Give Daht the 3 Goggles

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast.

We're at Sensations, guys. Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3 to 7 on WSJS. We've made it to a Friday drive. It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad, where this week it especially feels like an achievement that we've made it here between personally returning home from a trip down to Louisiana, and of course, ACC Basketball Media Day being in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago. A lot of stuff going on, but enough about that. Let's get straight to Sunday's game in Charlotte.

This is about as clear as I can make it. The Carolina Panthers are not losing to the Houston Texans Sunday. They are not losing this game.

And here's why. On paper, this is the Panthers' most winnable game to date. It's just their third home game of the year. They are coming off a bye. And the Texans are a 500 team at 3-3. How many teams has Carolina faced this year that currently has fewer than three wins?

That would be a zero, Ghost Rider and Carolina. This game's a lot more manageable than their last two games were on the road at Detroit and on the road at Miami. This is going to be a reprieve from that.

It's also the healthiest that Carolina's been since week one. Xavier Woods, listed as questionable, but has told reporters he expects to be out there. Miles Sanders, expected to return. Chandler Zavala, full participant at practice. Calvin Throckmorton, going to start at left guard it seems like.

Austin Corbett is going to make his regular season debut at right guard for Carolina. Frank Reich confirmed today. Here was Frank Reich this morning on the significance of that. He just is a real alpha leader. He just brings a confidence that you feel.

You hear him out in the practice field between plays saying things that you know these great players, these leaders say. So looking forward to him being in the lineup. So Carolina is going to be at its healthiest point, not to mention Bryce Young has five games under his belt now. Can't really say that about the first couple home games he had. It was his second game as a starter going up against that Saints defense in prime time and then his third game against the Vikings.

Remember he didn't play in Seattle. Now you have five games under your belt. You had a bye week. You have a change in play caller, which seems like it's going to be a positive with Thomas Brown and really for this staff too. There's some continuity.

There's some chemistry being built. This is the most winnable game, the most manageable game Carolina's had on their schedule. They're not going to lose it because there's also an urgency difference here too. The urgency for the Houston Texans at three and three playing in Charlotte coming off there by a lot different than Carolina sitting at oh and six with all the questions being asked that are very uncomfortable surrounding this franchise. So for Frank Reich's sake, they're not going to lose. For Bryce Young's sake, going up against CJ Stroud, they're not going to lose. For this front office's sake, they're not going to lose this game.

You can't fake urgency. Carolina's going to have it. Give me the Panthers 24, the Texans 17 Sunday afternoon. On X at WSJS radio, that's where we're streaming video.

In addition to YouTube and Twitch, Wil Dalton is the executive producer of the show. Does it comfort you at all when I pick your Carolina Panthers or are you thinking, oh boy, this isn't going to help? You read my mind, buddy. I'm a little nervous. And not only that, but is there any chance that CJ Stroud could be viewing this as a prove it game in the sense that, oh, the Panthers went with Bryce Young. They didn't draft me. Watch this.

Is there any of that in there? I don't think so because Carolina's 0-6 and he might be thinking, yeah, I'm fine being in the situation I'm in right now. And also the fact that he has a great relationship with Bryce, I doubt he's taking a lot of it personal that a team chose Bryce over him. It doesn't feel like, how much have you been following this Michigan sign stealing story?

Very from afar. And that's understandable because in between all the basketball items we've had this week, the preseason poll going out, us being at Basketball Media Day, it doesn't feel like we spent enough time on this story, given how it's been covered. Even as the reporting on it, this is the disclaimer I'd add, though. Even as the reporting on it has been so heavy and the talk surrounding it has been so heavy, I'm not even sure how big of a deal it really is.

So that's why I don't know if we've really missed out and having this conversation. Let me put it a different way. This sign stealing controversy is only a controversy because it's Michigan. There are only 10, maybe a dozen schools that if this story happens at their school, it's covered the way that it is right now.

