In case you missed it... Out of the Gate

Alright, I mentioned it earlier, it is the NHL Draft tonight in Nashville.

I like how they move it around. Does that mean, can we get a draft? Can we get a draft in Raleigh? It'd be kind of cool. And I think that means you get an awards show too. I know a small theater that we could host it at. They probably want a bigger place than the Rialto.

But we're gonna get cool stuff. From what I read, this is a one-player draft. Much like the NBA Draft was like a one, maybe, some people were calling it a two-player draft. But I don't hear anybody calling Scoot Henderson or Brandon Miller, you know, a generation, generational talent like Victor Wabunyama. We'll ask Mike Maniscalco if Connor Bedard is on the Victor Wabunyama level of generational talent. But he's going number one.

No drama there. The Blackhawks will take him. We'll see if he can, you know, immediately turn a team around. If you want to see the Hurricanes pick, you get the weight of it. That's the price we pay for being good.

Sorry. Yeah, we're not gonna be right out the gate with this one. We got the 30th pick. The question is, can the Canes be, or continue to be, as we were talking about, they've been very successful, a team like the Spurs or the Patriots, when they take 30th, meaning a dude that like almost everybody else could have picked, and the Canes pick them, will everybody be like, oh, man, that's a good pick.

I would have taken, I should have taken that guy, right? That's, when you start getting draft magic, people start looking at every pick you make and like, oh, man, they know something we don't. That's such a smart pick. Speaking of smart picks, 2015, they took Sebastian Ajo in the second round. That means every team passed on him. And I mean, sometimes some teams don't have a first round pick, but that's the kind of drafting we want at 30.

Go get us a Sebastian Ajo at 30, boys. Brett Pesci, third rounder in 2013. Jacob Slavin, fourth rounder in 2012. Look at him now. Go find us a Slavin. Go get him. And we got a dude right now.

I won't say his name right, Adam Goldwyn. Nikishin, Nikishin. He's dominating in the Russian league. And we'll see when we can get him over here. He just like set a record, I think, for points by a defenseman. That's another dude that we drafted not too long ago.

Let's see if we can get him. We actually have nine picks, though. So, again, being very Patriots slash Spurs-like, you know you're not, well, Spurs is different now. Spurs is the luckiest team in the world.

Yeah. Because they like win championships so they're always drafted 30. And then like they're bad for one year and they're like, all right, they get the number one pick.

It's unreal how that works out. But anyway, we have to do things like the good teams do, the Patriots and now the Spurs back in the day where it's like, all right, maybe we trade, get some multiple picks lower in the round. We only got one in the first round, but we got eight in the last six rounds. So, nine total picks. We got a first rounder, second rounder, third rounder, and then what do we get two?

Two in the fifth round and two in the sixth round. So, we'll see if we can find some gems there. Again, we'll talk to Mike Vanescalco at one o'clock about who the Canes might be taking. It's hard to predict at 30, right? Yeah.

There's just so many things that have been happening in front of you. Yep. We'll ask him about drafting philosophy and stuff like that. We'll let you know tomorrow who the pick is and maybe, maybe if they're interested.

Yeah. Maybe they'll stop by. You know who is stopping by tomorrow? Who's that? Jordan Stahl. Yeah, he is. The captain just resigned. We'll ask him, do you know who the Canes drafted last night? So, if somebody's listening, tell Jordan Stahl to pay attention.

I'm always curious about the business of stuff like that. You've been in the game a long time, right? Yeah. I'm sure the first year, or maybe if you're worried about your position on the team, you're like, oh, are they drafting the guy that plays my position?

I'm gonna take my spot. But now, but like, Jordan Stahl's like, you know, it's just another dude. Yeah. He probably won't be in rally for another two years. He's got maybe a bit of prospect camp. I don't need to learn this guy's name yet. I don't know. We'll ask him.

Next up. The man is so good, he's got me talking baseball. I'm of course talking about Chayho Otani, Shohei Otani. Shohei Otani.

Sorry. I read it more than I say it, and then you come to say it and you're like, oh, Shohei Otani. Struck out 10 people last night, and hit two home runs. It's just incredible what he's doing. I can't believe, he won the MVP one year, and then one year he finished second.

And it's like, dude, dude, dude. He is pitching and hitting. He's the MVP. He's doing everything. That's it. And he's doing them both really well.

