Sports are burning

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons three to seven on Sports Hub Triad. This is the wildest day in sports of my lifetime and maybe yours. So full disclosure, we're unsure how to proceed the day. We'd like to make light of things, be the fun show that you've come to love.

However, in the wake of the ACC tournament in the Greensboro Coliseum getting shut down and pretty much all of sports as well, this is incredibly serious. So I'm looking at Robert Walsh, the producer of this show. I was talking to B.

Dot earlier today at the Coliseum when we were there and now we're here in our studio. I understand any of our attempts to try and provide levity have run the risk of becoming incredibly awkward, of being just disastrous, maybe insensitive, and that's not what we're trying to do today. So I'm genuinely asking, what is the type of show you want from us right here? Because that's what I want to provide. I'm unsure. I'm going to open up phone lines.

We're going to try and do that for you at 336-777-1600. Interested in what you think of what's happening right now. I don't want to repeat the end of yesterday's show.

I think there are a lot of new things to cover here and I'm just going to go ahead and prepare you for what the next headline is going to be. It might come down in the next five minutes. It might come down in the next few hours. It might come down tomorrow. But the NCAA tournament's not going to be played next week.

This is not going to happen. There's a chance the NCAA tournament might not happen at all. Because as far as I understand it, this coronavirus outbreak, it's not getting better in a week. In fact, it's probably, according to medical experts, going to appear to look worse before it gets better just because we're going to have more people tested, which means there are going to be more cases.

So in the next week, we're just going to be adding to some of these numbers as we try to limit the reach of this virus. That's why a lot of these attempts or a lot of these tournaments are being shut down, including the ACC tournament. So I don't see this getting better in a week. So I don't really see us playing NCAA tournament basketball games at this time a week from now. They've already announced, of course, that they're going to be playing before empty arenas, rounds one and two. But then when you add the newest headlines here, that Duke and Kevin White have essentially said they are not going to be playing in an NCAA tournament if it's held.

And Kansas and Jeff Long have essentially followed suit. Kansas right now the number one team in the country, Duke the number 10 team in the country, Kevin White the NCAA tournament chair for God's sake. Yeah, they're not going to have a tournament without Duke and they're not going to have a tournament without Kansas. So they're not going to have one next week. The big question is are they going to have one at all?

I hope postponement is an option. My greatest fear is that the tournament gets canceled altogether. If that happens, man, all the buildup this year, the biggest story in college basketball amid a year where there have been no stars, no real urgency to watch the sport in a way that Zion provided last year.

And stars in the sport drew NBA draft snobs, people that were interested just in that context to watch prospects. All we pointed to was March. This was going to be one of the more entertaining tournaments we've had in such a long time. Now there's a chance we're not going to have it at all.

It's a very real chance. I'm here to tell you right now this is not based on anything that's confirmed to people. In fact, Seth Davis, one of the foremost authorities on college basketball said he, right now he's talked to employees of, or talked to some of his co-workers, he has at Turner and CBS, they expect to have the selection show at this present moment. But Seth adds that he expects, it's his mindset, that things are going to change and that they're going to either postpone or cancel the NCAA tournament. I'll get to my personal observations what actually transpired in the Coliseum earlier today and how bizarre that was a few hours ago.

We'll do that in just a bit. We're gonna be joined by Wes Miller, the head coach of UNCG basketball in 25 minutes. Let's go to Ben in Winston-Salem. It's an honest question I asked from the top of the show. What kind of show do you want this to be today, Ben? Hey, how you doing Josh?

I'm gonna be honest with you man, I'm doing very cruddy. I love college basketball more than anybody and I'm telling you that this, these three weeks, it's what I had circle for months, almost years, and there are workers in that building who are hurting. People are crying outside of the Greensboro Coliseum.

People had part-time work for this tournament. I feel for them. I feel for Greensboro. It just sucks. I know you don't mean to just ask, hey how are you feeling here, but that is my general feeling right now, Ben. No, it's understandable. You asked what kind of show we wanted today.

As far as I'm concerned, I know a lot of people aren't blessed. They can't do like me and ride around all day listening to the Sports Club Triad. It's a pleasure. I love my job.

But at the same time, I've been listening to coronavirus since, I don't know, about seven this morning. It'd be nice, you know, to have a show where, you know, you kind of give your personal input, you know, your personal experience, and then maybe a show where we can just kind of get back and talk about other stuff. You do a great job here of not talking about sports and it'd be nice to kind of do that a little bit.

