Bae & K

Welcome to a Friday drive where we've got a fun basketball weekend ahead of us, plus a historic soccer match that we'll get to momentarily. But when the Big Four goes head to head, it's hard not to start there, and that's what we'll have when the Tar Heels visit PNC Arena in Raleigh two o'clock tip tomorrow afternoon. And given NC State is fresh off home loss to Boston College, and they might only have eight scholarship players for the game, and they got boat raced by 20 in the first meeting a month ago, it's easy to think tomorrow might follow the same script. But if you think that, odds are you don't know NC State the way I know NC State.

The lull of the wolf goes a little something like this. When you most expect NC State to win, a la Boston College Wednesday night, they don't. But on the flip side of that, when you least expect something from the pack, kind of like tomorrow, that's when they're most dangerous. I still think Carolina wins the game, but I can almost guarantee you a win in Raleigh won't come as easy for them as it did a month ago. Unless you're Duke or a national title contender, which by the way, Carolina isn't, spoiler alert, winning on the road isn't easy. North Carolina, you might say, Josh, didn't you say earlier this week North Carolina has been a lot better on the road? Yes, they've won three straight road games.

But let's go through those road games real quickly. They won at Virginia Tech last week, won it by 8 or 9. They won at Clemson and at Louisville in overtime. At what point did you feel comfortable as a Tar Heel fan in any of those three games?

At what point, all of them decided by single digits, at what point did you feel comfortable that North Carolina was going to win? Are they the only one by two at Clemson? And again, won in overtime at Louisville, despite imploding at the end of regulation and needing to be bailed out by officials. It's hard to win on the road. Before that, they lost three straight road games, including one by 28 at Miami and one by 22 at Winston-Salem. All these games have been close. For what it's worth, looking at Ken Palm, if you want to go into the analytics, they project a high-scoring game tomorrow and for North Carolina to win it by five. It's going to be a tight game.

The last meeting, a hundred to eighty-eight or a hundred to eighty, I beg your pardon, that was outrageous. With Roy Williams being honored and Michael Jordan sitting court side, the Heels played out of their minds. They hit 15 threes in the game.

It's the first time they dropped a hundred since doing it the state two or three years ago. It's not realistic to expect that to happen away from home, to expect that to be replicated against the same team in the same year. But here's the thing you should feel good about, Tar Heel fans.

Hubert Davis knows this. This was Hubert just an hour or so ago talking about what it's going to take for them to win again against the pack. The reason why we were so good offensively from my standpoint was because we were good defensively. And it would be great to think that we can make 15 plus threes every game, but that's just not going to happen.

But the three things that we talk about, defense, rebounding, and taking care of the basketball, that's something that you can do every game and that's something that should be consistent for us to have success. Here's what I think could be a difference tomorrow. Thomas Allen, according to Kevin Keats earlier today, not going to play tomorrow on his senior night. He says there's a strong chance with Planar Fassia he's going to miss the remainder of the season, meaning NC State only has eight scholarship players available.

The rotation. The Tar Heels, they only played a few guys the other night. I'm surprised they rode their starters as much as they did in order to beat Louisville.

I don't think that's going to be the case tomorrow. I expect them to go a little bit deeper into the bench and for Dontress Stiles and Puff Johnson and perhaps even DeMarco Dunn to get some minutes and a guy who's been really quiet this year, Kerwin Walton. Boy, does my first team preseason all ACC pick for Kerwin look terrible. Dontress Stiles, that's a guy I could see an unexpected hero emerging for North Carolina.

That happens in this game. A lot of the guys on the roster, unlike what you see with Wake Forest and Duke generally, are from the state. And this game means a lot to anybody who grew up watching ACC basketball in North Carolina.

So we've seen it before in recent years. A guy that might not be a go to score for state or for Carolina ends up being the difference in a game. So keep an eye on a guy like Dontress Stiles because he's an Eastern North Carolina kid. I'm going to be spending some time out in his old stomping grounds in Greenville watching my pirates take on North Carolina on Sunday, weather permitting, going head to head with Traquavion Smith, who's another Eastern North Carolina guy.

That's an interesting one to follow. Dontress has been getting more minutes of late. I think it's going to be a tight one.

I've got North Carolina winning the game, and I think it's going to be close to what Kim Palm is projecting around a five or a six point score. Your thoughts welcome at WSJS Sports. I actually got this question.

Got this question for you today. David Glenn, he's going to be joining us in studio a little bit later on this hour. We'll play the movie game with him. North Carolina sports history is going to be made in our nation's capital tomorrow. Charlotte FC is going to kick things off in their inaugural MLS season at six o'clock and I'd love to know how you guys are feeling about it. How excited are you about it?

Did you even know that this was happening? 336-777-1600. Robert Walsh, the producer of this show, taking your calls at 777-1600. Even as somebody who grew up playing soccer and watching soccer and playing the video games the entire deal, I'm struggling. I'm really struggling to be all in on Charlotte FC's opener tomorrow, on this inaugural season starting. North Carolina sports history playing out right before our eyes.

And I think it has a lot to do with the timing of the opener. If you were to ask me a few weeks ago, hey, when does MLS soccer season start? I probably would have said, yeah, you know, I don't think they would start it during March Madness or in the month of February when things are still cold. I'd assume maybe it starts in May or early June and ends probably around October and November.

