NC State was spicy this weekend and we have more ACC basketball ahead

Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. Laundry?

Ooh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh? Ah, sorry. We were looking for Chumba Casino. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chumba.

That's right. ChumbaCasino.com has over 100 casino-style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chumba.

ChumbaCasino.com. I'm not sure I have been more entertained by a basketball game than I was by Wake Forest and NC State earlier this week. This was Wednesday night. That game had everything. It had some animosity. It had too many, but a bunch of technical fouls. It had stuff to talk about.

I thought it had great individual efforts. And it was fun. Now, for the Wolfpack who prevailed in that game, they have to back it up. And they have to back it up at home against Virginia Tech. We'll start there with Brian Geisinger, who I watched, by the way, on the Pac-Pride Postgame Podcast.

24-7 Sports, at BGeis underscore bird, my friend. That was an entertaining basketball game. Now they got to do it again. Yeah, that game kind of had everything in it. Ejections, non-verbal communication, Kevin Keats spotting up for a three-pointer in the middle of the floor.

It really had everything. I thought, despite it not being the cleanest game and certainly some foul trouble for both sides, we had to really deal with that with Hunter Salas and Ecton Reed, who eventually fouled out of the game, too. Steve Forbes, Wake Forest, very good team, very good offense. State went to a lineup down the stretch that hasn't used much this season, got some stops.

And then for me, the real key of it was DJ Horn. We all know he's a great shooter, but pretty much an outlier-type performance coming off of using the pick and roll, whether NC State was going empty corner or some five-out sets to flow into handoffs and ball screens for Horn. We've talked about it on this show before, but Wake Forest plays drop coverage.

Not too dissimilar from UNC, Hubert Davis, although Wake probably plays a little bit deeper with Ecton Reed than the Tar Heels do with Armando Bacott now. And DJ Horn struggled against UNC a week and a half ago. And then he was incredible shooting from the mid-range. How many shots did he hit from the elbow?

Runners, floaters, fadeaways. It was just a full arsenal in terms of shot making from Horn in the mid-range in the half court. I want State fans, by the way, to know that after, I don't know how often you do this, but because I watched you guys after the game, I learned a ton about, that was the what, they had played those five players together, Taylor, Horn, was it McConnell? Morsell, Diarra, and Middlebrooks, like five minutes together all year long. And that was the lineup that brought them all the way back. I guess at packpride.com, it was tremendous.

It was, I thought, an entertaining and informative listen. Let me ask you this, because I know Middlebrooks has been coming off the bench. And Diarra, a couple of games ago, I think played just three minutes.

The way those two guys played, maybe it's an outlier. But I thought both of those guys provided stuff at both ends of the court and the way Middlebrooks attacked the rim. It's such a different look from DJ Burns that I don't know why they wouldn't play those guys together more.

Yeah, I think they're going to have to. And as you mentioned, that lineup prior to the Wake Forest game had played five minutes all season combined. It played six minutes in the Wake Forest game, and it was a big difference maker for them down the stretch. Yeah, Middlebrooks, as talented as DJ Burns is as an offensive player, you know, truly one of the best, you know, low post hubs and passers and incredible shooting touch, but just one of the best low post threats in the entire country, not just the ACC. But with State running so much pick and roll, Middlebrooks is great because, like, he has the mobility and the size that when he screens, he can get downhill quickly on a roll. And you saw in that game, like once DJ Horn started hitting some mid-range shots towards sort of towards the end of the game, Wake Forest mixed up its coverages and started hedging those screens and bringing the screen defender up to the level. So putting two guys on DJ Horn so he couldn't just turn the corner and get to his jumper. And as soon as they started doing that, he just started hitting Middlebrooks on the roll. Middlebrooks got a layup over Andrew Carr. This is how he got the fifth foul on Neffton Reed with about three and a half minutes left to go in the game, which was a huge, you know, huge swing play at the time, wakes up four when Neffton Reed goes out.

And State kind of is on its way making a run after that. You know, I think DJ has become so important to this program, obviously, as like a hub for the offense. He's kind of the face of the program, too.

And I think he's one of the real leaders of the team. So, like, I'm not sure where I'm at as far as like changing up the lineups. I do think it's interesting that, like, Middlebrooks is playing the role that I think the team had in mind for Dusan Moricic last season before he got hurt. And initially Moricic started the first 11 games and DJ come off the bench. So, like, State has lineup versatility. Middlebrooks has started a couple games this season. But for whatever it's worth, like, the Pack are lucky to have, or they're fortunate to have a very good platoon at the power forward position with Dennis Parker Jr.

Yes. And Mo Diarra and Ben Middlebrooks and DJ Burns at the center spot. Their front courtroom is really, really tough. And they've got guys that can rebound, do a bunch of different stuff. Like, it's been a huge reason why they're 5-1 in league play so far. I love, I mean, I realize they lost the game to Carolina and they probably went away when they maybe needed to dial up a little bit more, you know, intensity. But I loved the way they played against Wake Forest. Alright, let me move on to Carolina, who, they looked to me like they just turned off their intensity defensively. And I get it, Louisville's not very good. Carolina was better offensively than they have been for the most part this year. Cormac Ryan was great from three-point range and Jalen Withers played a really good game at both ends of the court, as he's been doing.

Same with, you know, they've been getting great defense from Seth Trimble when he's called upon. But what do you make of the trip to Boston College for that group? It would seem, oh, that's not a problem. But that's been a difficult spot, hasn't it? Yeah, it is. I mean, it's a weird place to play. You know, it can often be, especially on the weekend, I don't know what time that game is. But if it's like an early afternoon game, you know, sometimes the crowd is not great there. Maybe for a big opponent like UNC, like, you get more fans there or whatever.