All right, thank you. I appreciate the phone call, Ben. So should we spend the next three hours not talking about sports whatsoever? Robert, what else is going on today? The Masked Singer, I know you're a big Masked Singer guy. Like, what's Tom Hanks up to? Is Tom Hanks okay?

What's he up to? I do not make any more Tom Hanks. Oh, don't tell me that Tom Hanks.

No, not Hanks! Oh, gosh, you were doing this. Okay, that's... Where else can we go? But, I mean, we do have some fun... Oh, I got a trip to Italy next month. Oh! Josh, well, I do want to let you know that some good news...

I have friends in Brazil. Some good news has come out of this. All right, what's come out of this? That dogs cannot actually contract the coronavirus. Oh, that's great! Yes. What about cats, too, right?

Winnie's great. I hadn't seen anything about cats. Oh!

For the record, we don't know if cats contract the coronavirus. Damn it, it got sad again. All right, let's go to Kevin in Burlington. Kevin, what kind of show should we be doing today? Man, that's kind of conflicted. You know, the guy that just called before... Now, think about if a Steph Curry don't get to play in the NCAA tournament.

Imagine the ramifications of this tournament not going off for young players who make their name, but that's not really the main reason. If I was to steer the ship, you know, coming from somebody who's a recovering alcoholic and had some time under his belt, I understand the clarity that can come from sharing our fears or thoughts when we have a certain amount of anonymity, which your format brings. Yeah, of course.

My name, I don't have a faith. You know, and I have a real-life situation unfolding at this very moment that is coronavirus related. I have two co-workers who have flown out to Florida. Different events. One of them is a baseball. His son plays baseball. He travels the country.

I felt like he could have skipped that. You know, I feel like Florida's a Petri dish right now. And then another co-worker, him and his wife are going to Disney World, mind you, in Florida, to celebrate their, you know, I mean, two grown-ups going to Disney World is weird enough.

That is very strange. But anyway, you know, then I'm gonna be forced to work around these people next week and, you know, I mean, I'm like, thoughts are going through my head. Should I just say, look, I'm not coming in until I know that y'all ain't, you know, got nothing. But, you know, at the end of the day, you probably could catch it from anywhere. I could probably catch it from a handshake from a customer.

Maybe. It's this unknown fear that's driving us all. And, you know, maybe, you know, maybe, you know, get some callers to come call in and just say, hey, look, this is how I feel, you know. Well, I'm down. I'm completely down. Sorry to interrupt you. Thank you for the call, Kevin. It is, it's a strange show today.

And I'm down. In the end, this show is for the audience. People ask me at times, hey, when you develop your opinions, when you're putting together topics, when you're interviewing guests, are you trying to please the teams, the athletic departments, Wake Forest, Duke, NC State, North Carolina, the Carolina Panthers?

Is that what you're trying to do? I always tell them no. My allegiance is to the audience.

Some might be rolling their eyes right now and think that sounds incredibly hokey. I take it seriously. And I take it very seriously on today's like today, where, on days like today, where I understand that many of you wanted to go to the Greensboro Coliseum and watch basketball today and weren't given access to the arena. And I was given access and I saw everything that went down. And I can give you my first-hand observations. We'll do that in a bit.

Wes Miller, he's gonna join us, UNC Greensboro head basketball coach in less than 20 minutes. I'm reminded by that last phone caller of what really makes this so scary, makes things feel so frightening. And it's uncertainty. Uncertainty might be the most frightening thing. We were talking about this with the NASCAR driver at Daytona. The last thing you want on a NASCAR track is to feel uncertain about somebody's fate.

And fortunately things turned out well there. With this, I still hear the people. I heard them in the Coliseum. I've heard them on Twitter.

I see them online and there's still a lot of dumb on Twitter, which comes to be expected now. But what I go back to is that even we just don't know exactly what the reach of this is. We don't quite understand how it spreads. And I'm not a medical expert.

I'm not a medical specialist. But I think it's important in times like this we lean on these people. And that's why I think you're seeing Duke Act and you're seeing Kansas be proactive as well. But Robert, I think there are ways to bring levity to today's show.

We're gonna figure out ways to do that. So coming up, fun and personal observations from the ACC tournament earlier today. This is The Drive. Now being joined by the head coach of the UNC Greensboro Spartans, Wes Miller. Of course we're all trying to get reaction today in the college basketball world to what has transpired the last few days. If you're just joining us or haven't seen it all day, the ACC Commissioner John Swafford had a press conference this morning saying that games were gonna go on. Florida State, they went on the floor and warmed up.

