Wake Forest: 2021 NCAA tournament team

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons three to seven on Sports Hub Triad.

We are jam-packed today. Two great guests, Tarheel great Joel Berry and DAP State coach Sean Clark who will join us in 30 minutes. But we need to talk about Cam Newton. I keep hearing, boy the Panthers screwed him if not for the Panthers he'd be on a roster right now.

I completely disagree. Whenever you, a quarterback, an accountant, a radio host or whoever enters the job market it's all about who you know and who is willing to vouch for you. Quite simply nobody is in Cam's corner right now and that is the primary reason he remains unsigned. Familiarity, it's played a role in almost every single quarterback situation that's been addressed over the last two weeks. Ryan Tannehill re-signed with the Tennessee Titans choosing familiarity over the unknowns of free agency. Nick Foles, the Eagles traded a comp or excuse me the Bears traded the comp fourth round pick in order to bring him in from Jacksonville.

Why do you think they did that? Pretty much all the offensive coaches including head coach Matt Nagy have experience working with Foles dating back to their days in Philadelphia and Nick Foles being there in his first stint. They knew what they were getting in Foles.

They could vouch for him. Tyrod Taylor who the Chargers said a week and a half ago after losing out on the Brady sweepstakes, hey we're just gonna move forward. The Chargers said we're gonna move forward with Tyrod as our guy. Probably gonna draft the quarterback at number six but Tyrod's gonna be our guy.

Anthony Lin's the head coach of this team. Do you know where he was before becoming the head coach of the Chargers? He was the offensive coordinator and assistant head coach for Tyrod Taylor's Buffalo Bills. Tyrod took the Bills to the playoffs. Tyrod went to a Pro Bowl the same year Cam Newton was the MVP of the league.

Tyrod made it to a Pro Bowl in 2015. Look at the Carolina Panthers decisions they've made. Look at all the acquisitions and free agency. Even before that acquiring Russell Okun.

They traded away Trey Turner who apparently was looking for a contract extension. They bring in Russell Okun from the Chargers the offensive line coach he worked with there. Pat Meyer is the new Panthers O line coach. Teddy Bridgewater why do you think he took just a three-year contract and around 20 million dollars a year to be with the Panthers? He knew Joe Brady. Joe Brady was very well-liked when he was with the Saints before he became the passing game coordinator at LSU and now is the Panthers OC. PJ Walker, Tahir Whitehead, Robbie Anderson, all Panthers signees, all Temple guys who know Matt Rule. There were two people who seemed to be closest to Cam's block who we all thought were in Cam's corner.

Ron Rivera the head coach of the Redskins, Scott Turner who was the quarterbacks coach last year in Charlotte now is the OC in DC. Those two collectively thought it was a better decision for the Redskins to bring in Kyle Allen than Cam. Now listen to what I'm telling you just because I said they chose Kyle Allen over Cam doesn't mean Allen's a better quarterback than Cam is.

It's just a better value for where they're at. An organization that's paying more than 32 million dollars this year to Alex Smith who's trying to come back from injury, drafted a quarterback in the first round last year and Dwayne Haskins you're trying to bring him along. It's already a jam-packed quarterback room bringing Cam would just muddy everything. Also they don't really have the salary cap space to do that. Allen started games, he understands what Rivera is trying to do, how he operates and he's getting paid close to half a million dollars this year. That's a much better value than what you would have to pay for Cam even if it's between five to ten million dollars. But when they trade away a fifth-round draft pick for Allen and make no move on Cam, I could see that spooking a lot of teams that might have considered signing Cam, maybe even the Chargers.

Hold a minute, Rivera and Turner they're not gonna bring him in to DC when they could have gotten him for a fifth-round draft pick? Maybe there's something here that I don't know about. Familiarity is such an important thing in the business world. Like I haven't told this story on air but a big part of the reason I'm talking to you right now at this job is just connections, who you know. I didn't know the general manager at the time when he brought me in but when there became an opening he reached out to three or four broadcasters in this state and all of them said, hey have you talked to this Josh Graham guy who does radio in Eastern North Carolina?

That was my in and here I am. It's about who you know, who can vouch for you, and the people on Cam's corner, there isn't anybody right now. But that doesn't mean somebody isn't gonna take a chance. Since familiarity is a strong factor I can't rule out the Denver Broncos or the Buffalo Bills. Denver's quarterback coach is Mike Shula who was the OC on that 15 Panthers team. Even though they have a young quarterback right now that they like in Drew Locke, they might take a shot having a veteran come in, see what happens there. They had Joe Flacco there last year.

