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He's amused Cam Newton. He's been insulted by Charles Barkley. When some idiot in the press asked him, if you know what you know now, what you scheduled this game.

He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation. I see he's just completely taking the wind out of my city. It's time for The Drive with Josh Graham. You are on a Wednesday drive WSJS, news talk sports for the triad, where for the second straight night, the ACC understood the assignment.

On Monday, it took both games. Last night, despite only being favored in one of the six matchups with the Big Ten, and that was Virginia going to a madhouse at Chrysler Center in Michigan, the ACC got a 3-3 push, setting up tonight. The final night of the final ACC Big Ten challenge and it looks like an outright ACC win or a 7-7 push is going to come down to who wins in Bloomington tonight between number 18 North Carolina and a top 10 ranked Indiana team. Everything's pointing to the Hoosiers to win. Las Vegas has them favored for those who care about such things.

Home court, assembly hall, not an easy place to play. Carolina hasn't really looked the part in every single game they've played other than the James Madison home win. They're coming off two losses. They're nursing some injuries, which is why I have no choice but to pick the Tar Heels to win tonight's game. I've got North Carolina and here's the lesson.

Do not overreact to the latest thing. Don't see your opinions of a team fluctuate so much in a small period of time. Yes, they've lost two in a row, but if you've watched those games like I did against Iowa State or against Alabama, it's pretty obvious Carolina could have won both those games. And if Carolina won one or both, let's say, is North Carolina an underdog going into assembly hall? If we're talking about this a week ago, any chance that North Carolina is being framed as the team that likely isn't going to win?

No. So I'm not going to allow two games to move my opinion all that much. North Carolina, it would be flipped. North Carolina would be the big bad wolf that Indiana is trying to put away. Indiana's unbeaten, sure. They're 6-0, but they haven't seen anything like North Carolina yet. Their best win so far this year is against Xavier, who Duke beat last week pretty handily. They got a really good forward. One of the best players in the country last year who came back and traced Jackson Davis. He's averaging something like 18 points a game.

Pretty sure he hasn't been defended by a guy like Leaky Black yet this year. So North Carolina is going to ease some concerns tonight. They're going to ease some of that tension because here's the other dirty little secret. This team kind of thrives on big stages and being doubted.

They're not really front runners. One of my favorite parts of the Survive and Advance 30 for 30 with NC State is when players were talking about being down in the NCAA tournament round after round after round and Derek Wittenberg joked there's a great moment where he's laughing and saying, man, hey, we're down against Houston now. This is where we're comfortable. That's what North Carolina is like. Hey, we're not used to everybody telling us we're awesome. We're not good with that. Last year when we thrived, it's when people like Josh Graham doubted us and we went on this run in March, got to a championship game and nearly cut down nets. Hubert Davis looked like he wanted to strangle the reporter that asked him a couple of days ago, hey, are you worried about the environment and have to simulate the environment at Assembly Hall in Indiana?

And you could see it on Hubert's face. These guys played in front of 80,000 people against Duke. You think these guys are worried about this? You think these guys are going to be worried and shudder at the thought of going to Assembly Hall? No, these guys are going to look comfortable in that environment. North Carolina wins this game and North Carolina helps the ACC win the final ACC Big Ten Challenge.

On Twitter, at wsjsradio, if you want in. Will Dalton is the executive producer of this show just basking in this opinion that I have. He's so happy about the thought that North Carolina tonight is going to beat Indiana according to me. I do like it. Oh, it just sounds good. I mean, it sounds great.

We are streaming video on YouTube, Twitch, and on Twitter, 336-777-1600. Shifting over to the Carolina Panthers now, over the last few weeks, we've heard defensive players refer to Steve Wilks, the interim head coach, by a nickname. I heard Brian Burns call him this on Sunday, Shaq Thompson in the last few weeks too, and that nickname is Denzel, as in Denzel Washington, which feels fitting because, like many of Denzel's movies, Steve Wilks is seeing a lot of things start to break his way. It's starting to break Denzel's way, and that's a big part of the reason why it's such a perfect nickname. Denzel's characters, whether it's Training Day or Remember the Titans, you fill in the blank, it's usually no-nonsense characters, and that's Steve Wilks. Here he was when asked about that nickname heading into the bye week for Carolina. I've had it for a while with some of my players with going back to training days, but I don't really entertain it.

I don't buy into it. I just be myself, and then Remember the Titans, all that stuff. It's all in fun.

It's all in fun, but yes, I can be training days at times. WD, who looks a lot like Jake from Training Day, watches movies every week. Tonight, you're watching The Social Network. How are you going to find time to watch that amid the Tar Heels playing at 9.15 in Duke, Ohio State? It's going to be just like when we watched The Bachelor. Bachelor got the big screen when Clemson and Georgia Tech were playing early in the season. That was on the iPad, so it's going to be the same deal tonight.