Then they were removed off of the floor. And 10-15 minutes later, they're given the ACC tournament championship trophy since they were the regular season champs. So a really bizarre couple of days, Wes. But give me a sense as a basketball coach and somebody who cares so much about the ACC as well, and obviously you're a head coach in Greensboro nonetheless, what does today represent for you?

I think it's totally unique to me. I can't think of any precedent to what's been going on over the last 24 hours in sports, in college sports, in basketball. It's just incredible how things have transpired in the last one, you know, tournaments being canceled. And you mentioned the ACC tournament just now being camping.

It's just wild. I think if you step back for a second as an adult and it's somebody that leads young people and you realize that it's a lot bigger than basketball. That some things are a lot bigger than sporting contests. We're talking about people's health.

You know, we're talking about something that's killing people. So I think, you know, the first thing I do as a leader is, you know, just put things in perspective and to realize it's so much bigger than sports and basketball. But this is unprecedented and I can't think of a time in my life that I can relate the last 24 hours.

It's so unique to me. What have you done in the last 24 to 48 hours to try and add perspective to the players that you've brought the UNC Greensboro? And on top of that, what kind of things have you been learning and telling them amid what you've called an unprecedented case? Well, we had practice yesterday. You know, we're still, you know, as of yesterday, you know, we're still hoping to get an NIT bid with the season that we had. But we were in the gym practicing yesterday and by the time we finished practice, you know, a lot of this stuff hadn't happened.

Where people had talked about canceling events, that happened yesterday, the last night. So we're supposed to practice here this afternoon, but the first thing we'll do is meet with our players around two o'clock today. You know, start to discuss the situation, try to put this in perspective. The main, we've been meeting as an athletic department all morning to try to come up with a plan that is within obviously CDC guidelines, within the state, you know, we're in the state system, so all the state system guidelines. But the primary focus for our basketball program right now is our kids health and safety.

So the first thing we'll do today is try to, you know, put that perspective to these young people to explain to them that there's things that are bigger than basketball and this is a direct example and that we want them to be as healthy and safe as possible and continue their education at the same time without risking that that basketball really now becomes very secondary. It's UNC... Go ahead, sorry. Oh, I didn't want to interrupt you, but UNCG head basketball coach Wes Miller's with us here on Sports Hub Triad and I wonder with your team preparing for the NIT tournament and trying to get a bid there and we're still waiting to see what's gonna happen with the NCAA tournament, Greensboro is expected to be one of the sites next week. Of course, without any fans, Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, said yesterday, Tom Izzo, he was on the DP show earlier today and said it's probably best that things are canceled and things are pushed back, things are postponed, not even just talking about the conference tournaments, but also even the NCAA tournament.

How do you view it, the NCAA's and the NIT, what should be the course of action in your mind? I'm you know I'm I'm not a health expert. I think we all got to really realize what our expertise is. My expertise is defending ball screens and pin down, rebounding, you know that the things that the things that people are making decisions on now are so far above my pay grade and the things that I'm an expert in.

So I'm, listen, I don't know what's right. What I do know is we should put everybody's health and safety above anything else and if that means canceling tournaments is as painful as that is for somebody that's so passionate about basketball. March Madness, what's greater in the sport of basketball than March Madness? What's greater in all the sports than the month of March in college basketball? The most unique thing, but all that that should be secondary and canceling events is the right thing to do from a health, public health perspective for everybody's safety.

Then they should do that. I just know that I'm not, I'm not the person to make those decisions because I don't, I'm not the expert. I'm just hearing everything that everybody else is hearing. It's West Miller UNCG basketball coach with us.

So let's just bring it to a human element. Everybody saw the news last night and what transpired with Oklahoma City and Utah and how that game got canceled. But the NBA season got suspended as that's happening west. I'm sitting courtside at the UNC Syracuse game. Your brother is on the bench for North Carolina. What's going through you as somebody who's watching on, I'm sure and supporting just your brother and rooting for his team to be successful amid what's been just a national health crisis. I was sitting at the game as well, you know, sitting behind the bench supporting, you know, my brother and my college coach.

Um, and I was getting the same text and alerts that everybody else was getting. And it was just so surreal. It, you know, it almost the second half of that game, it's almost like it didn't matter.

And I don't mean to take away from the guys out there competing, but it was just a surreal moment for me. Um, when the NBA cancels or suspended season, that is that's unprecedented right for a health issue. And I think we've seen it just a trickle down effect ever since. Um, again, I have no judgment on what's right or wrong. I'm not a public health official.