People care about it a great deal. For example, if Wake Forest was the culprit here, not saying Wake would ever do this, especially given what's been inflicted on them. But let's just say in a hypothetical sense, Wake Forest and Dave Claussen were the ones being accused of this, it would barely survive a news cycle. And if you think that's a stretch, we have proof of this with Wakey Leagues. Back in 2016, that was a news cycle for a day, maybe two, that within the Wake football program, Tommy Elrod betrayed the program that he worked for and gave stuff to Shane Beamer and to Jay Bateman and to Lonnie Galloway at Virginia Tech.

Or I don't know where Shane was. It might have been Virginia Tech. Lonnie was at Louisville and Jay Bateman was at Army. That was a huge scandal, or at least it should have been, you thought, except it happened at Wake Forest. And then Bruce Feldman, five years later, wrote the Do You Remember the Wakey League story and went into all the details of it when Wake was good, when Wake was ranked at the top 10. And I had people coming up to me at restaurants and around saying, like SEC fans, did you hear about this Wakey Leagues thing?

I'm like, yeah. I remember this Wakey Leagues thing. People didn't care. People didn't know because it involved Wake Forest. If that happened to Michigan, if what happened to Wake happened to Michigan and other teams were taking those signals, taking those plays, taking those signs and using it against the Wolverines, did that to Harbaugh.

It's a 9-11 ground all plane situation. Let's not play football until we figure this thing out. And when Dave Claussen was speaking about it earlier this week, he kind of agreed that this story, that the Wakey Leagues story and what's being covered right now with Michigan, the severity of it, of each of those and how it was reported seems to be different. Clearly, there were some ethical boundaries broken with what happened to us. And I think the NCAA was very aware of that early when that happened. And I just wonder why it wasn't a bigger deal when it happened to us. So is it a big deal because it's Michigan and they're ranked number two in the country? So to me, I have a hard time believing that this is the first time that this has happened. And you would like to think that if this would happen at all, it'd be handled the same way.

It wouldn't matter who did it. Yeah, but Dave's right. It is being treated as a bigger deal because it's Michigan and it's the number two team in the country. And getting to the severity of it, there is a lot of disagreement on the severity of this within the football community. Dave Claussen, he says that other schools in the Big Ten should be upset, should be ticked, should feel betrayed, should feel violated by this.

That's the way that he put it. But then there are more coaches, I've heard, said that this is being overblown. This isn't as big of a deal as you think. Take Deion Sanders, for example, who obviously knows baseball pretty well.

He took issue with the comparison with the Astros signed stealing scandal from a few years ago. Everyone's trying to get an edge. I mean, everyone's trying to get whatever edge they can. You could have someone's whole game plan.

They could mail it to you. You still got to stop it. You still got to stop it. So in football, it's not as pronounced as baseball. If I know a curveball is coming, I got you. You know, with football, I don't give a darn. If you know a sweep is coming, you still got to stop it. Physically, it's a physical game. You got to stop it. I think I'm with them on it.

I think that's where I land on this, too. And most people didn't know what Michigan was doing is against the rules. They should be punished, but not the way that some people were talking about postseason ban.

They can't they shouldn't be allowed to go to a title. Here's my prediction of what's going to happen. Jim Harbaugh is going to get away with this. Number one, good luck proving he knew about it. Number two, don't expect the NCAA, even though a week after they launched the investigation, they have folks in Ann Arbor this week, according to Pete Thamel, don't expect them to act on this in a timely manner. Number three, the Big Ten doesn't have the motivation or the courage. I was going to put it another way. Won't do that, though.

They don't have the guts, let's say, to do. To act on this, to punish Michigan, especially if it works against their interests as a league. And number four, after this season, Harbaugh's gone. I thought this before we learned that Harbaugh was going to be suspended the first four games and before the scandal. But now, especially because of that, he's going to parachute out of there the way that Pete Carroll did before punishment was handed out. The way that Urban Meyer bowed out of Ohio State when he was pushed back against and was suspended a few games a few years back.