Here's a thought. You don't have to watch it on Wednesday night. You don't have to procrastinate.

This isn't like a blackboard assignment. Do it midnight, and I'm going to do it at 9 o'clock. It's part of my routine. It's a tradition.

When college basketball games are being played that you know you're going to want to watch as the producer of a sports show, maybe you can play on your schedule just a little better, just a little bit of constructive criticism for you here. This is not so constructive criticism. Other than Training Day, how many Denzel movies have you seen? Let me list some off. Malcolm X. Bits and pieces.

Do you know who that's about? Shut up. Next. Glory. I have seen it multiple times, actually. Hey! Good movie. That's pretty good. Matthew Broderick.

That's pretty good. What'd you say his name was? Matthew Broderick. Okay, good.

I thought you said Andrew for a second. Have you seen Remember the Titans? No.

No. Do you know what Remember the Titans is about? It's about football. Okay, it's a football movie. And it's a true story, isn't it? We can get to that at a later point. I see.

336-777-1600. What Denzel movie should we make WD watch? I do like the idea of Remember the Titans or Malcolm X. Getting back to Wilkes, though. If he wins two more games, it should be his job. He should have the interim tag removed, just like Brent Key officially had his tag removed at Georgia Tech. Rightfully so. Two more wins would have him at five and seven, which would be an achievement given, hey, you lost your defensive coordinator, you lost, hey, you lost your D-line coach, and you lost another D-line coach to Nebraska just this week.

Everything's so stripped down. You lost Christian McCaffrey and Robbie Anderson. You kept the team stable. Five and seven would be remarkable given that Matt Rule started this year one and four.

That would be an amazing job to me, and I think that would be enough for him to keep it. And two and three in the last five games? That's realistic. Pitt is coming. Pittsburgh's coming to Charlotte. Detroit's coming to Charlotte. You got road games against the Saints. You got road and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, both teams you already have beaten so far this year. There are a lot of winnable games left and the home record?

That really matters. 3-0 at home. All double-digit wins.

Think about it. David Tapper, he has an ego. He has brass testicles on his desk. You know, that's the type of guy that he is. You don't think he likes being at home and seeing all the home fans happy when they win and seeing more people go to the games and he gets to hand out footballs in the locker room and look like the guy?

Of course, that's a huge ego trip. And those are things that he absolutely loves to do. And Steve Wilks has given him the opportunity to do a lot of that. So just like a lot of the movies that Denzel's in, the coach nicknamed Denzel, catching a lot of breaks. Now back to the drive with Josh Flann.

We'll play skips or plays with Hayes Permar in about 15 minutes. But before he gets here, for the second day in a row, we need to talk about what Matt Ruhl had to say. Yesterday at this time, we had press conference sound and I had no issue with what Matt said. He said all the right things, was polished, and we wished him good luck.

Then he started to do the media circuit. So I'm with Rich Eisen. You can listen to the Rich Eisen show right after we get off the air at six o'clock most days.

Not today because we've got Duke basketball, but in general. And he was on with Peter Schrager on his podcast. You know him from Good Morning Football on the NFL network. And these comments are hard to defend. I've defended Matt Ruhl at almost every turn because I felt it was fair to do so.

And I don't think he's a bad coach, but it's really hard to defend these comments. If you could do it all over again, what would be the one thing you would change looking back on it as obviously it didn't work out with Super Bowl victories or anything like that? I think I probably would just probably just, you know, probably take in another job.

You know, I mean, I think it's a great place, you know, the wonderful people. But I just don't know if I was a fit there. You know, at the end of the day, you know, we talked about, hey, we're going to have a four-year plan, a five-year plan. You know, if you tell me, hey, we got a two-year plan, then I'm going to sign a bunch of free agents and do it. So, you know, what was a four-year plan became a two-year and five-game plan real quick.

And it's not about, hey, it's not, and I'm not angry about it. You know, at the end of the day, I understand. But if it's going to be that quick, then we're going to sign some more free agents. We're going to go make the blockbuster trade. We're going to do those things. I think the trajectory that we were on was correct. It was to, it was to have a team that next year can make a big trade. A two-year and five-game plan.

As if, after starting one and four, oh yeah, things are just going to turn around by the end of the season. No. Matt Ruhl is wrong here. He is not a victim. He did not get screwed over by David Tepper or the Panthers.

No. This is not a two-year and five-game plan. No, he was given three years. And after five games, we'd all seen enough. You've been blown out. Four of those games were at home and you're one and four?

