I See Frog Parts (3-9-23)

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, would you schedule this game?

He's interviewed Matthew McConaughey. And he's taken on Big Blue Nation. He's just completely taken the wind out of my safety. It's time for The Drive with Josh Graham. Don't readjust your radios. You hear it right. We're not at three o'clock, but we are live at the ACC tournament.

It's live action, Tracy. As on WSJS until six o'clock, we will be live here at the Coliseum. David Shoemate and John Roth will grab hold of the steering wheel at 1.30. Duke plays at 2.30 on SJS.

And then when that game wraps up, we will be back again up until six. David Glenn, who knows the afternoon time slot, the early afternoon time slot well, joins us here. If you're watching on YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter, it says he's a two-time North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year and the founder of the ACC Sports Journal, or accsports.com and the ACC Sports Journal.

It's a pretty impressive resume if I don't say so myself. DJ, the big story tonight. Well, obviously it's ACC Big Four, Big Thursday, where we have all four playing on the same day in a season where the ACC can't have nice things. We have nice things in Greensboro, but we're on Armando Bakehot ankle watch. Just like last year. You want to talk about flashbacks to last year?

Carolina's on the bubble. Carolina has an ankle situation with Bakehot, and it would be stunning if he doesn't play tonight. This was Hubert Davis after the game reassuring Tar Heel fans a little bit, suggesting it's not as severe as some of the stuff he's dealt with in the past.

This is how that sounded. Armando just now leaving the locker room said he felt really good and that he's already probably already back at the hotel getting treatment. I've never seen anybody sustain ankle sprains and be able to come back like he can.

He didn't think it was as bad as the one obviously in the Final Four, and also the one when he hurt it at Virginia. When Armando's out there, whether he's 100% or 75%, that's good news for us. DG loves the drop every time he hears it. We've been playing this now for four years every time his name is mentioned on this show. The rule is you can say the last name without it playing, but the moment I say the word Armando, it's always, I always love watching people will have to hear that for the first couple of times and they just start calling him number five or Bakehot. Every time I run into Randolph Childress, who says he's not going to be here today, he's at MSG for the Big East tournament. He just out of context walks past me and says, Armando!

People like it. Cheers me up. Getting to the severity of really just his importance for North Carolina facing Virginia. Some might say, well, it seems like it's been a good matchup for North Carolina in the first two games. He went out a minute into the game in Charlottesville and they didn't have Nance that day. And it was Jalen Washington who had 13 and six and Carolina was competitive. And then he wasn't that great against Virginia in Chapel Hill. Frankly, Pete Nance in the lemon Oreo game had 22 points and North Carolina led that game wire to wire. How do you like the matchup tonight?

How concerned are you about Bakehot? Well, number one, let's remember that Bakehot number five, uh, when the Tar Heels were missing him, he did not play at all against Virginia Tech. And as you mentioned, he barely played against UVA Tar Heels record in those two games, zero wins, two losses, not coincidence.

These two things are related. Uh, UVA has been trending down. UVA has lost its confidence to score the ball. They're still one of the best defensive teams in the ACC, if not the country, but their offensive parts have not been clicking lately. And the Tar Heels have had a little of that on their own offensive dysfunction, but they steered the ship back in the right direction, at least against Boston college.

I think at full strength, the Tar Heels would beat the Cavaliers. Now, if I look up in Armando, Bakehot is not out there because he re aggravates an ankle injury. I would love to take my prediction back.

Um, I don't think Vegas allows you to do that to make you feel better about it though. Leaky black. We went up to him in the locker room and asked him if he was concerned about number five, number five. I feel like the old Yankee PA announcer, Bakehot number five. Forget what that guy's name is. It's going to Bob Shepherd. Thank you, Bob Shepherd.

