March 21, 2022 6:31 pm
Josh reacts to the weekend that was for the Tar Heels and Blue Devils and talks Panthers offseason to kick off the first full week of spring.
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Really is obnoxious. You're on the drive with Josh Graham on WSJS Sports. Glad to have you on a Monday drive where without question the game of the weekend was North Carolina's overtime win against Baylor.
And that's saying something. Because I thought Duke Michigan State, which we'll get to in just a bit, was very good. As was Arizona TCU late last night and so on and so forth. Here's what I found most compelling about Carolina Baylor.
We got to see how powerful and how limited this Tar Heel team could be in the same game. How often is that the case? Usually it's Jekyll or Hyde. One or the other.
It's Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Not both. After Saturday, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say North Carolina when it's right, when it's at its best. There's no starting five in America playing better than theirs is right now. They were nicknamed the Iron Five after playing every minute of the second half in Cameron. That legacy of the Iron Five only grew when they ran Baylor off the floor. They were embarrassing Baylor. Remember, these are the defending champs. They were a one seed and North Carolina's up big in the first half.
They're up 27 points in the second half. So that was North Carolina at their best, at their peak power. Then we saw how limited they can be when Brady Manick was unjustly tossed from the game. When that happened, North Carolina suddenly didn't look like a tournament team. They don't have depth. Some of that's Hubert's fault. Not playing Dontre Stiles or Demarco Dunn during the year. I have no idea where Kerwin Walton has been, why he's fallen off the face of the planet, Justin McCoy, so on. Again, etc. You know that story. We've covered it. Some of that's Hubert's fault.
Most of it isn't. They had a thin rotation even when Dawson Garcia and Anthony Harris were on the team before Harris became ineligible, or let's just say ruled out. I think that's the way they framed it. And Dawson Garcia left the team under ominous circumstances surrounding an illness in his family.
The rotation's thin. North Carolina doesn't have a lot of depth. So when Manick left the game, what looked like was going to be one of the greatest blowouts of a number one seed pre-final four, looked like it was about to turn into perhaps the greatest collapse in the history of the tournament. Not only are you up 27 points, you're up 27 points and you're approaching the halfway mark of the second half. You lose a 25 point lead almost immediately. You look like you've never seen pressure before and you're throwing the ball. You're struggling to inbound it. It was getting really scary, really fast, just because they lost one guy.
That speaks to a lack of depth. I was most impressed though with how North Carolina responded to that though. The most impressive stretch wasn't how they got up 27 points. No, it was an overtime finding a way to win because I didn't think they had any shot. Dontress Stiles hit the most important shot of the season for North Carolina.
Listen to what I just said. I'll say it again. Dontress Stiles hit the most important shot for Carolina basketball in a round of 32 win over a number one seed. No Caleb Love.
No Brady Manick. Love fouling out. And you have all that pressure of being up 27 and your season's about to end potentially.
And you're facing a team that has more talent than you do and you bounce back. And who is the guy who delivered at every turn? RJ Davis. Career high 30 points. And with one minute left to go, he made it a six point game hitting an and one to put away the Bears.
This was RJ after the game talking about what drove him and how he found the energy and the mental toughness to finish off Baylor given all that had transpired. Didn't want to go home. I mean, there was no time to be tired. It was going to overtime. I knew it was at stake and we all wanted to win. We wanted to get to the next round. So, you know, at that point I wasn't even tired.
I had a mindset of just, you know, gathering my teammates together and regrouping and tell them to continue their composure and let's get this win. Luke Nadkarni in Roberts place today producing today's show. 336-777-1600.
The phone number if you want it on Twitter at WSJS Sports. Mark in Greensboro on the line went in. Mark, I thought this was the most powerful Carolina can look and also the most limited they can look without Brady in the lineup removing one piece of that Iron 5. What do you think?
No, I'm with you on that. I think the issue I have is the officials take. I feel like in this case, like do you feel like Chris Spitola, you know, guy that you found in your show is a reasonable guy? Yes, Chris Spitola.
He was in Greenville, South Carolina and was an assistant coach for Coach K and his resume now working for ESPN. And for those who don't know what my officiating take is, I haven't so much put this so much on social media but it's essentially that by golden rule when it comes to refs do not unnecessarily insert yourself into the result. They did. Manic was unjustly thrown out of that game for that reason. I don't think the officials did a good job but other than that I think any qualms people had about the officials were more to do with how often they were blowing whistles versus the calls actually being inaccurate or them being incompetent. I felt that the mob mentality of it was a bit unsettling. I don't think either side got an unfair whistle but I felt that one mistake that they made to throw Manic out that was them breaking the rule.
They unnecessarily inserted themselves. Well I get that and that's I also feel like you're misinterpreting what that wasn't all Carolina fans. I am not a Carolina fan. I have no affiliation to Carolina. I have not rooted for them ever. So what's your take on the referees?
Like what is your opinion? My point is when I look at my timeline and I have lifelong Duke fans going wow Carolina is getting hosed. That's how you know that it wasn't just a knee-jerk reaction from the Carolina faithful. I mean I had an NC State fan who literally would rather piss on a jersey than go to a Carolina game.
