UNC and NCSU had similar wins, right?

That was a cool night last night at PNC Arena, where NC State played in front of their 83 Championship team. It was the 40th anniversary for that team. And they were all there, well, I mean those that could be, RIP to Lorenzo Charles who passed away a couple of years ago. But Thurl Bailey was there, Derek Wittenberg, Sidney Lowe, Terry Gannon, Ernie Myers.

A lot of friends of ours, to be honest. And look, that's one of the classic Cinderella teams that was only a Cinderella because of circumstance. They were good. You could, I mean, Thurl Bailey played a long time in the NBA. He was a really good NBA player. They had all the pieces.

All of them. They had shooting, they had defense, they had depth, they had size. And they had a great young coach in Jim Valvano. But they honored them last night and then they went out and played a really, really good, a good team and played a really good game.

We had a lot of contrast in our basketball last night. So, you know, we have the NHL trade deadline, which is, I believe, sometime next week. And it appears that Slavin has been traded to Anaheim. What? Yes.

Boo! No, no, no, no, no, no. Not our Slavin. Oh, oh, okay.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Josiah Slavin. Ah. The Chicago Blackhawks have traded Jacob's brother to the Ducks for, I don't know, something. Wow. Well, that's very Blackhawk-y of them to give up a good plan.

I can't believe you would trade a Slavin. I know. What's wrong with you?

Do you have any idea what this could become? Ah, idiots. So, you know, they have Seth Jones' brother, too. They have Seth Jones and Seth Jones' brother. They don't have Jacob Slavin. And now they don't have Josiah Slavin.

Maybe it was a case where, well, we can't get Jacob, so we're going to dump Josiah. Yeah. Maybe.

I don't know. Bitter. I put that out on Twitter and I said, I wonder if Cain's fans will get mad right away.

No, they did not. Smarter than that. Because they know that Jacob Slavin's not being traded. Maybe ever. I know.

Like, I'm not kidding. There are certain players who I believe it is the plan of the organization to have them play here forever. Yeah. And I think that Jacob Slavin is one of those players. There's a few of them on the roster right now. That doesn't mean it's going to work out because the players at some point will have the ability to determine that on their own. Mm-hmm. So, you know, Slavin will be a free agent in three years' time. Too soon. He's got next year and the year after on his current contract, there's a lot of guys who are free after next season.

Yikes. Real quick, because I brought it up, here's the list of Hurricanes who are free after next season. There's a couple of important ones this year, but after next year, Sebastian Ajo, Tevo Taravanen, Brett Pesci, Brady Shay, Seth Jarvis is restricted. I think Martine Neches is also restricted. But they have to be re-signed because their contracts are up. But those first four are all unrestricted free agents after next season. And people you don't want to not see on the team. Right! Yes, exactly. So there's a lot.

There's a lot of things. When Tom Dundon says we're trying to get better now but not at the expense of down the road, there's a lot of things to process. How much are these players going to cost? What will the salary cap look like?

What will our structure be? Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, if I could give another podcast a plug. Frank Ceravale from Daily Faceoff did an interview with Tom Dundon. It's about 35 minutes.

I listened to it yesterday. And I think it's a very honest assessment of the organization. They're trying to do things. There's some rumors out there now. Craig Smith from Boston, who would be probably somebody to slot in on a fourth line. And if I was wagering on what Carolina will do between now and the trade deadline, it will be, I think, improvements on the margins. Which, you know, depth forward. I think Craig Smith, who hasn't had a good year at all, I think Craig Smith is a pretty good player. Somebody who can score around the goal.

He operates pretty well between the hash marks but has not had a good year for Boston. But he's also not playing in an important role for them. And I think they'll add, at the very least, depth on defense but maybe somebody who can actually play. So that's what I think they will do. I know they've got a lot of cat room. I know what they have. I don't think they will add a ton. I really don't.

But it's there for them. And also Tom Dundon told us the other day that they want to bring Max Pacioretti back. Now he may just be, like, talking about that. But I think, I don't think they're going to invest long-term money in Max Pacioretti. He hasn't played a full season in five years. Yikes. Wow, five years. Yes, and he's 33 already. So the likelihood is that that's not going to improve.

Yeah, it's going to work again for sure. So would they do a one-year deal for decent money? I think they would. But I don't think they would extend beyond.

I really don't. I don't think they would extend even to two years. With all those other players I mentioned that have to be signed?

Yeah, I don't think they're going to throw a lot of money in the Max Pacioretti. Alright, we got a bunch of things to do, so let's go. I apologize if I scared anybody with the slave and trade at the Anaheim thing. Both North Carolina and NC State picked up big wins last night. And there is something shockingly similar about the wins, other than they are digits in the win column.