Pretty good. Uh, this is what Leaky had to say about Mr. Bakehot. Well, believe it or not, I've seen one that y'all haven't seen in practice where he really wrote it like bad and it was like a golf ball. And then literally like the next day he was like running on it and like he looked fine. It was like, bro, you just want attention. You know what I mean? But like I said, mine, though, you know, he's going to eat all this stuff. So, uh, but no, he's good. I talked to him. He's all that jumping around.

He's going to be fine. We're about to go get in the pool as soon as I get back. So, uh, get ready for tomorrow. That's great. That is great stuff, man.

The drive is bringing some quality audio. That's good job. Just being dramatic. And your boys usually know, right? Oh, I mean, the trainer knows, but you don't usually have access to ask questions of the trainer. Sometimes the injured person's not available, but your boys know Hubert was speaking to the media five minutes after the game press conference. He's up to the press or up to the lectern, if you will. And he said that Armando was already back at the team hotel already getting treatment. It's been five minutes Hubert, right?

Already, already back to the team hotel. So that's the North Carolina piece of it. We probably feel that wake forest is the most likely North Carolina team to go down. Not because of the dekes, but more because of who they're playing and a double by situation, the number one overall seed in this tournament, Miami, but after them, who are you most concerned about today out of the North Carolina schools? Any of them could lose, of course, but to answer your question, I would say Duke is second on my list.

Uh, wake again, they're just playing the number one seed in the ACC tournament. Most years, most teams run out of guys that can get you buckets. Miami never runs out of guys that can get you buckets. They got Wong. They've got Nigel Peck. They've got Norchetto Amir. They've got Jordan Miller.

They're not going to run out of dudes to get buckets. So that, that's why I think the dekes have an uphill battle here. The Duke matchup is interesting because the blue devils beat Pitt earlier this year, head to head. In Cameron, no Jeremy Roach, Filipowski went nuts 28-13.

And he's the key to the game. Pitt does not have a good defensive matchup for Kyle Filipowski, the best freshmen in this league and one of the 10 best players in this league. But Pitt's own offense is really, really good. If Miami has the best offense in this league, and I think the Hurricanes do, Pitt is second or third. The way Jamarius Burton can break a good man down off the dribble and attack the basket with his strength. Blake Hinson is another all-ACC caliber player.

Elliott hits threes. Nelly Cummings is, you know, a 24-year-old been-around-the-block creator for himself and others. That's the point. They have adults. They do. They have adults. Some of these freshmen for Duke look like adults. Like Mark Mitchell, he's like a sixth-year freshman. But he is a freshman. And Pitt has these older guys.

Guys, I don't know how they stop Filipowski. You're right. That's the key.

But I agree with you. Duke's the team I'm most concerned about today other than Wake Forest because of that factor in this tournament. The older guys and the depth that you're talking about facing a team that hasn't been through this before. And we're not exaggerating.

Pitt is one of the oldest college basketball teams I've ever seen. Seriously. Two of their five starters are already 24 years old. I was graduating from law school around that age. Seriously. Now, I know things have changed and sometimes there are 20-year-old freshmen. And, you know, that's a whole topic for another day.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, in my opinion. But thanks to the COVID year, thanks to transfer portals and this unusual combination of events, Pitt, I believe, has two 24-year-olds, a 23-year-old, a 22-year-old, a 21-year-old. Those are their five most important players. I mean, Jeff Caple could take all of his guys out drinking and it'd be legal. How often have college basketball coaches been able to do that? He could have shown up at ACC Hospitality. He could have been hanging out with W.D.

wearing his shades. Pitt's the only rotation in ACC history that could join the hospitality room, partake in the adult beverages, and not be breaking any local ordinances. And also, nowadays it's not an ACC or it's not an NCAA violation either. Hey, can we have something for free? Sure, you can have that. David Glenn's here with us. So who have we not talked about? Oh, the Wolfpack. I've been wrong about NC State for much of this year.