But I think we've talked about this within the context of when NC State had to go up and play at BC, you know, I guess like a month and a half ago at this point. Like, Quinton Post is back for Boston College and he's one of the toughest matchup pieces in the ACC because he's seven foot. He's shooting 44 percent on threes and he's arguably their best passer at that size. They do a lot of pick and pop stuff with him. They run a lot of five outsets with him and then they also just let him initiate from the elbow too.

So, like, how are you going to match up with that? You know, when NC State played against Boston College, they didn't have DJ Burns trying to chase Quinton Post around 25 feet from the hoop. They put Mo Diarra on him. They let him and his mobility and his length handle that. So, you know, how does UNC handle that matchup?

Something to keep an eye on. Jalen Withers, Jalen Washington, like those guys, you know, could be very important. Not like Baycock can't do it. It's just, you know, he's actually more than capable.

But, like, Post is just a guy you have to consider. And, like, he is absolutely at the top of the scouting report. And then BC has a couple of pretty good guards too. Like, Claudel Harris, who's been awesome this season, transfer that they brought in. And Jaden Zachary, who was sort of like one of the first sort of, like, notable recruits that Earl Grant brought in three years ago.

And, like, he's having a nice junior season as well. So, like, they're not just a one-man show. They've got, they can spread the floor. They've got shooters and they've got a seven-foot guy that you've got to consider. Like, you have to guard Boston College differently than you do most teams because of the threat that Post presents. By the way, Virginia Tech, NC State, then North Carolina, Boston College.

It is a CW double-header. Let's go. At noon and 2.15. Let's go. It sounds like a blast right there. All right, let me get here. I can hear, I can hear Tom Wormey in my ears already.

And I can hear the G-man. You know, Saturday, it's so close. Weekend's here.

All right, finally. Duke host Pitt, Saturday night. And first of all, there are two injury concerns for the Blue Devils. It doesn't look like Mark Mitchell is going to play. Jeremy Roach, I think they said, is day-to-day. The knee injury that he suffered against Georgia Tech last weekend looked to me to be more of a problem. But maybe he's fine.

Don't know. And we don't know if he's going to play or not. But just going back to the game that they played a week and a half ago, I'll be interested to see how Duke handles not shooting a million percent from three-point range like they did, especially in the first half.

What's your read on the Blue Devils, especially with the potential of not having those two players? Hey, guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you know this about me, but I'm a bit of a fun fanatic when I can. I like to work, but I like fun, too. It's a thing.

And now the truth is out there. I can tell you about my favorite place to have fun. Chumba Casino. They have hundreds of social casino style games to choose from with new games released each week. You can play for free anytime, anywhere. And each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses. So join me and the fun.

Sign up now at ChumbaCasino.com. Yeah, it's huge. I mean, Roach is such a it's the obvious thing, but we're on year three now of him just being like a really important offensive player for them. Especially the last two years. He's been such an engine and such a stabilizer. And I really do think like when everything is starting to sort of like go sideways for Duke, like one of the buttons that John Shire likes to push is empty corner pick and roll two man action with Jeremy Roach and Kyle Pilipowski.

Like that's their that's the security blanket. That's the that's the just the automatic money play that you're probably going to get a good shot out of. Because Pilipowski is such a match to problem and Roach has enough sort of like, you know, downhill juice to get in the paint and make tough shots. And I mean, you can do something like they've still got good guards like you still like even if you don't have Roach, you still got Tyrese Proctor, Jared McCain, Caleb Raster. It's like Jaylen Blakes, like there's plenty of like guys you can you can try to like route those types of things through. But like Roach is a is a really nice mid range score and again probably has like a little bit more like burst to his game than some of those other guys do.

And so, you know, you're if you don't have Roach, you're not having like, again, what is maybe your like most effective break glass in case of emergency play. And in Mitchell, simply just from like an athleticism and like length standpoint, what he means for your health defense. You know, Duke's got counters, they can play, they can play Pilipowski at the four with Ryan, with with Ryan Young at center, they can try TJ Power, they can go to the four guard lineup.

So they've got some stuff that they can do. And maybe the presence of Blake Henson at Pitt makes some of those lineups tougher or maybe some of them more appealing. You know, he's kind of a matchup problem too, because he can post up and he can really shoot a lot of threes like you don't have to tell him twice to get shots up. But I think the main thing for them is going to be like, aside from the hot shooting, like the reason why they really cooked it at Pittsburgh the other week was because Bob Carrington had such a tough game for Pittsburgh.

And, you know, not to go into cliched mode, but like gold, he's the straw that stirs the drink. But you know, he is a six five point guard with legitimate pull up shooting skills. And he had a really tough night, he made some shots down the stretch for them that maybe made this final line look a little bit better. But just what are the coverage is going to be against Carrington? And, you know, does he play different too? And if he starts making some shots, well, then what, how does Duke adjust?

You know, do they have to adjust and sort of like get out of their base defense if Carrington gets up, gets rolling in that game? Brian Geisinger at big guys underscore bird every Friday. We'll talk hoops with him. I appreciate your time, my friend. Enjoy the ball. And are we are we jumping on pack pride after State Boston College? You have Saturday afternoon.

We'll be doing a shorter, not as long, but we'll we'll have a recap following that game as well. All right, man. Get smarter.

Listen to Brian Geisinger talking about basketball. It helps me. Thanks, man. I'll talk to you later. You guys both have a good weekend. OK, you too.

Brian Geisinger. Twenty four seven sports at big guys underscore bird. Again, man gets the game. I mean.

And he translates it very well. See you know, dot com. No purchase necessary by law. See terms and conditions 18 plus.