We'll get to that in a minute. Shockingly identical about the two wins. In the case of the Tar Heels, they overcame Notre Dame I think it was 63-59 in a game that saw the Heels score 19 first half points.

19 points in 20 minutes. Yes, well Notre Dame is notorious for having a great defensive squad. No, they're not. They're not. Lowest Carolina output in the Shot Clock era for a half, I'm told. I'm not documenting that personally, but that's what I was told.

I read that. State, however, was the opposite. More than 100 points were scored on the board in the game against Wake Forest by halftime.

Wow. The final was like 90-76 but it was like 52-48 or 54-48 at half. One game had the basket had a hole at the top and one game didn't apparently. Or it was the carnival basket one where it was a little oval. Carolina and Notre Dame were playing at the Indiana State Fair. Who knew?

So yeah, two completely different games. Jarkel Joiner went for 29 for the second straight game. He was again outstanding.

I keep saying it. I know how good Terquavian Smith is. Jarkel Joiner is NC State's best player.

He is their best player. And if I were voting, and I don't believe I'm on any panel to vote for all ACC teams, but we'll put out our own team. I would vote for Jarkel over Terquavian Smith. I'm not going to say for first team because I haven't really spent any time thinking about who the best five players are in the league. But I would vote for Jarkel before I would vote for Terquavian Smith.

And I don't say that in any denigrating way. I love Smith as a player. Love him. But Joiner's State's best player.

And I don't like whether it's close or not doesn't matter. He is clearly their best player. DJ Burns was outstanding again. 21 points, 8 of 11 field goal shooting. There were two injuries last night that to varying degrees could be troubling.

NC State lost Jack Clark again. He was going in for a dunk. There was a wake player in the vicinity and Clark tried to hang on the rim, but his hand, he slipped off the rim as he was swinging back. And he, I mean, he hit the floor hard. Most people thought he hurt his head. Oh, well, because he did.

Maybe he did also. But when he came back to the bench, he had his left shoulder in a sling or left arm in a sling. Your shoulder actually can't be in it. Can your shoulder?

I don't know. His arm was in a sling. So I don't know if he hurt his arm. It didn't look like he hurt his arm, but it was a it was an awkward. It looked painful, not good fall. Yes.

So no, no, no, no good at all. Damari Monsanto, who is wakes one of his wakes best player, maybe his most their most explosive score. What a great first half. He hurt his knee, looked like a non-contact injury, and he had to be helped off. He came back to the bench. He was in uniform when he came back to the bench. But I didn't notice if he was, you know, using crutches or anything. I didn't pay that kind of attention to it. But hopefully Monsanto is OK, because, again, I think Wake is legit Wolf Packer, 12 and six in the league, 22 and seven overall.

I don't believe they've ever won more than 12 ACC games in a given season. Wow. Look at him go. No, no, no.

He states very good. Yeah. Twenty two and seven overall is like the most wins they've had in almost 25 some odd years. It's 25 years now. It's more like 30 since the late 80s. I think 22 wins the most wins in a regular season.

I think they've they've gone ahead of that. And when you include postseason. But here's the impressive part to me about NC State.

And I alluded to it already. I think Wake Forest is good, like legitimately good, because I think if you watch the Demon Deacons. I think you see an NCAA tournament team. I believe that they are good enough to be an NCAA tournament team and in the field beat teams. And I'm not talking about beat the champion of the Northeast Conference.

I'm saying beating a team that is in the middle of the pack in any league. They are good enough to do it. They've got quickness on the perimeter. They've got shooting. They've got ball handling. They've got size.

You got a ton of stuff. Steve Forbes, a great basketball coach. So I watch him. I see an NCAA tournament team and for NC State to get back up after beating North Carolina, where I know how state fans probably went into that game. Man, Wake's good. Just beat UNC.

I wouldn't be surprised if. Now, part of that is the general pessimism of a state fan. But human nature is just not easy to recover, to bounce back from what really was a big emotional win. And state seemed engaged right away.

So did Wake, by the way. Again, that was a high level offensive basketball game in the first half. And then it settled into just a good college basketball game where the better team, state, won. And they were comfortably in front for pretty much the last 10 minutes of the game. I think the closest it got was five. And as soon as it got to five, state just ballooned it up. And that was that.

Here's Kevin Keats. Basically what I was discussing, the bouncing back. Yeah, I didn't worry about because we just played Carolina and beat them. I just, I really, you know, it was a lot of things that was going against us.