Okay I get it. There are people that but that's also people that follow along with what the national media say. When Matt Norlander is saying it and others are saying it, it's so easy to just follow in line and say all these things without pointing to anything specific. So rather than just state fans and Duke fans tell me why you thought the officials didn't do a good job. Because you and I both have gone to enough games where you start to see the whistles turn and they don't turn in the way that you know you can just point to hey it was 11 follows to 10 at the end of the game. There were one point that's been thrown about is yeah 10 straight follows in Carolina without anything going against Baylor. The thing that I don't like is all of a sudden the refs just go okay so this team is going to press and kind of bring pressure the entire rest of the game. Now the foul that they were calling earlier in the game when Baylor wasn't as aggressive but Carolina was getting when they were getting bumps on closeouts or when RJ Davis is going to the basket and getting hit.
Now none of those calls are existing. So yes do the players have to adjust 100 percent. But that's the frustration I think that fans get have watching the game with these officials is the consistency just flips.
It's just all of a sudden it's here and then it goes there and has nothing to do with people are getting cheated. Now my point about Chris Chris Chris Patola is that he feels he said on the radio today that that's crew shouldn't be allowed to officiate another game in the NCAA tournament. Now he's a reasonable guy.
He's not a mob mentality guy. That's why I asked that first question and he feels like that that performance from those referees should negate them from again going forward. The same thing happened in the playoffs with the Cincinnati and the Tennessee game. Those refs weren't allowed to be in the playoffs again.
They were kicked out. So I feel I feel the same way. I'm just saying I think you simplify it by saying oh don't don't blame it all on the refs. No one's playing it all on the rest. But it's a huge part of that game that should not have happened because those refs inserted themselves not only just with the manic ejection.
Appreciate the call Mark. You actually remind me of something that's an interesting analogy and I actually don't have an issue if they don't officiate another game. This isn't me saying they did a good job. They did a bad job because they inserted themselves in the game. We're kind of saying the same thing here. I have no issue if they don't work another game because they broke that rule and that's a rule that's hard to break sometimes and they went out of their way to do it. So I don't have an issue if they don't work another game.
I don't think they did a good job but I'm being a little bit more specific about it than some are being pretending some of these other calls and I'm not saying you're doing this Mark specifically but others are trying to pinpoint other calls that I personally didn't have any issue with as means to say that this crew is incompetent when really it all goes back to that manic call. That's the way that I feel. The analogy I thought of.
Do you ever play had you played N64 before Mario Kart? Absolutely. I think what Mark's arguing is it's kind of like you're behind in the race and you get those items that you get when you hit like barrels and things of that nature. What's the word? The blue shell? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, no. It's just part of the code. You get better items when you're behind in the race than when you're leading the race and I guess what he's suggesting is and I think it's fair that maybe you got a more favorable whistle because you're down 25 to 27. Maybe Brady Manic doesn't get tossed from the game if it's a one point game in the final minute than if you're up 25 but we'll never really know the answer to that. On Twitter at WSJSports336 if it's ever 1600 if you want to continue chiming in. When Jim Nance joined our show a few months ago he told us he was almost certain he and his crew would be wherever Coach K and Duke were for the NCAA tournament and surely enough it's Nance, it's Raf, it's Grant Hill in Greenville, South Carolina and I bet since that conversation we had, Nance had been thinking hmm what canned line can I use for my final call for Ks last year? Yesterday he went with the music is still playing for Coach K's last dance which is pretty good but I bet you he didn't have that line prepared with about five minutes to go. At that point Duke was following the script to a T that would have their season ending in Greenville. I'm incredibly proud of my guys this is uh this was a you guys were terrific man I'm so I'm really proud to be your coach you know that had nothing to do with coaching in those last four or five minutes it all had to do with heart and togetherness and they followed their hearts and God bless them you know we're in the sweet 16. Yeah that's Coach K being emotional but the reason he was emotional wasn't because they followed the script and got eliminated falling short of the sweet 16 no he was proud because what transpired after that the script completely flipped. I thought they were cooked it was 60 it was 70-65 Sparty five left to go and Michigan State was on a nine nothing run and the body language was bad for Duke. It was similar to what I saw up close when North Carolina was up on Duke in the final minutes. Coach K's last game at Cameron where the pressure just seemed like it was too great for them and they wilted. I felt something similar happened when Virginia Tech ran away with it late against Duke in the ACC Championship game and this is a single elimination tournament and Michigan State has older guys they have a lot of talent I thought they were going to win the game and Michigan State gosh how many years has the recipe to beat Duke in the tournament been hit threes and don't turn over the ball that's kind of what it is and they hit 50 percent of their threes 22 attempts and on top of that they had seven turnovers they did their part it looked like it was going to be a Michigan State win but what followed leading to that emotional answer by K was the greatest collective display of resolve we've seen from this Duke team all year long and every guy had a hand in making it happen it wasn't one guy taking over like RJ Davis with the Tar Heels no it was Mark Williams grabbing a big rebound and hitting free throws underrated free throw shooter Mark Williams Windell Moore getting the stop Michigan State couldn't keep Paulo Bonquero and Jeremy Roach out of the paint couldn't keep Trevor Keels there and Keels made some big defensive plays too coming off the bench and then it was Keels hitting the most important shot of the game he might have been the most important Blue Devil down the stretch of this season but the big reason why I think K was as emotional as he was when he said that was because I think K retired K thought about retiring a year ago but one of the things that drew him back to Duke was this tournament having moments in this tournament it's crazy to think because of the pandemic and Duke last year not being good and there being a lot of extenuating circumstances that too Duke hasn't played in an NCAA tournament game in three years since Zion Williamson was on the roster so coach K when he says after the game man I'm 75 how lucky am I to have a moment like that I've coached 42 years and this