They remind me a lot of Wake. I was concerned about them yesterday and felt they had to win in order to clinch an NCAA tournament. Well, they got that done and they looked like a team that was stewing off their first losing streak of the season and having to sit on it for a week, was chomping at the bit, ready to go.

Taquavion Smith and Jarkel Joiner played like two guys who were pretty T.O. that they weren't first team all ACC and were relegated to the second team. Does that translate to tonight? It almost feels like North Carolina needed to save some of those threes and perhaps a healthy ankle for tonight against Virginia. NC State, they hammered Virginia Tech.

Do they have enough for a matchup where they play a team where they got beat by double digits in both meters? Yeah, if you and I answered this question right after watching video of Clemson dissecting NC State the way the high school biology class dissects the frog at the laboratory, that's how bad the Tigers beat the Wolfpack that day. I would argue that the pack was the frog.

I would argue I go a step further. The second matchup was they just put them, they just trapped a frog inside a can and then set it on fire. That's what happened to NC State on senior day. I see frog parts all over the laboratory by the end of that game.

We got a podcast title. I see frog parts. That said, I think the Wolfpack is the better team. I know Clemson is the higher seed.

I understand why. I saw what the Tigers did to the Wolfpack. I'm not blind to that, but I believe this is the best team Kevin Keats has had in his six years at NC State. He finally, remember how good he was at UNC Wilmington?

Death. He has not had three or more guards that he really, really loves the way he loves Jarkel Joiner who was on my first team all ACC, Terquavion who is an elite talent, but I think he deserved second teams this time. Yeah, especially how he performed on the stretch. And then Casey Morsell is one of the more improved players in the whole league.

They really like Jack Clark too. He finally has three guards. He finally can run the up-tempo style that he likes. The Wolfpack was one of, if not the highest-tempo team in the ACC this year in conference play. And then, you know, D.J.

Burns, thrust into the starting lineup mid-season, really became a nice offensive balance point for them where they could get buckets down low to go with that perimeter play. I think, you know, State hasn't won the ACC tournament since 1987. That's crazy to say.

Vinny Del Negro is in that backcourt. Oh my gosh. 1987 is when I started covering this league.

So, I've been at this for 36 years. I've never seen the Wolfpack win an ACC tournament. That's crazy. Given what so many people grew up with, where they saw Wolfpack win two national championships in 74 and 83. Multiple ACC championships.

And they were right up there. To this day, a lot of people are surprised, the three schools that have the most ACC titles, by far, Duke number one, Carolina's two, State is third. State has ten ACC titles. But so many of them are kind of in the yellowed pages of history.

And none of it, I mean, 36 years have been around a long time. At some point, I've seen Miami win an ACC title. I've seen Notre Dame win an ACC title. I've seen Florida State finally break through years ago under Leonard Hamilton. I've seen a lot of firsts.

It's not a first for State, but it's a long darn time for it to happen. That personnel I was describing, the best fit for Kevin Keats in his six years in Raleigh, has the ability to do that. There's nobody in this field that the Wolfpack couldn't beat. But of course, of the eight teams playing today, probably three or four of them are capable of cutting down the nets.

It's just a matter of connecting those dots. Another one might be the team they're playing tonight. And if you want to talk about long time. That would surprise me.

You want to talk about long time coming. The only original member that's never won the ACC tournament. Right.

Just throwing that out there. Maybe 70 years of 2008 in Charlotte. Maybe we can see what Clemson could do if they can get a win tonight. DG, I put this poll question out earlier today. How many North Carolina schools will win in the tournament today? Zero or one, two, three or four.

Got a couple hundred votes on it. Forty two percent still early on. Say three North Carolina schools will win the day. Optimistic.

Fair to say the North Carolina listenership we have here. DG, I'll let you get back out to courtside watching Wake Forest in Miami. Appreciate you spending the time with us as always. Great to be with you, my friend. Good to see you and W.D.

always. W.D. We have a segment that we call.