Drew Locke he still has some things to prove. Then you got the Buffalo Bills. Can't really rule out the Bills because Brandon Bean knows Cam as the general manager who was the assistant GM to Gettleman. You got McDermott, Ken Dorseys the quarterbacks coach who was Cam's first QB coach before Shula was in that role. So there are so many former Panther coaches, you got former Panther players in Buffalo, all of which can vouch for what Cam can do at his best and might be willing to take a swing there.

So those are two more teams you potentially could add to the pot who might take a shot at Cam. Your thoughts are welcome on the show at sportsubtriad on Twitter. Where do you think Cam's gonna end up?

336-777-1600 is the phone number. Sean Clark gonna join us in over 20 minutes, just a little over 20 minutes. He's App State's head football coach. Michael Jordan shifting things. He's gonna save America and save American sports with the announcement ESPN put out late last night or I think Andrew Marchand broke it from the New York Post and then it was announced officially this morning on Disney property Good Morning America. The Michael Jordan 10-part series is going to be moved up April 19th. That's when this thing's gonna start.

I was a little confused by it at first. I thought it was interesting, hey you're gonna have a 10-part documentary series launch four days before the draft? If they were gonna roll it out the way they rolled out OJ a few years ago, okay you're gonna have each part of the series roll out each day of the week, well that seems it would overlap with a lot of your draft coverage. But the way they're doing it, seeing places like Virginia which is gonna be shut down in a shelter order until June 10th and other states till the end of May or in mid-May, they're rolling this thing out over a five-week stretch where Sunday night April 19th there will be the debut episode then the second episode nine o'clock and then ten o'clock.

The next week they will rerun episodes one and two leading up to nine o'clock and run episodes three and four so on and so forth for the next five weeks. So that essentially covers the end of April and almost all of May and the hope for the NBA, the hope for sports fans who like baseball as well, want things to get back to normal again with the NFL calendar, is that something gets cleared up, that things get cleared up and we can start playing sports again in the month of June. That is the optimistic look of things.

That's how you're optimistic about it and we're gonna have this documentary covered at every single corner. Man how big do you think this is gonna get Robert? Robert Walsh the producer of the show, Aaron Gabriel in the control room as well. The way I see it is it's going to be sports Tiger King.

That's what it is. MJ is gonna be Joe Exotic, Scottie Pippen is gonna be Doc Antle and who would be Carol Baskin? Dennis Rodman?

Yes, Aaron? No, Dennis Rodman is loved. Who's hated on that Bulls team? It's not Steve Kerr.

Luke Longley, Carol Baskin. Who's Steve Kerr? Who's Phil Jackson?

Joe Exotic's husbands. Oh that's quite a spin on it. Everybody's gonna be discussing this. It's just gonna be massive. Like I'm so hopeful now for the next month where we could have Tiger versus Phil 2 and pay-per-view. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning might be involved with that.

I'll tell you more about that in five minutes. The NFL Draft is gonna go on April 23rd through the 25th or through the 26th and also you got this documentary that's getting moved up and it's gonna be across five weeks. The NFL just announced they're gonna have their schedule release 16 games May the 9th so they're operating offseason, the offseason the way they would normally and that's kind of what we need right now. So Robert I have a feeling this is gonna be massive. This is going to be everybody's at home, it's Michael Jordan, everybody's involved in it. You're not guaranteed people being home and people watching during the summer where this was gonna drop in June. This is almost a perfect scenario for viewership and an interest for a Michael Jordan documentary series. Yeah I think it could like the ceiling could actually be the roof you know.

It could be television ratings. Yeah well I think it could be bigger than OJ too. I think it's gonna be.

I really do. Less time has passed, people were confined to their houses, there's gonna be more build-up, more discussion around it. So I'm so fascinated by that Michael Jordan's gonna save sports and save America. Coming up, why Wake Forest will make the NCAA tournament in 2021? Sounds like a bold statement. Keep it here on the Drive. Here comes the life of the party. The Drive.