Get ready. Jim Harbaugh, future head coach of the L.A. Cardinals. 7.30 kick, about three hours from now, high school football. East Forsyth versus West, a great rivalry game.

Dave Pulaski, the voice of our high school football game of the week on WSJS, the studio with us. How does it hit you, Dave, that this week's the final week of the high school football regular season? Well, considering it's 80 degrees out right now, it's not really hitting me quite yet. I feel like it's a late September game instead of a late October game with the playoff brackets coming out tomorrow at some point during the afternoon.

But at some point it is going to hit me and it's going to be like, wow, we got this six-week grind leading up to the state championships coming up. I don't know if there's this type of drama tonight with East Forsyth and West, but when you start to think about borderline teams, teams that could next week be playing in the playoffs or could have their seasons in tonight, who's at the top of that list? Well, yeah, just in 4A alone, you have four bubble teams, according to high school OT, who are on the outside looking in from the triad alone.

They list the last five in and the first five out. Four of those last five out are triad teams. Right now you have Northern Guilford, Southwest Guilford, Glenn, and Parkland all on the outside looking in, at least according to high school OT. Northern Guilford has Grimsley coming up tonight, so that's quite the tall task. Parkland's going up against a really hot Mount Tabor team that turned its season around a couple of weeks ago and is looking to maybe even get themselves a home playoff game.

So it's going to be some tough sledding for some of these teams, but you just never know when you get to these final weeks. Dave Pulaski, in with us, East Forsyth versus West. What can you tell me about the history of this rivalry?

Yeah, it's been around a while. Going back to the mid-60s, it's a fairly even rivalry as a whole. When we talk about Paige Grimsley being one of the all-time great rivalries, not only in the triad, but in North Carolina and nationwide, that series has been dominated historically by Paige. For East Forsyth and West Forsyth, the Eagles have a 31-28-2 advantage.

This is meeting number 62 tonight, but last year it was really a departure from what we've normally seen. It was a down year for West, really good year for East. They ended up playing them back-to-back weeks, last week of the regular season, first round of the playoffs, outscored them 102-7 in those combined two games, 49-0 whitewashing in the playoffs. I have a feeling that might still be remembered by those Titans players as they get ready to take the field tonight. 7.30 kick, 7 o'clock pregame on WSJS.

I can't ignore the New York Islanders gear that you're wearing right now. It has me thinking that tonight, while you're calling the game at 7.30, I'm going to go watch the new Martin Scorsese movie, Killers of the Flower Moon. It seems like a requirement for your people, people from New York and New Jersey, to love Marty Scorsese. Is that a wrong assumption? No, that's probably fair.

Because he's a New Yorker. Right. When you think, see W.D., he's seen a number of Marty movies.

Yes. The only Martin Scorsese movie you probably had seen prior to us making you watch about three or four of them was Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, it's a favorite of mine. I actually rewatched Wolf of Wall Street last night to get ready for Killers of the Flower Moon.

With the appetite. Yeah, three hour movie. You know what, it's funny.

Three and a half hours. I watched that McConaughey scene from Wolf of Wall Street last night. Just that scene.

Why? I enjoy it. And I was just scrolling YouTube. It is the best scene of that movie, unless you count the Margot Robbie introduction. You know, he only knows that from being in stadiums. I just love how it got super silent.

He got super silent for a moment. Prior to seeing that movie, he only knew it from being in arenas and stadiums. I didn't know it at all before that movie. Yeah, that's probably the best scene of the movie. The Matthew McConaughey scene in it. But we've made you watch now. You watched Kate Fear this week. I did. Another De Niro, Scorsese movie.

I am my god! Yeah, that scene. We watched like eight or nine.

They've done like eight or nine movies together. We made you watch The Departed? Yes. Goodfellas? Mm-hmm.