is one of the greatest five-minute stretches at the end of a game for us to close things out what a moment against Tom Izzo against Michigan State to do that in this tournament how lucky am I to get to experience that one more time to get to do that that's that's I think a big part of the reason why he wanted to come back his career is going to be defined by what he did in March and the numbers are staggering he's won 99 NCAA tournament games the next closest is Jim Boeheim was 62 to put that in perspective for Jim Boeheim to catch coach K he'd have to win six straight national championships and win one more to tie coach K's mark right now it's unbelievable he's won five national championships he's been at Duke for 42 years he's made 26 sweet 16s do I have that right 22 sweet 16s I don't know what the exact number is but it's over 20 it's remarkable the numbers that he's produced in this tournament so the thought that he would retire without his last game being in the tournament that's defined his career some fathomable 26 sweet 16 thank you thank you thank you that's over 65 percent of the turn the seasons he's had at Duke they've made the sweet 16 meanwhile Elon and high point they're just hoping to get into the tournament one time ever they're one of the few teams in d1 that have never been to the tournament East Carolina I went to I'm a pirate they haven't been to the tournament since 1993 Duke's under coach K's been to 26 sweet 16s it's amazing I we didn't even call it the sweet 16 until 85 when they expanded at 64 so you start thinking about it 26 okay well that takes us back to like 1996 it's only 11 11 years 11 years since 85 that Duke's not a part of that unbelievable you are listening to WSJS Winston-Salem and Greensboro WPC and Burlington WMFR high point those signals make up WSJS sports okay a lot to do we got Brian Geiserger is going to join us at 5 30 we're a few minutes past five o'clock make sure you're subscribed to the best of podcasters the driveway Josh Graham on iTunes apple podcast spotify and anchor we still have another pair of Roddy Carrington tickets that we're going to give away on tomorrow's show make sure you're listening for that right now we get to the five things at five it's time for the five things at five all right people take five brought to you by precision garage door where their five things are garage door and opener repair and replacement same day service free new door estimates weekend and evening appointments at no extra charge and calls answered 24 7 here are the top five stories trending now brought to you by our friends at precision garage door online precisiondoornc.com pay them a visit it's easy you could schedule an appointment online or you can see them in person give them a call there are plenty of options to get you set up and to get your garage door tuned up as things get warmer you know I see more and more folks going into their garage doing things and my you want to make sure everything's working well in there is this something I think most people can relate to great sponsor of the program precision garage door and we've got the five things at five and a lot of things to do so let's get to it number five a women's basketball update from reynolds coliseum nc state at halftime leads k-state 43 to 27 alissa canane got in foul trouble with a couple of fouls in the first three or four minutes of the game didn't matter she didn't score a point in the first quarter yet nc state was still leading after one and now they're leading at halftime by 16 this is a true national title contender and k-state the nine seed probably i'd imagine not gonna get inch much closer in this one assuming canane is able to play more minutes uh jones has nine points and five rebounds three assists as well reyna perez is just a monster kayla jones and reyna perez a deep team camille hobby uh had a acrobatic layup in the first half as well keeping an eye on this close on this one but nc state probably gonna run away with it later on tonight north carolina in action against arizona that's a 5-4 matchup 10 o'clock as the tarheels have to go on the road to win and advance to the sweet 16 number four is today the trade deadline in the national hockey league your guess is as good as mine yeah i'm seeing a ton of trade notes yeah today at three o'clock was the nhl trade deadline and the carolina hurricanes active today yes very cocking to cock in the emmy nailed it eight-year contract extension today for cock in the emmy year contract extension today for cock in the emmy young player involved with that controversy to pull him away in the offer sheet with the montreal canadians max domi he is a carolina hurricane now according to pierre lebrun that happened right before the deadline hit he was a 28 goal scorer not too long ago we'll see where he slots in once things get ironed through and you figure out where he could fit in onto a team that expects to be a stanley cup contender so they lock up cock in the emmy they bring in another scorer and max domi who's had some problems being available that's what the canes have done at the deadline today number three the charlotte hornets are going for five in a row tonight they've got the new orleans pelicans this game's in charlotte don't look now charlotte a couple games over 500 with their one game over 500 and they're a game back of the brooklyn nets for number eight in the eastern conference standings this is what's kind of interesting about it though why don't you want to set it up that you play if you were to play brooklyn in a play-in situation you do not play in charlotte but instead in brooklyn so that way you don't have to worry about kyrie irving i was going to say home court advantage might not be so much of one for the nets if that comes to pass yeah so if you're charlotte yeah i don't mind being the 19th so that way we could play the 10 and if we lose well then we got kyrie but the game's going to be in brooklyn and kyrie's probably at that time not going to be able to play just a interesting hypothetical in the way of gamesmanship something to look at number two we've got a lot of nfc south quarterback notes we got video of the carolina panthers at kenny pickett's pro day examining his hands like did you see this video look where you got fidderer and ben mackadoo just staring at his hand holding a football as if they've never seen a pair of human hands not holding them with laces that's interesting so the entire panthers brass is there the cults they traded for matt ryan which means matt ryan's no longer in the nfc south marcus mariota just signed to a two-year deal in atlanta to replace matt ryan panther fans are up in arms because it only took a third round pick to bring in matt ryan when they traded a second and a fourth for uh sam darnold last year we could have got matt ryan for a third well no you couldn't they were not going to trade into an nfc south team and they were not going to trade into an nfc south team and a big part of sam darnold's value was his contract and how inexpensive it was relative to a guy like matt ryan who also is about a decade older than darnold a little bit more difficult to say that in 280 characters on twitter and twitter is a place where people go to get mad that's why on this show and you know force talk radio shows in general where you have a little bit more time to expand you can get into some of the context why these things make sense the new r1 saints locked up jamis winston for two more years