Roundtable with Josh Graham and Brendan Marks!

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. It is round table time.

Fun time of the week every Friday 2 15. And today we have an award winner and somebody who knows award winners. But I will say one day, maybe he'll be an award winner too.

He certainly does a good enough job. Let's bring in the award winner North Carolina's reigning sports writer of the year. He is Brendan Marks from the athletic basketball writer extraordinaire.

I thank you very much for your time. And you know Josh Graham from sports hub triad at Josh Graham radio on Twitter, who I will predict will one day be the North Carolina sportscaster of the year. We're working towards that. Josh, how are you, man? I hope to be like Brendan Marks. People don't know this, but the only reason I wear big frame glasses is because of Brendan. That's how much of an inspiration he is. That's a lot of pressure on you, Brendan.

It is a lot of pressure and I hate that that's my claim to fame, but I guess I guess it's better than some other things. But Josh is going to get there very soon. All right, let's let's have some fun. We have, I think two of our matchups this week are like wheelhouse games for all of us. So let's start with the one that will go on the court first as Duke plays at Wake Forest. Brendan, is there a way to minimize how critical a game this is for the Demon Deacons?

No, not really. I mean, if you're looking at, you know, even I would say even a couple of weeks ago Wake Forest. This is one of those games that Demon Deacons have circled because they are as much of a bubble team.

I think is probably any team in the ACC. One of the, like, if you're looking for a double bubble team nationally, Wake Forest is as good a team that fits that description because all of the advanced metrics say this is a tournament team. All of the individual stats say this is a tournament team, and yet you're still kind of waiting for the resume to catch up and solidly say, yes, this team is going to be playing in March Madness. So, obviously, being able to beat Duke at home, that is the caliber of win that the Deacs have been missing.

I know that they've gotten a couple of quad ones. The fact that they beat Florida continues to look better and better, but they need to be a really good team in their league, and this is as good an opportunity as they're going to have. As of yesterday, I believe they had just the one quad one win. That Florida win was basically it. They don't have any others unless the net was wrong or unless I looked at the wrong column. Josh, would it benefit Wake Forest if the football committee was picking the basketball teams since they could just say, hey, the eye test tells me, who would you not want to play? Because that's what we ask ourselves, who would we not want to play, which is some high-level BS, because the spreadsheet tells us that Wake hasn't accomplished anything. Past national championships, can't leave the SEC out, am I right? I think Wake Forest reminds me of an old bit that the comedian Daniel Tosh used to have, where he was discussing parents who described their kids as, he's so smart, but he doesn't test well.

Oh, so you mean he's stupid. You know the part that you're supposed to tell me what you know. Wake basketball, like Brenda described.

Analytics, darling. And when you watch them play, you see maybe the best backcourt in the ACC, certainly one of the best that are out there, but you've got to have the resume to go along with it, and this is the one game. We can talk about, oh, the Florida win ages well, and maybe Virginia creeps into the top 30, and Wake's win against them in January is going to end up being that. Who knows, maybe Clemson in the regular season finale that they got at the Joel could be a quad one win as well.

But this is the one quad one that Wake has left that you know guaranteed without a shadow of a doubt is going to hold up as a quad one on selection Sunday, and that's why you've got to get it. It's as simple as Wake needs to win tomorrow and they're in unless they go one in four down the stretch or one in three part of me and they're in the game. In there in unless they collapse the rest of the way, which I don't again if they go one in three after that, sure, but I think two and two after a win against Duke and a win in DC is enough to get Wake Forest through because of all the other analytics and such. If they lose this game, Adam, they will have to win out. They have to win at Virginia Tech. They'll have to win at Notre Dame. They'll have to beat Clemson and hope it holds up as a quad one and then probably do something in DC. That's how big I believe this game is tomorrow. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I'll just push back. I don't believe it's a if they win there in or if they lose their out situation. There are other opportunity winning on the road would would be very nice Brendan. What does this mean for Duke? Because they have actually been I don't even know if it's sneaky anymore.

I've mentioned this the other day. They had won 11 of 12 and literally all around the country. What's wrong with Duke?

Like, wait a second. They want 11 of 12. They've they've lost twice in their last. I think was it 17 games. The the loss or that maybe that's 17.

Maybe it is 17. The loss to Carolina and the loss at home to pit every they've won every they've won other their other six road games in a row. But what does this game mean to the Blue Devils? Yeah, I mean, I think it's 18 out of 20 now that Duke has won and, you know, five straight obviously, you know, obliterated Miami on Wednesday. Again, I understand that the Hurricanes were short handed, but to me like this if you're Duke right now, you're tied to top the ACC standings with UNC. Obviously, the Tar Heels have the tiebreaker right now, but like you have to win this game to kind of keep pace. And again, you know, it's going to be a tough game for North Carolina.

