UNC Football, Charlotte Hornets, & the Carolina Hurricanes...

So, Matt Brown's going to join us later on today. He'll be on the program in the two o'clock hour live. He met the media today. Talked about negative recruiting against North Carolina. He talked a lot. He did. Gosh, that press conference went for about 45 minutes, didn't it?

Yep, it sure did. Because it was... Okay. Tell us how you feel. Tell us how you feel, Tori. We listened to all of it, yep. It was solid for us.

I had it on my headphones here laying on the desk. Oh, you pulled a lot from... I did.

Not even half of it. I know. He did. He talked a lot about a lot of different things. Alright, we'll get to those coming up.

I think we can probably just really dive into it at one. He's going to join us coming up at 2.15 today. Anyway, he had mentioned right off the bat in his opening remarks how North Carolina was recruited against negatively using essentially Brown's age. I mean, it's the oldest trope. Oh, that coach is old. That coach is old.

Who knows how long he's going to be around. So Mac, in his folksy way, it's just beautiful. He's like, yeah, a lot of the coaches said that he was going to quit. Mac was going to quit. But then they got fired. Maybe they should have been worrying about their own teams.

It's fantastic. Negative recruiting is always going to be there. Mac does a good job recruiting.

So I don't think we have to hold a benefit for North Carolina in that regard. But look, they've got Drake May, one of the best quarterbacks in the entire country. And it's going to be his last year.

I know Mac mentioned that. It's going to be one more year. And they have high expectations for him.

They have high expectations for the team. He still hates the schedule. He does. I can confirm that. He still hates the schedule.

This is the ultimate. We've talked to Mac about it before, so there are so many other things I want to get to with him. I will tell you off the bat, I am not going to bring up the closing three games, which are Duke, Clemson, and NC State. And that is the gauntlet that Mac Brown is terrified of. And I'm sorry, I'm laughing because I'm not saying it's not that those are three easy games. They're not. All three are lose-able games for UNC.

All three. They could go 0-3. But that ain't exactly the 85 Bears, the 85 Bears, and the current Kansas City Chiefs. No, I mean, we're not we're not talking about the oh my gosh, I'll be happy if they just survive. We're not talking about that. Just hysterical to me. He still hates the schedule. He did talk about the ACC's value as a conference and how Jim Phillips wants everybody to schedule better games. Yeah, I get it.

I'm not sure that's the I'm not sure that's the solve. Really not. I think winning more games, winning the games you currently schedule and maybe dumbing down the schedule a little bit. No offense. College football viewers. And I'm not talking about the diehards.

I'm just talking about the just the general college football public. They ain't smart. And again, in a way, it's sort of like, well, I'm not going to I'm not going to draw the analogy. I don't want to get in trouble.

Just reel it back in. Yeah, I'm really I'm self editing before I say anything. But the truth is, is that for the most part, people only recognize your record. Oh, they're eight and one. They must be great. Whereas a team who's six and three that played a much more difficult schedule but lost some of those more difficult games. Well, they're not as good as the team that's eight and one. People don't know.

You know, not that there's not smart enough. That's it's probably a better way to say it is that there's too many games, too many teams to follow. I don't know who that team has played.

I just know what the record is. We get wrapped up in the schedule. I think what really sells is when you've got a bunch of really good teams in the same conference playing each other late. What sells North Carolina is. Let's see, eight and one UNC seven and two Duke third week remaining in the season. All of a sudden that becomes a game of interest. And then you've got Clemson and then you've got state. When you have great records and you are ranked. Those are the games that sell.

Yeah. Don't have to schedule your bowl games. This is not what East Carolina did back in in the early days of the Terry Holland era as a D. All right.

Terry Holland, the heel. He once came on this show and said to me when they were scheduling UNC or state or West Virginia or Virginia Tech or South Carolina, which they routinely did in in the pre-conference season, he's like, we have decided to schedule our bowl games because he knew that they would sell out. He knew that they would create a lot of attention and a lot of interest. And it was worth it financially to East Carolina, even to lose some of those games. They didn't lose all of them, but it was worth it. They were scheduling bowl games. The ACC doesn't have to do that. Win your games. Yeah. Sometimes you simply need to get better.

You just need to get better. And then Mac went on to talk about playing Minnesota and South Carolina in the non-conference. And I'm not going to say that those are easy games, but that is not playing Ohio State in Alabama.