I don't have the credentials or the knowledge to know what's right or wrong. But, um, it's just been totally surreal. And I had the same experience last night that everybody else had. I think, you know, when you're in a position as a head coach, uh, and you're in charge of young people's well, you know, when kids come to play for us, we tell their parents that, you know, we're gonna look out and take care of them above everything else. Um, you know, the first thing you think about is your current players and making sure that they're okay and making sure that they feel informed and making sure the families feel informed.

So my initial reaction since then, try to get in touch with our players families to try to communicate with our players and come up with a plan for how we're gonna handle this with our currency. Well, West, I appreciate you in a very uncertain time and a very I'll use your word again, unprecedented, um, state of affairs for you to spend some time and share some insight with us. It's greatly appreciated.

And hopefully the next time we speak, we're talking about your team playing in the NIT tournament and we're talking about hopefully, uh, cures being found and a lot of these cases lessening. Thank you so much for spending the time. Yeah, thanks for having me, Josh. That was West Durham spending time with us in a totally non taped interview from the Greensboro Coliseum earlier today. Now, I appreciate him wanting to come on and speak with us. That was a few hours ago and boy, as somebody who is responsible for so many people, those athletes, those managers, those assistant coaches on his staff while also being amid thousands of people at the Greensboro Coliseum last night when the NBA decides to suspend play last night, watching your brother on the bench right in front of you for North Carolina, it's it really humanizes what we're all experiencing right now in the sports context from somebody in the triad that's as important as West Miller is at UNCG.

We're going to explore the future of the ACC tournament in Greensboro next on the drive. Yes, Josh Graham has opinions. That's right.

And yes, he's got attitude. That's correct. And that's exactly why you love him.

You wish I loved you that much. You're on the drive with Josh Graham. The next 30 minutes, it's our best attempt to have fun today and what has been just an incredibly tough day. You've been hearing about the coronavirus all week long.

You're going to continue to get hit over the head with it. We will update you on important things regarding the coronavirus, of course, but here's what we're going to try and do. Joe Leonardi is still putting out bracketology things because this is the time of year Joe Leonardi lives for except when in all likelihood there's not going to be an NCAA tournament where his bracket would actually matter. But we love college basketball enough around here to still fill out brackets anyway. I still don't have a good answer for why Joe Leonardi and Jerry Palm, these bracketologists, feel the need to fill out where specifically these teams are going to go. Like what the matchups are going to be in each region.

That's a step way too far. Like if you tell us a okay here are the ones, the twos, the threes, the fours, that's fine. Heck, even just say who's on each line. All for that. Who's gonna get in? Who's on the bubble? We need that information. Who are they playing? Who's that for? I'll tell you who. It's for us today to fill out this fictional Joe Leonardi bracket and we already got Kentucky advancing in the Midwest to the final four. So we'll get to the East bracket in just a bit but before we do that we are sharing with Darren Vaught and we're gonna replay some of the hits here because the last few weeks we've tried some other segments. We've tried out staring at Darren, which I think's gone well, Robert. I would agree with that. It's happened.

I mean I don't know that staring at me for a prolonged period can go away. Oh god, they're doing it again. All I can really see is that watch but it's very fresh. It looks like very clean leather.

It's got a PGA Championship quail holo. Hold one sec, hold one sec. Hold the phone. Darren's got three buttons buttoned on the polo shirt. But it's got an extra button on the bottom so it runs down. Just the one.

Wait, are you telling me there's a fourth one you could potentially button? I could. Oh my gosh.

I'm here. Here we go. Can you do it?

Nope, I'm not doing that. You guys are getting weird. His glasses are fogging up. Yeah, why are they clear? How many different frames do you have there? Two.

This is a newer alternate pair. Are you a breathe on them and wipe them off guy or clean them with a solution man? I've got a cloth that I use that's in my pocket.

Nice. Back pocket, front pocket, what are we talking about? That's an interesting question.

It's in my left pocket. And that's been staring at Darren. Well done.

Call that off. What was another one we did? We did blaring with Darren, right? Wasn't that another one? Yeah, it was the one where you go. Yeah, there's blaring with Darren.

I'm a big fan of blaring. And what was the last one that we did? Comparing with Darren.

No, Darren, what was the last one that we did? Was it comparing or I can't remember correctly. Yeah, it was comparing. Yes, it was comparing with Darren. That's right. Jogging my memory.