You've already seen Wolf. I doubt you've seen Casino. Well? Taxi Driver? Well? Hmm. Raging Bull? No chance. Who's in that? De Niro. Well?

I'm not even going to go down like King of Comedy or Last Temptation. Well? The Color of Money was pretty close to being one that we suggested. Maniscalco has been trying to get you to watch that. That's right. Oh, you have to watch Color of Money.

Awesome movie. I will do it for him. You know what? We should get him on. Tom Cruise. We'll make it happen. When I review that, we should have him on. Actually, we should have him watch the series, watch The Hustler first. Sure.

And you need to do… To get the background leading into The Color of Money so he has a better understanding. Do you have a favorite Scorsese movie? Probably Goodfellas. Yeah. That's probably… Goodfellas and Taxi Driver, I view to be his best movies. Raging Bull is really good, too. Yeah. Not very rewatchable, unfortunately.

No, it's not. Strangely, Taxi Driver is. When that's on, I'm just kind of in. Departed just has a special place in my heart.

I will always love that movie, even though Jack's accent is probably not the best one you'll see out there. Since it is 80 degrees, even though Halloween weekend is coming up, you've got a t-shirt on right now. The game is in three hours. We both have shorts on. Shorts. What are you going to be wearing tonight? I'll go polo and khakis. Khakis?

Yeah. Polo and khakis. No jacket?

No. I'll have the pullover nearby because I'm guessing once the sun goes down, it's going to chill out into the 50s. By the second quarter, I'm going to be like, you know what, I really need this pullover. But for right now, I'm just riding with it. Dave Pulaski, the voice of our high school football game of the week.

Maybe it gets cold tonight and you're listening to a guy with teeth chattering, you know, freezing tonight. Oh no, that would never happen. Later tonight.

I'll always have that stuff on the side. That did happen to me once. I was in Colorado and I underdressed and I was like, first down and 10 at the 39 yard line. Yeah. All right, Dave. Great call tonight.

Thanks for dropping in. That's the voice of our high school football game of the week, Dave Pulaski, east facing west tonight, seven o'clock, pregame 730 kickoff time tonight. Josh Graham loves to talk sports.

He also loves to take herbal body baths to keep his skin supple and youthful looking. We're on the drive with Josh Graham. Casey Morsell returning to NC State might have been the most underrated ACC headline of the offseason because Casey hit 41 percent of his threes last year at State.

And this is a team in that backcourt already losing Jarkel Joiner and Tequavion Smith. Having Casey back and DJ Burns in the post return as well, a huge deal for the pack who right now looks like a bubble team, a team that wouldn't surprise you if they're missing the NCAA tournament, but it also wouldn't surprise you if they go back to back seasons as well. It was good to catch up with Casey, who started his college basketball career at Virginia. My wife, my wife, a Virginia grad. That came up in the conversation, but here's how it sounded in Charlotte.

At ACC Tip-Off, being joined by NC State guard Casey Morsell. It was a huge deal, man, when you decided you were going to return to this basketball team that last year went to the NCAA tournament. How are those decisions made when you're weighing what could be versus what you know is in Raleigh, if that makes sense? Yeah, I mean, it's a lot that goes into it and you got to make it pretty fast because with me and my decision, I wanted to make it so that I'm able to kind of go and be part of the summer workout process with the team. So it's definitely something where you got to kind of figure out, okay, what puts you in the best position? Or first of all, you got to figure out what you value, right? But then second of all, okay, if you value, you want to be able to win and then also be a pro, you kind of have to navigate, okay, how do you kind of go about that?

So that's kind of where you start. And then for me coming back to State, I knew what it was, right? Anytime you transfer, I was, what's up, having Kate shadowboxing.

But it's a, you know, especially if you were to transfer, right, it's a gamble, it's a risk. You just never know what's on the other end and State, I mean, I loved it. My experience at State has been great. The people have been great, you know, and in this system, it's a lot of opportunity to kind of thrive and show what you can do.