I know you're playing an SEC school in a Big Ten school, but it ain't the same. I'm not sure that app isn't better than both. I don't know. I don't know.

I'm on board with that. Look, I'm not saying app is better than both. Right. I'm just saying I'm not sure.

All right. That's my Mac Brown dissertation. But we are going to talk to him about some big picture stuff as well as Drake May coming up later on today. Nick Saban, I haven't even gotten to some other good stuff yet, but Nick Saban is relitigating the 2022 season. I don't even know where he did it.

I read the story on Fox Sports dot com. But it's always productive to relitigate any perceived slights from a year ago. Because by the end of the season, Nick had gotten back around to trying to talk Alabama's way into the college football playoff. It's like, I don't know why we're not one of the top four teams like because Nick said that. First of all, he questioned, are we really getting the best teams into the playoff?

Are we really doing that? And his basis was that he had read. That Las Vegas. The bookmakers. Would have had Alabama as the favorite against three of the four teams that were in the college football playoff. The only team they would not have been favored over would have been Georgia. But they would have been favored over Ohio State, over Michigan, over TCU.

And I don't know, maybe this is too basic, but it very well might not even need mentioning. Not only doesn't the betting favorite matter. But the results of the games that you played to get to that point matter the most of anything. And it made me laugh when I listen to Seidman now, however many months after that decision, kind of question whether the playoff is the best.

Are they really doing the right thing? Shouldn't we just let Vegas tell us who would be? Like the betting lines are.

They fact take so many things into account, including the perception of the public, because remember this. The initial goal of the bookmakers is to get equal numbers of people to wager on both sides. That's what they want. They want as much money bet on Alabama as bet against Alabama, because that's when the books can't lose. Because all they do is they take, it's called the vigorous, all they do is take that percentage. If I have a hundred dollars bet on this side and a hundred dollars bet on this side, I am making that money in the middle.

I can't lose. That's what the book wants. So it isn't so much about I think Alabama is better, but I think that people think Alabama is better. Sometimes it takes a while for the public perception to catch up anyway. My whole point is Alabama lost twice in their own division in the SEC and because of that, they didn't even play Georgia in the SEC title game. They eliminated themselves by losing twice. This is why I keep coming back to this. Wins and losses matter the most.

It is not complicated. Here's my quick follow up to my own little monologue here is what's the excuse going to be when we get to 12? Well, we would have been favored over eight of the teams that made the playoff. So flippin' what?

It still doesn't matter. I mean, I'll say this right now. In a 12 team playoff, as long as Nick Saban is the coach at Alabama, they will never, ever not be in the field. Ever.

And I will say the same thing about Georgia. They will never not be in the field. Ever.

You put it down now. Five years from now, will Alabama be in the college football playoff? Is Nick Saban the coach? Yes. Then yes. Same thing with Kirby Smart and Georgia.

All right. To the NBA. Draft is Thursday. Charlotte Hornets have the second overall pick. We know Victor Wenbanyama is going to be the first pick and is headed to San Antonio.

Now comes Charlotte's act in this play. The Hornets come in and there are three ways you can go if you are Charlotte. You can draft Sku Henderson, who is kind of a slashing point guard with a suspect perimeter shot who played in the G League for the Ignite team this year. He's either the second or the third pick in the draft. Brandon Miller, 6'9", smooth wing player from Alabama who can really shoot the three. Great outside shot.

6'9". Either one of those two players is going to go second. And depending on which direction the wind is blowing, that guy is the second pick and the other guy is the third pick. Or the Hornets could make a trade. And for the last several days, we keep hearing the name Zion Williamson.

We talked about this the other day. So Bobby Marks of ESPN is sort of a player personnel guru for them, sort of the Mike Tenenbaum of basketball. And Bobby Marks said, yeah, I don't think I'd trade Zion. Yeah, I'm not I'm not ready to kind of walk away from Zion Williamson, even if it's for the number two or number three pick here.

I think I know we can talk about the games played, which is only 114 games. But when he is healthy, he is one of those players that you can build a franchise around here. And I'm willing to give it another another year here, Greenie. And the contract doesn't scare me at all because it's so such laden with whether it be games played or injury protection or weight clauses in here that if he does get hurt again. It's not like you're stuck with, you know, one hundred and eighty million dollars plus of the salary here. So for me, even if two or three does become available at the end of the week, I'm still hesitant to move off him.