Wake's good. They'd won three out of four. It's a nine o'clock game. Everything surrounding the 83 team, which was great.

I just, I worried about the stuff that I couldn't control. And our guys ended up just playing really, really hard. And I thought the first half was a horse game.

And, you know, who could get the 51st? We actually got the 52 and they had 46. And I think both teams were shooting in the high 60s. And we were better second half.

What did you feel like you changed about your defense? They were. So I got it wrong. It was 52-46. It wasn't 54-48. At some point it was 54-48. So there weren't 100 points scored. There were 98 points scored. And I apologize for getting that wrong. But a good solid quad three win for NC State.

Yeah, that's what it was. A quad three win. So the committee's unimpressed. Wake Forest now 81st in the net. State won a big game against a good team and are lower in the net today than they were at the start of the week.

Just file that away. Before we get to UNC's big win, I want to play a mental exercise, okay? And we're going to cover North Carolina's win at Notre Dame. Tar Heel fans aren't necessarily anxious to talk about it anyway. But we are going to get to it.

So here's the mental exercise. And if you didn't realize this, Virginia lost by 15 at Boston College last night. By the way, in our four team ACC Parlay, we won the first two games.

Oh, there you go. Well, no rest. We lost the second team. We lost the state that I thought Wake would cover and I thought North Carolina would cover and they didn't. Anyway, so Virginia, first place in the ACC, went to Boston College.

Trying to see where they like 12th place in the ACC and lost by 15. So here's the mental exercise I want to play. And it ties into our poll question for today.

I'll tell you the poll question in a second. What if Georgia, let's say we're in November, early November in college football, and Georgia goes to Missouri. Missouri is four and six at the time, right? Georgia goes to Missouri and loses. How are we talking about, not how are we talking about it, how is SEC country talking about that win or that loss for Georgia?

I promise you it is this. Oh, man, SEC football is so deep. Yeah.

Right? And that's how people are going to process it. Man, you just can't take any, you can't take your eye off the ball in the SEC, man. Oh, even Missouri can come get you. That's how they're talking about it. And everybody in the world knows that that's true.

That's how it will be spun. We have plenty of history on this. When the SEC can't play offense because they don't have good quarterbacks, oh, man, tough defense in the SEC. It's never that, you know, we're just not that good. It's a down year. It's never that.

It's always we have to explain how great we are somehow even if we're just okay. By the way, nobody is hiding that this is not a vintage ACC basketball season. But I saw this last night from ACC people. What a terrible look for the ACC. Why is it a terrible look that Virginia lost at Boston College for the ACC? If anything, it's a terrible look for Virginia, not a terrible look for NC State. But that's how we do this.

And that has to stop because especially when we do it, we allow other people to do it. And if you think it doesn't matter, you're crazy because when the narrative is such, when the narrative is, well, SEC football, man, every team is great, then every single one of their wins gets value. But right now the ACC sucks, so every loss is like Armageddon. It's way out of proportion. I'm not saying that Boston College is good.

That ain't the point. I am not hiding from that's a bad loss for Virginia. But it's not a bad loss for the ACC. So why can't we say this?

You know what? You go on the road in the ACC, you can lose to anybody. That's how we should be talking about it. But I promise you that we're not.

And that is a problem. That is my soapbox. All right. Now, real quick, before we talk about Carolina's win. Do you remember I said there was something eerily similar, actually identical, between NC State and North Carolina's wins? They were both Quad 3 wins last night.

So Carolina's Quad 3 win is the same as State's Quad 3 win. And therein lies the problem. Yeah.

Wow. Here we are. That's what we're dealing with. And on the team sheet, when they list Quad 1, Quad 2, Quad 3. Oh, look at that.

State and Carolina on the same night. Oh, look at the symbolism there. The symmetry, not symbolism, the symmetry.

They each had a Quad 3 win. They're even. Yeah. So there you go. And I'm going to do this every day. Every day we're going to do this. We are going to point out the silliness of all of this.

All right. Now to North Carolina's tougher than it needed to be win over Notre Dame. Half-time score was 27-19 Irish. 19 points on 18% shooting in 20 minutes. Heels had, I believe, 17 points in the first eight minutes of the second half.

Oh, by the way, I never used Steve Forbes, did I? We're going to bring that back in a second. Hubert Davis on the difference in the second half, which was much better, but not exactly a Picasso in the second half than in the first half.

It's like harder energy, effort, passion. Obviously, we rebounded the ball extremely well. I thought defensively we were really good. I thought the second half we took care of the basketball. We had zero assists and eight turnovers in the first half. Second half, we only had one turnover and eight assists.

