Duke vs NC State tonight in men’s basketball

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. Duke can really set themselves up regardless of what happens in Washington for a much higher seed in the NCAA tournament. You know, you don't have to go back that far to see Duke was put on the five line, even as they were winning a bunch of games in a row on the five line. I still think that if Duke were to win the ACC tournament, I think you could see him as high as a two. I do. At some point, all of the all of the winds and certainly winning three times on a neutral floor against some good competition would elevate them.

But who cares? At that point, you can always overcome whatever your seat is, as long as you play well. I do think Duke is more matchup dependent than most of the best teams because they don't have a ton of athleticism and physicality around the goal. Although we've seen a lot from Stewart over the last few weeks, we're starting to see him get a little bit more time. Eden to Ryan Young's time. And if we get that, it just adds to the Blue Devils depth up front. They can play a big lineup because Mitchell can play more of a, you know, a slashing wing three.

If they came up against a team with some size and they wanted to free up Philipowski, they can certainly do that. And we'll talk about the Blue Devils win over Virginia with Connor O'Neill from Devils Illustrated and Deacons Illustrated. And for the sake of argument, let's talk about Devils Illustrated right now. That defensive effort against Virginia and I mean the offense was great, but I mean just completely squashing the Cavaliers. Was that a sign of things to come or what was that in your mind? I tend to call it a sign of things to come because it is a very challenge, offensively challenged Virginia team. I guess I'm trying to straddle the line between saying Duke was really good. It was really good against the team that if they're not making shots, they're not scoring over 50 these days.

So look, I think it's something to build on. I think that if Duke has really good defensive games against NC State tonight and or against UNC on Saturday, then we can start talking about them being maybe even throwing around the word elite defensively. I don't think their offense. I don't think their defense is ever going to be better than their offense this year. But yeah, we can we can talk about that if they play well defensively in these next two. Yeah, I agree with you in that that Dukes Dukes and offensive team. I appreciated that. They were good offensively without shooting the ball.

Really? Well, what was the key there? If I remember correctly, I think their turnovers were in the single digits. Really, the key for Duke offensively is ball movement. I think every team has a varying level of importance that that they place on ball movement. Duke, you know, the stats that I dug up like yesterday is when Duke's assist rate is over 50%.

They're 17 and over the seat. When it's 50% or lower, they're 66. So it's not a prerequisite for them to be over 50% to get a win.

But when they are over 50% feel really, really good about them winning a game. So when when the ball gets circulating, when they get it's not just throwing the ball around the perimeter, swinging it together to get an open look. It's the interior passing where you really come to appreciate it. It's the driving kicks and then it's powerful policy being a seven footer with really good vision. And it's Mark Mitchell either being on the receiving end or throwing into your passes to full policy.

They can they can really get the ball popping as the basketball coaches like to say they can really get it to pop. And when it does, it leads to assist. And that usually leads to Duke wins.

Connor O'Neill, Devils Illustrated and Deacons Illustrated. We'll talk about the Deacons here in a second. The impact of Mark Mitchell being healthy and a constant in the lineup really has freed up Kyle to be to not have to defend all the other big men. He gets a he gets a break from time to time. What when when you watch that lineup with Mitchell on the court, what does he allow them to do?

Tell you what, the most interesting thing that they do, I don't know that they did all that much of it against Virginia, but you'll and I don't know how much you have to do against. D.J. Burns tonight, but when when state goes to the Ben Middlebrooks Mo Jara lineup, Adam Golden Studio with my man Coach Pete, the root of Capital Financial Advisory Group.

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It is, but you get it free. If you text right now, text Adam to 600 700 for Coach Pete DeRuta. They'll put Mitchell on whoever they think is the five, which will be Middlebrooks, right? And they've and they've been doing a little bit more of that, which allows Philipowski to switch a little more often.

It's kind of some cross matching that they did really well against Wake Forest in the first game that was in Durham. And they trust Mark, like John has said for two years now that Mark Mitchell can guard every position on the court. And he is so versatile and so willing to accept some roles that, you know, your typical five star McDonald's All-American might not be as willing to accept. He's he's able to kind of accept those gritty assignments and it really allows them.

It opens up the floor and opens up possibilities for what they can do with Philipowski and kind of save him from having to just get back down in the post. You know, 10 times a game. Yeah. Yeah.

It really opens up everything. I mean, Mark Mitchell is. As much as we talk about him, I still think he's a little undervalued when you come to talk about Duke as a whole. Well, I think he helps helps them on both ends of the court. His ability to drive offensively. The fact that you don't have to run any plays for him.

He can get his points away from away from that action. I mean, there's just so many positives for Mark Mitchell. Obviously, the defense is a huge, huge part of it.

Let me ask you one quick thing and then I want to ask you about the the demon deacons. Is the are we seeing more Sean Stewart with a plan or is Stewart just getting minutes because they've been blowouts because he's such a good athlete that he can be a game changer in the right set of circumstances? I think you're seeing him grow in confidence.

And I think almost more important than his confidence is the confidence of his teammates in him. Like you're you're seeing them throw some lobs to him. I thought actually one of the most impressive things I saw on Saturday was he was wide open for a lob and Tyrese Proctor missed him. And this was early in the first half, probably within a few minutes of Sean coming into the game for the first time. And it was still a game at that point.

Right is where I'm going with that. And like he was just throw it anywhere close to the rim and it's easy to point and Proctor just either didn't see it or didn't think he had a passing lane. And in the middle of the possession, while the ball got circulated to the other side of the court, Proctor, like kind of gave him a hand motion and look like he said, like, my bad.

