Baby Looks Good In Blue Jeans (2-6-24)

This is the Drive Podcast with Josh Graham.

Now you're talking my language. You can hear the Drive weekday afternoons 3 till 6 on WSJS. And we're on a Tuesday Drive.

It is WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad, where it is day two of Super Bowl week. And here's my prediction for the first ever Super Bowl in Las Vegas. There is going to be a mainstream sentiment from the large influx of people who are there all week that being in Vegas for a week is too much time to be in Vegas.

Anybody who has been to Vegas knows what I'm talking about. If you've been for a weekend, you know this. Two days is enough.

Three days, probably perfect. More than that, you better be careful. You can be in Vegas much too long. That's my Super Bowl commentary for today. Now on to college hoops. For the third year in a row, the ACC is having perception issues in basketball, and it's not a mystery why that is. There are two big reasons why the league is in this place again.

And the most obvious place, the most obvious reasoning is the metrics, of course. The ACC has not been incredible in basketball this year. No one's pretending that they are. For their standard, this has not been a banner year for the conference, but it's a lot better than the net is suggesting that it is. Is it a coincidence that the ACC has had these issues for the last three, you could even argue four years, and this just so happens to be the years that the net has really taken hold as the primary sorting metric in college hoops? Is that just a coincidence that that's the case?

That's what I'm supposed to believe? That just over this period of time that this metric just so happens to become very popular, the best conference in the history of college basketball, suddenly, according to the nerds, is now worse than the Mountain West Conference? That's just what we have to accept now.

This is becoming something talked about ad nauseum now. And it's pretty obvious. The reality is that conferences over that period of time have figured out a way to game the net and to cook the numbers. And the worst offender of this is the Big 12 Conference. Just look at their non-conference schedule.

It's not a conspiracy. It's just plain cold hard facts that the Big 12 played nobody and they're out of conference. There were only four teams that were better than 200th in out-of-conference strength of schedule in the entire conference.

There are so many that are in the 300s. The ACC, I think, has eight that are in the top 200 when it comes to strength of schedule in the net. So the thinking is you play a bunch of nobodies, you blow them out. The net will say we're capping, because we don't want to encourage blowouts, we're capping the number of points that you can win by and get points in terms of your metrics and how it's going to affect you at 20 points. They're not going to keep track of it after 20 points in terms of how impressive your win is, but the efficiency numbers that factor into it are off the charts when you beat teams by 50, 60 points. So they'll say, oh, well, it only takes into account wins by 20 points. It doesn't say anything higher than that. But if you beat a team by 50 to 60, your metrics, your efficiency numbers look amazing.

And then that is baked into the cake. So the Big 12 has all these teams with incredible efficiency numbers. And when conference play begins, every single one of their games that they have are, air quote, quad one games because of how good they are in the net metrics.

See how that works? So is the Big 12 all that much better than the ACC? I'd take Duke and Carolina against Houston and Kansas at the top of the Big 12 conference. I'd take the three through seven teams in the ACC against the three through seven teams in the Big 12 too.

Like, oh, last night, perfect example. Miami gets beaten by Virginia. Virginia is red hot, nation's longest home winning streak.

They won 7-0. They put Miami through the meat grinder. And the reaction by many was, oh boy, Miami who made the Final Four last year, they just don't have it this year. They're not a team that might be, they might not be an NCAA tournament team.

This isn't good. And then the very next game is Kansas State playing Kansas. K-State beats Kansas on their home floor. And the reaction is, oh, Jerome Tang and Kansas State, they're back, baby. Oh, there's never an off night in the Big 12. Miami beat K-State just a few months ago, head to head. But their net numbers aren't cooked up.

So the metrics, that's a piece of this. The second piece that needs to be talked about more, the ACC just doesn't have any juice right now, which is more, I think, on the ACC than it is the media. I've often said this. How can you expect the media to pump you up when you're not pumping up yourselves?

When you turn on and this is the part where Jim Phillips has to be reflective. Have a great day and go ACC. This is his third basketball season as ACC commissioner. Is it also a coincidence that the ACC had perception issues coinciding with his three years as ACC commissioner, when the first time he took the podium as the ACC commish, he said something that John Swafford would have never dare say or any other commissioner before him in this conference, that football was going to be the priority. Have a great day and go ACC.