Well, I got the back end of that, right? But I would have had no idea that it starts this early. It's a long season. I didn't know how the MLS season was broken up. You can only have so many sports that you follow so closely and that just hasn't fit into my bandwidth, at least not yet, because I had no reason to really be engaged with it until now Charlotte has a team. It's kicking off at the most important time for this state's most popular sport. You've got North Carolina playing NC State tomorrow and you want me to be all in and Wake Forest playing Louisville and Winston-Salem and Duke playing at Syracuse and you want me to be all in on DC United hosting Charlotte FC?

That's hard for me. Get this, Robert. They have their home opener, the first ever MLS match that's going to be played in the state of North Carolina should be a seismic event. Everybody in the state should be covering it.

Everybody in the state should be following it. Wins the game eight days from now. The same day Coach K is coaching in his final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium against the Tar Heels.

What do you think is going to get more attention? That's tough. I can't blame Charlotte FC for that.

It's just tough. Kind of like trying to be all in on the Charlotte Hornets or Carolina Hurricanes in October right in the middle of the NFL season and the college football season. The marketing strategy.

It was puzzling to me. They had, I remember I was in Charlotte. They had a press conference to introduce their new coach. The same day, right down the street, ACC football was having its media day. If I'm given the option, ACC football media day, Charlotte FC soccer coach being introduced, I'm going to choose the ACC.

It's a strange marketing strategy. I never really liked the name just because I'm tired of our American sports trying to mimic the British. We don't need a Charlotte football club.

We've got the Carolina Panthers already in that stadium. How about you call them Charlotte Soccer Club because guess what? The people who are going to that game, 90% of them, they call it soccer.

It's what they call it. So I haven't been 100% on board on the marketing. I'm definitely going to give it a chance.

I grew up on the sport. 6pm kickoff time tomorrow and looking at some of the places it's going to be broadcast. I think it's going to be on XII at 6 o'clock. Small batch in Winston. They're going to be having, I think, a viewing watch party according to Charlotte FC's website. Bull City Cider Works in Lexington, also listed in that. Robert, Kernersville Brewing Company might be having something. If you guys know where things are going to be happening in Burlington and Greensboro, feel free to pass that along. But I'm struggling to really get 100% into it just because of what's coinciding with their season kicking off.

Is anybody else with me on this? On Twitter at WSJS Sports, DG is going to join us in a little less than 20 minutes. The founder of the ACC Sports Journal and accsports.com, I think, David Glenn, hanging out with us in studio, a North Carolina sports radio legend. How are you doing, buddy?

Doing great, man. Hard to believe that magazine and website's been around since the 1990s. Since the 90s.

It's been a good long while. And going back to your radio days, you used to say, we're halfway to Margaritaville. Where exactly does 330, this is a question we got earlier today, does 330 fit into the exact coordinates in relation to halfway or three quarters of the way to Margaritaville? Well, as you know, Josh, the most important thing to remember here is that it's five o'clock somewhere.

And I'm headed to the Buffett concert, probably on my might be in triple digits at this point in our state later this spring. So it'll be April, I think. Yeah. Over in the triangle area.

So there's no terminology necessary. You can just roughly say we are halfway to Margaritaville for all three of these hours. That's how Margaritaville rolls. Robert, if we ever did DG, you or me, some combination singing. It's five o'clock somewhere karaoke style. Do you want Alan Jackson's part of that song or do you want Jimmy Buffett at the end? Oh, you got to have Buffett. But I feel like we could split it up a little bit. What part do you want?

Yeah. See, I don't want to start because that's all the pressure. I would probably let you go out, start, do your peacock in a little bit. We'll do that.

And then, you know what? I'll take Alan Jackson and then DG can take Buffett because he is the bigger parent head of the two of us. Well, to be honest, Alan Jackson has the better voice and a little bit more country to his voice. Jimmy Buffett has somehow made a living as a singer and performer without the greatest voice of the world, which makes me a better fit for him because I don't have the best singing voice either.

And Robert has country twang, so I listen to a Robert Walsh, David Glenn duet of It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Maybe next time. I want to introduce you to a Friday staple that we have here. Hey, it's a free-for-all, Josh.

Yes, free-for-all. There are a lot of things. This is where I'm steering the ship.

There are a lot of things that are negative in the news, things that could bum you out. On Friday, we're just trying to feel good. So in movies is a place that I go to feel good. So every Friday or most Fridays, we play the movie game as a way to do this. Robert will explain the rules to you. Let's go ahead and play the game.

And DJ is going in blind here. So Robert, you got to explain the rules pretty detailed here. I got you.

All right. So, DJ and all the audience, if you guys haven't got to hear the movie game before, this is the Rotten Tomatoes movie game where I come up with a theme and you and Josh are going to try to guess the audience score for a Rotten Tomatoes movie. Now, this is kind of like golf. You're trying to keep your score as low as possible. So you want to get as close to the score as you can. If you actually hit the score on the nose, it's going to minus five points from your total score. And so this is zero to one hundred. A hundred being good, zero being God awful. And if you get it on the nose, it's minus five.

You add those scores together. And if we're within ten of each other, minus five being good. Fantastic.