No. No chance that David Tepper was pushing the button too soon or overreacting. I thought he demonstrated restraint in a good way, not firing him after two years.

And I still stand by that, but this is the part that bothers me about what he said here. The standard would be no different anywhere else he goes. The job that he just took, if two years and five games in Wisconsin is one and four in year three, he's probably going to be fired too. Any other NFL team? That's probably the case. So, oh, I probably wouldn't take that job.

Really? So I guess you just wouldn't take any job or you just want to take the Carolina Panthers job. I would have been the head coach of the Giants if I knew I'd be fired after just two years. Well, the Giants weren't going to pay you what the Carolina Panthers paid you, which is a lot more than they paid any, you know, than other teams paid entry-level coaches to the point where owners were upset about it.

And then here's the point about, oh, well, you know, if I knew it'd be a two year and five game plan, I would have, I would have signed more free agents. I would have made a blockbuster trade, I think is the way he put it. You offered the Detroit Lions a first round draft pick and players for Matthew Stafford in 2021.

Is that not the definition of a blockbuster trade? You traded for Sam Darnold. You tried to trade for Deshaun Watson.

These are pretty big swings that you, you attempted to make here. So what exactly would you have done that you didn't already try to do while you were here? Oh, we would have signed more free agents. Like Hassan Redick, who one of the best pass rushers in the league when you picked him up. Like Austin Corbett from the Rams on the offensive line and Bradley Bozeman at center. You picked up free agents. I don't know what exactly he's referring to that he would have done that he didn't already do while he was here.

The reality is simple. He just couldn't get it right with quarterback. And it's, that's the part that I defend him on. He's not, it didn't work because he's a bad coach. I think he's a good coach.

Just like I think Frank Reich's a good coach. They both got fired for the same reason. They went from, after Andrew Luck left, they went from Philip Rivers to Carson Wentz to Matt Ryan.

They couldn't find something sustainable there. And Carolina went from Teddy Bridgewater to Sam Darnold to Baker Mayfield. They just couldn't get it right. That's what happened.

Don't make up crap. That's what happened. That's what happened. Last night, big win for Wake Forest in the ACC Big Ten challenge. But how about the Virginia Cavaliers? Tony Bennett has a monster in Charlottesville.

Virginia, here's the part that's scary. Virginia is not trying to win games 55-50 anymore. They, they have scored 70 points in every single game they've played this year. According to Brian Ives of ESPN stats and info, that's the first time under Tony Bennett that that's ever happened. And what it reminds me of is when Saban circa 2015 hired Lane Kiffin. The knock on Bama was always, oh, they never have quarterbacks. It's AJ McCarron.

It's Greg McElroy. When they brought in Kiffin and they started to spread it out and bring in quarterbacks, that's when Bama became super scary because, oh yeah, you have the great defensive talent. But now, oh, we also got dudes. We got Tua. We got Hurts. We've got Mac Jones. They got Bryce Young. That's what Virginia feels like now.

Oh yeah, we can shoot it now. We can play defense still. But also in addition to that, after finishing in the 200s from three-point range last year, we're now fifth.

And the six returning players that are back have taken positive steps. Armand Franklin back to his form at Indiana from three-point range. You look at a guy like Reece Beekman, he's now flex, he now can score. And he's a versatile player, not just a great defensive player, one of the best players in the league that they have.

They have a lot of guys just like that. Caden Chedrick, a seven-footer that's figured it out and now has a lot of good things, disrupting things in the post. And they've added two additions to that to make it a great eight-man rotation. Isaac McNeely, 50% from three. That's why you have a top 10 recruiting class. And you bring in this Vander Plaas from Ohio and he might have been the best player other than Beekman last night against the Michigan Wolverines. So Tony Bennett, he's got a monster over there. He might be the best team in America.

Mark it down right now. December 17th, they have a matchup with the current number one team, the Houston Cougars. That game's going to be played in Charlottesville. I feel obligated to apologize. Maybe to Connor O'Neill, who after this segment might lose his Heisman vote. That's number one.

Connor O'Neill's in here from Deacon Illustrated and Devils Illustrated. I also feel the need to apologize to budget blinds because they sponsor the big four. And here's the thing about the big four. There's four of them.

Generally, there are four. We did three last segment and got long-winded and I didn't realize we didn't get the number one story. So number one on the big four is a woman caused a Southwest airline.

It was supposed to go from Houston to Columbus, Ohio, and it had to make a pit stop, an emergency landing in Arkansas. Why? This woman, she bit somebody and then she was trying to open the emergency hatch at about thirty seven thousand feet because she said Jesus told me to do it. OK. Might be scared. It could be one of those. Was she frantic and scared? Well, having like an episode on a flight, I think we've all been on a flight and sat next to somebody who's been scared at some point, maybe not biting people and trying to reach for the hatch. So inciting Christ.