Corrupting the minds and the hearts of our children. With Josh Graham. Program for low expectations on Sports Hub Triad. As we were going off the air yesterday, Wake Forest added Houston Baptist grad transfer Ian Dubois to its backcourt. Cue all the Houston Baptist jokes that you have and that I've seen the last 24 hours. But as that was happening, Wake also lost Sharron Wright Jr. to the transfer portal. And while Wright showed some promise and joined fellow shooting guard Michael Wayne among those choosing to depart Wake earlier this month, I believe the Demon Deacons got better this week. On paper, Wake Forest is an NCAA tournament team for 2021. I think, again on paper, they are better than the 2017 team that had John Collins on it. Just because Collins, he was a first-team all-ACC guy. But this Wake team, they have two all-ACC caliber players, an Olivier Saar, who was all-ACC last season, and Chlandi Brown, who I believe probably would have been that if he wasn't injured as often as he was. So I know 2017 also had a good Bryant Crawford year where he averaged over 16 points a game, but I would take the combination of Saar and Chlandi over Collins and Bryant Crawford. But here's the bigger difference between what I believe this 2021 team to be versus 2017. Experience and maturity favors this team that we're going to see next year, assuming there are no more vast changes to the lineup. In 2017, they had just one senior in the eight-man rotation.

Just one. It was one of the big men. Their top three scores, they were underclassmen. Including, of course, Collins and Crawford. When you look at what's ahead in 2021, the three leading scorers in all likelihood are gonna be seniors. Brown, Saar, Dubois, who, looking at his numbers, he's gonna be everything Andrian White was this past year, maybe even a little bit better than that.

So I like what he brings there. Isaiah Musias, he's a junior. They're only gonna have one freshman in the rotation and he's gonna be coming off the bench. Dubois, he is an upgrade from Sharron Wright Jr., right? He has a higher ceiling because he has two years remaining, unlike Dubois. But Dubois, he could start right now and he can be a major contributor. If you're Danny Manning and you're gonna be rescued the same way you were with the leadership change last year and likely gonna be rescued just because the coronavirus has changed the world that we live in, well, I want the guy who gives me the best chance to win next year, not the one that has the higher ceiling.

Give me the more polished product today. Dubois is that. So the starting five for Wake Forest, it's gonna look something like Jacobi Neith at point guard, Dubois at shooting guard, John D. Brown at the three, Isaiah Musias or Odie Oguama at the four, and Olivier Saar at the five. That's a damn good lineup. I'd take that lineup over what NC State's fielding today.

That's not even a slight to the pack. I just like what Wake Forest is doing right now. Point guard is the wild card position here.

Understandably, that's not a place you want to have questions. Replacing Brandon Childress, it's gonna be the big question. But I believe in Jacobi Neith. He started to figure things out towards the end of last year. His first 25 games as a freshman, he didn't have one double-figure scoring game. His last six games with the Deacs, he had four double-figure scoring games. And he doesn't take bad shots, doesn't take a lot of them. He's efficient as a scorer and I'm hearing good things about Marcus Watson as well, who's this freshman coming in out of Chicago.

Some places have him as a four-star, others a three-star. Top 40 player, so he's gonna be a part of the rotation too. He's a little bit dynamic, so it's gonna be Neith and Watson at the point guard spot. The Bois at the two, there isn't a lot of scoring on this team. I think Ismail Massoud can play at the two. Chondi Brown could play at that spot. Versatile players who could play the two or the three. Musias is naturally a three, but he played a lot at the four last year.

Iguana started there as well. I think this is a flexible Wake team. I think this is the most talented Wake team that Danny has. On paper they are an NCAA tournament team today.

We're gonna be joined by App State head football coach Sean Clark in 10 minutes. Another headline from last night, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning might be going head-to-head on the links. You may have heard Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, they've been discussing having a second matchup. Remember they had a first one that I thought was just ill-conceived. It's not a bad idea.

It was more the timing that I had an issue with it. They decided to have this pay-per-view bout where they go head-to-head in the weekend after Thanksgiving. Like if you are Tiger or Phil, how does neither of you think um why would we have this head-to-head pay-per-view the same weekend? There's college basketball, college football, NFL football, NBA basketball. Why would we choose the weekend in the months of October and November where literally things are the most competitive?

Why would we choose any of those two months? It didn't make much sense. Golf is one of the few sports you could actually pull off right now. In fact there are probably people listening to this show while on the golf course. You could stream it on the Sports Hub Triad app, strongly suggest doing that.

If not listen to the Best Up Podcast a good way to catch the show as well. But golf is something you could pull off. You could have fewer than five people in the same space. Tiger you got Phil Mickelson be further than six feet apart and they need to have playing partners to try and rope in as many people as possible. So Brady versus Manning seems to be the route that they're going to be taking. It's the perfect time for a Tiger V Woods or Tiger V Phil matchup. If it was Tiger versus Tiger, I think it would be even more interesting. Or maybe Tiger Woods versus Joe Exotic. Would you watch that on pay-per-view? For sure.