That's right. And if we're within ten going after three movies, then we'll have a golden movie to decide. I should have just let Josh do this. I think I'm in trouble, but go ahead. Are you not a big movie guy? I am a big movie guy.

But the craziest, busiest stretch of my life, Josh, may have even been a little bit before I knew you. I was like in a tunnel. I missed the best songs, the best performers, the best movies.

I just had a lot cooking, maybe too many things on my plate for a stretch there where I just felt like I missed out on pop culture and everything else. You'd be surprised. This might be like March Madness.

People always come in. They never played before and they blow people out of the water. There's generally a theme, as Robert said. What is the theme this week? Since we got Mardi Gras coming up this weekend, I thought we could go with a Mardi Gras theme. So these are movies that pertain to New Orleans or Mardi Gras. And we'll start off with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which takes place in New Orleans. This is Brad Pitt.

I've never seen this movie. 2008, Brad Pitt. Basically, if you don't know the... Was this Cate Blanchett as well? I'm actually not so sure of her name. I think it is Cate Blanchett.

I remember seeing the posters when I was in L.A. when it came out. And this is like you... This guy is just getting younger. He doesn't age. Instead, he gets younger. He ages in reverse. So he was born a very old baby and he will die a very young baby. So he's kind of reverting from being like a hundred year old man at the beginning of his life to being zero years old at the end of his life. Have you heard of this movie?

Oh yeah, for sure. See, Benjamin Button is kind of a famous story from the Wayback Machine. So that was not new.

That concept was not new with the movie. But the question is, how good was it? So we have to have the scores written down so we don't base our scores off of each other. This is where it helps you to know what a typical Rotten Tomatoes score is. I have a sense, but I wouldn't know what an average score is. Average would probably be between 60 and 70.

That's what I was thinking. Right, right. Really good is 80 plus. If it's 90 plus, then the audience would have really loved it. And that's when you have to start distinguishing between what is the audience love versus critics, like action book movies and all those things.

Audience probably will score higher than critics do. So I got something written down, do you have something written down? I do have a number written down. I got 72% because I haven't seen it, so I just don't know. I went 69. Nice. It could be a nice score.

Kind of like on The Price is Right, they do 999 dollars a lot. I'm just trying to... You and I are very similar here. We got a little hedge going on there. Curious Case of Benjamin Button comes in at a round 80. OK. Pretty close score.

Within three right now of each other. Coming in the second movie, it is a Disney, I guess, recent classic, pretty big with the younger kids, Princess and the Frog. One of my favorites. I didn't see this, but... DG, when did this come out? This came out in 2009.

See, you got kids that probably 12 or 13 years ago were all in on Princess and the Frog, DG. I believe my daughter Avery would have been five or six in that roundabout. We got a ringer.

We got a ringer in here. I was also in a tunnel in that stretch. I was coaching soccer teams. I was a father of two.

I think I owned a website and a magazine and ran a radio show. It was chaotic. Yes, it was chaotic. Again, I know it's popular, but I don't know how kids movies generally do with these. This is kind of like a waterboy meets The Muppets. So like very like the funny Cajun humor meets like the whimsical childlike mind of a Jim Henson and then throw it in the cartoon.

That's kind of what this movie is. OK, I got a score too. All right. I'm going with 67 slightly lower. I'm going to go 77 on the theory that people don't hate on kids movies as often. That's a really good theory.

It's not a bad theory to have because Princess and the Frog comes in at 77. Whoa, he got it. He got it on the nose. Look out. How?

I haven't gotten one on the nose in years. This is my maiden voyage. That's what I'm saying, man.

I told you this is what happens. But but still I wasn't that far off. So how how much is DG ahead of me going into the potentially last movie?

The amount is not insurmountable. D.J. or D.J.

D.J. is in the lead with six points currently. And Josh is trailing at 18. So you are 12 behind. If you can make up three points, you will go to a final gold.

You might have one of the best scores that has ever been done in this case. Recently, Darren had a what was it? A one point. Yeah, he had a one. Darren had a one.

I don't know if that'll ever be beaten, but we can sure try. Yeah. Two.

Two on the nose. This is the first movie I thought of when I thought about New Orleans. It's classic. It's set there.

You can even see it in the name. It is not the nineteen ninety five version. It is not the eighty four version with Treat Williams is the nineteen fifty one version Streetcar Named Desire. Streetcar Named Desire, an old school classic. When I think New Orleans movies, I think about Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd. You know that movie with Tommy Lee Jones chasing after nothing wrong with an Ashley Judd reference on a Friday afternoon. That's correct. Streetcar Named Desire.

Have you seen this, D.J., or was this also I know it wasn't in your tunnel, but where you may be blocked down before it was before he was born. Oddly enough, I took in college like one of my only electives was the history of film. Oh, I bet that was a fun class. And we didn't watch every film, but, you know, really old school stuff, obviously. And we I remember Streetcar Named Desire being mentioned in that class, but we did not watch it. OK, that's usually a good sign. You're right.

It's probably going to be pretty high up. OK. Do you got something written down? I do. I got eighty one percent written down. I wrote down eighty. I think that means D.J. just won unless I got it on the nose.