So you know, we, you know, we got a lot of new faces here in this program, and we can't wait to get going. I grew up outside of Raleigh, very familiar with NC State's campus. And then I married into a Virginia family. My wife went to UVA, where you started your career at. I can't think of two campuses that are more different than NC State and Virginia. So what was the appeal at State? Yeah, I mean, well, I had the opportunity to play at State, so I was somewhat familiar with with Raleigh.

Basketball first decision. But no, I mean, like you say, they're 100% opposite. Like I don't know, I can't think of anything that's kind of similar between the campuses. But the last week, you haven't slipped and called homecomings. You haven't done that at NC State.

Well, yes, at the end, yeah, yeah. But so yeah, I mean, State State was just a great fit for who I am. I mean, it reminds me a lot of home because I'm originally from the DC area. So you know, State's a little more fast paced in terms of lifestyle and then also in terms of the style of play.

So it's definitely why I was used to kind of growing up and, you know, it, you know, shows in the style of play and everything. You share a building with the Carolina Hurricanes. They're super good. Have you picked up hockey yet?

I'm picking it up. I go to their games. I've been to a good amount of their games, especially playoffs. I'm there a lot for playoffs, but because you know, their coach, he's a state fan.

Robert, the more picked. Oh, it's oh, he's about the king. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've seen him around. But I mean, it's been great because, you know, sometimes like, you know, we have like a like a noon game and, you know, usually the Hurricanes probably play later on and later that night. Like, usually you'll get to see the, you know, the team that they're about to play. Like they'll just be walking in as we're leaving. So I guess you kind of get, you know, a close experience in the NHL. So it's something that I don't know, it's something that I'm definitely, you know, it's grown on me.

NC State guard Casey Morsells with us. What would happen if I tried to like strap a pair of skates onto you? Can you skate? How would that go? Would that be bad?

You know, I used to be able to, but it's been years, man. So right now, yeah, I think it'll be, it'll be bad, man. It'll be bad.

But once I get going, it'd be like riding a bike. I think I'll kind of, I'd love to see, I'd love nothing more in the world, Casey, than to see you and DJ Burns out there trying to figure skate as if it was the Olympics. It'll be a lot of slips, but we'll get going. If he slips on the ice, there could be problems. For sure.

99 problems. Casey Morsell, one last thing, basketball related. You're such a good three-point shooter. What is your mentality when it comes to being efficient from three, because it doesn't seem like it's all quantity.

It's a lot of quality with your looks. Yeah, well, the biggest thing for me is I think the shots made, or I shoot the shot before I even get the ball, right? So even, you know, how, how my feet are set and, you know, how my footwork is, you know, all of that all goes into, you know, before the shot's even up in the air. So that was the biggest thing for me is kind of mastering that, like, how can I master my footwork? How can I master the areas before the shot's even in the air, then, you know, once the shot kind of is gone, then, you know, just making sure you kind of emphasize the different details that go into it. But I mean, I just think it's a lot of film, a lot of practice, and, you know, trial and error, man. Has there been a big emphasis this year on another area of your game? Yeah. Well, definitely, you know, playmaking, ball handling.

I mean, we're losing, you know, Tert or Quavion and Jarkel, so we definitely need a boost in that area to kind of make up for their losses, but, yeah, so I mean, that's kind of the biggest area I've been kind of working on, and, you know, I just can't wait to show it. When you're one of our, when someone who comes on our show quite often is B. Dot, who does the stuff on the court at Carolina, did you know Kevin Keats first offered him the opportunity to be NC State's guy before Carolina took him? Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

I had no clue. Well, now, since he didn't do that, when you go to the Smith Center this year, I'm going to need you to hit a three and do three goggles in that guy's face. Three goggles? You know what? I'll keep that in mind.