But I think what's the root of this? Well, the court documents sketch this scene for you. A flight attendant told a woman to either use the bathroom or sit down. Another flight attendant said the female passenger asked two flight attendants if she could look out the window.

She received a negative response from said flight attendant, so she forced her way past the attendant began to pull bit attendant, then begin to pull on the exit door in an attempt to open it at thirty seven thousand feet because she wanted a view. Biting is never a good move. If you want to get involved and mix it up with someone, throw a punch. This sounds isolated, like something terrible, like if you just take it out of context, just punch people. No, don't bite.

That's the message. I got the PSA. I got bit by who? I got I got bit once on a bouncy house. How young were you? I was like 11. That's still a little bit, maybe 10, I don't know, to be in bouncing house.

Well, I had it. No, it's not 10, 11 bouncing houses. Yeah. Oh, a neighbor was having a birthday party and his jerk of a friend that was there. We were all having like a little wrestling thing and he bit me right in the stomach.

How in the stomach? Oh, yeah. I was like, what was that? He bit me.

It hurt. How old's too old for jumping gyms and things of that nature? How old's too old? I don't think. Is it the same age as Halloween or older?

It's not an age thing, it's a size thing. Yeah. Yeah. You ever seen one of those like big places that you go to? I forget what they're called, but like they've got like a whole bunch of different bouncy things and like air something.

I don't know what it's called. Put a pin in this. Yeah. Who's to say in about 10 to 15 minutes?

Maybe we can get to the bottom of this in a bit. Connor O'Neill, you lose your Heisman vote. My understanding is if you reveal who you're voting for, yes.

You can reveal after they announce. Just not before. Let me frame it in a way that will not make you lose your Heisman vote. Is the Heisman race wrapped up regardless of what happens this week in terms of who wins the award? I think so. If I'm taking the view from 37,000 feet and not biting people.

I don't do that. I think it is. I think enough minds have been made up.

Mine hasn't. You can ask me and I will tell you, I am not 100% sure on who I'm voting for. That's fine, I think.

And when you say you don't know who you're voting for, the way it works is you're given a ballot you're given a ballot that has first place, second place, third place. Yep. Yes. You have to, I guess you don't have to put three names on that piece of paper. Yes. I think you have to fill in all three, but now that I think about it, I don't know if it, I don't think you have the option of leaving second or third blank.

Okay. I think you have to have a first place vote. A lot of people feel like Caleb Williams is the front runner. He's in the mix, probably going to win the award. You, I said that, you didn't say that, but who are some of the guys you think of first that are in the conversation that you need to watch this weekend to get a feel on whether to vote on a vote for them or not?

I want to watch Drake May. I want to watch if Blake Corum plays. Because many of the guys who have been talked about Stroud, Bryce Young, Hendon Hooker, they are not playing this weekend. Yeah. Hendon Hooker is an interesting case because you have to factor in that he lost two games, but also that he wasn't able to play a game where he would have been able to boost his stats.

Sure. I want to see Stetson Bennett play. I think I said on this show before, the timing of the vote really bothers the hell out of me. We have to vote after conference championships, and now that you're playing two games to determine the national champion, and it's going to be three games sooner rather than later in the next couple of years, I think the Heisman vote timing needs to change. It bothers you. Until that happens, I'm inclined to think of the CFP semi and the national championship games last year as part of this Heisman vote.

It bothers you more than it bothers me because I appreciate a level playing field, a level standard for everybody. Everybody gets 12 games, that's your sample, which we don't have actually right now because we do this after conference championship weeks. In a perfect world, if you wanted to maximize that, you would have it after the regular season ends that you would vote for it, not even include conference championships. It's so tough when you talk about you have to look at everybody in the same 12 game scope.

I just dealt with this with all ACC balloting over the weekend. The Virginia Tech freshman corner who might have been 10 minutes away from being announced as the ACC defensive rookie of the year only played seven games, but when you stack him up against the other three candidates, he had the best seven. In his seven games, he was better than the other guys were in 10, 11, or 12 games. I had Malik Mustafa, Wake's safety on my third team all ACC ballot. He didn't play in their last three games. Is nine games enough, but is seven or eight games not enough?

It's so hard to boil down, okay, how much is a legit sample size to give out awards? Connor O'Neill, end with us. Quick thing on the ACC Big Ten Challenge tonight, Wake Forest. Is there anything about this Wake Forest team that you can look at right now and say, oh, that's better than what they were last year?