Hey, that's my next sponsorship idea for you guys. What? W.D.

Forty because Will Dalton. We had the drive. Uh huh. Work smoothly. That's right.

Or may not have had. Come on. May I have marketing staff sitting right here. These marketing wheels are always turning.

It's obvious that makes the drive go smoothly. Come on. David Glenn going to join us on site in about 10 to 15 minutes. I just know Will Dalton is going to find a way to interrupt me during this next segment because I'm starting to figure him out. Starting to figure out how he works. I was just over at the floor watching the game happen. Miami up twenty five twenty one right now with four minutes or so left to go until halftime. So that's me giving an update, trying to box W.D. out from trying to play defense against us doing the radio show that we're doing right now. And by the way, while I walked out there, I felt so inferior.

But what he didn't tell you was the visual aspect of it. Wake Forest. You're rocking the black unis today.

Miami. They got the pearly whites. What makes them pearly W.D.? Because that was the first word that popped into my dome. Now, I'll tell you something that's pearly.

Why I felt inferior walking back to the setup. I ran into Reese Davis and Alfonso Ellis from ESPN. Yeah. And Reese Davis's hair is immaculate. Oh, I know. He looks like the prince in a Disney movie.

It's always been flawless for years. He looks like the prince at a Disney movie. Yeah.

Either that or the bad guy like Lord Farquaad and Shrek. I wouldn't know about that. He gives off those types of vibes. I mean that as a compliment by the way. Oh yeah. Then I see Fonz and he has these blue leather shoes on. I had to ask him, what are those? Blue leather shoes. Is that how you asked him?

He's rocking it. Is that how you asked him? What are those? He killed an alligator for those. Oh. Did it personally I bet. Yeah. Leather. Man.

What a guy. Meanwhile, here I am with the quarter zip. The Jim Nance quarter zip on. We promised sound in this segment.

So we're going to deliver on sound that we obtained yesterday. And we will start with Steve Forbes dropping obscenities in the postgame press conference. But before we hear that, a little bit of backstory. So everybody from the Wake game, given how it ended, the conversation around it was mostly on Boeheim. Jim Boeheim retired after the game. He did it in Greensboro. Chef's kiss perfect.

Perfect. Obviously that's the big story. If you want to talk about it from the Wake Forest end of things, you focused on how the game ended.

Davian hits the shot. What a story that is pretty cool to follow his journey of winning that basketball game. But something I didn't realize until well after the fact of the game being in the building was how much the basketball community talked about a Cam Hildreth shot.

We're watching it live. I thought, oh, that's pretty cool. But didn't think much more than that. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, he did a full 360 jumper. Cam Hildreth hit a full 360 jumper. And if you don't believe me that the basketball community was a buzz by this move that Hildreth made, Kevin Durant tweeted out the video of Hildreth hitting the shot saying incredibly tough, great balance and skill. Why is Kevin Durant, why is KD watching Wake Forest basketball?

I don't know. But he tweeted that out. And Steve Forbes was talking about that play after the game and said this.

Cam, you know, that's a shot we work on every day, right? Wrong. But that's some English s**t that he does. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean, he's, he's, sorry. Um, yeah, just some of that English bleep.

That's all that is. He's got an accent. He's a ginger. That's not offensive to say.

Also, I am a ginger, so I can say that. Spinning 360 shot. That's just some English bleep. Mm hmm.

Bangers and Marsh. Spinning shots. Euro steps. That's what he does.

Just a bunch of English bleep. And as for the JUCO piece of this, WD, another thing I didn't see in the wake of the shot being hit and Wake Forest winning the game, I showed it to you courtside at one of the nightcap games was Steve Forbes caught on video right after the shot goes in doing a full generation X like pelvic thrust towards the crowd. I mean, it's very JUCO and I know that because I played in JUCO. So I, I, I kind of know what he's talking about here.