It takes all the fun out of it, doesn't it? Streetcar Named Desire comes in at 90. Oh, yeah. OK, it's famous. I should have known that. That means you get a chance. You just won by one point. That means you have 30 seconds moment of zen style to tell us what you got going on with your class at UNCW. Oh, wow. We have my lectures mixed in with probably the best lineup of sports media guests in any college class in America.

And I'm not exaggerating. Ian Eagle is one of the best play by play people in the entire country. He was our guest this week. Didn't you have Roy Williams join your class? Roy Williams of UNC joined Heather O'Reilly, who has won national titles at UNC, NWS titles, Olympic gold, World Cups. She's our guest this coming Monday. We have broadcasters, writers, occasional coaches, athletes.

It's just it's been phenomenal. Again, this is my third semester doing it at UNC Wilmington. Other schools have approached me about doing it at their universities. I don't think I'm going to do that, but I absolutely love having teaching as a small part of my universe.

Not sure I would want to do it full time, but I love it on a single class per semester basis. Congratulations on the movie game win and your inaugural playing of it. You did pretty well with it. Have you ever been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras? I have, and my advice quickly is to choose to go to New Orleans at another time. They hose down the street, a bourbon street every night. I understand why it's a bucket list item, and that's why I did it as a relatively young man. But I'm trying to remember the name of the event that's in the spring in New Orleans every year.

That's a better time to go. It's not Mardi Gras itself, which again, if you're ready for that chaos, it's fun. It's wild. It's unique.

But it's even like borderline dangerous at times. Did I tell you that I accidentally went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras? I think I remember this. Yeah, I was traveling with East Carolina and doing play by play. Coach gets on the bus and says, we're here for a business trip. We're not going to Bourbon Street. We're not doing that entire deal. And they were down 10 with about five minutes left to go and close the game on a 14 to 1 run to win it. Coach gets back on the bus. Remember what I said before?

I was lying. We're going to hit Bourbon Street. So then we go to Bourbon Street. There are a lot of people there.

Like a lot of lot. And it's like a Saturday night. And I'm the dumb idiot that asks somebody, is there normally this many people here?

And they go, it's the first night of Mardi Gras, dummy. That's pretty high up there on the dumb questions list. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize that.

You're a pro. You ask great questions, Josh. That's part of what makes your show special. Yeah. That was early in your career.

It was an unusual question. We'll call it that, as Roy would say. I hate promising and not delivering. And I promised that we had a Hayes-Permar parody song that we didn't get to because we got so caught up talking about ACC basketball with David Glenn in studio with us. So before we get to Duke and Syracuse and some of the problems Paulo Bancaro might be having right now and Will Pelagic, Charlotte FC radio play by play man who's going to join us in less than 15 minutes. Let's get to that song in honor of the Carolina Hurricanes being one of the best teams in hockey right now. Like I said, Nashville is a phenomenal team, but we're also fighting the refs. That's plain and simple. You can't tell me two games in a row, we get seven and eight penalties and they get three.

And when the game's this even, that's not right. How the hell is he not in the Hall of Fame? They screw rod, rod, rod, they screw rod, rod. But Bernie friggin' Fenderko is now, that's a shame. They screw rod, rod, rod, they screw rod, rod. Not in the Hall of Fame, that's a cryin' shame. But he's still got eight pack abs and they screw rod, rod, rod, they screw rod, rod.

They screw rod. That's fantastic. It's funny, that is one of my favorite people, Hayes Permar, who was the producer of the David Glenn show for five years and remains a very important part of my life and a good friend and occasional golf partner among other things. Singing about one of my favorite people in the coaching and athlete world, Rod Brind'Amour and I have been friends for a long time. He's just admirable in more ways than I can count. So that one, when I saw it earlier today, resonated particularly well with me.

Robert, what did you enjoy about it? I could have done for maybe one or two more mentions of Rod's bod, if we're being honest. You don't think barrel-chested eight-pack abs did enough for you? No, he didn't even mention his arms and I'm sure his legs are magnificent.

Yeah, it's a good point that you bring up there. Permar is one of the best out there. He is. Okay, Paulo Monquero, too soon to be concerned about him? Because my thinking is, we brought up the stat the other day with Randolph Childress in here. His first seven games in the ACC, he averaged 20 points per game. The last seven games, including a season-low eight points at Virginia the other night, he's averaged 13 points. Not what you expect from a guy who's supposed to be a top five pick, maybe even a top two pick, and supposed to be in the player of the year mix, which I think is a done deal.

I think Alondis Williams, that's his award. That race is over. But putting that piece aside for now, I still think it's too soon to be concerned, just as long as he breaks out of whatever we're calling this, a slump or otherwise, tomorrow. Because Virginia was two of those games, and we know how good the Hoos are.

Syracuse does not have Jesse Edwards, who even when he was in the game, Paulo Monquero scored 15 points again at Cameron Indoor Stadium last month. If he's not able to score while Rodney Howard, Nate Licheski, Paul Atkinson, and others were able to do so in the last week, then I might start be having some concerns. Right now I'm not that concerned, but if Paulo doesn't show up tomorrow, there might be some real problems here, because Duke needs him to be the guy in order to be a national title contender. I'd say I'd be a little concerned if I was Mike Krzyzewski for these reasons, and he knows this better than we do. To win a national championship, which is the goal as they send the GOAT on to retirement, you have to have five or more guys who absolutely know and understand their roles and have built confidence in those roles along the way. And that single win at UVA, for example, I thought involved both steps forward for Duke and steps backward. The steps backward where their two best players were not very good, and Paulo Monquero continued that streak of being a lesser version of himself. Wendell Moore Jr. was mostly invisible in Charlottesville, Virginia. They combined for 12 points at that game.