All right. That's Bobby Marks from ESPN. I think the because of his injury history, everybody's afraid about the value. What you know, if if he plays another year in New Orleans and he gets hurt again, then his value plummets. I think we kind of know that Zion Williamson has had has had an availability problem already. So I don't know how much worse his value gets. Bobby Marks brings up a very good point in that the contract is not prohibitive because it is very incentive laden. So you're not on the hook for a ton of money if Zion ultimately gets hurt.

I will say this and that we're going to we're going to talk a little bit about trading people in a second. But I think Zion has greater value to New Orleans than he does in the trademark because I just think that he's the kind of player that a New Orleans Pelicans need. It's not a great it's not a great basketball city. You need you need a little bit of sizzle there to sell fans on coming.

Either that or you better be a great winner. And they have really had neither for the most part over the last since they returned to New Orleans and they moved from Charlotte to New Orleans. I just think they need to keep Zion and exhaust all possibility.

And ultimately, if Zion doesn't get hurt, does doesn't stay healthy, then that's just the that's the loss. But I just I think they'd be better off keeping it. I do think that there is interest. I don't know what you're going to get.

I don't know what you're going to get for him. All right. Let me get to a little bit of and we have there's more horn and stuff that we will get to in our second hour today. There is also other NBA stuff. We've got Draymond Green opting out.

I know we talked about that yesterday. The Chris Paul, Bradley Beal trade. Also, there are two. One is a free agent and one is not. But Damian Lillard from Portland and Kyrie Irving, who is an unrestricted free agent right now, has obviously not has not resigned with Dallas yet and could sign with anybody.

But those two guys being available in the marketplace, it's an interesting, interesting dynamic. It should be an interesting off season in the NBA. It is a Carolina Hurricanes warming up hot stove time of the year. The draft is next week and the Hurricanes have the 30th pick. So it does not figure to be somebody who can step onto the ice, even though this is thought to be a very good draft, even into the second round. So if Carolina does stay with a pick at number 30, they figured a draft somebody who can be in the NHL, maybe even play up in your lineup in the NHL at some point in the near future. With that said, if you're the if you're the Hurricanes, we're already starting to read about trying to negotiate with Freddie Anderson and Aunty Rhonda both.

Here's my guess. If both guys will accept one year contracts, they will both be back. I think there's no question that they would like to bring both guys back.

But my guess is. I guess maybe you could do two years on one, but I don't know what the market is. It's a good market for goalies at about their level.

Yeah. So it is sort of a buyer's market if you are looking for not necessarily a bona fide number one, but a placeholder who can be a number one until your guy is ready and they believe their guy is Piotr Kaczkiewicz. So could Anderson and Rhonda both be back on one year deals?

That is something we will explore with Tripp Tracy in a couple of minutes. Here's the other thing is also stories about Brett Pesci and Brett Pesci as one of the top defensive defenseman in the entire NHL, one year away from unrestricted free agency and on a very good value contract for Carolina. If they can't come to an agreement on a deal and I'm going to guess at what Brett Pesci would be asking for in a long term deal. Something between six and seven million dollars annually. And I don't believe the Hurricanes will pay that.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying he's not worth it. I don't believe they will that they are interested in a six and a half million dollar deal for Brett Pesci over the length of a contract that you would have to pay him. So, I mean, the longest you could pay him is for eight years. Would they do a short term deal maybe at that money?

Yeah, I think they would. But if you're Brett Pesci, why would you take that? So if Brett can get seven times seven out there on the open market, which I think he could, the Hurricanes are going to match. They're not going to go to that. So the thought is, if we can't if we're if we're just going to let him go for nothing, we might as well trade him and get something now.

And I will I will just say this definitively. Unless the return for Brett Pesci is mind numbing. Then the Hurricanes would be foolish to move it. If you want to win a Stanley Cup this year, this is where we're going to jump off and we're going to bring in Chip Tracy on the other side. If you are going to compete for a Stanley Cup this year, you don't get closer to that by trading Brett Pesci. You don't. They don't have an option behind him. Could they could elevate Chatfield, but they don't have an option behind Chatfield who can come in and do what Chatfield did last year. You are much stronger with Brett Pesci than without.