And the actions follow suit. It seems the ACC's priorities are elsewhere. Expansion with teams that nobody wants. Chasing the football dollar, infighting with Florida State and other schools over that expansion.

And of course, a lawsuit with Florida State. When you look at your programing, it still has, you know, seems geared towards more towards football than it does basketball on the network. And when it's not football, basketball kind of gets lumped in with all the Olympic sports that are being talked about. The ACC is a basketball conference. It's OK to say that.

Do you know who else says that? The Big 12. And do you know who's doing great right now and it's a fun conference to watch? The Big 12 conferences. And the ACC isn't because it's not as important to them as it is to pret your mark in the Big 12 that they're good at basketball.

So some of it, it's not just all in the media. It's what are you doing to make your league more exciting? What are you doing to market your sport? What are your priorities with your television partner, ESPN, to try and magnify your sport? And the ACC has to do some reflection on why the league doesn't have any juice right now, because that's a piece of this, too. And the ACC, going back to Jim Phillips, is long past due to be on the offensive here.

Jim Phillips should be trying to do every show, even if it's not this one. Doing every show, pushing back on this dumb narrative that the Mountain West Conference is better than the ACC. Have a great day and go ACC. OK, you got those two teams, maybe three teams at the top.

But if you did an ACC Mountain West Conference 11 game challenge, the ACC is winning nine, maybe ten of those games. Push back on this. Fight.

Show some aggression here. And we said this last year, and Jim Phillips did nothing. They got five teams, and then he leaks to ESPN.

Oh, how upset he was a few weeks after the fact. And I know they'll say, what effect might that have? I don't know. Maybe it could affect people. When people are making decisions on these committees, put some pressure on them. Apply it publicly, because the alternative has not worked with the ACC getting five teams the last two years. Like, if you just sit back on your hands, the ACC is going to have five this year if they're lucky.

Could be even less than that. So it is a perception problem, again, but it's not just on the media. That's an easy scapegoat. The net, sure, is a big piece, but also the league has to look internally, too, at why there doesn't seem to have as much pop within the sport as it used to have. On X, at WSJS Radio, if you want in on the show, that's why we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch, with Alton, the executive producer of this show. W.D., could you watch the Hornets play the Lakers last night? No, I could not. Unless that was on Prime Time, but I didn't see it on Prime Time. But you know what I did, do I watch it?

What is Prime Time? On ESPN or something like that. Something other than Bally. Well, we'll bring Bally to you.

Terence Oglesby, he's going to join the show in about 20 minutes from Bally Sports Hornets in the field of 68. Let's talk Hornets, though. After the tight loss to the Lakers last night, there are three moves the Hornets should make right now. Number one being unload Miles Bridges before Thursday's trade deadline.

This is likely going to get done. He had a career high 41 points against the Lakers. Is it a coincidence this happens right before the trade deadline? Probably not. He's a clutch client. He's a free agent. He's not returning. I don't know if the city of Charlotte wants him to return. You probably can get something back for him, considering he is a former All-Star, a budding All-Star.

And maybe you can figure out a way to get something back for Kyle Lowry, too, who's never going to play for the Hornets. So that's number one. Unload Miles Bridges some way, somehow, now. Number two, run everything through Brandon Miller. He had 35 two nights ago. 33 last night, averaging 29.2 a game over his last five. And he's got Eric Collins losing his mind again.

Here he was last night on Bally. You know what? Put a pin in that.

We'll get back to that. Oh, that's just a tease of Eric Collins that we'll get to in a bit. He just looks like a guy who cares. And that's what Charlotte needs. A guy who's out there and cares on both sides of the floor, even though the team only has 10 wins. And related to that, the third thing they need to do is shut LaMelo Ball down. He's got an ankle injury.

It's time to go in the tank. Charlotte's tied for the third worst record in the sport with 10 wins. Bottom three teams in the league get the best odds at the number one pick.

All three of the bottom three have the same 14 percent chance. That's what Charlotte should play for. It's not a great draft that's coming up, but there are guys within this draft that could potentially help Charlotte take another step, which is better than anything you're going to get having LaMelo Ball play the final 30 or so games for you.