Thanks so much. How did that one go, Robert? I would list off a couple different things and Darren would have to compare those for us. And usually I have music, but I am a dingus and I could not find it. So while I'm asking Darren these questions, I'm gonna ask that he... You're gonna find the the Wii weather music. He forgot what music he used for his own damn segment. Of course he did, Robert.

Yeah, we got the movie game coming up. That's an ad. That's an ad. You're clearly pulling it up on YouTube on the fly. Well done, Robert. Yeah, Darren knows exactly what's happening because he produced...

He's a longtime producer. I like this. This is like...

This is like what I would play at night to fall asleep. So are we gonna compare with Darren? Yeah, for sure. Okay, Darren, I'm gonna list off a couple things. Can I compare this music to the ad, the YouTube ad?

Yes, what are the differences or the similarities? This one makes me feel much warmer and more content. And I don't even know what the ad was trying to sell me yet. But I was about to get heated for being solicited to. Okay.

This is definitely different music. Didn't Average Joes eventually win? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he bet against them to lose and then he won and got to keep his gym. Oh no, he won. That's a good synopsis of the plot there.

Well done. Well, they got to play in a tournament that came to completion. There was an actual winner, you know what I mean? In both cases, there was a loser in the Cobras and North Carolina, but there was no winner. So Average Joes won. I mean, not by default either, or hold on, Globogym won. Average Joes was the loser. Well, Adam, no. Average Joes won. No.

At the end of the movie, Average Joes won. That's what I said. And then Robert contested that. No, no. I think he agreed with you.

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. Yeah, Average Joes won at the end of this. While this is all happening, Patches O'Houlihan, the ghost of Patches O'Houlihan. While this is all happening, the NCAA just put out a statement saying that all of remaining winter sports and spring sports have been canceled. So that means March Madness is officially over.

Now it's March Sad. Alright, compare the next thing for me, Darren. Alright, I'll try to do better. Osmosis Jones compared to Rudy Gobert. I mean, but they're pretty similar at this point. I love this show.

Cody, he tweets at me. Average Joes definitely won. See, I thought they lost. You guys are wrong. I thought he bet against himself because he gets hit with the dodgeball at the end.

No, no, no. No, he was bribed. He was bribed to not show up and then he put the money on them to win after he meets with Lance Armstrong at the airport bar.

I thought he took the money to lose and then bet that on them to lose and then put that money, I guess it would be a bigger payout because they were the other guys. It's like a haha, jokes on you moment. Osmosis Jones funnier because it was voiced by Chris Rock.

Rudy Gobert, not funny at all. Both amoeba-like figures that are capable of spreading infectious diseases currently. Yeah. I've got two more, but let's go with my favorite one. I'd like you to compare B. Dot at the ACC tournament to Happy Gilmore playing golf.

Oh man. The two greatest fish out of water stories in American history. Sports history. B. Dot was like, yeah, he brought the hockey stick as his putter for sure.

That's if that's the parallel that you're looking for, that's exactly what he did. I've got one more and then a phone caller I think you'd like to get to. Okay. Nebraska coach Fred, whatever the heck his name is. Hoiberg. Hoiberg. Hoiberg. Hoiberg. That sounds like such a weird last name. Fred, we're gonna call him Hoy. Fred Hoiberg.

My mentions continue to fill up with people saying, do you know that March Madness has just been canceled? We've got the answer. The answer. We know. We know. Okay. We told you, we told you this was going to happen at the start of the show.

We do sports well around here. You've got 30 days. We're preparing you. Listen to this music.

Go play your Nintendo Wii for those 30 days. That's right. We are preparing you for what sports radio is going to sound like when there are no sports. So I'd like you to compare Fred Hoiberg to Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings when he's hesitant to throw the ring into Mountain Dew. And I'll also add a third thing to compare, Fredo and the Godfather. I think it's Fredo, but. Fredo, Fredo.

I'm going to stick to Roberts because the comparison applies. They were both being idiots. Yeah. Right? Just don't like, just throw the ring away. That's what Sam's saying. Just throw it in. Just throw it in. We've been here. To Hoiberg, you're the 14 seed.

Throw in your assistant. No one cares. And let's be honest, Frodo didn't even really throw that ring in. Gollum forced him into the fire trying to get the ring off his finger that he bit. Much like officials had to force Fred Hoiberg to like, come on, use your damn head. And also before we get to the call, can you compare and compare him with Darren? The word postpone with suspend seems to be an important one today. Postponement and suspension are, I mean, those are synonymous, right? No!

