ACC Baseball specialist with weekend updates!

I heard somebody refer to that series, which is 1-0 in favor of Vegas, as big lead in the series. Well, yes, they have won 100% of the games played. I mean, that was a 2-2 game entering the third period. Technically, I guess they're right.

What do they... I don't know. Maybe I'm listening to the wrong people. It just seems to me like Vegas, maybe Florida was... I don't know, Florida was off too long. Vegas played an extra game, no, two games, because they needed six games.

I don't know. Everybody had a long wait, a long time off. That was a game that Florida could have won. We'll see how the rest of that series... By the way, game two is tonight, right?

I know. I'm very excited for that series. Me too. Should be a lot of fun.

And I am the guy... I am rooting for the Florida Panthers to win. I'd like to see Paul Maurice get a title, and I think it would be nice to know that the Hurricanes were knocked out by the champs. Yeah, I like it, but it still hurts a little bit. Oh, it does. And I also... I love...

I just... I love the Kraken, the Knights, I don't know, these expansion teams. I just have a special place in my heart for the Misfits.

Man, Vegas got to the Stanley Cup Finals in year one. I know. They are anything but Misfits. It's crazy. Anything but Misfits.

All right, speaking of Misfits, that's probably a bad transition. It was not a great opening weekend of the NCAA Baseball Tournament for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Three teams remain.

Two of them have advanced. Duke is playing today at six o'clock to make it a threesome in the Super Regionals. Darren Vaught, a friend of ACC Baseball, ACC Network, Extra, and All Points around there.

Around there, he joins us on the Adam Gold Show. So how would you term weekend one for the ACC? Yeah, I think disappointing is fair as a league. Now, you know, we can still be pretty confident in our top overall seed, Wake Forest, because they just, I mean, they barreled through a regional at home there and made it look like nothing. Miami hosting and not being able to get to a Super Regional. Texas winning the Coral Gables Regional.

A bit of a disappointment. And, you know, there's Clemson too, who, again, the hottest team in the country entering Regionals. 17 consecutive wins. I had been waiting for like two to three weeks, Adam, thinking that it was going to end the hot streak that they were on, right? It's it's, you know, if you subscribe to the hot, cold, hot theory in college baseball, it's about getting hot at the right time. I've been saying for weeks, Clemson's getting hot too early.

They're getting hot too early, and they continually were proving me wrong. And they run into a team that's got exceptional pitching in Tennessee. And then there's, of course, the drama of the 14 inning game, Clemson losing one of their best players to an ejection.

Who's then not able to play the next day? It's Charlotte. I mean, you know, number four overall seed not getting to a Super Regional.

There's no, if, and if, and if fans are boss, that's a disappointment. So, I mean, those were the bigger two pieces. Other than that, you know, NC State was sort of on a flyer in that Columbia region. You know, I think a lot of people, myself included, didn't really expect them to get out of it and maybe not even get past Campbell, the smaller, using my air quotes, program from our state.

And other than that, I mean, I know that's a lot of caveats. Other than that kind of business as usual, right? We feel good about Virginia. We feel good about Wake Forest. Duke's got a chance to come out of the Conway Regional and, you know, maybe we've got three Super Regional teams.

Yeah, I'm looking for series, for series prices. I have not seen a line on the Wake Alabama series. Of course, that is sort of a joke about the University of Alabama, but that's neither here nor there. Duke is basically, that's a pick-em-game today at Conway against Coastal Carolina, who just got mad after losing to Ryder in the opener and has just laid waste, although the game with Duke was just a two-run ball game, I believe, to set up to set up today.

Isn't Duke, isn't Duke kind of made for this type of a game where you've played basically three games in a two-day span and because they are so heavily reliant on a bullpen and they can obviously score, that these types of games, I talked to Chris Pollard about it before the play, the tournament started, that they're kind of built for this. Each week we dive into the mind of the con artist, uncovering the secrets behind the biggest Ponzi schemes you've never heard about. We're not talking about Bernie Madoff or Charles Ponzi. That's right, those guys have been covered to death. The Ponzi playbook will focus on those fraudsters who have swintled millions from unsuspecting investors.