the last of the nfc south notes that we have for you today pretty active day in that division number one by the way elissa canane shouts the summer field just scored her first two points of the game to open up the second half nc states up by 15 if she goes scoreless and a half and you're still up by 13 points good sign yeah really i think everyone's looking forward to that possible yukon matchup in the elite eight oh the fact that it's not going to be played in greensboro is yeah just ridiculous yeah and number one on the five things five today the number one story brought to you by our friends at precision garage tour citizen kane is it really that good well apparently this is great this is great a there's been a negative review a negative critical review added to the rotten tomatoes page that already had 115 reviews all of which were positive a negative review that said that this movie was not in fact an all-time classic and you might be thinking millennials young people this is terrible how they can view it this way well no this is a review that has been unearthed from 80 years ago in the chicago tribune where it appears even back then there's always that one person in the media that wants to be contrarian oh everybody likes this thing well actually here's why it wasn't that good here's the headline in the chicago tribune back in 1942 citizen came fails to impress critic as greatest film ever greatest ever filmed that was the headline that ran back then fantastic didn't this happen with paddington at some point like not that long ago well no that was the audience score i don't think the critical score was ever at 100 from paddington yeah but fantastic that somebody thinks that it's not that good this is what this is an excerpt from the story it's interesting it's different in fact it's bizarre enough to become a museum piece but it's a sacrifice of simplicity to eccentricity to eccentrically rob it of distinction in general entertainment value oh i'm picturing this person with like a you know a robe and a glass of wine yes the pinky in the in the air yes have you seen this movie i actually have not oh of course you of course you have right yeah don't don't say i actually have not you you just haven't and that was the expected answer it's on the list really how long is that list oh how much time do you have i got about 30 seconds well pulp fiction is still number one okay yeah you need to see that and apparently you need to see 40 year old virgin too holy bleep then again if you haven't seen citizen cane i'm not gonna knock you oh you you didn't see through a long movie from the 40s i'm not gonna knock you for it this isn't me saying nobody should see it if you want to great and it's influential and still a good movie it holds up in a lot of ways unless you're this guy from chicago terrible yeah but that was i wonder if his opinion changed after that maybe he said that wasn't a good take robert ebert even had that happen roger ebert where he would say a movie wasn't that good at the time and then years later he'd be like oh i re-reviewed it oh i got you apparently he didn't like do the right thing when it first happened and then 10 years later oh you know after second thought there you go no you got to stick to it brian geisinger gonna join us in about 15 minutes no out precise the guys today because i'm valuing my mental health you know you know usually lose in that game and hurts my confidence we don't want that to start the week doing here's a question i have though is the acc the best conference in college basketball i buy that but maybe not for the reason you're thinking next apply for yours at bank of america.com more rewarding copyright 2021 bank of america corporation i think he is very insightful he makes some really great points he's a man he's the man the drive with josh graham on wsjs sports i still like baylor to win even though carolina looked awesome yesterday hard to expect that to look as great as it did yesterday tomorrow with 3.9 seconds left mccoy knocks him down carolina is going to survive and the defending national champions the baylor bears are out in round number two a one seed is gone in the east only two guys on duke have been to the tournament so i i think the pressure of the farewell tour has broken duke a bit and i don't see them getting past the first weekend i really don't incredibly spirited effort by tom is those spartans this game is officially over and the music is still playing for coach k's last dance and here i thought with robert not here and brian geisinger joining us on the phone now we're not going to play out precise the guys i'm protecting my mentals by not getting beaten down in that game that this is going to be a really positive segment for for yours truly but i guess not when we've got sarah mclaughlin keeping me accountable here on a monday brian geisinger from accsports.com here to join us and make our show a lot smarter than it normally is whose recovery desperation effort in the final five minutes impressed you most duke or north carolinas i think duke um simply by you can you can look you can look you can look at it either way and we can touch on why unc's was impressive for obvious or less obvious reasons too but i think duke considering the stakes i think expectations are huge in this type of stuff and for duke you know it's the last four minutes possibly of these guys that are playing together or maybe mike shefsky's career they're the favorites heading into this game and going up against trying to you know bring it back in the last couple of minutes without aj griffin and who's you know one of the most important offensive players and going up against a you know a really good michigan state team that's not you know the guys in that roster they've got some future pros there too so i would say duke but if you want to make the case for unc sans brady bannock sans caleb love and you know and one of the most chaotic sporting events i've seen in some time i've got no issues with that but i'll pick duke there the tip-off times have been announced for duke carolina and for miami spoiler alert they're all very late you got duke texas tech thursday night interestingly this is a thursday game rather than a friday so duke will have four days in between playing in greenville versus traveling and traveling to san francisco in order to play this sweet 16 game north carolina meanwhile only has to go up to philadelphia where it will face ucla six days after the win against bailer both those games expected to start around 9 40 miami has iowa state this game will start approximately at 9 45 or 950 on friday which team do you think has the best shot at getting to new orleans out of the three acc teams yes i mean it's funny it's like i think you know if i were to power rank these teams in terms of like how viable i think they are like in general i think i would go duke one unc two miami three with the margins maybe being like kind of you know relatively tight that's what that's what's so great about march what you're talking about there though when you're like all right well who's the best team of the bunch probably duke okay well who's the best team that they're playing well that's probably miami and then who else is left in their bracket it's just the beauty of march the answer to this question isn't as simple as who's the best team yeah the like the randomness factor and it's like even if you go is incredible the variance of single game elimination and just not being