So I can relax 48 hours. We've lost two characters in the ACC, a guy that's easy to root for in Mike Bray, stepping away from the Irish and the ultimate villain in Jim Bay Haim, who retired here in Greensboro. Sports needs characters.

Sports needs people to root for and root against. Steve Forbes is not the hero we deserve, but he's the hero we got. That's who Steve Forbes is now for the ACC.

He's the guy who brings the hashtag content for all of us to consume. Let's go into the Tar Heel locker room, had a chance to catch up with RJ Davis about a couple of things, including playing in Greensboro in front of a packed crowd. And here's how that sounded. RJ, I know last year in New York was technically a homecoming for you. Were you surprised how much Carolina blue there was at a conference tournament game today?

No, I'm not surprised at all. You know, even for my freshman year and even it was COVID, it was still fans here a little bit. It was still loud to hear, but you know, you know, we're Carolina, you know, our fans, we have the best fan base in the world. They're going to support us wherever, whenever.

So not surprised at all. Does it help you guys at all that you played Virginia and scouted them just a couple of weeks ago that you played them late in the year and kind of what you saw then is what they're going to be tomorrow? Yeah, I mean, they're a good team and it's kind of have it, like you said, kind of like freshen our brain with how they play.

So we just got to, you know, dial in, you know, rest up tonight and be mentally and physically locked in tomorrow. We'll come ready to play, you know, our best basketball game now. Seven o'clock tip between North Carolina and Virginia, as you mentioned a few weeks ago, they played and beat Virginia wire to wire in Chapel Hill. On the Greensboro front, though, I asked Hubert Davis after the game about what it's like to coach in this place as the head coach for the first time in it to feel real for the first time here in eight seasons.

It means a lot to me. This is what I remember when I, you know, in terms of ACC basketball, just remembering my uncle, Walter Davis play here in Greensboro to be a part of it as a player, to be a part of it as an assistant coach and to be a part of it as a head coach is very special to me. Get your morning off to a great start with Jeffrey Griffin on Triad today, weekday mornings at seven.

Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. Here at the Greensboro Coliseum Wake Forest basketball in action right now against Miami on this big four big Thursday. David Shumate, voice of the Blue Devils joining us on site.

We will pass the baton off to you about 25 steps from where we're currently sit right now to you and John Roth at one 30. We have a local block up until six o'clock today at the Coliseum. Today's one of those days. I imagine David, we have all four teams playing.

I bet you wish it was old school and you get to broadcast all four games. No, it was a crazy good day. Yeah.

Back in the day when bombing those guys were basically going wire to wire. I mean, what a great day of basketball. I mean, the local ties obviously is a huge piece of it, but even with this year, I mean, you look, there's some really interesting match-ups and storylines. I mean, I think we're going to see fireworks right now in this game between Wake Forest and Miami, obviously watch the storylines and the game that we'll be doing with Duke and Pittsburgh. And then the night says, you know, we'll talk, I mean, you can go eight different directions. You can probably talk for 10 hours if you needed to today.

We will try. Yeah. We'll see how many points wins Wake Forest in Miami. I ran into Forbes before the game said how many points wins. He's like, how many did Miami have in the regular season meeting? 96 in regulation.

Okay. We'll see 90 could potentially get it done. But since you were in Winston Salem for such a long time at IMG right there in downtown Winston, I know you've probably remember toggling between the broadcast where you could listen to Gary Hahn at NC State calling Wake Forest playing Duke and the fact that you have all four today, it's kind of nostalgic. It hasn't happened in 19 years. I remember being in my car and I'd always try to find the broadcaster or the team that's behind trying to come back. I don't know when you were IMG, what it was like when you had all, all the voices doing all the quarterfinal games.

No, it was crazy. I mean, obviously I was in the studio and managing that a lot. For those that know eyes back, ISP was the name of it when I was back there, the 50 or 60 broadcasts that were going on in conference tournament week all across the country. And with the ISP schools at times, it actually mixed the broadcasters for the quarterfinal session before you got into everybody doing their own for the semis.