We're going to get into that. I'm sure Tar Heels haven't won at Virginia since 2012. But if you're Duke, this is a must have game for you, too.

This is a game that potentially improves your seating. But also, if you actually want to win the ACC regular season would be the first time under John Shire would be the first time for Hubert Davis, too. If you want to win that, you've got to win this game because otherwise the Tar Heels have an opportunity to go one game ahead.

And obviously, you know, that last game of Cameron is going to matter. So this is not a game like for Duke. You know, this is this is still an opportunity for them to go and prove that they can beat a tournament team on the road. You know, Duke has all of these impressive wins now. They've beaten Clemson. You know, obviously, like I said, they obliterated Miami beat Wake Forest at home going on the road and beating what I think is a tournament caliber team.

You know, I know we just discussed him on the bubble, but going and doing that would be really impressive to me right now. You know, I think Ben Palm has it as a 50-50 game, a true tiebreaker, projects Duke to win by one point. I anticipate it's going to be that close. But for multiple reasons, this is a game that Duke maybe doesn't need to have, but certainly would like to if it wants to accomplish all of its various goals. Brendan Marks and Josh Graham are joining us here on the roundtable today on the Adam Gold Show.

Am I am I crazy? Am I imagining how we discuss every loss among ACC schools, especially those who we believe are tournament teams? So like Virginia, a week ago, I was looking at either Jerry Palm or Joe Lenardi Bracketology, which isn't necessarily super accurate, but they're not as far off as people think. And they've got like Virginia as like a six or seven, then they go and they lose to Virginia Tech. And granted, they got smoked by Virginia Tech. And all of a sudden, like their last four in, like, do we do we not believe that it's okay to lose to a good team? Maybe not a great team, but a good team on the road in conference play. What is the perception of the ACC that trash, Brendan? I don't I don't quite buy into that. I mean, the perception of the ACC nationally is trash.

I think that the hate has gone. You know, I'm not saying the ACC is the best league in the country because it's not. But people saying like, you know, one bid to bid ACC like that's ludicrous.

That's right. That's not in any way representative of how good the league is at the same time as it pertains to Virginia. Specifically, you got to remember this is a team that basically any time it left John Paul Jones Arena, you know, before the new year and even after the new year was getting blown out.

Yeah. Getting absolutely destroyed and goes on an eight game winning streak, kind of turns around and saves its season. You know, was able to win at Clemson. That one point win was the only one in that stretch over a true tournament team. But still, eight straight wins have to count for something. It's the fact that Virginia, we're now in late February and Virginia, I don't think is like truly in danger of missing the tournament unless things continue bottoming out. But this team is not anywhere near as consistent as I think a lot of us thought that they would be even considering all the new faces and all the new pieces they have. This is the fewest minutes continuity that a Virginia team has had in the last decade. And so, yeah, there were always going to be those bumps early in the year. I think it's the fact that they are still happening and two drastic measures.

I mean, that was the worst ACC lost the Tony Bennett era on Monday. It's the extent to which that I think gives some people pause. And quite frankly, I kind of agree with them there. I don't I don't think that a team that's losing by 34 or whatever it is, you know, deserves to necessarily be on the sixth line or whatever it was. Well, I mean, that's probably overrating them, you know, to a large extent anyway.

Right. So I don't think they were ever that good. But when you've won, what was it, nine in a row, whatever the number was, they had won so many in a row. And some of those are also away from home, even if they're not against tournament teams, hard to win. I just think it's hard to win conference games on the road, no matter. I don't even care if you're playing against the bad team, although maybe it's not that hard to win at Louisville. Ask Notre Dame, who only won by whatever that number was. Josh, I'll I'll give you the floor.

Tell us how underrated the ACC is. It's underrated if you are talking to somebody again who has the ludicrous opinion of two bid or even three bid. We're going to talk to John Rothstein next week.

Oh, some with some wish he might wish it. It's fine. It's fine. It'll be fun.

But anyway, I mean, Virginia, I don't think. For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time. There's Granger offering professional grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you.

Call click Granger dot com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. I think Virginia's fraudulent just because I knew they did win eight in a row. But you start examining the team that they played. They haven't played Duke of Carolina yet this year, right? As Brendan pointed out, you look at the way they played on the road.