able to like choose your you know they don't like receive the tournament every round or anything like that but it's funny it's like to sort of like draw the curtain back on this it's like if you go to 5 38 it depends on how much you want to buy into like their projection models but it's like duke they're giving duke a four percent chance of winning the championship right the national championship they're giving unc a three percent chance of winning the national championship and they're giving miami a one percent chance of winning the national title but according to 538's projection model miami is the only team of those three that's favored slightly mind you to win their match up this like the in the round of in the sweet 16 like miami 538 is giving them a 54 chance to beat iowa state they're giving unc a 46 chance against ucla in duke a 47 chance uh against texas tech and the most efficient defense uh in the country so that sort of like provides a little bit of numbers to it then you know there's also like we gotta wait make sure that agent griffin's playing for duke right i mean i guess he could have come back in that game against michigan state but he did not after entering his ankle this guy that's had health issues i did see on social media today he was you know working out with the team for whatever that's worth and um ucla like i don't know if we've gotten any word yet on highmane jacquez but he's probably the bruins best player and if he weren't able to go against unc that would be a huge huge i mean i assume he's gonna play but i mean if he's not 100 uh then that's kind of a big deal too because he's a really important personal player for them uh at the forward spot so yeah i'll again i would take as far as you know the matchup i would want most i'd both prefer i'd much prefer iowa state although you know with tyries hunters they're no uh walk in the park right now either brian geisinger with us here he's on twitter at big ice underscore bird read his stuff accsports.com since we're not going to play out precise the guys today i do have an mba draft question to get to but before we get to that i do think the acc and i've been talking with some coaches behind the scenes about this a little bit i do think the acc isn't getting the respect it deserves in that you know the sec in football there's this media apparatus that surrounds it where you just you know to to say with any kind of a straight face that the sec is not the best football conference people will laugh at you because just look at the titles they won eight of the last 12 and history tells you that the sec is the best conference and there's a good argument for that even if a single in a singular year the acc might have a better season than the sec like they did when they had notre dame in the league a couple of years ago and got two to the college football playoff similarly in a sport that does not have a four team playoff which erases a lot of possibility for randomness and who's going to win the title you're talking about a 68 team single elimination bracket the acc's won six of the last dozen national titles or i guess acc schools because technically louisville was still in the big east back then or that might have been year one of the american why isn't the acc viewed with similar respect as say the sec is in football you know i think for the most part it is outside of maybe the last couple like maybe the last two seasons um i mean there's a couple theories i could kick around like in general like jorda tech won the league last year right so like last season may have been a bit of a down year for the acc like they didn't there was not a lot of postseason success and this year was a down year too historically it was i'll say the big ten sec and big ten had a better year but to suggest that one of those conferences are better than the acc when the acc in a historically down year could still send three teams to the sweet 16 it's something i find ridiculous when people suggest it yeah yeah in in like but we're also not that far removed from 2019 when the league had three one season 10 in the national champion in virginia and had 10 literally 10 guys drafted in the first round like a third of the first round picks that year and the exact same thing happened in 2017 unc won the title in 2017 10 first round picks in the nba draft from the acc too so i think it's that i mean you mentioned this sort of like media apparatus the sccs for football that kind of exists for basketball too like the scc network all that type of stuff like that's in place and they don't just completely lie dormant uh once football season ends you know necessarily so there's probably that too and then you know without digging into all the numbers like some of these uh these these great you know resources that that do a wonderful job measuring uh various aspects of college basketball like ken palmory's website the bar toward the site these advanced metric sites the last couple of years they have been spitting out that the big 10 is the best league or whatever you know the big maybe it's the big 12 as well which the big 12 has been pretty pretty incredible but um and i think that that those sites feed a lot of the analysis whether it be a studio show writing stuff that you when you and i come on we're referencing these websites too and if that stuff is spitting out that like the big 10 is the best league and wow hey man the acc's only got x number of teams in the ken palm top 50 like it just becomes a feedback loop do you know what i mean like that informs the analysis which they could spit back out i don't know if that's true or not but that's certainly like a theory of mine yes people take ken palm to be gospel versus a tool and the way you put it is it's a tool it's not the gospel of oh this is the this is if you're if wake forest is ranked 33rd in those rankings they are the 33rd best team in america when we see miami ranked 20 spots lower even though they beat wake twice and have a better win than any win they got with their win at cameron and oh yeah by the way they're playing in the sweet 16 brian geisinger joining us here draft talk here so you were kind of alluding to it with the success the acc's had how fluid do you think the top of the mba draft class to be in terms of what people view to be the the rundown of the top picks in this year's draft the top prospect yeah i think i think i think honestly the top four in some order is locked into chet holmgren from gonzaga powell ben caro from duke jabari smith from auburn and jaden ivy of purdue um and if you were asking my order i would go you know ben caro and omgren 1a 1b jabari smith 3 jaden ivy 4 although jaden ivy is coming if you were asking me to go to five i would say jaylen durin of uh memphis and six aj griffin of of duke and then from there you know probably you know you start venturing into guys like johnny davis from wisconsin that type of stuff i really think the top four to five is is sort of like locked in place but even with inside of that i think it's like a little a little fluid but for me i feel pretty good about ben caro home grid 1a would be smith 3 ivy 4 um uh jail durin 5 are you reading more doubts of paulo boncaro because of how scrutinized he is playing at duke or of chet holmgren because of how unique of a prospect he is i think both i think i think i definitely catch more ben caro stuff just by proximity right like we live here i've covered duke we're at all the games this season um so