So you'd have like, you know, Stan doing with the analyst at Georgia Tech or stuff like that. So which was kind of a cool way to mix it as well. But no, it was cool to kind of switch around and hear all the different feeds and different perspectives. It was a big time event. It still is a big time event, big time show.

And like you said today is kind of just like a throwback to seeing what it's like. And I think that the seeding arrangement this year is a little bit different where it's, it's looks more like a bag of Skittles. If you look at the picture of how it was laid out versus how the arena used to be striped. So that'll be a little bit different, but I think the place will still be rocking. It's going to be incredible. Last night it was jam packed for the evening slate and today I can already hear him over there. It's, we can't see, we got to get one of these screens on to see exactly what's going on in the game, but it's going to be a great crowd all day long. Let's get to Duke for sure. So facing Pittsburgh today, I look at this on paper.

We watched it up close. They played once in the regular season. Jeremy Roach wasn't in that game. And all I could think was David Glenn was sitting next to me yesterday as we watched Pitt. They're an older team versus a young Duke team that hasn't looked very young in the last month.

Where are the answers for Kyle Filipowski though from Pittsburgh? He had a great game last time they played Pitt, right? Yeah, 28 and 15 in that game. And you mentioned Jeremy Roach didn't play.

It's the ultimate contrast in styles, at least on paper. I mean, you've got this collection of transfers, all these older guys that you talked about. Some elite shooters on Pittsburgh's team and Duke did a really nice job defending the three in the first meeting. I think Pittsburgh only had six.

That's obviously going to be important today. You know, the drive and kick is how Pittsburgh will kill you and you have to maybe give up some mid range stuff in the first half of the first meeting. Pittsburgh shot an unbelievable percentage in the mid range game. In the second half, not so much. And that's how Duke was able to come back. But in that game, Duke won the rebounding battle by 23, had 24 offensive rebounds. So it's who's going to win inside because obviously, you know, Pittsburgh can score on the perimeter. I think it's a fascinating matchup. And obviously Federico Federico is an elite shot blocker. You got Lively.

So how is this going to play out? And what does Jeremy Roach bring to the table? Because the last couple of weeks he's been clear in a way, Duke's best player offensively.

Federico 7 for 7 yesterday, one of the best games he's ever had. Also all ACC name team. I don't think they put out that list, but Wooga Poplar, he's on that list.

Got to figure out what the rest of that list potentially looks like. David Jumate's joining us here and speaking of lists that are put out and awards that are announced. Jeff Capel wins coach of the year, former Blue Devil going to be facing Duke today.

John Shire didn't get a vote. I thought, and talking to other coaches, the job that he did getting this team on track, it's easy for people to minimize and say, well, look at that recruiting class. I'm like, well, is there a general manager at Duke? Well, actually there is a general manager at Duke now, but who brought in that class, John Shire and those recruits, they, they weren't fooled at all. They knew who they were going to be coaching for that was important or playing for.

That's something that coach K wanted to make sure happened as part of the succession plan. What do you think people don't appreciate about the difficulty of what Shire did? The pressure, I think most people understand succeeding coach K, but given the timelines of Whitehead and Lively and the youth of this team, what being so close to it as you are in traveling with the team, what do you think people might miss?

I think they don't understand, you know, I think there's, and I want to say this carefully. I don't vote for the award. For those that are wondering, I probably shouldn't because I'm probably biased in the way that I look at it, but for years and years and years, and I think it's just becoming the accepted norm and you probably know better than I do that the award is not so much, and this isn't to take anything away from Jeff Capel, very deserving. It's not the coach of the year. It's the who coached best against preseason expectations coach of the year. I mean, that's the way that point and to crystallize that point, Mike Cieszewski might be the greatest coach ever. Not deemed the best coach of the ACC, the final 22 years he was at Duke.

