisinger is here on the Adam gold show. Um, this is going to sound like a slight, but it's not. I love to Quavian Smith. I'm not sure that he's their best player.

I Jarkel Joyner to me, settles everything down. Uh, I think he's a more efficient player as well. Uh, and again, I think Turquavian has a higher ceiling than anybody else on their team. Uh, but I'm not sure, maybe, maybe the word I'm looking for is most important player. I think Jarkel has settled everything.

Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, like it's, so Quavian is there, you know, he's, they're, they're best, most talented player. And you know, he's going to be a top 20 pick in the draft. Um, Jarkel is probably what, three, four years older than, um, and you know, he's, he's, he's incredible though.

Like he is an unreal leader. I thought he and burns, I thought their fingerprints were all over kind of the team, this team not giving up Saturday. And it's a testament to the coaching staff. It's a testament to everyone on the team.

But I think those two guys, I think their attitudes have sort of like rubbed off on the rest of this team Joyner. He just senses the moment. Um, as well as I think any sort of guard that I've seen come through state, um, in some time, like he just has this great idea of when he needs to push the ball in transition. You know, if, if the half court offense is maybe getting gummed up a little bit, this was a big, I thought an intro to tech when all of a sudden he just started kind of forcing the issue, you know, and he's so talented. He doesn't turn the ball over either.

So you can trust him in those situations. Um, and so I thought he was able to run his way into some baskets against wake forest. And then he had two huge pull-up shots the final eight minutes of this game out of the pick and roll. One was a three when Tyree Appleby went under the screen on an after time out play. And then there was another like a minute or two before that there was another sort of like drag screen action with DJ burns.

Um, and look, wait for us. They play their centers deep, like they, they dropped their centers. And so the pull-up shots were there and, um, man, uh, got to them early and then it was charcoal late in the game to sort of help seal it.

But I, you know, charcoal plays both sides of the court. He doesn't make mistakes and he hits tough shots. I thought the shot he hit before the end of the half was even though the lead got to what it got to in the second half. I thought that shot he hit right before the half was a like underrated, huge part of state's ability to come back.

I mean, basically just cut the lead to whatever was six or whatever it was, but it just felt like that mattered to me going into the locker room. I don't want to read too much into Duke's drubbing of Georgia Tech 86 to 43 because Tech was missing one of their best players and Duke obviously played well. Uh, but it's really hard to overlook a 43 point win, but just drilling it down a little bit. The fact that for the third straight game, one to one off, for the third straight game, Duke shot not just a respectable number, a good number from three point range. 39% in the last two and over the last three games are just over 40% from three point range. I don't expect that necessarily to continue, but if they can get somewhere around 37%, aren't they like a threat?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, yeah, ultimately I think they were due for some positive shooting performances because I think they had kind of under, I don't even necessarily have the math to back this up other than say, I think they kind of underperformed based off the talent and the shot selection they had, you know, for chunks of the season. Um, I think a guy like Tyrese Proctor, you, who you can look at and see what he does from the free throw line and you, and you know, his profile, what he was able to do before he got to Duke as a shooter, you know, he's not like a 20 whatever percent three point shooter. You know, it's like, it's a, it's, it doesn't mean he's going to make 55% of his threes for the rest of the season, but he's certainly gonna, he has the ability to shoot it better. Um, Duke has guys in the rotation that can shoot even without a talented player, like during white head who showed the ability to hit from deep to yeah.

When they were able to hit like that, what he can do to open things up in the pain for house little power ski, like he doesn't need a ton of room to get to a spot, but the more space he has, the better. And if you can also then leverage some of that shooting to get Derek lively going downhill at the pick and roll for, for dives and for, for, you know, for finishes at the rim. Yeah. The shooting compliments those guys perfectly. Um, and I do think it also helps you and you get got someone like Roach back in the lineup. Um, Jeremy Roach was four of seven from three point range that mattered too. Yeah. All of a sudden, you know, you have an extra ball handler, a guy that can do some stuff one-on-one, you know, not like he has, I mean, I think he's been a, just like a kind of a so-so three point shooter for his career, but it's not like he's a negative, um, as a shooter and he can certainly set guys up for good looks too.

So yeah, it's huge. Um, and they, I think they should be encouraged with that. I know tech's not a good team, but like they're bad. They're bad, but they do make things like they're a weird team too. It's like, you know, they, even when tech and state played the other week, they played a triangle in two, like Josh faster. We'll try anything. Like he's just throwing stuff at the wall right now. Um, so I don't know getting that, getting that win.