Shooting. I think they're better outside shooting team. I think they have more depth and I think we've seen that. Their rotation, Steve Forbes has more versatility in his lineups and some of their guys are a little match-up based. Some nights they could play five minutes, some nights they could play 25, and that's where you've got to trust a coach and a coaching staff to know whose game it is. Davion Bradford and Matthew Marsh are bangers. They're going to play against your John Huglies and Armando Bacot, but against PJ Hall, I knew it was coming as soon as you looked over to him. I knew it. Against somebody like Miami's front line or BC's front line. Notice I said BC.

Smart. You could see more of Zach Keller and Andrew Carr play the five. So look, I'm not trying to diminish the accomplishments of a 25-win team last year. I think this Wake Forest team is just a different team in the fact that it gives Steve Forbes a little more lineup versatility.

It gives him a little more variance in the tools that he has to work with. And not to toot my own horn here, but I wrote about that in the summer. I wrote that this was going to be the case. I also wrote that they would not have a dominant scorer and as long as Tyree Appleby is going to drop 30 points and average 20, I'm wrong on that one.

Sure. But I voted Andrew Carr first team all ACC, so it doesn't seem like he's the first team all ACC guy on this team. We have some pre-season picks to discuss later. But yeah, I mean, I think they're a better shooting team. I think they have more time to play. I think they're a better shooting team.

I think they have more depth is the main crux of the answer there. So Notre Dame hosts Michigan State tonight. UNC's at Indiana. You got Duke, Ohio State this evening. Florida State, woof, they've got Purdue. Oh God, that's a name of score game.

That's not great. You got to win three. Miami's hosting Rutgers. You win three to win the ACC Big Ten Challenge.

You win two, you push. I think they win the challenge tonight. I think Duke and Carolina win and they need either Miami or Notre Dame to win at home. I think only one of Duke and Carolina wins and I'm not sure which one it is.

Ohio State is so much better than I thought they were. And part of that is because I'm judging them off a closed door scrimmage against Wake where... They lost by double digits? I don't know if the final was double digits. Wake was up by a bunch. It ended up being a 15 point game.

15 points. Super secret scrimmage though. Closed door. We got to use closed door. We shouldn't have even brought it up.

I'm sorry. Connor, glad you came in here buddy. NSMA North Carolina Sports Writer of the Year finalist, Connor O'Neill in the house. We will see you out at Cameron Indoor Stadium later tonight.

Sounds good. Follow Connor's coverage. Deacon Illustrated. Devil's Illustrated.

You can read his stuff. This is a question I've gotten today. Why is it a 9-15 tip for North Carolina, Indiana tonight? And a 7-15 tip right here on WSJS for Duke Ohio State. Well, the answer to that is during the ACC Big Ten Challenge, it's also what ESPN dubs and it's one of the best things they do, Jimmy V Week. And every year at seven o'clock, right before the last ACC Big Ten Challenge slate plays out, they replay the Jimmy V speech, which they're going to do in just a little bit.

At seven o'clock, they will play it in its entirety and it will lead into a game that Dick Vitale is calling Duke Ohio State. And it is crazy to me that Dick Vitale was there on stage with Mike Krzyzewski and it's almost been 30 years since he gave that speech. And it's going to be special tonight, man, that Dick Vitale's in the building at Cameron because if memory serves, he has not been at Cameron Indoor Stadium to call a game since COVID.

Like the 2019-20 season. You're talking about a long time because last year he was dealing with cancer to the point where he couldn't speak and call games, which just seemed like a weird crime that Dick Vitale can't speak. That's the guy who, you know, people joked for years they wanted to mute him or shut him up because he's too loud and the guy can't speak. Now that he's back, it just feels right that the guy's in the building. And he's always an interesting figure to me because he hyped college basketball and made it a huge, he helped elevate the sport when it wasn't such a massive product. And the fact that people say we want Jay Billis over Vitale because he's more analytical and less of a hype man and loud, they don't even know, but they're paying Dick Vitale a compliment when they do these types of things because it seems that the sport, because of Vitale in part, grew to such a place that they didn't even need the hype man anymore like Dickie V. And it's just going to be cool to see him call in a game tonight. I'll be in the building, but watching it on, part of me wants to watch it on TV just to hear Dick's voice on a game at Cameron when Cameron's right. Hayes Perma are joining us now from Sports Channel 8. We'll play skips or plays with Hayes in just a moment, but let me just put it to you as somebody who's been in this space for a long time, this space being college basketball media, North Carolina media. How important of a figure are you willing to say Dick Vitale is to the sport that we all love?