No, for sure. But to what you're talking about is like with those preseason expectations that come with taking the head coaching job at Duke, there's also pressure that comes with it where if it starts to wobble, even the slightest, everyone is saying what's wrong. Oh, is this not going to continue with coach K no longer in charge? And the way that, you know, John Shire was able to navigate that with the injuries that you referenced. Also not rushing guys back from injury.

I mean, these are guys Duke has a very, this is one of the things I get to see behind the scenes. A lot of people don't very well thought out methodical approach to bringing guys back from injuries. And sometimes the players themselves want to come back before they do, maybe even a week before they do, because they want to make sure they're good to go, not just for this season, but these guys have NBA careers to look ahead to.

They want to do it the right way. And you can't imagine, I can't imagine the patience that has to be for a head coach when you don't have your guys and you're trying to develop your chemistry and you're still thinking about, you need to give it another week, you know, maybe he could go, but we need to give it another week because we want him to be fully right. And to navigate that and to bring this team together, because you know, when, when you take a couple of losses during the course of the season, it can go one of two ways. It can fray and guys can go their separate ways, but to, to bring it together and have this collective will to do what they've done over the last six games, winning six in a row, coming into this with all the young guys and getting them bought in on the defensive end of the four, which is another thing you don't see very often with young teams to me has been incredibly impressive to watch.

David, you may with us getting back to the areas you might be partial. Do you have a preference for ACC tournament sites? I mean, it's look, the atmosphere's even yesterday. I mean, and this is no disrespect to, to what goes on in Brooklyn. And obviously Duke has a huge fan base. So when Duke is playing in Brooklyn, it's awesome up at MSG. It's always awesome. But you notice some of the other games, the attendance isn't as great. And even yesterday, I mean, when wake forest hit that shot at the end to beat Syracuse, it was deafening in there. I mean, so you do see the local ties, you know, I don't have like a top of the list, but I do think the local stuff, whether it be Charlotte, whether it be Greensboro, where people can drive to and it'd be more accessible is always good.

But I think spreading it around as helpful as well. Like I said, from a Duke perspective, it's great to have it up in the New York city area. You'd love to see him at some point, maybe work out an agreement with the big East. I do think, what do you think the ACC would feel different in the garden than it does in Brooklyn?

That to me is the twist. I've always said that I'm fine with it going to Brooklyn or go into the state of New York, just as long as you are playing in the garden, you're not playing second fiddle to the big East in MSG. Yeah, no question. So, but I mean, there's nothing like it being here with the history. Obviously Duke has a lot of history in this building, uh, winning the ACC tournament over the years. And it's nice to see that Duke is actually going to be a part of this one because the last couple of times it's been here, Duke didn't play because it got shut down with the pandemic. They're supposed to play actually in this time slot in the second game of the day.

Mark Williams had that record-breaking performance against Louisville, didn't play. And then the following year won two games and then got COVID and got kind of taken out of it. So it's nice to be back in the tournament. It's just great to see people around here and have the buzz again, because I think you were talking earlier, was it 2015 was the last time that it truly was here, which is crazy.

Eight years it's been. David Chumay, we'll be hearing your voice in about an hour or so. Get ready for the broadcast and we look forward to listening to you. Thanks for what you do and thanks for dropping by. No looking forward to it. Thanks for our meal.

Check this out. The perfect blend of sports and pop culture happens this evening at six with the Rich Eisen Show. Now back to the drive with Josh Graham. We need to figure out the rebranding of this segment we're about to do because East Coast Wings and Grill sponsors take it to the house and it's the one segment we've done every single show that I've done since I've arrived at WSJS and it's going on five years that I've been here. Usually we're not on in the afternoon or in the early midday afternoon. We're going to transition to Duke pregame coverage in just a few minutes.