Kihei Clark had that in 10 minutes. Those are red flags as the calendar is getting ready to turn to March. Now this is, of course, they're still the best team in the ACC by a significant amount, right? The backdrop of the conversation is not can they dominate the ACC, they're going to finish first.

Which hasn't happened in a dozen years. They're going to be a high seed, but the bigger conversation is how do they compare to the Gonzagas and Kansases and and, you know, Baylor's and other prominent teams nationally? And to be able to go far or threaten or win another title, you've got to have a rock solid starting five. The good news for Duke is Jeremy Roach is a lot closer to being the guy they need him to be. He was nothing like that in November and December, or rarely that way. Little by little, obviously, AJ Griffin has gone from nursing and injury early in his freshman year to being one of the best three-point shooters in the entire country and a probable first round NBA draft pick.

So those are two pieces that have come along beautifully. Mark Williams is still doing his thing in the post. When Delmore Jr. and Paolo Bencaro have to rediscover the better versions of themselves, Duke could win anything that the ACC has to offer even without them being at their best.

Duke cannot make a Final Four with the version of Jones or Moore and Bencaro that we've seen lately. I got a couple of minutes. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about your friend that's really important to accsports.com. Brick Odinger, one of the greatest recruiting writers there is, really important in the start of the site, really important to you. You wrote a column about him. I strongly encourage people to read that at accsports.com and chapelborough.com.

Real quick, I got about a couple of minutes here. What can you tell us? Well, for those who don't know Brick Odinger's name, he has been the lead writer on recruiting coverage in the sport of basketball not only for the entirety of the existence of the ACC Sports Journal and accsports.com website, but before that for others freelancing for newspapers in Raleigh and Greensboro and Charlotte, writing for a newsletter back in the day called the Poop Sheet Creative Name. So he truly for 49 years, he was one of the trailblazers for what used to be this tiny niche industry where I remember back in the day people were curious about who's Duke recruiting, who's Carolina recruiting, who's state recruiting, which guys are taking visits, who from the McDonald's All-American team is going to visit Chapel Hill or Raleigh or Wake Forest or whatever. Brick was so good at his job that McDonald's people asked him to be a part of their selection committee.

In other words, he saw so much high school basketball for so many years and was so good at his job that he became I think for two or more decades one of the key people on the McDonald's All-American game selection committee. His prose was brilliant. I can say that because I edited his stuff personally for 20 plus years. He's also one of the kindest people that I know and this industry thankfully has a lot of people like that. He stands out even among those other very kind people and I think my column at accsports.com included the phrases, if you celebrate excellence, just somebody who's great at what they do but you also celebrate kindness, just somebody who sets a great example for the right way to treat other people, you should celebrate Brick Edinger. Whether you read his stuff for some part of the last 49 years and maybe even only glanced at his byline or couldn't pronounce his last name, that's okay. I put his personal email address in my column.

What's that? It is B, the B in his first name, Edinger is O-E-T-T-I-N-G-E-R, his last name, b.edinger.twc.com which would be the old time Warner Cable. I just think he never changed his address.

You can also find that online if you can't remember it. He and his wife encouraged me to put that in there because for those who don't know, his illness has accelerated and he's bedridden and under hospice care and we just don't know frankly how much longer we're going to have him. So don't delay. If you want to write him an appreciative email, now's the time to do it. Wanted to make sure to get that out there. Thank you for that Josh. D.G., great work on that and I hope we can do this again sometime soon. Great to see you bud. You know my number. Happy to return anytime. That's David Glenn coming up. The radio voice of Charlotte FC, Will Pelagic will join us to talk about the buzz surrounding MLS soccer in the Queen City which kicks off its inaugural city or its inaugural season tomorrow afternoon.

Keep it here on The Drive. Anyone not on medication? No.

Nope. The Drive with Josh Grab on WSJS Sports. How exciting is this? Tomorrow is going to be the inaugural MLS soccer match for Charlotte FC and we're being joined now by the radio play-by-play man of Charlotte FC, Will Pelagic, joins us now. We'll get into some Carolina Panthers stuff in a little bit but that's going to be put by the wayside when you talk about North Carolina sports history being made tomorrow at 6 p.m. What's the most quantifiable way, Will, you can describe the buzz surrounding Charlotte FC's inaugural game tomorrow?

I think you look no further than last night. We had a chance to take in the supporter section rehearsal for the game. They got about 3,500 guys and gals who will march from McNich Street and Moorhead all the way to Bank of America Stadium.

It's about, I would say, a half mile march for them across the road to basically have a huge gathering and procession to get ready for each match but they were practicing for the opening match and I took a couple videos of it on on Twitter last night and I have to say it's hard not to watch those and not get a little goose bump on your skin and have your skin kind of crawl a little bit. The excitement's here for this club. I'm really excited to get it going.