I do think it's something to like, can be a little proud of it. Uh, Derek Lively hit a three Derek Lively came to Duke with the reputation of being able to do that. Like, I don't know if that's going to be part of what Duke is going to showcase going forward, but it does make me kind of wonder what we're going to see on Saturday. I realize I'm, I'm completely blowing past a Duke wake tomorrow, but when we get to Saturday and Carolina comes in, are they going to have their two bigs on the court? Like pull outside a little bit and make Carolina come out and guard them out there. Are, are we going to see something like that? You know, I, I still think we're, I think, I think we will see something like that, but my guess would be that Huber Davis and UNC are fine.

If Derek Lively wants to, you know, try to try to like light them up from, uh, from deep. I mean, they're, they're going to want to keep, you know, Armando Baycott in a more conservative guarding position. That's how they guard pick and roll. You know, they're going to, if they're lively wants to take pick and pop threes, those shots are going to be there. They, they, they ice those looks on the side and they drop Baycott when the screen is in, is a spread look in the, in the middle of the court. So like the shots are going to be there and, uh, you know, so happens if, you know, lively wants to take and can make a couple of those, that would be a big deal. But yeah, I mean, if I were, if I were Duke, I would be trying to get Caleb love involved defensively in the action as much as possible.

I don't like his defense. I don't like a screen navigation. And, um, yeah, I don't know. Gold, are you just ready for people to, I don't know, at some point in the middle of this coming week, everyone's just going to start acting loopy here in the triangle. Like everyone's just going to start. We haven't gotten there already.

I mean, I don't know. I feel like maybe a little bit of a bubble and I'm excited for Duke wake, uh, tomorrow night, but, uh, it does kind of feel like the Duke UNC game, especially at the end of last year. Like it just brings out, uh, it just brings out the dumb in a lot of, but I thought the rivalry was over. I thought that ended the ride on both games, ended the rivalry, which of course didn't happen. But right, right.

Of course, of course it'll never happen. And yeah, it certainly did it. Uh, after, after the end of last year, though, I do think it did. I do think the light triangle had some type of like collective trauma after the three, when they play twice in the span, like it was just, I don't know if we'll ever quite recover the biggest regular season game in ACC history. Followed by the first ever Duke Carolina meeting in the final four. Of course it was going to be cataclysmic, but it didn't end the rivalry, which is, which was always comical to me.

Uh, real quick before I let you go. Um, not that I really want to spend any time talking about Virginia, uh, because that makes my ears bleed, but Virginia's at Syracuse tonight. Is Virginia the, I shouldn't say the only, cause I think there are others. Is Virginia the best bet at a, I don't know, three or four game stint in the NCAA tournament? I still think UNC like has that in them too.

Um, I haven't like completely like abandoned abandoned that ship yet, but yeah, I mean, Virginia is really good. They're really good on both sides of the court. Um, they have a lot more lineup versatility this season than they did a year ago. They can, they can play the small ball lineups. Um, right now they kind of need to figure out what they're going to do with Kate and Cedric, who's one of the more talented, big guys in the ACC, but it's basically been pushed to the margins of their rotation this year. But they've got, they've got shooters. Um, they've got a guy in Reese Beekman who's one of the best two way players in the ACC and is probably the best point of attack defender in the country. And, uh, they've got a guy, Ryan Dunn, who's a freshmen forward coming off the bench right now that is starting to get more and more playing time. And he's a pretty special player, like a six, seven, six, eight. They rangy forward. Everyone wants to give the Deandre hunter comparison. I think it was probably a slow down a little bit, but, but done is like a special athlete blocking a ton of shots. Um, and he ultimately started to play above the rim. So he's giving them another dimension that they haven't had, uh, with in, in a couple of years since hunter left. Yeah. In terms of having like kind of a, you know, a versatile rangy, uh, you know, you know, forward defender.

Um, and again, he's, he's, you know, only just now cracking into the rotation. So they're deep, they're talented. Um, and, uh, yeah, I think they, I think them and UNC, I really seems to have the chance to still, you know, they could, they could get to a final four. Um, all right. That's enough. That's enough of that.

Nobody, nobody in this league is going to a final four. Uh, Brian Geisinger, uh, at big guys, underscore back pride, devil's den and more. Just follow him on Twitter to get all of it. Uh, sir, we'll talk to you later. I appreciate it, man. Of course you guys take care. You got it.