I'll make sure, because, you know, usually during the game now, you know, I can't find them. There are only two choices as a shooter. It's like the ice in your veins, it's the three goggles, like, you can't do the two small if you're a guard. Yeah. You don't really see the two small too much in college.

There's a lot of two small in the NBA. Yeah. Because it's so fast paced, man. Everybody's trying to run a transition.

The NBA, you know, they'll probably get in and walk it up. So you have time to celebrate, I feel like. Will Keats give you the green light to three goggles, someone, or will he pull you to the bench? I think so. I think so. As long as it doesn't end up in the tech, then, hey, I think it'll be fine. If it was towards B dot, I'm 100% sure you'd be cool with that.

Yeah, I think it's best towards B dot. Casey Morsell. Good to have you back at NC State.

Thanks so much for making the time. Thank you for having me. That's Casey Morsell joining us from ACC tip off in Charlotte earlier this week, looking at the weekend slate that we have in front of us. It's not necessarily my job to hype up things if things aren't worth hyping. I'm not a hype man.

I'm not B dot, not the six man at Tar Heel basketball. I'm a guy who's just telling you how I see it and nothing about this weekend in terms of our locals in football is all that compelling. Because of last week, North Carolina, Georgia Tech completely has lost its luster. Tar Heels, no longer a contender. There were two games this year that you could not have your mulligans beat, and that is the Campbell game and the Virginia game. You lost the Virginia game. It could have got away with one loss in any other game and run the table and still made it to the college football playoff, I believe. That's how good their out-of-conference schedule was, or at least it was good enough.

It wasn't bad. Even though Georgia Tech has had Carolina's number in recent years and Brent Key is kind of a crazy stat, 3-0 against ranked ACC teams while being 3-5 against unranked ACC teams, these jackets are bad. Carolina's going to win the game, but nothing all that interesting about it as they go to Atlanta. App State, Southern Miss, that's kind of... I could be telling if App State doesn't blow out Southern Miss, the Golden Eagles are going up on the mountain and they look like a team that's quit. They're going to be the worst FBS team in the country. App State, they should win, should win big. Florida State should win big against Wake at a game that I'm going to be at tomorrow. FSU probably hasn't forgotten the fact that the Deacs have kind of had their number in recent years. Duke Louisville, that's the closest thing to interesting, but that Lions climb from 4-1-2 to 6 in the last few hours, which tells me perhaps Riley Leonard is not going to play in it, which means that game might be Louisville in a walk. NC State, Clemson, maybe?

On the CW? WD is going to be at that game. Not a lot of interesting as you look across the local slate in college football this weekend.

Bummed by it, wish it were more interesting, but that's just the way it is, unfortunately. That's the way it shakes out. There is a big concern that popped up on the Carolina Panthers radar today.

Something that could be a very big deal, and that is next on The Drive. There's always something with the Carolina Panthers. Just when good things start to happen, Austin Corbett going to make his debut this season, Sunday against the Texans, you're coming out of a bye week. Just as something good happens, the other shoe drops, and it doesn't look like it's a sure thing that Brian Burns is going to play Sunday. Yesterday, he was a limited participant in practice. Then today, Brian Burns, his status got worse, it seems. He was absent, didn't even practice, listed as questionable, and listening to Frank Reich earlier this afternoon wasn't all that comforting.

No correlation. We had a little thing happen yesterday on a play where he hurt his elbow, got it checked out. Just today was still an issue, so getting further evaluation on that to try to see where we're at. Is it potentially long term, Frank? I really don't have any of that information at this point. I've been told there's a chance he could play, but it just all depends on what the test results show. When you start doing MRIs and X-rays, there's a wide array of things that could happen. Von Bell out, Leviska Chennault out.

Those aren't big surprises. Five players questionable, including Burns. It does seem like Moten's going to play, Xavier Woods is going to play, Frankie Louvou's going to play. I don't really know what's up with Kamu Grugier-Hill, but it's more of an illness, less than an injury.