I feel like there's a lot of anxious energy from people because they're just wanting to see how it looks but I'm real real excited to get this the lid lifted on this first one. Yeah and there are a lot of places that are going to have viewing parties tomorrow at six o'clock when Charlotte FC faces DC United including right down the street from our studios at Kernersville Brewing Company. Will Pelagic, voice of Charlotte FC joining us here.

Follow him on Twitter at Willy P style. You mentioned the supporters section. Does the Channing section that we're going to see at Bank of America Stadium next week have a name yet? Any nicknames we're considering? There isn't a full nickname for the entire section wide. I think that's something that's still being workshopped.

You know a lot of these things rather than happening via any initiative they kind of happen organically. I almost kind of feel like you know the Queen's Court could be something I know the Queens firm is one of the one of the groups that's actually recognized as one of the ones that's here on the one of the less one of the groups with less amount of people than the the top five ones but I almost kind of like something like the Queen's Court or something having to do with the crown imagery something of that nature I feel like could be a way to identify them as a whole. Queen's Court, Queen's Gambit, like there's a lot of things that you can go with here. I like where your head's at. How many Carolina-themed chants have you heard already? Do you know any of them by heart yet is a better question maybe. The the one that that continues to stick with me is the we are Charlotte the mighty black and blue we are from the Carolinas Sangre Negra y Azul and that is in Spanish we believe black and blue so yeah that's the one that that's the one that and and again it's one of the ones that I featured on my on my Twitter last night that's the real big one that I feel like is really catchy I'll have people you know you'll hear that once you'll hear it for the rest of the day you'll hear it in your sleep you'll wake up wanting to sing it they've got about eight to fourteen different ones that they troll out there a lot of them in English a lot of them English and Spanish combos but but they some of them are kind of derivatives of other chants from other teams which is kind of the way things work here in soccer you you take some from other people and put your own verbiage on it but it's a lot of original work too as well and including that one that I just mentioned still goosebumps a little bit will pelagix joining us voice of charlotte fc ahead of their inaugural match tomorrow what kind of crowd do you expect for the home opener against la gal the la galaxy it should be close to full here josh I know that the club said late last week that they basically ran out of the upper deck seats which were the cheap ones being sold at 15 25 35 bucks a pop all those are gone and all that's left is basically the unsold lower bowl seats that are not a part of the folks who bought season tickets and they're at less than 10 000 of those available at last check I do feel like we're going to get a full house in here and break the record that's about 73 000 and change that is currently held by atlanta united the estimate here was to get 74 in the building I have no doubt they'll try and make that happen and again they're only going to open the upper bowl for the first game the the upper bowl will be closed for every succeeding game after that they want to be able to try and contain that atmosphere to about 31 000 for each of the games outside of the opener they might open it up again if they make the postseason but it'll be a real raucous atmosphere it'll feel like honestly a playoff american football game from the standpoint of inside the stadium but I feel like the outside the stadium atmosphere will be something that folks really seep into for the first time because I feel like mint street moorhead street right here right around the the stadium is going to have a real different feel to it they had a friendly here over the summer between mexico and ecuador and it was it was basically a street party and you saw people selling food all over the place it was it was not like a panther home game I can say that right now it was it was very much a unique atmosphere and I feel like folks who haven't seen a soccer atmosphere for the first time when they see it next weekend will be incredibly floored by it eight days away from that home opener against la the la galaxy and you said 73 000 is that an mls record yes it'd be the mls record wow okay we'll see if they can meet that mark that stadium holds a little bit over 75 000 so that'd be really neat if they're able to do that getting to the team that also occupies that stadium I'll just make this as general as possible rather than hammering deep into the nitty-gritty on ian thomas getting an extension or any of that if you had to guess today will pelagic who's playing quarterback the opener in september man that is a that's a deep one hit me with one I will say this I think the odds on darnold being the starter at quarterback are probably greater than a lot of fans would want to admit or recognize just because of that 18.8 million that's attached to his name going into the season I find it very hard that they're going to find somebody who takes that money off off their hands I do feel like there's a better than even chance that they do go for one of these either free agent or trade options jimmy garoppolo is a name that's been floundered about I know that they have called on kirk cousins I don't think that the sean watson thing is happening and if it is I don't think he'll be starting on opening day because he'll probably be subjected to a suspension by the league and even so beyond that the other options are a potential rookie I don't know if any of the rookies in the nfl draft is capable of starting week one for anything other than the fact that there's an enormous amount of pressure on this coaching staff to win right away so if I'm if I'm handicapping it on this date right now the 25th of february I still say it's darnold and I say that with the understanding that we are still a long way away from september it's the radio voice of charlotte fc will pelagic the eve of the inaugural game joining us here on wsjs sports willie p we'll have to do this again sometime thanks for the time have fun tomorrow always love talking to you josh thank you there he goes will pelagic joining us here on wsjs sports always good to catch up with him too robert do you like his betting odds favorite that sam darnold is going is going to start game one for the carolina panthers that's a solid bet I think that's smart uh you def because there's not a lot of there's a lot of unknown floating around right like it could be somebody off