They were getting smoked in late December, early January, and then they got smoked at Virginia Tech. That's still a team that deserves to be on the tournament because of the way that they scheduled early on in the season. They beat Texas A and M, who many bracket colleges have in and they beat them convincingly in that game as well. They have good wins. They won at Little John Coliseum by a point, so they're certainly good enough to get in. And that's a testament to Tony Bennett overall for the league, though.

It is strange how some of these. Fifth, sixth, seventh teams in the Big East, for example, get looked at side by side, say, with the ACC, with Wake Forest and Pittsburgh, and how when they lose games, it does seem to be this indictment that's not there when there are road loss teams and the Big East and the Big 12. That's how deep the Big East is. That's how deep the Big 12 is.

That's why that's the narrative. I buy it with the Big 12 because they've done it in March, and it's more than one team that's done it in March. When you talk about Houston getting to the Final Four and Baylor cutting down that. And of course, what Kansas has done. That's all warranted with the Big East other than UConn. I'm sorry, but like the resume isn't quite there of what you do in March when it matters most versus the ACC. And when you get past UConn and look at the next three, four teams in the Big East and put them side by side with the next three, four teams in the ACC, there is not much drop off there at all. But the perception of that drop off is huge.

Yeah, no, and perception does matter. Also, the fact that we keep talking about these and it bothers me during games when I listen and they say this is a great quad one opportunity. We have to stop.

We have to look and see. We're killing already doing a video going into a break when Pitt's playing Wake. Essentially saying, you guys, this game doesn't really matter at all. It's urinating on the game. And it's their game, right? Just don't show the game.

Or just do that at halftime unless you're running a canned piece. Real quick, would you guys like to pick those two games? Josh, who you got at Duke at Wake? Carolina at Virginia?

I want to overthink the game at JPJ. I get that people think this is a great house of horrors, but Pittsburgh won there last week by double digits. And Wake nearly won there, losing by two points. Virginia, if it's a tight game, you don't trust them at the three-throw line. They haven't played Duke or Carolina yet.

They're the two best teams in the league, and you could argue the only two teams that they've played this year or are set to play this year that are better than them. So I'm going to go with North Carolina. I don't think it'll be a route because you can't really route Virginia, especially in that place, but I think Carolina wins. And I think it's a great game in Winston-Salem, and I think the season feels like it's kind of been building to this point for Wake Forest.

It's the first sellout that they're going to have at the Joel in seven years, the largest crowd of the Steve Forbes tenure. And that feels fitting because Wake Forest has not been to the NCAA tournament in seven years where Danny Manning lost in the first four with John Collins and company. So I think that symmetry there, I think Wake Forest, who, if Efton Reed doesn't get in foul trouble the way that he did at Cameron last week, leading to Mark Mitchell and Kyle Filipowski each going for 20 plus. If he's able to stay in the game longer, I think Wake Forest probably wins that game at Cameron, which was tight already.

I think Wake wins a close game at home against the Bluto. Brendan, you want to take a stab at those? Yeah, I think like there's something innate in me that is preventing me from saying the words. I agree with you, Josh Graham. Wow. I will agree. I will agree with part of what Josh says. I think that when you're talking about North Carolina and Virginia, not only is North Carolina a team that I think is just better than Virginia. I think that they're a deeper team.

I think that they have more ways they can beat you. I think that they've shown that throughout the course of the season. I also think that we're underrating how valuable this week has been for North Carolina. I was talking to a couple of coaches last week and the thing that they brought up to me that, you know, regular fans probably don't think as much about just in like the grind of the season is when you're playing three games in six days, when you've got a Sunday, Tuesday, Saturday. You don't really have a lot of time to work on yourself. You have a day to prep for one game, a day to prep for another, then you got a day off and you've got a day prep.

Like you are not really improving what you do so much as you are trying to survive. So when you do have those by weeks, when you do have a full week off to work on yourself, those are some of the most valuable points in the season. And I think for North Carolina, you know, they basically split their last six games. This is a team that looked like it needed some rest.

It looked like they needed to do some tightening, especially on the defensive end. They were one of the best defenses in the country back around the turn of the calendar and that has slipped the past couple of games. I think we're underrating how valuable this week will be for North Carolina getting back to the level it was a couple of weeks ago.

So, again, I'm with Josh there. I'm going with North Carolina. However, I'm going to go with Duke in the other game, Duke over Wake Forest. And the reason I say that is because I still don't think that you've seen the best for Duke and I still have not seen enough from Wake Forest in these types of games, in the games that matter, in the games where they definitely need the quad one, where they've actually been able to pull those out. And I think we saw, you know, the past couple of games with Duke, like what Jared McCain was able to do at Florida State, what the entirety of the roster was able to do at Miami. Duke is still getting much, much better.