A couple things. Like you said, he's almost like the, what's the host of Survivor, Jeff Probst? Like college basketball probably would have become a major product without Dick Vitale. Somebody else would have filled that role or the super teams in the eighties and that Duke team in the nineties where people talk about them being almost like a reality TV show that was college basketball. But yeah, Dick Vitale was basically the host.

He was embedded in there. So when you think of Survivor, you think of Jeff Probst, where Survivor probably would have done fine, even if somebody else had hosted it, right? But now the two are inextricably linked and you can't think of Survivor without Jeff Probst, right?

So that's, that is exactly, you're exactly right. He's not just a hype man. He's almost like the host of college basketball.

And I'll go one further. I've said this for a couple of years now. And I believe the organization when it started out was, was the Jimmy V foundation and they've changed it to the V foundation and how, you know, it's almost like divine intervention that Dick Vitale's name happens to start with a V2 and going back to when they were V and V movers on the Cosby show to, to settle a bet with their good friend, Bill Cosby about a temple game, I think. I feel like that should become what it's the V foundation.

And then, you know, you've got like the subtitle that gives you a longer sentence like Jimmy V foundation fighting cancer research. We can just go ahead and add Vitale's name in there. Like, and, and Jimmy V knew he was doing this when he set it up, he knew he wasn't going to be there to, to make this thing a success.

And it was going to be on the strength of the people that loved him the most and want to carry on his legacy the most. And obviously there's nobody who's done more than Dick Vitale. So now that I've said all those good things, let me actually say one thing that's going to make some people mad. And you're going to roll your eyes at it.

You're like, this is per more being per more or sports yearly being sports yearly. So I said all those good things. And I mean, every one of those about Vitale and how much good he's done and how awesome the Jimmy V week is and how cool it is. And nobody loves Jimmy V more than I do. I'm a rally boy.

Jimmy V got buried in Oakwood. I danced with his daughter and show choir. We were good friends back in the day. Like I am a huge, you know, benefit. I I've held the SP that he got that night where he gave the speech. I've been filling in volcanoes house growing up and I've held that SP.

So nobody is a bigger fan of Jim ball there than I am. But how did I discuss on your show about how sometimes we could water down honorees if we do like too much, like, you know, comparing park rangers to military veterans? Yes.

You dunked on the park ranger last week and they're not happy with you. Yeah. Yes. And in a similar vein, as much as I love Jimmy V week and the Jimmy V speech and the Jimmy V charity, am I crazy to say it feels like we get maybe like six Jimmy V weeks a year? There's like the Jimmy V week of basketball.

I swear there'll be another one in like winter. NCAA tournament time. It's survive in advance starts playing.

Like we then there's the actual SP suite. We show the Jimmy V speech and look injected into my veins. Every time it comes on, if I'm, if I happen to stumble upon it, I'm stopping and I'm either laughing, crying, or being, you know, moved to think depending what part of the speech he's in. So I'm not taking anything away from it, but it does seem like there's more than one Jimmy V week. Uh, and it's a, we, we always kind of check a little bit like, wait, it's Jimmy V week again already. It seems like it's like national pizza day where there's like five of them a year. Maybe they slightly tweak what this week is, but it does seem like there's a lot of Jimmy V weeks.

That's all I'm saying. Random. I'm a Jimmy V fan. Random thing to throw out there at a time like this. Follow Hayes on Twitter.

If you want to engage with him on Twitter at DHPIV, you can find him. Hayes Fermar. Hayes Fermar with us from sports channel late. That is usually what happens by the way, the Kentucky thing. Everybody thought that I said things like, Oh, Kentucky people don't have teeth and they're kissing their sister and stuff. The week of the, that things blew up with Matt Jones of KSR that way.

No, no, no. That was B dot and Robert Walsh doing that while I tried to get them to stop, but that didn't stop KSR from all of them attaching that to me because my name's on the show. That's just how these things work. How hard were you trying to get them to stop? Oh, please stop. Oh, stop. Please. When Jim Rome would like read his, his listeners emails and be like, Oh, I'm not going to read all these things. And then like mentioned exactly what's in there and blame it on the readers thought it's your, your names on the show. What was said on the show you own Graham, just like me and my hate against park Rangers and Jimmy V weeks.

You own those. Now it's time for skips or plays with Hayes. Hayes is somewhat of a Renaissance man, an expert in the finer things, but he hangs his hat on music.

He was like, Oh, six getting busy with his sticks. Been watching big Mike and little trick trip. I just need his eye on and someone he can dunk on today. Hayes will decide that this music is smash or trash blows or blows.

It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. What is the theme for this week? So because the USA soccer team is going to be playing Netherlands, Oh, the Dutch, the Dutch. There's two things I can't stand.