the street it could be a rookie sam seems like the the safe bet cousins doesn't make a lot of sense I get that if he stays you're looking at a 48 million dollar cap hit I saw somewhere that if he gets traded before june the first then it's only 32 million yeah only only yeah only 32 I guess when compared to what it would have been no that's matt ryan that's getting 48 million this year the highest cap hit of all time oh yeah cousins is around 42 43 if he remains in minnesota I don't know if yeah I don't want kurt cousins I don't want that and I don't know if it's unpopular I don't want jimmy garoppolo either I'd rather run it back with darnold than have one of those two that feels like an unpopular opinion but I feel like I'd rather have darnold rather than give up something to get one of those two guys I would agree with that because I mean like you said anywhere else you're gonna either have to give up a high pick or take on another cap hit in addition to sam darnold and it's not very likely you're gonna be able to move them so you're probably gonna have to tote both of those guys both of those guys into the season if not cutting sam and I don't know what the cap ramifications of that is it doesn't seem like a very smart thing to do so I mean I would agree with you keeping sam and trying to fix other parts of the team with those assets would be my best bet robert you and I we've been doing radio together for years and you're essential you've been my radio wife for a very long time and in marriages or at least so I've been told you got to admit when you're wrong sometime or admit that maybe your partner says something that you disagree with it first but the more you think about it perhaps it isn't as bad as you thought oh I hope this is about tom brady no no no this is about carson wince you said that would be that would be a really good relatively cheap option a quarterback you could bring it and I immediately pushed off of it until I actually dug into the numbers 27 touchdowns seven interceptions that's what I'm talking about right like 30 quarterbacks threw more picks than carson wince last year and if you would have told me that yesterday hey 30 quarterbacks I don't know why you would have brought that up randomly but 30 quarterbacks threw more picks than carson wince did I would have been really surprised by that so I think I'm coming around I you I don't know why you dislike the option of bringing in Gardner Minshew for next to free just to have some competition I would still be in favor of that but versus Jimmy Garoppolo and potentially going after kirk cousins I think carson wince is a pretty good option if you're getting 27 and seven I would agree with that we also have to look at the fact that he had a pretty good offensive line there so he wasn't being under pressure as much he's not going to throw those ill-advised throws but in comparison to Gardner Minshew I was only saying at the talent that you're going to get for what you're going to give up the eagles traded a sixth round pick to acquire Gardner Minshew last year to back up Jaylen Hertz so I would imagine that you would have to give a price richer than that to acquire his talents I was imagining probably a fourth round pick it may be a fifth round pick if you want to sling some other late round picks in there with it but I would imagine comparably you would be able to get carson wince for around the same price because all indications are Indianapolis is ready to move on look at us we're just in agreement who would have thought you and I on the same page let's get things back to college basketball real quickly next week it's the ACC women's basketball tournament game start Wednesday Wednesday less than a week that's like five days away if I'm doing the math correct in my head one o'clock Wednesday March the 2nd be there we told you about the double double special that's two tickets two hot dogs two sodas and if you're interested in VIP passes club seats to all 10 games VIP parking too that's available as well individual tickets start at ten dollars general admission around seven bucks masks they're optional the 45th annual ACC women's basketball tournament the longest running women's tournament in all of college basketball next week at the Greensboro Coliseum ton of ranked teams that should be a lot of fun you're on the drive with josh graham because the ride just gets wilder on wsjs sports we got a point spread for north carolina nc state tomorrow the tar heel are favored by just four points at pnc arena that's been released in the last hour the tar heels a slight favorite in the game we got weekly positivity to do in a bit big hour in store for you I slipped up earlier trying to talk about jim baeheim and coach k's relationship and created the name of a new show that goes like this bae and coach k bae and coach k that's the name of this show for now on but we actually got a taste of what it might sound like if jim baeheim and coach k were on the radio together in a show we have now titled bae and coach k because last night ahead of their matchup tomorrow at the carrier dome jim baeheim had his call-in show and there was a surprise caller on the line that somehow infiltrated the skull the call screener and got on air all right let's go back to the phone and welcome mike from durham to the program longtime listener occasional caller hello mike from durham yeah i've been i've been a fan of coach baeheim for almost five decades i'm gonna have a chance to watch the syracuse duke game this weekend i was wondering if there was an opportunity uh to beat him and maybe get an autograph and picture i'm gonna meet you but i'm not gonna give you an autograph for a picture because i'd have to charge you my rate you know i don't know if you can afford that well you're nil is probably the biggest of any college coach i'm hot i'm hot on cameo i'm very hot he is very hot robert on cameo jim baeheim i love that brief pause he threw in there i am hot on cameo if you're wondering what that rate is on cameo it is 200 for a personal message it is 1400 for a business something that sounds like like for him to come and call and talk to your business conference or if you had a group meeting team meeting yeah that sounds like a scam 200 what can we get jim baeheim to do i'm willing to do what can we get jim baeheim to do i'm willing to shell out 200 see jim baeheim means a lot to a lot of people here in the triad particularly in greensboro see i'd like to think see we get tweets from the city of greensboro right now whoever's running that account i assume you're in the building you're in the building at the chamber of commerce in greensboro this is an opportunity this is a calling for you here this is jim baeheim just inviting you he's hot on cameo hit him up and get him to pub up the greensboro coliseum and to pub up all the other things