He kind of apologized to him. And it's it's that kind of thing where you think back like a month ago, Sean would get on the court and make a mistake and get blasted by Tyrese Proctor more often than not. So you're seeing the confidence in Sean in itself grow, but you're also seeing his teammates are kind of figuring out the things that he does well and where he wants to get the ball.

If you want to make the argument that they should have known those things four or five months ago, then I don't think you're out of line there, but it's better late than never. And the other part of it is you never want to see a guy go down, obviously, but the Caleb Foster injury kind of makes Duke play a little more versatile with the lineup. So John has to go away from that three guard lineup out of necessity.

He doesn't want to play Roach, McCain and Proctor for 40 minutes a game. Right. So you're seeing him force TJ power in there and TJ power. We've heard all year about he's been working on his shot and working and he's able to put it to use and Sean Stewart in the same way. I mean, he just goes in there and gets like eight rebounds in his 11 minutes.

Oh, OK. That's useful. Yeah. I mean, what the nine and nine in 11 minutes, not against Virginia, the game previous. That's that. I don't care who you're playing.

Nine, nine points and nine rebounds in 11 minutes when they're running. No place for you is impressive stuff. Connor O'Neill. Let's get to Deacon's ill a Deacon Illustrated Deacon's Illustrated right now at Connor O'Neill underscore Di. I know Wake is good. You know, Wake is good. But boy, did they feed the narrative that they're not when they lose at Notre Dame. I'm not as put off by the loss at Virginia Tech, but I was put off by the loss at Notre Dame. What do you make of Wake Forest? And are you worried that the committee was like, we're going to take that as a reason?

This is where from conversations just as recently as a few hours ago. I think we need to pay more attention to how the committee changes every year and they pay attention to different things every year. And I don't know if it's a huge factor that Wake Forest is two and eight in road games or two and nine because they played a nonconference one at Georgia. Right. I the committee changes every year. Like I said, it's different people.

The thing that I would pay attention to is what they do next week. And in DC, you can you can't rewrite your road narrative. You can at least rewrite your road slash neutral court narrative, right? Because they've got a they've got a one and two in the neutral court and you never know how much they're going to pay attention to the fact that the three games on neutral court. We're all without Eston Reed. So it's kind of it's like this back burner issue right now for Wake.

I guess I would be a little concerned about it, but I this is where I guess this makes for good radio. I disagree with you. I think I was more surprised or alarmed at them losing at Virginia Tech than I was losing in Notre Dame.

Why? I'm curious what what because I think I think Virginia Tech's a capable basketball team and they're difficult to beat up there. Yeah, I just thought the key against Virginia Tech was don't let them score 80 points and I thought your offense will be fine. Wake scored 1.12 points per possession and in the first 14 games of the year when their points per possession were over 1.1, they were undefeated. So their defense really had to abandon them, which it did especially in the second half to lose that game. The Notre Dame game was just. Look, man, that guy's a really good coach with really young players that haven't given up and they're playing hard and I would tab them right now as the team that nobody wants to see next week.

That Clemson found out right Clemson Clemson went to South Bend and lost but they've got they've got wins in South Bend over Clemson, Virginia and Wake Forest. Calling all North Carolina sports fans soon enough DraftKings Sportsbook will be live in your state starting March 11th. You'll be able to bet on all your favorite sports from the comfort of your own home with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and sign up with code 999 to get up to $300 in bonus bets when you place a $5 bet. Once mobile sports betting goes live only on DraftKings Sportsbook coming soon to North Carolina on March 11th with code 999.

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Yeah, I think all three of those are NCAA tournament teams. In fact, I actually think Virginia is, I guess I'll use the term, well I'll just say if I was ranking them, I would rank Virginia third among those three teams. I think Wake has more answers than Virginia does.

I do. I think there are too many good players on the Demon Deacons to not be an NCAA tournament team. I'm with you. I might be a little biased because I just watched Virginia lose by 25 and watched Spencer Hubbard play 3 minutes 42 seconds against them.

No offense to Spencer. But yeah, Wake and Clemson, I think they're the more attractive teams. I think the best player on any of those three teams is probably Reece Beekman. But yeah, I think weapon wise, I would definitely go Wake and Clemson.

Not even sure what order. I guess I'll just kind of defer to Saturday's game and then tell you after Saturday which one of those is the better one. Virginia third like you. No question about that.

Alright, final thing for you Connor O'Neill. I didn't want to ask Adam Smith there because he covers Carolina and I thought that it would be biased in favor of R.J. Davis. Is there a player you could make an argument for ACC Player of the Year not named R.J. Davis? I don't think so. I think last week sealed it for me. I went into last week thinking that it was, there were still four players that might be able to win it. And then I think within 24 hours of me saying that he had, what is it, 41 or 42?

Yeah, I mean that kind of performance and what he's done all year, it's not just one game against Miami. But yeah, he's, he's locked it up for me. Connor O'Neill, at Connor O'Neill underscore D. I appreciate your time, man. I'll, we'll talk to you soon. And if I don't talk to you before, enjoy our nation's capital in the ACC tournament.

Sounds great. Thanks, Adam. Thanks, man.

Connor O'Neill here on the Adam Gold show. Calling all North Carolina sports fans. Soon enough, DraftKings Sportsbook will be live in your state. Starting March 11th, you'll be able to bet on all your favorite sports from the comfort of your own home with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and sign up with code 999 to get up to $300 in bonus bets when you place a $5 bet once mobile sports betting goes live. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook coming soon to North Carolina on March 11th with code 999. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem? Call 877-185-543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. 21 plus North Carolina only. New customers only.

Subject to regulatory licensing requirements. Maximum $300 in bonus bets not available for use until March 11th, 2024. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. Deposit, wagering, and eligibility restrictions apply. Terms at DraftKings.com.