Subscribe to the Ponzi playbook wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, I think it's an interesting way to look at it because you can make the argument either way. When we think about a team that is built for regional play, super regional play, typically we think of a team that's got those two front-end starters and the more dominant ones of recent vintage. You've got Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker at Vanderbilt. Imagine needing to get one win off of one of those guys in a weekend series to advance past that team and continue your season. It's different with Duke because this will be the third consecutive day that they've played.

And I don't expect it to be the case here either. The past two days, they haven't had a pitcher go more than two innings. Well, two, two and a third. I think directed Owen approach, the lefty went two and a third against coastal and that's two run ballgame, but it's, it's, they don't go over 30 or 35 pitches in a given day. They came into the season, basically with one bona fide starting pitcher.

He's hurt. So yeah, they they've all embraced this role that, and it's happened for them in certain games this season, it's been literally nine guys throwing an inning at a time. And you know, they, the offense delivers the wind by like five and it's a good day for them. They're totally equipped to do this. And I was so curious to see how it would play for them. When, once we got to this, this format, I'm even more curious if it's, if they make it to super regionals and match up with Virginia, a familiar foe that they can employ this throughout a best of three series, it should be really interesting. Oh, there's, there's no question.

All right. So back to wake forest real quick, 48 to seven. What, what, what, what, what is that? And look, this was with like wonky scheduling too, right? Normally for a weekend series, their home field is just their home field. They don't have to worry about this game going long and first pitch being delayed, but Saturday night, they didn't start that game until what? 10 45.

No problem. We're awake. We'll just score 21 runs. I mean, there's, there's no holes in this wake forest team.

I think we talked about it at the end of the regular season. They, they were, they're the one team in college baseball across the country this year, Adam, they're just, there was never a slip-up never won. And, and, you know, the bullpen had two bad innings all season and they gave up what, nine runs and two innings, I think. And from there it's been, okay, we're about our business and, and I mean, 50 overall wins for a team at this point, we're not even to the supers yet. Right. So if things go ideally for them, I mean, they're going to be in the mid fifties and wins with the national championship to boot. It's what they're doing is incredible.

Yeah. This is just, it is just remarkable. Like, I mean, I think that maybe it's the Vanderbilt model. I don't know how a school like that can develop because when you, when you play college baseball, there's no scholarships basically. And you have to somehow take 30 or so players and divide that into 11 and a half, 11.7 scholarships. And when you play at Vanderbilt or you go to wake or you go to Duke, you're, you're basically paying to play college baseball. I don't, I just don't know how that works when there are so many other places to go, but what wake has done, what Chris Pollard at Duke has done is just remarkable to me.

Yeah. Well, and when you think about, you know, some of the other, I mean, this is taking football and basketball out of the equation, but academically, those two being the institutions that they are, their resources are, are totally limited in other sports. And baseball typically is lumped in that category of sports where the resources are limited. And you talk about the divvying up of, of scholarship money and that sort of thing, but each of these programs have to consider they, they, they require a certain profile of students to get into these schools, to even have a chance at this program.

And they got it. Charlie Beilenson for Duke yesterday broke the program single season record for pitching appearances in a season. He's a grad transfer, you know, where from Brown is an Ivy league guy. Like that's what it requires to, to, to be at Duke and be a part of this team.

And then you got to worry about the baseball stuff. So wake is similar in that way. And what Tom Walter's done to build that up with the, the pitching lab that's been implemented there and getting guys, young local guys early in their careers, like Josh Hartle is one of their tremendous starting pitchers. He committed it, I think 15 or 16 years old, and he's been a wake forest fan and wanted to be a pitcher at wake forest since before then. Right. So he's living out a dream in some ways pitching this deep into the season, pitching for this kind of team and having a chance to take it all home.

Darren Vaught. I appreciate your time, my friend, um, Duke, uh, Duke, can you get this done today? I think so. I've got faith. It's also hard for me to believe with as good as the ACC was this year that we don't get at least those three super regional teams. So I think they get it done. I'm not been a huge believer in coastal all year, but they've sort of sort of proven me wrong all weekend.

I believe, I believe in the blue devils as well. Darren, I'll talk to you again, my friend. I appreciate your time. Thanks, Adam. Appreciate you.