So the rebrand of this segment for today is going to be. But before we get to that, thanks. An update on one of those NC schools and it's not looking great at the moment. Fifty five forty. The canes have a lead with about twelve fifteen to go. It sounds like you're guessing twelve. Well, I'm watching the clock tick as I'm speaking. So there's eleven fifty seven remaining.

Oh, you're way in front of me then. Fifteen minutes while they're at the under twelve media time out now. So it doesn't look like Wake Forest is in great shape, but we're going to rebrand, take it to the house, take it to lunch momentarily. I don't even want to tease from W.D. because I doubt W.D.

has something prepared. You never know. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. It'll be good regardless.

I venture to say he doesn't because he would have just said it there if he did in terms of picks. I'm going to have a hot take. You ready? Ready for a hot take? I'm ready. We're going to air horn.

Ready to do this? It's. Yep. I like Miami. Great. You know, that's it. Give me the Tina Turner tomorrow.

Three second version. I like Miami. I in my bracket, I got Pitt beating Duke.

I guess I'll stick with that. We'll stick with Pitt just because they have a lot of grown men that are out there. I've got North Carolina beating Virginia in the bracket, so I'll follow through on that. And I'm going to pick NC State just because I'm sick and tired of picking against the pack and having NC State fans send me pictures of me in a clown suit. I'm tired of that. So I'm going to say the third time is the charm against the Clemson Tigers.

W.D. Yeah, let's close out this weird 90 minute edition of the drive in the early afternoon. We will be back after Duke Pittsburgh, which starts in about an hour. But for now, we take it out to lunch. Past the 15, past the 10, past the five for the drive. We'll take it to the house.

One, two, three. And as it so happens, I did have a story, but I like to keep you on your toes. I knew you had a story. I didn't know if you had a tease. It sounded like you did not have a tease.

And for those who don't know, that's what you say to keep people in their seat in the big guessing in the biz. Well, this story kind of has a Christmas theme to it. So this woman, her husband went missing and was missing for about eight months, which it's not good. That's not good. That's not watch the vanishing for the first time a couple of days ago.

Never going to go to sleep late night. And all I can picture in my head is Jeff Bridges accent, his Dutch accent in the movie. Do you like roast beef? I mean, we are about to take it to lunch.

So you get some. Hi, Jeff. I'm the guy you're looking for. I don't know if people even know the movie I'm talking about. I know I don't. Yeah. So persons missing. And I assume it's not Sandra Bullock.

No. So the guy was missing for like eight months. She came home one day from grocery shopping and she saw like his wallet laying there and a few other things, maybe a comb or something, but not him. So they do an investigation and she assumes the worst. So eight months later, Christmas time of this past year, she's getting out the Christmas decorations and she's got like like in their house, like there's a storage closet deep in the house. She goes in there to get the tree and the decoration.

She finds his mummified remains. Oh, merry frickin' Christmas. Thank you. Halloween and Christmas combined in one.

People are on their way to lunch. They're on their way to the Coliseum. And we're talking about mummified people in a basement. That's right. That's what we do. And what's great is the people here at the Coliseum can't hear you tell the story. They just heard me describe that piece of it. I know. Looking at me like I have two heads. I always laugh at that.

I always laugh at that. Yeah. Rhinestone Cowboy Friday is going to be fun to get Joel Berry and B Dot and others.

Oh, really? On board. Are we going to have a chorus?

That would be great if we could get asked. There's no chance JB is going to sing with us, but B Dot might. Yeah, he might.

But if he does, maybe Joel will. I haven't figured out that piece yet because I've never done one of these remote shows at an ACC tournament or at a media day on a Friday. Yeah, you did it from the fair one time. I don't know if I'm going to pull that off because that just seems irresponsible. It might be. I don't know. Yeah, that I don't know if people would go for that. Anyway, we'll talk to you later on this afternoon after Duke and Pitt. David Shumate and John Rofflin, the Duke Radio Network is up next here on WSJS.