People who are intolerant of other cultures and the Dutch. Well, what we're going to do is give you songs. DJ WD is going to give you songs by Dutch DJs or, or that have Dutch DJs.

EDM is huge over there. What do you think about that? Hayes? Okay. This sounds like real interesting. Okay. So we'll see how much we, we know of these songs. That's we'll see how this works. Dutch DJs. I do know there are a handful of them that are pretty big. So we'll see where you begin.

Where are we starting? So the first one is going to be by Martin Garrix. Oh, and this also has Bebe Rex. Is that how you say her name? I don't know.

I don't know. Oh yeah. Yeah. She's big right now. She's big right now.

Bebe Bebe Rex. We sound old. That's fine. Yeah. She's got a good song. I don't know. So the song is in the name of love.

This sounds like that Dua Lipa. That's a joke WD. I've heard this. All right.

My big question. I only want to hear this play out because I want to see, is she going to say anything else or just literally like the Spencer Hall joke where the first line of the song is actually the entire song. Oh, she's saying other words now. Okay.

I wanted to see her use her DJ skills to just stretch a whole song out of in the name of love. And that's it. But this, this isn't grabbing me. I'm skipping it.

I'm out. I do like that Permar is welcoming it, not doing the US thing. We're playing the Dutch and I'm going to skip everything that is Dutch related this week.

You know, it's all about expanding your horizons and also welcoming other cultures. Uh, what is the next song that you have Dutch DJ edition of skips or plays with? Hey, so this one is by Tiesto. Tiesto is good. Yeah. And this, I know Tiesto's work. Well, then you'll know this one.

This one is red lights. This song brings me back to when I was selling bookstore to door in Texas 10 years ago. You did what?

Yeah. I was selling books door to door jamming. I thought ever since you were like 14, you did every summer, like interning for something sports related.

When do you sell books? Uh, it was the summer of 2011 or 12. And actually that doesn't make sense. Cause this song came out in 2014. I just Googled it, but it was another, I know this song must've been another song that was EDM related, but I used to listen to a lot of EDM when I was working in Texas for a summer, 80 hours a week from 8 30 in the morning, knocking on doors till nine 30 at night, six days a week. Here's my thing. Turn this back up a little bit. Let me hear a little bit more. Like what makes this EDM versus regular pop? Like I was expecting more, like this is not like a beat building and then the beat dropping. This just sounds like a bad pop song. So first of all, I'm skipping it and checking out like why are these DJs wasting my time with like ballad-y stuff? I thought the whole point was I'm not getting that vibe from these, these, uh, these weak EDM songs.

Come at Hayes, Dutch DJ fans, Dutch EDM. Let's see if, uh, WD can salvage something here. What's the last song? This one. Storm or Cascada, like something that's getting me jumping like that.

I thought that was what we were going for. I don't know if any of them are what's Darude. I don't think Darude's Dutch. I don't know, but if they, if, if sounds German. Yeah.

If he's finished. Oh, so you've kind of done that. Cause I love that song. Uh, all right. I'm going to one South Carolina game and you will not love that song anymore. I've already lost the match here.

So let me see if I can at least get a pride point. I'm going throwback. It's a pit bull song. Uh, but it also has Afrojack in it. Oh, that's a name.

We're going to go give me everything. There's Neo too. Oh yeah. One of my hot 2000s takes is that Neo is better than Usher and everyone gets mad about it. Yeah, it is a couple of good songs.

I'm not sure if he's going to be able to carry Usher, but that's interesting. Mad by Neo is my go-to I'm sad and I just need a minute song anyway. So sick of love songs in that Neo that's Neo too. God, that's very good. That's good stuff. Um, I'll give this a play. It's a little sympathy for EDU. I thought it'd be even a little more thumpier than that, but I'll give it a play.

I'll, I'll rock with that song. Hayes on the way out WD. We need to figure out a movie to make them watch next week. And one of the coolest things that's happened with Steve Wilkes winning some games in Charlotte is we learned that his nickname is Denzel, which is great because he just has the seriousness of Denzel.

He was asked about it earlier in the week and essentially said, yeah, I'm aware of it. There's some training day. There's a little bit of remember the Titans in it. WD we've already made him watch training day. He hasn't seen any other Denzel movies at all. And when I say no other Denzel movies, I mean, no other Denzel movies. What Denzel movie should WD watch next? Um, like for, for historical purposes, you might want to throw it back to like glory or something. I thought you would say Malcolm X if you were going historical.