i think ben caro because of that just plus like the medium machine that's around duke i mean certainly there's plenty of pub frickin zaka but it's just not the same their games are on later at night etc etc so um but i would also say to that like we're just if you if you really want to like knock paulo boncaro like there's honest stuff like for it like to like critique whatever but like we're so overthinking it too it's like this guy is six foot ten 250 pounds he could handle the basketball he's an incredible passer he's a team first player like he plays defense he can move he gets on the break like he's got a nice face-up mid-range game he could play both sides of the pick and roll like you saw it against michigan state last night and they've done it all season they give him the ball and they run you know they run power forward center pick and roll with ben caro and mark williams or ben caro and theo john so he's incredible and in the stuff with with like my thoughts on chet holmgren we don't have time to get into all of it but what i would say is very quickly is if chet holmgren is not going to make it in the nba it's not going to be because of the weight it's going to be in like the fact that he's skinny or whatever it's going to be because some coach in some franchise doesn't have the vision to actually use this guy correctly and to develop him in the right way like don't just stick him in the post there's a lot of stuff that guy can do on the basketball court um and he's super skilled and it's just like a you know a freakish defender so um i think both of those guys are really really good pieces um and if you want to knock them it's because you know you're either you're overthinking it with ben caro or with uh with holmgren i don't think you're being open-minded enough to sort of realize what exactly that guy's capable of doing on the court bg next week we'll have some out precise the guys questions for you in the meantime enjoy the hoop and rest up because it's going to be some late nights late in the week yeah yeah definitely all right guys have a good week on twitter at bguys underscore bird and read his stuff accsports.com going throughout your workout all without sugar or herbal stimulants they're just what you need when you don't have time for tired plus they're available in tons of delicious flavors ready to do this let's go five-hour energy for every workout for more information visit fivehourenergy.com and now the drive with josh graham on wsjs sports david hale from espn joined the show now and david you were in greenville yesterday to watch duke win that game against michigan state saw you at cameron for the duke carolina game where things went south for duke down the stretch i think you were in brooklyn as well when duke let things slip away late against virginia tech in both those instances it seemed like to me that the the pressure the gravity of what's surrounding this duke team and coach case final season it became a bit much they played tight and not only did they lose they lost those games by double digits and i couldn't help to think boy did the script of that duke carolina game look similar to what we saw yesterday where michigan state goes up five and it just looks like duke's gonna fold especially with aj griffin being on the bench so given how the final five minutes actually did play out how surprised were you to see duke pick up the pieces the way they did i mean i'm pretty shocked to be honest with you uh because to your point this is so much of what the season looked like the the blown leads late which were a consistent problem the just burden of carrying around szczewski's legacy on a team of mostly young guys who didn't ask to be in this situation uh that was a an ongoing issue um and then you have this you know the one thing that they said sort of at the start of the tournament was like hey this could be our last game too at any time and so we're really you know we're playing for us and yet here you go with this szczewski and is a match up that became you know the entire narrative around the game and took on a life of its own everything was kind of going against duke which sounds stupid to say because this is a team with probably five first round draft picks on it that that's obviously very talented and certainly was more talented than michigan state but but it is a team that has dealt with a psychological burden all year and really had to grow up at the toughest possible time and if you looked at the body language of those guys when they were down five and not just the players i mean even szczewski it you could look at him and get the feeling like he had an idea that maybe this was the end of the run and then they turned it all around and you know really all of them played a part but it would be impossible to not single out jeremy roach for what he did that was just an incredible five minutes of basketball from the guy who has probably been the most unsung hero on that team all season it was a super fun game to watch the whole time a game that was played at an incredibly high level by both sides probably a dozen different moments where you thought oh boy this is this is unreal and it came down to an ending that in so many ways kind of turned the narrative of duke on its head which was probably a thing that they really needed to do david hale with us here his story on the front of esbn.com this morning he was in greenville watching duke win against michigan state yesterday if it's late in the game it's tied final 30 seconds of the game you think jeremy roach has played himself into the spot where he's the guy you expect to get the ball say in the sweet 16. well i mean it was such a good example of what i think this particular duke team is and maybe wasn't in the past you know those years of um zion and bagley and and those guys i mean they've had stars before and there was often sort of a uh how do the stars cooperate together and everyone sort of deferred to them this is a team this year that i think you know ben caro's a star mark williams is a star um trevor keel is going to be a first round draft pick and i think certainly hasn't had moments where he looked like a star um there are still stars on this team but i feel like the pieces match up better than they have in a long while and that doesn't make them flawless i think you can watch them play defense and still see some obvious flaws and before aj griffin got hurt in that game you saw multiple times where where uh paladin caro was very upset with him for being out of position and turning the ball over um but what you see is a team that i think really is a team not a collection of future draft picks and jeremy roach is the perfect example of that team guy mentality i mean he stepped in when keels got hurt early in the season and was just fantastic i mean not star strikingly fantastic but tons of assists and no turnovers which is what you needed and you know even sichesky said at the end of that game yesterday that the drives to the basket that roach did again and again down the stretch there were some of the best drives to the basket he has seen in 42 years on to sideline and i don't think he's exaggerating that it was pure confidence from the guy who has probably gotten the least amount of attention uh among the six guys who play a good bit there and um yeah i mean i think he has certainly earned the opportunity to be that guy but but the beauty of this lineup is i think they have lots of that guys and i think they