So there you go. Unload Miles Bridges. Run everything through Brandon Miller because he's been awesome the last five games, but really over the last month shut LaMelo Ball down at this point because there really is no positive that comes out of him playing the stretch run of the season. Terrence Oglesby starting to become a busy guy. Field of 68, Valley Sports, Charlotte Hornets. We'll get to those Hornets in a bit. Clemson guy. The Tigers looking for all-time win number two in Chapel Hill tonight against the Tar Heels. Alright, does this conjure any memories of an ACC championship once upon a time that you played in against North Carolina?

I remember a couple things about North Carolina. One, Wayne Ellington down at our place my freshman year hitting a game winner where David Potter went for a steal as opposed to playing solid and he hits a tough shot. But us going for steals was kind of part of the gig. And then I remember us getting to the ACC championship game, playing pretty close, and I think they ended up beating us by six.

It wasn't that far off of a game. It was close the entire game, but they just had more, just a little bit more talent. We had a bunch of grubby guys that were athletic and a little mean.

You know what I mean? They just had more talent, so they ended up winning. And then I remember at North Carolina my sophomore year, I think I had 20 in the first half and then couldn't throw it in the ocean in the second half. It just wasn't happening. And I was getting shots. It wasn't like it was all that hard getting shots. It was Bobby Frazier guarding me, which was not hard to get shots.

He was always solid, but you could shoot over him. It wasn't like a huge deal. And I know Bobby, so it's not like a huge deal.

He knows that. But I just remember those games. They were always tough.

They were always super talented. It's going to be tough for Clemson tonight. They're not playing well.

That's point blank period. They're not playing well. Given where the ACC is at right now, maybe North Carolina views tonight like the end of a half or end of game when you have five fouls.

And you're like, you know what? We could just take one here. Take one for the team, Clemson. Because if Clemson were to win tonight, huge deal for the ACC, right?

Massive deal. And it pretty much solidifies Clemson's spot in the NCAA tournament. But barring an epic 10-game losing streak at the end of the season, which I don't think that's going to happen. I think they're going to be well coached enough and they have enough talent where they're not going to do that. But if they're able to sneak one tonight, that positions them really well. I mean, they're, what, three and six in their last nine?

They need to guard, quite frankly. This is a Clemson team. Offensively, they're fine. Top 25 offense in the country, third-ranked offense, efficiency in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The problem is this year they haven't defended. 13th in Kim Palm, defensive efficiency. That has never been the case at Clemson. And quite frankly, a lot of people are going to want to point to Joe Girard.

Chase Hunter hasn't had a bang up year on that end of the floor either. So they need to defend a little better. And quite frankly, they need to take away the advance pass tonight against North Carolina. You're able to do that and make them play a little bit more in the half court.

You could have some success, but it's still going to be tough. I mean, North Carolina is really, really good. When it comes to the ACC perception deal, Terrence Oglesby is with us here. It feels like people just tee off on the easy target, which I think is the media looking at you, Rothstein, or, oh, look at this tweet that Field of 68 put up and such.

But being proactive about it, the net seems to be a culprit of why things are where they are from a metric standpoint. But also, the ACC as well, it just seems to be lacking juice. It doesn't really seem like anybody is going to bat for the ACC. And I don't know, when you look at the perception problem that the leagues had, not just this year, but the last few years, it feels like, what piece of it is most frustrating to you? The juice.

The lack of juice. Because I grew up knowing that the ACC was the best conference in college basketball. But they have chased football money for so long now, it's exhausting. And as a result, they have lost some marketing money going to football that should be going to basketball.

And that's point blank, period. It's been a basketball league forever. You're never going to be able to catch up with the football money, the SEC or the Big Ten.

Just go ahead and embrace what you are. That's one of the reasons I admire the Big East so much. Now, they don't have football.

That's a given. That's another reason I admire the Mountain West so much, because they have completely dove into the basketball pool. They had football, sure, but it's basketball league. And the juice is the most frustrating part to me, because I'm trying to be careful how I say this, but people just aren't that interested anymore. It's hard to get students in the seats. It's hard to get extra people to make these trips to some of these smaller campuses, a la Wake Forest or something like that with the low enrollment.

So when you're saying it's not necessarily a functional deal of where the money's going, you said marketing. You're talking about the ACC. Hey, you have a television show that's dedicated to football that airs every day or once a week. Where's the basketball show? Where's the basketball commentary?