Listen to the month he is having. We've still got a few days left. Two more, right? Well, three, including tonight, I think.

Hit 13 homers, seven doubles, two triples, 383 batting average, 473 on base percentage, four stolen bases, 26 RBI in 24 games, and a 3-2-6 ERA with 37 strikeouts in 30 and one-third innings across five starts. Unbelievable. You know what?

I flippantly said that nobody's working harder than Taylor Swift this summer. It might be Otani. Otani might be the only person, when you're pitching and hitting, in baseball, they want you to sit down. They're like, please, please, don't sit. Don't you need some water?

He's like, no, no, no, no, no. Well, maybe we'll ask Wylie Nichol if he tried to pitch and bat in the, in the congressional baseball game. All right, since 1900, there's only been one, two, three, four, five, now six instances of somebody striking out 10 people and hitting two home runs. And, Victoria, would you believe I was at one of these live?

Really? Now, I was not there for Milt Pappas in 1961 or Pedro Ramos in 1963, nor was I there for Rick Wise in 1971. I also did not see Zach Greinke do it on what may have been opening day, April 2nd, 2019. But on opening day 2017, I was there, April 2nd, to see Madison Bumgarner of the Giants. That's how I know he was taking on the Diamondbacks. And I know I was there because it was 2017 and I was in Phoenix to watch the Final Four where UNC was playing.

Yeah. And I was like, what am I going to do during this other day? And sure enough, there was a home baseball game. That's awesome. So I went down there and Madison Bumgarner, the pitcher, bashed two home runs.

Shout out Shoei Otani. Ten strikeouts, two homers. That's impressive. Next up, forget football. This is ACC country. We got basketball to talk about because not the ACC Big Ten Challenge anymore. It's the ACC SEC Challenge for the first time, men's and women's. And can I complain about the graphic that the ACC put out?

Yeah, do it. I know that you're repping the ACC and so you like want to put the image for the ACC team, not the SEC team. But it doesn't tell us, or do they?

They're on the graphic, where the games are. Okay, my fault, my fault. I missed that. Okay, sorry.

So it's just easier to read it if it's like so-and-so add so-and-so. Right. We have matchups though. We do not get Duke Kentucky. We do not get UNC Kentucky. UNC will be hosting Tennessee. So Rick Barnes is back. I'm sure UNC fans will boo him, but he's been there like a few times now.

Maybe just get over it. Duke is at Arkansas. That should be a fun game. Two top teams. They've got Miami going to Kentucky, which I guess is justifiable because Miami went to the Final Four last year, right? Or did they go to Elite Eight? Are they back-to-back Elite Eights or did they go to the Final Four?

I can't remember. But Miami, they've had two good seasons. Yes, it makes sense to send them Kentucky, but everybody's going to want to see Duke Kentucky or UNC Kentucky. The problem is, Duke plays Kentucky fairly frequently in one of those Champions Classics type things, and UNC has a decent number of games with Kentucky, so they won't match him up too much. Or Syracuse, Kentucky, but instead you're doing Syracuse versus LSU because a bunch of people tune in for Syracuse. You know, you've got Kentucky versus Miami because a bunch of people tune in just because it's Kentucky. Duke-Arkansas, two legit teams that both teams will tune in for.

Obviously Duke the bigger draw. UNC-Tennessee, good matchup there. Virginia versus Texas A&M. Virginia Tech-Auburn. Florida State-Georgia. Boston College-Vanderbilt. Clemson-Alabama. NC State takes on Ole Miss.

That will be in Mississippi. Notre Dame-South Carolina. Georgia Tech-Mississippi State. Pitt-Missouri. And Syracuse-LSU.

Those are your matchups. But most importantly, we have the designated survivor. Do you know what the designated survivor is, Victoria?

Who's that? We started this years ago on Sports Channel 8. Because there's an unbalanced number of teams with the ACC and the Big Ten, as it is currently with the SEC, although that'll change because there are about to be more SEC teams, so then they'll have more people. So somebody from the ACC has to sit out. And at the same time, that show with Kiefer Sutherland, designated survivor was out, where he was like the one member of the, he was like the secretary of nothing, who just got sent to a random location.

And then the entire government got wiped out, so he's now the leader of the free world. The same thing with an ACC team that usually had a bad year last year, and of course that's Louisville because they were terrible. We have Louisville as the designated survivor.

They are not playing. Congratulations.