do work well together i mean you saw ben caro who admittedly at times this year has felt like his he's been a little reluctant to truly embrace his talent and try to take over a game but he really did his damnedest to do that down the stretch and you saw a guy like mark williams who the first half of that game was dominant in the paint michigan state really had no answers for him once he got the ball and he didn't even take a shot the final 14 minutes of that game because he was so busy playing defense it it was a a group that played really well together and the fact that jeremy roach could be the star at the end of it speaks a lot to how much that group was willing to to to not feel like one person had to do the job that they could really sort of work in each person play their role it was the greatest collective display ever solved that i've seen from this duke team all year long david hale with us from espn you were in the room and you saw how k got emotional talking about how these guys played together and how it wasn't just one guy uh you probably were keeping a close eye on the emotions that k showed on the sidelines during the game since you were in the building and i've worked to this theory after listening to what k said after the game it seems like to me march was a big part of the reason why k wouldn't have thought to hang it up last year maybe some of it was he knew he was sitting on a monster and knew that he had these great this great roster coming back and he'd have a shot to win a title but maybe it was as simple as well i didn't get a chance to play in the tournament that's defined my career last year and i didn't get that in 2020 but 2019 was the last time you know i was in the tournament that's three years ago now he's having those moments again so i'd think i don't think it was coach speak when he was talking about wow what a moment for a 75 year old to experience i think a big part of the reason why he wanted to come back was so he could at least experience that one more time what do you think i 100 agree with you you know i wrote in my column sort of the end of it was that he'd talked at the beginning that when they were down five his team had looked young and he wanted to see if they could grow up in that moment and clearly they did but in doing so it kind of i think made shashefsky feel young again from it for a minute or two you know i mean it's this is a guy who has seen and done everything in college basketball and i think you can rightfully be critical of some of the ways he has handled this year and the pressure that that has put on his team and i think that they had his back in that moment i think they went out and played um five minutes of basketball that ranks up there among the most remarkable and memorable five minutes of basketball that that shashefsky has seen his players play in his career i think that it it absolutely belongs in that pantheon of truly memorable duke moments during these last 42 years and if you're a guy who is uh somewhere between his last game and his fourth to last game to think that you have one of those moments still in there is sort of incredible when you when you take a step back and realize like here we are scripting the last chapter of this epic novel and it still had some surprises in there that i mean as a whether you're a duke fan or shashefsky fan or not you have to look at it as a sports fan and say isn't that kind of great that that those moments can still live up to what we think they might be spring practice got to at least throw this your way how tough of a call do you think it's going to be picking a champion for the atlantic division or do you already have a good idea who you're going to be picking in june you know it's funny i ran into jim phillips at the before the duke game and we were chatting for a little bit on the sideline there oh yeah exactly what we were talking did greensboro come up hey what's up hey what's what's going on with greensboro just just wondering just interesting okay we didn't get it i didn't pressure him on that conversation just checking just checking you know you know how relationships are hard josh the harder you uh try to cling to them the more they want to run free so i of course that to give them a buffer on that so jim phillips has got wake forest right that's that's what you're telling me exactly no look that division um and i am always i feel like you have to put the big caveat out there because we've all seen enough acc advantage we've seen what happens when you put too much uh hype onto to nc state over the years and uh if you if you think florida states back well yeah we've seen how that story can go to but it is a really potentially good division look if you're asking me to pick a team today i will still probably pick clemson because i'm you know trained to believe that you know you see the sun come up every day you start to expect it one day it doesn't come up you maybe expect it a little less but you're still figuring the next day it's going to come up uh and that's kind of where i am on clemson i think that that they're still the most talented team but wake brings back pretty much everybody and i think made a great higher on at the at defensive coordinator nc state has so many pieces coming off of a nine parentheses 10 with an asterisk win season um you know florida state i think made real strides last year and and should be better this year syracuse has maybe one of the best if not the best running backs in the country boston college if they have a healthy quarterback we've seen what they can do louisville has had the worst luck in the country pretty much over the last two years but still has uh one of the most electrifying players in the country and malik cuttingham there's just a lot in that conference in that division to say like i you know i don't know and and that's the thing you know the other thing is i think clemson is going to be better because in some ways got pretty lucky last year they won a lot more of those close games than they lost and a lot better is is only uh within the context of last year if they're better but everybody else is better too we're right back to where we started from so to me it is very much wide open if you're asking me to pick i'm still probably picking clemson i know that's the boring answer but i got a lot of time to come up with an explanation for a better answer down the road you headed to san fran i am not i uh i actually am back to doing some football stuff so i'm off on a on a football related uh road trip after i would love to be going to san fran because it is my favorite city in the country to visit you couldn't pay me enough to live there but it is my favorite city in the country to visit let's talk football sometime soon buddy thanks for doing this all right man good talk to you there you go it's david hale joining us from esbn on twitter one of the best twitter handles you'll find out there at curious about and he's cool you're on the drive with josh graham on wsjs sports prying iciger gonna join us in 15 minutes our resident hoops expert gonna make the show a lot smarter than it currently is one thing i want to discuss with him the acc it's the best college basketball conference right like the acc is to college basketball what the sec has become in football that would be my argument that is it to say in a given year another power conference can't have a better year than the acc just like the acc a couple years ago remember when notre dame