Where's the stuff that you see? When you say marketing, what do you mean? We've tried so hard. We're doing signing days. We're doing all these different things for football, and it's like, hey, at some point, go ahead and gather what you are.

Have a little bit more organization of what you are. I think, one, there's no leadership in terms of the ACC right now. Jim Phillips is abysmal. He has been a joke.

Not only has he been a joke, he hasn't showed up to answer any questions in a full manner. It's just kind of, well, we're going to do our best. And then the weird thing is you start asking him questions about major sports, and he has a way of diverting it to gymnastics or rowing or something. It's a really strange way. I feel like they need to embrace the fact that they're a basketball conference. They need to embrace the fact that, hey, we've messed up on the scheduling thing, and we need to catch up. That needs to be overseen a little bit better by the people that have now moved to Charlotte. From a marketing perspective, I feel like there needs to be more backing nationally. I feel like there's some of these guys that used to do ACC that have slipped over to the Big 12.

It's twofold. A lot of that is I'm not sure the ACC has really put their best foot forward for those people. Another thing is when those personalities go over to the Big 12 or those personalities go over to some of these other major conferences, those buildings have juice. It is fun to go.

So they want to go back, and they want to hype that league because it's a fun league to be a part of. It's fun to go to Fog Allen. It's fun to go to Hilton Coliseum. It's not as fun to go to Florida State. It's not as fun to go to Miami where it's a fourth full. That'll never change, but it's not as fun to go to some of these places where there's not as much hype around these events to where I remember Virginia Tech coming to town, big deal. Georgia Tech coming to town, big deal. It's just not.

That part's the most disappointing. Terrence Oglesby with us here, field of 68, also Bally Sports, Charlotte Hornets. Let's get to the Hornets real quickly. I'm ready to say I was wrong when it comes to the Brandon Miller conversation last summer and where that went. I'm willing to take the L on that because he went for 35 a couple of nights ago and then followed it up with 33 against the Lakers. Watching him up close, what's been the most impressive deal for a guy so young? The fact that he just contributes to winning type deal. There was a possession the other day where he goes in, scores the layup against the Pacers. He shoots the layup, makes the layup, sprints back, discourages an advance pass, and then turns around and says, hey, guys, get back.

I'm not going to say exactly what he said because it's not allowed on the radio, frowned upon. He's the one kind of leading this thing. LaMelo's never done that in his life. He's never done a winning thing in his life. He's gotten great stats, but Brandon does winning stuff. If you look at the plus-minus over those last two games when Brandon Miller's in the game, guys, they're even. They were even against the Pacers. I want to say he was plus-three or four against the Lakers.

That's huge. He was hurt, not hurt, but he was in foul trouble the first half. He got 3,000 the first half, couldn't play.

Team Flounders, he comes back in. He makes this miraculous run basically by himself. The thing is Miles Bridges had 41.

That was all well and good. What Brandon was able to do was contributing to winning basketball. He's going to be able to continue to foster, and I hope it stays with him because sometimes when guys lose for a while, it really wears on them.

Their attitudes tend to change, and I hope that doesn't happen with Brandon. He understands what winning is. To do that and still be only 21 years old, I think he's 21. To be only 21 years old, it's been so fun to watch. It's been so impressive. For the first time in about a month and a half, everybody at the Spectrum Center was on their feet, everybody.

They were cheering for the Hornets against the Lakers. That hadn't been the case all year. Clifford, he's kind of giving in. He doesn't like to play rookies all that much, but he's giving in.

Play calls are going to Brandon now, and they should be. He is a special rookie. He's going to average 25 a game. I want to say two or three seasons in this league.

I think he's that good of a player. Last night, eight in the first half, as you mentioned, with the foul trouble, and then 25 in the second half. Terrence Oglesby, it's good to see your face. Best of luck to your Clemson Tigers tonight, and we'll do this again sometime soon. All right, sounds good. Short interview. I like these. We like them too. Now comes the moment you have all been waiting for.

All right, whenever you're ready. This is The Drive with Josh Krab. We are five days away from Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas. What's going to be on the menu when you watch the Chiefs play the 49ers? Why not let it be BJ's Brewhouse in Winston-Salem?