They could both be played. You're thinking cancel. Like the word cancel is being used everywhere. Postponement cancel. I wrote it down wrong. That's the significance.

My apologies to the audience and for you Darren. Hey, do you know that March Madness is canceled? It is. Did you hear that? I have. We know.

We're going to spend a lot of time on it. I'm kidding. We're going to talk, we're going to talk about movies in a bit. Can you please turn this music off? I like it. Should we go, what color am I going to here? Brian from Kernersville. Let's go to Brian in Kernersville. Brian, what do you got for me? Hey Josh, I love your show. Thanks for taking my call. You're welcome.

What do you got? Hypothetical. All these universities are canceling, most universities are canceling all of their athletics right now.

I have a son who is a college baseball player. So my question to you is, if these seniors, specifically these seniors miss their entire college season, do you think the NCAA would allow them to redshirt and come back and play another season? Since this has nothing to do with, you know, them getting injured or anything like that, it's beyond their control. Definitely. Definitely they would. They definitely would honor that. Well, thank you for the call. Yeah. And after the Ivy League had said it's spring sports were done and they were the first to do so, word was, as reports indicated, that the NCAA was going to offer an extra year of eligibility to those student athletes that wanted to do it.

Now, not everybody's going to want to do it, especially, you know, if you graduate and you're an Ivy League kid, you might have something big planned for your next step in life. On a related note, I said, and I think you need to understand the gravity of what I just said, not just the NCAA tournaments are canceled. It is spring sports. It's winter sports. That means the College World Series too is also going to be engulfed in this. And that means, I mean, holy bleep, man, the College World Series, that isn't played until June.

What is this? What's going to happen with the Olympics? Yeah, they were already in question. And USA Baseball had an Olympics qualifier that was supposed to be hosted next week in North America.

And it got banged too. We need to unpack all of this. That's what we need to do. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to play the movie game. Yeah.

That's Jods going to join us for Demon Deacon Digest. Should I ask him about Danny Manning's job? Maybe. Am I? Absolutely not. We're going to talk about movies.

Okay. Because damn it, today sucks. And over the next 60 days, you're not going to have sports to watch.

You're probably going to consume a lot of film. But today is awful. And what I'm getting from a lot of people, they appreciate the average Joe's talk and they appreciate the Wii music because guess what? Yeah, we're going to tell you the information you need to know, but you listen to this show for an escape. And this is one of the few days, Kobe Bryant, it was another day in January where the sports doesn't feel like an escape.

The sports, you actually want to get away from the coronavirus and those headlines. So we're going to try and do that. We're doing something different than maybe any other radio show in this state. We're going to try and have a little bit of fun.

And that's what we're going to do with the movie game next. The image that's going to stick with me earlier today, being at the Greensboro Coliseum is when Leonard Hamilton was handed the trophy, the ACC championship trophy on a Thursday at 1230 by John Swofford. And none of the players had smiles on their faces. Leonard, he tried to crack one. John Swofford did as well, but you can find the images. Heck, even on the cover art of our next guest story, you could just see the faces tell you everything you need to know about how strange what's going on in sports currently is.

It's Ed Harden, the award-winning columnist from the Greensboro News and Record, who we were talking to either last week or the week before. And the question I asked was, what's the worst case scenario for this tournament? And we were talking about FSU potentially playing Louisville, and they're not being a lot of fans in the stands. And you said, no, the worst case scenario is fans aren't allowed to see it. Yet we weren't even comprehending a world in which basketball games aren't being played altogether.

And now we know the NCAA tournament isn't going to be played either. As you are on a boat right now, I understand, Ed, how are you processing that today? Well, I mean, you could sort of see it coming, couldn't you? It was like outside forces were just going to dictate everything that we saw and heard this week. And it just happened so fast. I mean, we showed up knowing that all this was out there and you could see certain events and sporting events being affected, but it just seemed to come out of nowhere on Tuesday and then into Wednesday. And then we woke up this morning, think we had it all figured out.

And no, we didn't. So, yeah, it's just been the strangest 48 hours in the history of sports, as far as I'm concerned. What do you make of Commissioner Swafford's press conference that was supposed to be at 10, but ended up being held at 1030, which was a little bit less than two hours before he was handing a trophy to Leonard Hamilton and a tournament that Leonard Hamilton never coached a team at? Yep.