Yeah, you could do that. But if it's just me picking, yeah, you, I gotta go. He got game. Excellent. A first was about to happen. It's basketball. It's sports. There's a lot of good hoopers in there that give very underrated performance. I mean, Ray Allen is just great. Um, but Denzel is awesome too. And, uh, and there's some great basketball scenes as well as there's basketball scenes set to, uh, Aaron Copeland, uh, or orchestra music.

It's, it's awesome. Check out. Should we make him watch? He got game before he's ever seen, remember the Titans. I'm talking in terms of, I'm not a big, remember the Titans fan, but like in terms of the culture and references and things it's, I hear fewer people referencing, he got game versus remember the Titans.

So I'm just trying to do what's best for WD so we can get some of the references that people have made around him his entire life. Yeah. I've never seen remember the Titans. That was like when, when I was growing up, there was like four sports movies that existed.

It was like bull Durham, the natural. I mean, there was more than that. Right. But there just weren't that many sports movies. And they were movies with like sports as a background, not like sports, dramatic recreations of actual sporting events like team USA or, um, or stuff like this. Right. They, they were, they were originally original screenplays sports movies.

Then this just came out at a time. And remember the guidance is a great movie. I've even seen parts of it. I've seen scenes. You can't have never seen it, but, uh, but it was just coming out when there was too much sports movies coming out and I was avoiding a lot of them. And so it probably came out around the same time as he got gay, but I was all in on the Spike Lee joint with a public enemy, uh, soundtrack and, uh, at college basketball players, I liked and college, uh, basketball coaches making cameos in it and Rick Fox is great in it. So I was drawn to, he got game, um, more than ever was like the historical re read dramatizing type sports movies. It will be a Denzel movie that he watches next week.

And it just might be, he got game Hayes per Mar. What are we doing Christmas movies? Cause I got suggestions there. Okay. We'll write that down. We'll get to that in a few weeks. We're gonna, we got a few weeks until we get to that point per Mar. Appreciate the time. Talk to you next week. Enjoyed it.

Thanks guys. That's Hayes per Mar joining us as he does each and every week playing skips or plays with Hayes on Twitter at DHPIV. It isn't like me WD before we get to take it to the house to leap to a conclusion like this, you know, uh, value small sample, the large sample size over the small one, you know, don't overreact, yada, yada, yada, the things that I say like a broken record, but wake forest really surprised me last night. And it's not too early to look at them and say, Oh, this is an NCAA tournament team. Especially considering how close they were a year ago. Wake forest looks like a team that's going to make the tournament and Forbes.

He's found another killer in the portal. That's what Alondis Williams was. And that's what Ty Appleby is right now. He dropped 30 on him 30 at the Cole center. He's delivered when wakes needed him most like Utah Valley.

You were at that game, Ty Appleby hitting the shot at the buzzer to win it. Forbes greatest skill isn't identifying talent in the portal. A lot of people can do that. What he does so well is that he identifies talent and integrates it to a team concept. And this is what I mean by it. When you watch wake, it's pretty obvious what the roles of the guys playing on the floor are. We have a sense for it.

That's very clear. Hey, Ty Appleby. He's going to be the score as is Davian Williamson, Damari Monsanto. He's relied on for his three points.

You to Cam Hildreth. It's defense. It's driving some three and D stuff there in the post, the bigs, they know exactly what they're supposed to be doing. The roles are so defined, which North Carolina could use right now, even though they have so much familiarity on their roster, which Duke could use. A lot of teams could use this time of year.

Wake seems to have it, which is surprising because of how many new parts there are. Steph Curry had this thing after he won the finals. What are they going to say now? And Will Zalatoris kind of took it when he won his first PGA tour event towards the end of the PGA season. What are they going to say now? Well, here's my question. What's the committee going to say now about wake? Because they didn't have the non-conference schedule last year.

That's what they said. Their non-conference schedule is no longer lacking. They played Georgia, won, beat Wisconsin on the road. They got LSU next week on the road in Baton Rouge. I asked Steve Forbes about this after the game last night.

And this is what Forbes said. Hey, the ACC Big 10 challenge, the success we've seen from the league being three and three last night and the win against Wisconsin for their group means. Man, I think it's good for our narrative, you know, but it doesn't. We have to win these games and we have to move on. We have 20 league games left and we haven't even started yet. But yeah, I think it's something that we'll have in our pocket, you know, at the end of the year that we need that we didn't have last year, you know, and that hurt us when it came down to selection Sunday.

So very proud of them. Told them that, that it was a marquee win, non-conference win for us, but we still got a lot of league left on the ball. They should still be 8-0. Should not have lost up eight with 80 seconds left to go against Loyola Marymount. They will be at Clemson on Friday night. Big step for the ACC last night. We'll see if they follow through tonight and doing some of the things that I think they should do.