WD and I, we can vouch, and many listeners of the show too can vouch. It's a great place to watch a championship game. We were watching Michigan play Washington there last month, and we maybe talked about it for a couple of days, and about a dozen, maybe more than that. That's a good number of people showed up there on a Monday night on a whim to watch the game with us.

Super Bowl 58, the best place to watch the big game, or any big game, is BJ's Brewhouse, where they have so many different selections of beer that are so good. I am a wing snob. Might as well just put that on my bio, on social media, or on business cards, wing snob. Their wings are really good. That's why I mention that. So pay them a visit, or go online, bjrestaurant.com to check out the excellent reviews and the menu of what they have.

Pay them a visit, tell them that we sent you a great location right off of Haines Mall Boulevard in Winston-Salem. Speaking of the Super Bowl, last night was the media night. You're going to be stunned by this. Taylor Swift was talked about quite a bit. I'm shocked to hear that.

Fellas, I'm sorry, but it's true. Taylor Swift, a primary point of conversation, even with the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, sitting there and talking about serious issues, and then a few minutes in, he had to be asked about Taylor. Having the Taylor Swift effect is also a positive.

Listen, both Travis and Taylor are wonderful young people. They seem very happy. She knows great entertainment, and I think that's why she loves NFL football. But I think it's great to have her a part of it. Obviously, it creates a buzz. It creates another group of young fans, particularly young women, that are interested in seeing why is she going to this game, why is she interested in this game, and besides Travis, she's a football fan, and I think that's great for us. Is she, though?

I don't think so. It's great messaging on Roger's part. Oh, of course. She knows great entertainment. That's why she's going. Well, Rog, why didn't we ever see Taylor Swift at NFL games before?

There you go. Well, there was the time she was wearing Eagle's jersey at one time, I guess, maybe. She loves our stadiums.

I think she loves the fact that your stadiums pack 70, 80, 90,000 people, which she sells out whenever she visits, except Bank of America Stadium, Tepper. Just throwing that out there. It's so frustrating.

As much as he talks about content... I'm still not over it. I'd bet not. A lot of Panther fans are mad at the last season, frustrated at 2 and 15, and they're talking about, man, so down in the dumps about last year.

I don't even want to talk about it. That's how I feel about the fact Taylor Swift didn't get a Charlotte concert. Really? They got Beyoncé.

Got Beyoncé, but I could care less about that with respect to Beyoncé. I mean, Taylor scheduled extra shows in Cleveland. Cleveland.

Arrowhead Stadium got one. Well... But I'm pretty sure that was before. That was before.

It was. That could have been one of our players. Come on.

Charlotte or Missouri? That could have been Brian Burns. Darn right. Yes. Well, Brian Burns would not be in the Super Bowl right now.

No. Taylor Swift probably wasn't going to be dating a player from a 2 and 15 team. Could you imagine? Josh Graham-wife in the comments says Jay-Z's going to come after you, Josh. Who could that be? Oh, the profile picture's Willow the dog. That might be a giveaway. That's fantastic. Hello, Willow.

Hey. The point I'm making is, could you imagine, just for a second, that Taylor Swift... It doesn't even have to be the Panthers, but since the Panthers were the worst team in the NFL, this is the team that would come up. What if she just decided to date a player from a team that was bad?

How would that then be treated? Because what made this a perfect storm was, Travis Kelce was already a known name. He was hosting Saturday Night Live, and he won the Super Bowl last year. He is a Hall of Fame tight end. But what if she was dating Austin Corbett on the Panthers' O-line?

What if she was dating... Let me think of a good example. Hayden Hurst. Yeah, I don't think that... Or DJ Chark. The Panthers wide... It would just be, we'd still have all the Swifties around, and they'd be following what's happening. Would Taylor go to all those games?

I don't know. Maybe not. See, it only would have worked, even though he was already off the market, with Christian McCaffrey, back when he was with the Panthers.

That would have been it. But Christian might have done better than Taylor Swift. Yeah. Olivia Colpo. I mean... Colpo, Colpo.

Whatever it is. She's famous too, and she does okay. Yeah, she does. She does okay. Let's hear from Travis Kelce, who apparently has heard some of the new album, titled The Tortured Poets Department.