Yep. It was an odd, odd morning. And we had no idea how odd it was getting ready to get. We now know that Swafford walked out of what was a very somber, sobering press conference, press briefing almost. And almost immediately he received a call from Duke University, which had already decided that it was going to shut down athletics for the rest of the year. And therefore they were just given a courtesy call to say, hey, we're not playing in the tournament.

That's where it all started today. Did Duke save the ACC from embarrassment? Does Florida State Clemson get played if Kevin White doesn't make that phone call? I believe they called NC State first and out of courtesy said, here's what we're getting ready to tell the league. So, you know, you can look back on it any way you want, but in one phone call, Duke killed the ACC and the NCAA tournament. So that's how it's going to be played nationally. You can bet. How do you think this affects the sport long term?

I know that's a very broad question and it's hard to really consider all the angles and all the ways that this coronavirus can reach its tentacles into. But what do you think the biggest effect it's going to have not having a March bad biz this year? I mean, we're going to lose the most special time of the year, particularly in this state and in the city that we were in this week. It's the most important thing to us. And we've lost that.

So from a national point of view, I'm not sure they feel it quite like we do. It's going to be one that we never get back. And maybe maybe they make it up to us. You know, maybe we get the next available slot. But maybe not.

You know, I don't know. You don't know what what this tournament did to the league, first of all. So that's that's the main thing I would that I took away from it. But boy, what a what an odd year it was. And then for it to end abruptly like this, I mean, you don't want to say that it's fitting. But this this season was always going to end weirdly. We just had no idea it was going to be like this.

What do you make of this quote in your story? Matt Brown, who's the Greensboro Coliseum director, he stood under one of the backboards as all the stuff was transpiring on the floor. Everybody told you, quote, I think it's good that it happened here. This is where all the history is. It's probably for the best that we're not in Brooklyn. Yeah, we were I think we were talking along the lines of, you know, this is this is the way it was supposed to be like. Had this happened in Brooklyn, who knows what the New Yorkers would have thought.

They wouldn't have thought anything of it, quite frankly. But the fact that it happened in Greensboro, where the ACC was founded, where the ACC lives, and where the tournament's been more than, you know, anywhere else by far, we knew what it meant, we knew how to process it, we can put it in its proper perspective. And as a city, we can mourn, you know, we can, if Brooklyn wouldn't have mourned, Washington, DC wouldn't have mourned, not even Charlotte, you know, this was a this was a funereal day. It was it was unlike anything we've ever witnessed, probably unlike anything we'll ever go through again.

And I think we were just kind of just a couple of people from Greensboro acknowledging that, you know, good thing it happened here, you know, good thing it happened here. All right, let's let's try to lighten things up a bit. You're on your boat.

Paint the picture for me right now. What are you looking at? Well, the water's kind of stained.

It's a little milky looking, so I couldn't tell you what the weather's been the last few days because we've been inside. But there's a west wind blowing, you know, I'm in a 14-foot john boat. I've got a seven-foot rod, spinning rod with a with a Rebel Pop R that I'm popping across the water and getting a lot of bites, a lot of pops, but I haven't caught one yet. Is the line currently in the water or did you pull it out to talk to us? I've just now pulled it out. I pulled it out when the phone rang. So it's right here.

It's in my right. All right. Do you want do you want to throw one in there to see if we have any luck real quick? Sure.

I just saw one jump. All right. Here we go.

Ed Hart throwing his line out in Greensboro water lure. All right. Here we go.

Mm hmm. Fucking drop it right on him. You're going to drop it right on him. Got it. Dropped it right behind him.

All right. There goes a blue heron across the water. That's a good sign. He's fishing too. It sounds pretty out, Ed. I'm looking out the window.

Yeah. This is this is the extent of sports right now in the United States. Like you you on your boat right now is all we have for the next Monday. Well, it might be all you read about in the news and record in the West Salem Journal. Like we this is this is the extent of our sports coverage.

Like there were some spring training games. Now we're just here waiting for you to catch. What kind of fish are you even trying to catch here? Oh, you only fish for bass. That's all out in the freshwater anyway. Yeah, I'm a bass man.

Same way. There are bass and there are bluegill. The bluegill is the main food source for the bass.

So any lure that you present to them has to look like a bluegill, has to act like a bluegill, and ultimately has to fool them into thinking they're fighting a bluegill. Well, Ed is on Twitter. Find him on Twitter for his stories, of course. Ed underscore hearted. And do me a favor, Ed. If you catch anything in the next 10, 15 minutes, post a picture of it on on your Twitter page so that way we can we can try to gain credit for it. All right.