I think Joe Exotic have a pretty good swing there. Adding Brady and Manning it's a master stroke. People who are football fans they're gonna be in on this. But I do find it interesting here. I was watching The Natural last week and I started thinking if you were gonna make this movie that so much about it is the idolatry of it. Like the way we worship sports fans and sports or sports athletes and and celebrity. Could you make that movie a baseball and make it believable in 2020?

If you were gonna set it in today's age. No I think those players are basketball players now. Do you think Brady and Manning are the two best athletes you could pull to join Tiger and Phil Mickelson if your goal is to get the most people interested possible?

Because I think you could do better than that in basketball. I don't know if LeBron's much of a golfer but I know Michael is. I know Michael Jordan is. I know Steph Curry is too. Damn good golfer Steph Curry. If you had MJ and Steph Curry there with Phil and Tiger I think that does better than even Peyton versus Brady. Yes Aaron? I'd like to see Charles Barkley. I know I know that would be bad.

Just for comedic value. I'm telling you that MJ and Steph they can actually golf. And you know who you need to broadcast this pay-per-view? Gosh how did they not get this on network TV? What would networks be willing to pay for sports content right now that's live? CBS, NBC, Fox. They would go head-to-head they're just gonna throw it on a pay-per-view here. Get Tony Romo and Jim Nance to broadcast this.

Heck get them to play. I know Nance has a good swing. Tony Romo he's one of the best major sport athletes who play golf and could do so at the professional level if he wasn't already a world-class broadcaster or football player. And he on a tour?

Yeah so that's the guy. Or maybe Romo's just too good whoever you line up next to him whether it's Brady, Manning it would just be unfair. I did watch one of Peyton's places that show they have on ESPN Plus and it's Brady and Manning at Jim Nance's house and they're just chipping shots and both of them seem to have good swings. Brady he's a California guy you could do it at Pebble Beach. You could also that's where Phil Mickelson's from Tiger Woods California so that just seems to be the natural golf course fit there so that's something to consider. We'll see when those details get completely ironed out but what I would want to see I think MJ and Steph would do more for the event in terms of the interest surrounding it than Brady and Manning standing next to Tiger and Phil but the timings a lot better than it was for the first then the first pay-per-view Nance and Romo get them on the call because it fills a Masters void that's that's been left.

The Masters is not going to be held this weekend but the following weekend and of course that's not going to happen anymore they're looking at the fall to potentially hold that event. All right App State head coach Sean Clark he's gonna update us on what exactly is happening with his Mountaineers amid this crisis next on the drive. We're now being joined by I think I can say Tar Heel legend even though it's only been a few years Joel Berry joining us from the Greensboro Swarm I think if your name is in the rafters of the Smith Center it qualifies but Joel just that sentence coming out of my mouth Tar Heel legend Joel Berry does that resonate at all with you?

Just a little bit but I don't think it'll hit me until I mowed it. That's fair so you and your teammate it's Jeff Roberson right that you're gonna be teaming up with are getting involved with the NBA 2k league three for all showdown do I have that right you and Jeff? Yes sir. Oh my gosh this this is gonna be something if you don't know about this on the PlayStation 4 it's gonna be Joel and one of his teammates it's Jeff with the Swarm and they're gonna be in a three-for-all showdown the team's gonna be called Sly Unit you're gonna be a part of a team that also has a G League member from the Phoenix Suns here's what I got to know though when you're looking at playing in this 2k league how much did your dramatic overtime showdown with our assistant producer Sawyer Dillon build your confidence for this moment? Yeah it was just a little pre I guess pre pre warm-up for this little event so I've been working on my game quite a bit ever since I took that L because I just can't get it out of my head but it has definitely helped me prepare. Are you more dangerous on the PlayStation 4?