Here was Travis last night. I have heard some of it, yes, and it is unbelievable. I can't wait for her to shake up the world when it finally drops.

Oh, I can't give you anything. I leave that up to her. She's unbelievable. She's rewriting the history books herself.

I told her I'll have to hold up my end of the bargain and come home with some hardware too. What was weirder, her being on stage Sunday night twice at the Grammys and not mentioning Travis at all, or Go Chiefs or anything like that, or the Celine Dion deal? I'm maybe not mentioning Travis. Because the Celine Dion deal was noticeable, but she got the picture afterwards. Did you even watch?

Bits and pieces of it. I actually didn't see the Celine Dion deal. Well, then you didn't see her presented the album of the year at the end.

She was the one to present the album of the year to one. So, anyway, not even a, hey, Go Chiefs. Nothing. Nothing. You were up there twice. You thanked everybody. Not going to thank your boyfriend?

Then again, if Travis Kelsey were in the same spot on Sunday, I don't know if he's thinking Taylor Swift. Probably not. He's probably just yelling into a microphone. You gotta fight. There you go.

For your right. Probably doing something like that. Travis Kelsey, another reason why he was going viral was because the New York Times decided it would be a good idea to call a fade the Travis Kelsey haircut on day one of Black History Month. Not great. And Travis Kelsey did not appreciate that very much.

Totally ridiculous. And to do it on February 1st, to throw me to the walls like that, that was messed up, man. I don't want anything to do with that one, man. I got a good fade if you need it, though.

It's a two on top, a nice high to mid fade with a taper in the back. But I didn't invent that. I just asked for it. I used to get fades. I did it, too, at one point.

Used to do that. Don't know if I'll go back to it, but. Should give it a, get some lines in there. Don't know if we need that. I don't think anybody needs that, frankly. I don't.

Something that you might need is a little bit of exercise and good community around you. In February, YMCA members can refer their friends and both parties will benefit. You both get $50 in Y cash and are automatically entered to win $500 in a Visa gift card. Refer your friends before February 14th and they pay $0 initiation fee.

Go to YMCANWNC.org. Apparently, my wife is watching and has the pseudonym Josh Graham Wife with Willow the dog as the photo. If I had more time, we'd talk about Virginia's win last night. Putting Miami through hell for 40 minutes. To give away a pair of Wake Forest NC State tickets, actually two pairs, and lift morale across the Piedmont, we'll play weekly positivity. Next. You're on the drive with Josh Graham.

WSJS. We have two tickets. Two pairs of tickets. To go see NC State Wake Forest on Saturday.

You might remember how the last meeting went and the drama down the stretch at PNC Arena. The first two callers to call in and tell us something good. We'll get those tickets.

336-777-1600. Every week to give away tickets and lift morale across the Piedmont, we play weekly positivity. Oh. Yeah.

They might as well call it White Jack. Weekly positivity brought to you by our friends at Biscuit King. WD, you know what's good at Biscuit King? Biscuits.

That's right. Biscuits. But also pancakes. Even burgers, believe it or not. Biscuit King. In High Point and in Lexington, dine in, carry out, or drive through. Well, let's go to the phones first and to Mike in Elkin.

Mike, tell me something good. Okay. I paid my car off last week.

Wow. How long did that take? Too long. About five years. Wow, what kind of car is it?

You don't have to give me the specific year, but make. It's a Dodge. Wow. Well, I'm so glad you were able to pay that off. You gonna be driving that thing out to Joel Coliseum on Saturday?

Yes, I am. Well, enjoy the game, Mike, and congratulations for paying off your car. WD, tell me something good. Actually, I have something good I want to share with you. Today, on February the 6th, the Christmas trees in the Graham household are going down. Good grief. Finally. I was about to say something.

Like, we were talking about that, and that was a couple weeks into January. They were still up. Yeah, Super Bowl week going down because we have a Super Bowl party that we're having on Sunday, and it's been long enough, and to their credit, the live tree, it's lived for the entire stretch.

Wow, it's alive. Let's go to Mark in advance. Hi, Mark. Hello, Josh. I did that wrong.

Let me do that again. Oh, hi, Mark. Tell me something good. It's eight more days until pitchers and catchers report, and two weeks from this weekend, I'm going to Tampa to watch the spring training game. Who's your team? The Yankees.