And so I thought that was huge. And then at the end of the day, you know, guys just kind of step up and make plays. Armando, RJ, Caleb, Leaky, Pete, all of them on both ends of the floor made numerous plays to give us a chance to win. They were lucky. Carolina was lucky that they're good at offensive rebounding. Forty, they rebounded 48% of their misses last night.

There were plenty of misses to get. So they got a bunch of extras, extra possessions, and late in the game, it was the offensive rebounding that really was the difference in the game. But it was a game they couldn't lose. They didn't lose. So you move on and you hope that, look, it's not like they haven't won. It's not like Carolina was on a 12 game losing streak.

It's been a rough go. They had lost five of six. But again, it wasn't a six game losing streak. They lost two in a row.

So it's not like they haven't, they don't remember how. They're just not playing all that well. They did hit some big shots. RJ Davis had a couple of very, very big, difficult shots.

And maybe that'll get him going. Unfortunately, I think he's been the guy that is most noticeable to me in that he hasn't played as well down the stretch here as he has at pockets of this season and certainly last season. Caleb Love is exactly the same player that he was a year ago. For me, Armando Bacot is the same player, albeit probably with more attention. They don't obviously have Brady Manning. Pete Nance isn't quite Brady Manning. There are other players I'd like to see get more out of, but we haven't seen that. All right, back to my rant about the system. And again, State and Carolina both picked up quad three wins last night.

You decide which was more impressive. Here's Steve Forbes, whose Wake Forest Demon Deacons are 81st today in the net. Maybe we need to do a better job of talking about our league as coaches.

I think we should all be supporting each other. I'm so happy for Kevin. He turned to State. We came in here and won last year. And we got him at our place. He came in here and swept us.

And I know he was feeling some heat. He's doing a hell of a job. Just like John Shire is doing a hell of a job following a final legend. It'd be like following John Wooden.

Would you want to do that? Gene Barthel lasted two years doing that. And then he went to UAB and started a program, okay?

I think he lost two games, too. I don't know, man. I just think we got a great product. We had some Hall of Fame coaches retire, two guys on Mount Rushmore. There's going to be a little bit of that. But it can't be me. And it can't be Mike Young.

So it's got to be some of these other guys that have accomplished a lot in this league. I'm just trying to get our program back to being competitive and respectful. And I think we're getting there, but we're not where I want to be. And so I'm disappointed in this game tonight. Because, again, like Josh said, we had two opportunities at Miami. Here tonight to win a quad one game, we didn't do it. We don't get quad one games at home. We're not at the Big 12. Every game in the Big 12 is a quad one. Don't ask me how, but it is. So we don't get that.

So we got to go on the road. Yeah. And the problem is that we rely on those numbers. We rely on those categories because that's what the committee relies upon. Now, will the committee look at the two wins from last night identically, States and Carolinas? No, I don't think so. I don't think they're dumb.

But look at how these categories are referred to. All I heard was going into last night, Carolinas 0 for blank and quad one wins. 0 and 9 or 0 and 8 and quad one. I actually think Carolina picked up a quad one win last night without having a... Was it a quad one win or a quad one? No.

Yeah. A quad one loss, actually. They added another quad one loss because Miami became a quad one loss again. Because Miami is now 27th in the net. So in Chapel Hill, that was a quad one opportunity.

How did you lose a quad one game last night when you were winning? Yeah. The whole thing is a joke. I'm using this to make a point. The way we rank teams and if somebody says, well, what about the RPI?

Isn't it better than the RPI? They're all trash. The way we rank teams is crazy. It's way too absolute.

How about this? In a sport where we don't have nearly enough data anyway, we use, more than anything, we use our eyeballs to rank teams. College football, right? The top 25, the playoff ranking, those are eyeballs. They watch the games and they come up with... You know, we make fun of that too. We're always going to make fun of rankings. But it's a whole lot closer to being really accurate than what we have, than what the committee relies upon.

And this is even things like Ken Palm and other, you know, BPI or whatever they are. You're just not going to convince me that there's that big a difference between the Big 12, as Steve Forbes pointed out, and the ACC. Just not going to convince me. I'm not saying the ACC is better than them.

Don't accuse me of that. I think the Big 12 is better. But I don't think that you could drive a Mack truck through the Gulf. And that's the way it's being discussed. And that's what the metrics say. Because the metrics just say, oh, seven quad one opportunities at home. And in the ACC, you'd be lucky to get one. You're just set up to fail. Yeah. And it's harder to win on the road than it is to win at home. And you don't get the credit for winning at home. Self-fulfilling prophecy.