joined the acc and the acc not the sec got two teams into the college football playoff well the acc had a better season than the sec but when it mattered most the cream rise to the top and alabama won the national title that year the acc in a historically down year five teams and it is down this is not me saying that the acc has not had a down year because i think to suggest that would be ignoring metrics that you should look at as a tool not the rule you shouldn't go to kim pom and say well here are the rankings so these are the best teams in america because kim pomeroy says so if you were to look at that today you would find that miami is apparently 20 spots worse than wake forest is even though miami beat wake forest twice and won at duke and is playing in the sweet 16 while wake forest is in the final eight of the quarterfinals you know they're in the quarterfinals of the nit all due respect to wake forest when you get beat twice by that team and that team is a better win than anyone you've got that team's better than you are especially if they're in the sweet 16 of the ncaa tournament so do not use kim pom or some of these other metrics as the rule use them as a tool the acc did not have as good of a year as the scc or the big 12 or the big 10 but they are the best basketball conference because even while they haven't had the greatest year they still are able to send three teams to the sweet 16 tied for more than anybody else or i guess it's uh nobody else has more than the acc sent to the big 12 or uh sent to the uh sweet 16 this season nobody else no other conference is capable of that when other conferences have bad years they probably don't even get five teams and those five teams are often not the teams that are going to the final four or even going to the sweet 16 that's what happens with other conferences have down here the acc is having a down year and they've sent three to the sweet 16 could have been four notre dame played a really close game with texas tag the acc is the best conference of college basketball just like i wouldn't have suggested the acc is a better football conference to the scc because it had one better year than they had a couple years ago i would not suggest in any context there was a conference better than the acc is right now in basketball because let's look at the recent history not all the way back to 1953 because i know people get annoyed when you do that just because you're the greatest historically doesn't mean you could be the greatest forever but let's just go recency here the last normal tournament that we've had last year they everybody had them in indianapolis it was weird games were getting canceled you know that was not a normal tournament last year 2020 obviously didn't have a tournament the last time we had a tournament the acc had three number one seeds and the national champ this is different than college football college football you have a final four to win a title you have to win two games beat a team in the in the court at semi-final and then win the national championship game the sec has won eight of the last 12 they're the best conference in college football in a more random 68 team tournament that is single elimination the acc has won six of the last 12 national championships that is remarkable acc schools have won six of the last 12 duke twice carolina twice louisville did so and virginia six of the last 12 the conversation should be over at that point nobody else should really be trying to debate this no the analytics made it look a lot worse than what it actually was and it was based on the acc big 10 challenge which by the way the big 10 won eight to six it's not like the acc got waxed and the acc was transitioning with a bunch of new players in the transfer portal and figuring things out and with a new coach at north carolina many of these teams were trying to figure out their rosters and when they did the acc performed a lot better so judging things in november doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense and having that carry so much weight when we get to february and march doesn't seem like it makes sense either i also want to mention that the mountain west which is a conference that a lot of people i think rated higher than it has been in the past folks said oh and four yeah folks said in january with a straight face the mountain west was better than the acc yeah i never said that that yeah over the last five years six years i don't know what the stretch is but their last 12 games they've had in the first round they are one in 11. there are commissioners out here saying the next step for us we need to win games well no bleep oh and four this year all those folks say one bid acc one bid acc where are the folks doing the hashtag let's make the mountain west a one bid league again where are those folks and fun fact three of those four mountain west teams were the higher seed in their game yeah of course they were now do how many times the acc was the lower seed you know with miami and north carolina and notre dame in the play-in game hmm best conference of college basketball i don't even think it's that particularly close i don't the panthers they've been busy as we've been talking about matt rule scott fitter ben mackinac they're all at kenny pickett's pro day earlier and there's rumors the panthers have expressed interest in baker mayfield which i'm in favor of in fact i've been in favor of a lot of things the panthers have done lately it's been a quiet but really good weekend for them and free agency let's just go down the list of the things they did they continued to bolster the o-line they added austin corbett the ram's guard from the super bowl team bradley bozeman a center that if matt paratus isn't able to go he's your guy from the ravens and a capable starter there he could also play at either of the guard spots your interior o-line's good speaking of things in the middle the middle of your defense is stronger you add a defensive tackle you add corey littleton into the line backing corps you add in the secondary xavier woods the former cowboy safety that's an upgrade over former wolf packer justin burris to sean watson went to the cleveland browns rather than atlanta and new orleans in your backyard in the nfc south matt ryan's no longer in the division so you might be worrying about marcus mariota instead of matt ryan yelling at you to get off my bleeping field but wait there's more dj moore extended him one of the 10 best wide receivers in the nfl that kind of went under the radar you know and i think it was a competitive rate that they got dj moore to agree to dante jackson they'll have speed on this in the secondary hopefully jc horns back and healthy you sign an elite punter in johnny hecker tiante freeman he could play you need someone to spell christian mccaffrey from time to time you get him at running back i thought they had a really good weekend i really do the panthers got better in the last week they were going to spend a lot of that salary capital to sean watson and since to sean's not coming to charlotte well you have money to blow on other things that can make your team better right now and it seems carolina is committed to doing that which acc team has the best shot at getting to the final four so we talked about the three that are there miami duke north carolina who is the best shot to get into the final four we'll ask our resident hoops nerd bg next
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