If you want to do what you will with that, if he's feeling better, then he'll play on Sunday. But Burns is the bigger question mark, because that's the guy you can't afford to miss, because C.J. Stroud has, I think, top three numbers, according to the analytics, throwing the football when he's not pressured.

Conversely, he's one of the least efficient quarterbacks in the NFL right now when he is pressured. So not having Brian Burns able to pressure to quarterback would be a significant deal. Another significant deal is a headline that came from college basketball today. The NIT has made changes to its tournament.

And the changes go like this. No longer do conference regular season champs from group of five, or let's just say mid-major conferences, because group of five is a football term, no longer do the regular season champs have automatic buys, automatic berths into the NIT. The way it's going to work now is the NIT will guarantee, based on net rankings, two teams from the six top conferences, the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC. That'll be based on the top two teams in the net rankings that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament, regardless of win-loss record. And additionally, the 12 teams that are selected out of those will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT. Once those 12 have been selected, then you have 20 spots left to make up the 32. They will be chosen by a committee. Based on the NIT committee's evaluation, the best four teams out of the 20 at-largest selected will complete the 16 first-round hosts, which deference given to the first four teams out.

Okay. Additionally, teams from the six conferences with AQs are eligible to be selected as at-large teams that can be selected as hosts. This is garbage. It's garbage because the NIT matters to those mid-major conferences, and I guarantee you college basketball fans would much rather watch a mid-major regular season champion over a 500 ACC or SEC team. To make the analogy, with respect to Wake Forest, UNCG, really good, didn't win their conference tournament. I would have rather seen UNCG and the NIT than Wake Forest. That's the conversation.

And here's the thing about that, too. Those schools, those ACC and SEC schools, would probably rather see that group of five team in rather than them. Ask North Carolina, who turned down the NIT bid. So this is just garbage, and you see these mid-major conference commissioners saying that it's garbage, and I think it's such a strong response, and it should, that they could roll this back.

And they probably should. Just a garbage decision by the NIT. Speaking of college basketball, we caught up with Kenny Payne, who had a rough co, I think it's fair to say, at Louisville last year. Didn't really know how the conversation would go with Kenny Payne, but then when he sat down with us, such a delightful dude, Louisville's head coach, as I think you will discover listening to our conversation from Charlotte here. The head coach of the Louisville Cardinals is Kenny Payne, who joins us now, and one of the things he pointed out to me, he's on WSJS, he knows he's on in the triad. Oh, I love Greensboro, and it's not because he's a head coach in the ACC.

It's because, well, I'll let you tell the story, what type of gym did you find in Greensboro, America? Well, there are two human beings walking this earth that have spent time in Greensboro that I love, and those people are Kevin Graves, KG, and Bam Adebayo. In the spring, when Kentucky was here for the NCAA tournament, I asked Calipari about his experiences in Greensboro, and he said, last time I was here, I had an awesome time because we got a kid named Bam, and you were recruiting with Kentucky at that time. What do you remember about that visit? I just remember a young man and a mother that hard to go humble, the world at their fingertips, and hungry to go get it, and just a joy to be around. He called me last night or two nights ago, and anytime we talk, every time, I mean, you think about his life and what he's been through and what his mom has been through and how they're all intertwined with each other, Kevin as well, they're my family.

Because people don't realize, before he arrived in Greensboro, I went to school in Eastern North Carolina, it was Little Washington, and I saw the shack, and it was maybe as long as these two tables, three tables put together where Bam grew up. It's a great story. It's a story of perseverance.

It's a story of God blessing a family, a group of people to touch them to change their life because their hearts are in the right place. While we're going back in the time machine, Kenny Payne's joining us here, you were once a teammate for a few years of Charles Barkley back in the day. We've had Barkley on the show. He's been around. We see his personality on the air, things that I've communicated to people is there's not a big difference in what he is off the air versus on it. What's the best story of being a teammate of Charles Barkley's?