All right. Thank you, Ed. Yeah, that's Ed Hardin from the Greensboro News and Record joining us. That's the most exhilarating sports thing that's happened today. Ed Hardin throwing his line out and hopefully he catches something.

That's the hope. But I do feel like Duke saved the ACC from some embarrassment today. If Kevin White doesn't call off Duke Athletics, doesn't say to NC State before calling the commissioner, hey, we're not going to play this game. Strong arming the ACC. Heck, strong arming the NCAA as well, because the NCAA tournament chair is Kevin White. I strongly believe Clemson plays Florida State and that game gets canceled at halftime the way that the Big East tournament game got canceled earlier today. I think Duke saved the Atlantic Coast Conference from some embarrassment.

I really do. And Duke was, I think there are a few programs that possess that type of power. Hey, we're not going to play in the NCAA tournament and the tournament is going to care about that. Kansas is another one that followed right in line with Duke.

I have another question, though, something we haven't discussed today. If sports were suspended for just 30 days, seasons can continue, right? Let's say the NCAA tournament wasn't canceled like it was earlier today, hypothetically speaking here. 30 days from now, we start March Madness.

What happened? Not the conference tournaments, but let's say the NCAA tournament. We start things off. 30 days from now.

Who was most affected by that? Yeah, Major League Baseball probably have to cancel a couple of weeks because their season's very long, but they certainly could survive that the early part of their season. The NBA, if you push things back, okay, then rather than having finals games played in the middle of June and the latter end of June, that happens in July leading right into the Olympic games. August 1st, potentially you could have free agency, free agency instead of July 1st. And I don't think that really hurts many people either because the NFL, you know they're going to take over the reins at the start of September. Let's go to the phones, though.

336-777-1600 is the phone number. Robert laughed at this phone caller before he's piping him in here, so I got a good feeling about it. James is in Clemons.

What do you got for me, James? I just wonder why you don't give Roy Williams any credit because we weren't going to the NCAA either. Thank you so much for that call. Yeah, you're right. I should give Roy the credit.

You should. That's where this Homer thing comes from, Josh. You got to give equal credit. Roy's had a couple of days, man. Roy, during his press conference two days ago, yeah, he was talking about how he felt slighted by the news, saying that old people start at 60 and he's 69. Yesterday, I asked him if he thought the climate was such that college basketball games should be played and he said he didn't want to go there, but then added a story about him fearing nuclear detonation when he was a kid, like hiding underground with his mom. He didn't understand the gravity of it at the time, but his mom was certainly scared. He called it the scariest sports experience or scariest experience he's had in his life, really, that he couldn't control. He didn't quite know what the result was going to be or what the fix was going to be. So Roy's had a couple of days, man, so it's a good point, though.

North Carolina, they were eliminated for postseason competition before Duke was, technically, technically speaking, on Twitter at sportsubtryit. Robert, please tell me you have a fun ticket to the house story that we're going to do in 10 minutes. When he asked whether he... Oh, I don't want to tease you. Oh, okay. I'd planned it out.

I just need you to know I need a fun ticket to the house story today. It is not about any kind of virus. That's not the question I asked.

It's a little funny. Okay. 3-3-6-7-7-7-1-600. Last call for phone calls. I hope we're going to be here tomorrow. I don't know if we're going to be here tomorrow. If I'm not here tomorrow, it doesn't mean I have the coronavirus. Don't be the one that freaks out about this stuff. It's an amazing thing how much we discussed this at the ACC tournament. Who's going to be the media member that says, bap!

I got it! Who's going to be the person? Not as a slight to the person, but you know, you're just all sitting there and you're amongst thousands of people and you're there all day.

Who's it going to be? So pardon me. I know solo hosts, you kind of got to be bombastic at times, or at least that's the stigma with it.

Okay, you got to be loud, bombastic to fill in the space that would be filled by somebody else who's sitting next to you. But that doesn't mean we can't be scared too, right? Like, I think we're all affected by this. For sure. I think we are. And you know, other people on the show, they're spooked by this.

We're not poking fun at that at all. So you know, we hope, we hope that everything is well. And you know what, if you're one of those people who still think this is an overreaction, I hope you're right. Boy, do I hope you're right. I hope so deeply that you are absolutely right that this is a massive overreaction by everybody. But the bigger fear, I'd much rather be wronged than whatever the worst fear we have about what this virus is. Whatever whatever it is, can be, you know. Let's get to the fun stuff. Robert, what do we got in ticket to the house? When this man said he wanted to do it the old way, I actually agreed with him. We take it to the house next.