you want talked about in your city how about get jim baeheim to voice these things i'd be all for that for the reasonable rate of 200 and see for 200 i feel like we could kind of give him instructions too so like 100 if i if i could put on my director's hat what i'm envisioning is kind of baeheim looking like a little aloof kind of like daydreaming and then he starts to pick his nose and we can kind of edit the video after it gets back but he picks his nose he pulls it out and looks at it and then he brings it to the camera until the finger covers up and then we splice that with him saying great things about greensboro we send it to the greensboro coliseum or greensboro chamber of commerce and then they could have him saying like greensboro my favorite place to eat and they slide in b-roll of all the locations but i think the nose pick is crucial and then on his finger we have like a little picture of greensboro as it gets closer and then it just takes over the whole picture greensboro i know a thing or two about places that have great value and greensboro's one of them i love towns and i know how to pick them and here's my pick greensboro i wonder how much it would be for you to pick his nose like if if it was like okay i want you i don't really care about you saying anything are you sending me a video but what would it be for us to take a picture of me putting my finger in your nose and you putting your finger in my nose kind of like they do with the wine glasses like you want his finger in your finger in your nose i mean because we're picking it they say you can't pick your friends or you can't pick your friend's nose or whatever it would just be i've never heard that the no the caption is you can pick your friends and you can pick this but you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friend's nose that would be the instagram caption gotcha that that would go viral i think there's more from coach k's visit surprise visit on jim bayheim's radio show well there's a lot of pressure on you because this will be your mickey your great wife's first trip to the car i am bringing mickey and uh for her to travel in the snow it's you must be very special either that or juliet it's definitely not me it's not me and it's not you you know that yeah and debbie's coming with my two two of my granddaughter for two i don't know a lot of people realize that our grandchildren your kids kind of grew up together i know there's the 11 years of usa basketball which is kind of cool every lunch room every game room they were in there and with the bronze kids the wayne wade's kids and york and my kids they were they had a great time they had more fun than we did it's been over a decade together with usa basketball so i'm sure there are going to be some gifts exchanged tomorrow but yeah i think i'd listen to this radio show robert he was breaking some news there coach k that mickey sichesky gonna make her first trip to the carrier dome so i checked the weather it's going to be a balmy 20 degrees with a foot of snow in syracuse so welcome mickey and mickey sichesky and debbie savarino welcome to syracuse i love that show and what is the show called one more time real quickly this is increasing debate in to armando levels like bay and coach k oh i'm all about running something into the ground if we're not going to use it again because this radio show needs to happen there's a chance that at 77 bayheim might decide to retire and say hey coach coach k that's not what i thought you were gonna get you know it's 77 he might not have long we got to get to miles out of this show while we can like no i'm saying he might retire and say coach k i i have a great idea we need to start a radio show and we need to call it bay and coach k and maybe coach k when he retires i love the idea of him just calling radio shows k retires and then all of a sudden mike from durham is blowing up our live line hey i'd like to talk about josh's take is that your coach k yeah uh that was i wouldn't let him hear that i hope you're in a press conference one day and like chris lee or whoever gets to sitting there with you is like hey josh do your coach k impression for him i sound like i would turn incredibly red kind of like when b-dot brings up drugs on the show and i would get scared that's what would happen that's not good i want to talk about things that are good we call it weekly positivity tell us something good 336-777-1600 it's friday there's a lot of bad in the news a lot of things bad going on just call us to tell us something good it might be sports related it might not be 7 7 7 1 600 it's one of our favorite segments of the week it's weekly positivity oh yeah yeah you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain hey robert what's up dude the new batman movie comes out in a week and that's good robert pattinson was at the premiere they had last night dressed in really baggy clothes somebody's from the 2003 mba draft yeah we saw the same tweet yeah is baggy coming back i think for him because he kind of doubles as like a model it might be coming back but i would i would lean for the casual looking person and maybe even unfortunate like you and i to probably stay away from baggy bowser writes in we all know now why josh says k instead of actually saying his last name because i'd say kheim or it's just not easy to say sichesky i don't know what's more difficult to say there but that's not good this is weekly positivity how about the greenville america this weekend to watch the pirates who are getting beat five to nothing by north carolina right now play in greenville weather permitting and that's good and i got nc state north carolina tomorrow and i'm gonna head down to greenville saturday night and i'm gonna do what you do in greenville america on saturday nights goes at the greenway that's exactly right get a walk in nice little brisk walk go check out the library tell me something good with you uh one of my favorite non-holiday weekends i love mardi gras uh mostly because my dad has like i don't know yeah some cajun enemy kind of pretends like he does but he always throws this incredible party on saturday where we get crazy and he's like oh my god i'm like he does but he always throws this incredible party on saturday where we get crawfish and we get buddhi and we get a king's cake and we get all kind of stuff he makes hurricanes the hurricanes are exceptional go canes i cannot wait for uh for some hurricanes yeah you me and robert are aligned we love hurricanes we do all about the canes oh it's ah it's so loud no keep it down this is weekly positivity keep it down weekly whisper tivity you try whispering for more than five minutes and you realize it's not as easy as you think it is but it is friday which means the weekends here there you go and that's good and that's been a brief edition of weekly positivity