I am a lot more dangerous on there because I know I know all the controls and everything so that's why I was like we got me and Sawyer we gotta we gotta play again and do it on the ps4. Oh I think he'll be all about that he says that there's it was all fair he said he was just playing nice and then it went to overtime and he figured out a way to take care of business Joel Berry with us here on sports up drive so three years ago today it's March 31st of 2017 you're in Phoenix and it's the day before the Final Four what do you remember about your preparation that week leading up to facing Oregon and then Gonzaga in the championship game? Yeah well for me it was a it was just me yeah for me it was getting my because I was battling some ankle injuries and so I was doing everything that I could to prepare to to be able to get out there and and play close to a hundred percent but not all the way and then I'm just spending time with my family they were able to come up a little bit earlier when we were at Phoenix and so I got a chance to spend time with them and get out and about so that was that's what I was doing. How much more nervous were you the year before in Houston? Uh I was I think I would say it was more butterflies and and a lot of excitement just it being my first time there and playing in such a big arena like that and just everything that led up to it it was you know if you if you let it get to you I mean it is it's just a lot that they that they make you do leading up to the game and it's just crazy how much goes on but um and so the second year I was a little bit more calm and and actually used to it so. Because a lot of people forget even though you lost to Villanova in that championship game you actually played very well right?

Right I did yes sir. Man everyone remembers Marcus's shot but he was struggling to drop a shot that entire game but I think everyone's gonna remember Marcus's shot followed by Chris Jenkins and Tar Heel fans are gonna block most of that out of their memory because the year after you guys cut down the Nets and Phoenix but when you win a national championship how do you celebrate that night I mean do you sleep? No we didn't we didn't get any sleep that night I think we actually got to bed probably about an hour before we got on our flight so um yeah.

Tell me about the hours leading up to that hour of sleep. I'll leave that for the archives and it was it was a fun time to spend with the teammates and we enjoyed it quite a bit. How excited how excited are you for the Jordan doc which was announced it's being moved up so you play in the Hornets organization the head man's Michael Jordan April 19th this documentary just got moved up it's a 10-part series on MJ how excited are you for it? I'm excited I'm actually I haven't watched any of it yet so I'm the type of guy I don't like you know commercials I don't like sitting there having to wait a whole week for another episode or something to come out. You're a binge guy you like binging at all.

I love binging so I'm waiting for all of it to stop so I can just binge watch it all the way through. Do you have a good Jordan story from your days with the Tar Heels or even playing of course for the Greensboro Swarm? Yeah I know I know Jordan has in his own ways had some disappointments throughout his career and had some times where it was a little bit harder but you know for me being you know not necessarily getting a chance to see him play you know I really didn't see him lose lose anything and so he came in after our national championship game when we lost to Villanova and we were all quiet you know everybody has their head down and he comes in and he tells us hey guys just look up and listen to me and the first thing that he said was I'm from my personal experience you know I understand your pain and at the time it didn't resonate with me but then me and Theo got back to the to the hotel that night and we're like how does Michael Jordan come in and talk to us when literally he's had the most successful career out of any NBA player and is a legend and really didn't lose any how can he come in and talk to us about losing in a in a game like that and so their story just always fits with me and it's just like man I I don't understand how he could come in and be able to speak to us about that knowing that us knowing that he rarely ever lost during his career of playing. That is crazy Joe Berry with us a really neat story there from the 2016 final well you guys bounce back so maybe something worked in terms of the advice the next year but you say you branch you're a binging television type of person now you have a little bit of time to sit back binge some TV binge some movies you're gonna be a part of the NBA 2k league that we've been talking about here it is the three-for-all showdown and you're a part of sly unit along with your teammate Jeff Roberson but give me the show that you've been binging or have binged the last few weeks yeah um so before I started watching it I've I've seen like no clips of it and seen stuff on Twitter and um heard people are talking about it but the office is probably one of the funniest shows that I've ever um ever watched I mean I can sit there and watch that all day and just laugh who's your favorite character who's your character uh Dwight oh man okay Dwight I'm surprised I thought with the setup there you've seen a lot of things on Twitter you were gonna say Tiger King oh no that that show that that series was crazy but I did finish the whole thing did Carole Baskin kill her husband and feed it to the Tigers I think she did I think it's crazy that they haven't investigated that but I think that's what happened I've got news for you yesterday they announced that they have reopened reopened that cold case from 1997 Wow well I'm I'm sure they I mean with that show I mean the way that they were talking about it I mean it kind of it kind of looks like she that's what she did mmm we're gonna continue to follow that oh yeah right exactly Joel we were excited for you we're gonna root for you the same way we root for the swarm the same way that we root for the Hornets we're gonna keep an eye on what's happening with slide unit and we're gonna catch up with you throughout so I appreciate you spending time here as always in the triad be safe and well and thanks for the time yes sir thank you for having me and we'll try to make it happen and you guys stay safe as well