There are so many. As a matter of fact, it's funny you brought Charles Barkley up. I texted him. I watched TNT last night, and he looked like he was back at his playing weight. So I texted him a few minutes ago, and he told me he lost all his weight, and he's lost 65 pounds or so. How did he do it?

I don't know. He says he's working out, eating right. Ernie Johnson's big on the Peloton, he's told me, so maybe he got Charles into that.

I'm trying to get the cheat sheet of how he did it so he can give it to me so that I can get back to my fighting weight. But Charles is a big brother, Charles is a mentor, Charles' story, another person touched by God to do unbelievable things that people don't know about, a straight giver, and he was always great to me, and I love him. Louisville coach Kenny Payne with us here. You're speaking a little bit about your faith and your belief there. How does your faith make what happened last season more palatable in terms of where you go moving forward? I think it's a part of it. I think any time to achieve greatness or to be good at anything, you have to fall down. You have to have adversity. We've had adversity. Some of it was done before.

We inherited it. And so our job is to fix it. If it was fixed already, I wouldn't be the head coach. So my job is to assess it, fix it, and bring it back to where it needs to be.

It's bigger than me. I cannot do this alone, and I've told the community of Louisville that I need their support. I need their help, and we're headed in the right direction. Yeah. I don't think you're supposed to talk about those secret scrimmages or whatever. I hear you guys won by 41 points. Do you feel like you guys after last year are flying under the radar a little bit?

I hope so. I'm using everything as motivation, and we got a good group of young people that share, that want to do right, but a lot of this is going to be going through it through adversity, going through it real time, not just a practice, but in games having success. Kenny Payne, it's good for you to spend the time with us. We really appreciate visiting with you, and we'll talk to you down the line. Hopefully, you have some good experiences in Greensboro that are in line with what you've experienced in the past. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Kenny Payne, Louisville basketball coach, and that caps our coverage of the ACC basketball event, basketball media event. Nailed it. ACC tip-off. A lot of great guests that we visited with college basketball arriving very soon.

I thought about this since Stade Pulaski was in studio with us about an hour ago. I've put together my five favorite Martin Scorsese movies and some of the notable omissions. We'll get to the omissions after the fact, but here are my five favorite Martin Scorsese movies. Number five.

The Color of Money. Number four. Wolf of Wall Street. Number three. Taxi Driver. Number two. Goodfellas. Number one.

Departed. I've seen three of those five. Because of us.

It's true. Well, two of those five because of you. The ones that, and again, I don't want to mix it up with the best Scorsese movies. I think Martin Scorsese's best movies are Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. Maybe Mean Streets could fall into that category too. Those are the best Martin Scorsese movies. But some of them are a tough hang that you don't really want to rewatch again, like Taxi Driver. Actually, I love Taxi Driver. I'll rewatch that again. Raging Bull. I've watched that movie once. I don't need to watch it again.

It's that much of a bummer. What is that all about? What's that movie about?

A boxer. Because you and Pulaski were talking about that, that it's not very rewatchable. It's a legendary movie. But it's not rewatchable.

It's a bummer. It's like Manchester by the Sea in the last decade, which I'm sure you've seen. Yeah, I don't even know what that reference means. Well? There are some movies. It's like you watch Schindler's List once. Oh, I see. You don't need to watch Schindler's List multiple times.

I see. This is the part where I'm going to go and look at a clip from Raging Bull and find out why it's rewatched. The Departed.

Not rewatched. It's probably the first Scorsese movie I watched and understood. That's why it means a lot to me. Also, it's probably the one I quote the most, namely Mark Wahlberg's character.

Can't quote any Shakespeare. It's so much that you can quote so little of it, you can quote on the radio. Taxi Driver's probably his most important and influential movie. Goodfellas, I think it's his best movie. That's the best way to put it.