And like Josh is talking about, if Efton Reed gets in foul trouble, that very quickly presents a difficult situation for the Demon Deacon. So I think that Wake could win that game. I would not be surprised if Wake did win that game. But I think Duke is the better team. And until Wake actually shows me that it's capable of winning one of those must-have games, I'm going to go with the better team.

And in that case, this is Duke. All right, finally. Friendly Wager and putters on that. We'll make it happen the next time you're on Wages. Ooh, a friendly wager.

Very nice. Which will be soon legal in the state of North Carolina. Final question. Final question for both Brendan Marks and Josh Graham. Is DJ Horn a first-team All-ACC player, Brendan?

No, he's not. And that's no disrespect to DJ Horn, but there are just too many really, really good players on teams that are better. And I think if you look at what DJ Horn is doing individually, it's been incredible.

But for me personally, I value players who put up comparable numbers on teams that are having more success. So, I mean, I could see both Duke and North Carolina getting two players on the first team. You've got Hunter Salas to deal with. You've got PJ Hall to deal with.

You've got Reece Beekman to deal with. Ryan Dunn, like, you know, that's just off the top of my head. I can think of a bunch of other guys. So DJ is certainly in that mix. I think he will be on one of the teams, but he's not first team for me.

Josh? I have a lot of difficulty separating DJ Horn, Blake Henson, and Judah Mintz, kind of all in categories of teams that have lost 10, 11 games this year. And what they all have in common is they've put up great numbers, but if you watch them play, they don't really elevate others around them as well. And some of the others that are getting first in consideration, like a Kyle Filipowski, like a Hunter Salas, like a Reece Beekman who leads the ACC and assists, and of course is the reigning ACC defensive player of the year. I don't see great defensive play from those three guys either. So give me a guy who tries on defense and Reece Beekman. Give me a guy in Hunter Salas who elevates everybody on the court for Wake Forest, and as Brendan pointed out, plays for better teams as well.

All that factors in. I do think all three of those guys are going to be recognized on all ACC teams, but first team, I don't think so. Alright, just playing devil's advocate, I personally, for things like this, we were talking about MVP or maybe even player of the year, I would certainly be more weighted towards good teams, teams that played meaningful games. And I shouldn't say that because state is playing meaningful games. These games all matter, but I don't think that matters to first team versus second team, and he is alone. It's amazing to me that he is able to do this because certainly last few weeks, if he's not making the shot, the shot doesn't appear that it's going to be made.

But let me ask you this, who do you bump out between? I'm not advocating that he is a first teamer, I was just saying, just looking at the challenge that he has in front of him is different from the challenges that all of those other guys have. Like they've got help, and right now, and it's been this way for about three weeks, there's nobody really helping. DJ Burns is really more of a drag than he is a help, I believe. It's just been occasional Casey Morsell or Jaden Taylor, it just hasn't been any help for DJ Horn.

And the guy is dragging this team into contention in games, but again, I'm not advocating that he is a first teamer, I just asked the question. Try to ask provocative questions if I could. Gentlemen, this was fun. Brendan Marks, at Brendan R Marks on Twitter, the reigning current, although not yet with award in hand, because that doesn't happen until June. North Carolina's Sportswriter of the Year, and Josh Graham, who will be there at the hotel bar, I know this, and one day will have an award because we support him. Josh Graham Radio on Twitter, thank you both for doing this.

Long reign the king, Brendan Marks, long reign the king. Thanks guys, I appreciate it. I can't tell you how uncomfortable I am with this attention. Alright man, I'll talk to you guys both soon. Yeah, take care. That was great. Brendan and Josh.

So good. Mad, mad respect for both guys. Yeah, and Brendan did great. Yeah, you know, I didn't ask him if it was his first foray into... It was.

I think that he has done it once, so, but we've been doing this now for a long time at this point, so it's been fun, and it gives me a chance to get two people on, and I consider friends, and smart, and we go from there. And he was throwing Josh shade. It was hilarious. That was very good.

Always good. How hard is that really though? I know. It's really, that's the reason why we have Josh on. Yeah. It's like, come on, we got somebody we can make fun of for 15 minutes. Yeah, and he's a great sport about it.

Oh, he absolutely is. For the ones who work hard to ensure their crew can always go the extra mile, and the ones who get in early so everyone can go home on time, there's Grainger. Offering professional grade supplies backed by product experts so you can quickly and easily find what you need. Plus, you can count on access to a committed team ready to go the extra mile for you. Call, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.