Wow, let's go. Did you hear the story about... Do you have a college team that you root for, too, Mark? Wake Forest.

Okay. Well, you're going to have fun at the game on Saturday. W.D. is a Tar Heel fan, and we were at the game on Saturday, and we ran into Aaron Boone just standing there on the concourse. Very random.

It is random. You never know who you're going to run into at the Duke Carolina game. We ran into Aaron Boone. I don't think he's a Tar Heel or a Blue Devil fan.

I just think he wanted to experience the rivalry. Mark, enjoy the basketball on Saturday, and enjoy spring training as well, my friend. Thank you.

W.D. Do the rest of these callers know that we are out of NC State Wake Forest tickets now? Did you tell them that?

They do now, if they didn't before. Now, to be fair... That's your job, to tell them before. Well, to be fair, the other two said they just wanted to say something good. They didn't want the tickets? Well, I mean, they'd be in the running for it, although one of them just dropped.

W.D., you have one job. Well, we don't know who we're going to. It could be random.

We don't know. It's like drawing a name out of a hat. Now I feel bad if I go to talk to Wes, and I don't have any more Wake Forest NC State tickets. Well, we do have other tickets that we could potentially give away, if we wanted to. This is weekly positivity.

Yes. You know, I'll just ask Wes if he has something good to share with us. Wes, tell me something good. It's been a beautiful sunshiney blue sky day today. It has been that. It's been very cold too. Have you spent any time outside today, Wes? What have you been doing? I have.

I've been outside about two hours. All right. Well, that's good. Thank you so much for the call, Wes. See? to help Wes out. It sounds like he wants to go to the basketball game, but maybe he could pick a swarm game or another. Sorry about that in advance.

W.D. tell me something good with you. So I'm going to the gym after work today, right? And I've been going to the gym a lot more often, trying to really stay with it. So I got some pre-workout, some new pre-workout that I've found. What is pre-workout? It's like the powder that gets you all jazzed up. It's in the powder. Pre-workout. Okay. I don't know all the ingredients of it.

Understood. But it's pre-workout. And I found a new kind that has a lot of nostalgic flavors. Like I got Ring Pop. A Ring Pop flavored pre-workout? A Ring Pop flavored pre-workout. They also have Sunny D, Country Time Lemonade, they have Sweet Tarts, and I'm going to try them all and get jacked. That's good. Tonight's a Costco night for me.

Do you have them? There they are. There's the bag. Got a bag of chips that I take with me when I eat the hot dog. Wore my Costco hoodie to my church function last night.

As you should. I got about six or seven compliments on it. You know what's funny? But when I wear it anywhere else, I don't get compliments on it.

Including to Costco. You know what's funny? So I actually wore that hoodie to one of the Duke games that I covered.

What? It's neutral. It's black. It's got Costco on the front. You wore a Costco hoodie to a Duke game? I did. And I got like three compliments. From whom?

Two of them were fans and another one was a media member. Okay. Like, dude, nice hoodie. Okay. That's amazing. WD City court sided a Duke game with a Costco hoodie on? Yes.

I didn't realize you did that. I mean, it's like, it's basically a black hoodie, so it's pretty much neutral. It's neutral.

It just has Costco on it. One more positive note to end on. Panthers coach Dave Canales expected to be on the show tomorrow.

And that's good. What should we ask him about? Didn't we want to ask him if he does, if he has avocado oil or if he's an avocado or olive oil type guy? I think it was avocado toast.

No, it was oil. But we can ask him about the avocado oil. He does. I don't even think we need to ask him. I think he knows. He knows. Or I think, I think we know. We know what the deal is. He's not an olive oil guy. I wonder if he's a Costco guy.

I bet he is. All things that we'll figure out tomorrow. And we hope you're with us for it.

Because that's been brought to you by Biscuit King. Weekly Positivity. I still don't know if this is the best segment we do each week or the worst.

That was so good. Okay. Great radio.

And video. See what you did there. I don't know. Really don't. It's the segment I hear the most about.

Maybe it's so bad it's good. We'll let you decide. Love Creed.

Where's their Super Bowl halftime show? Oh, wow. We hear dogs barking in the distance where Hayes Permar is at. Everything okay, Hayes? Yeah, we're good. We're good. We're just trying to get into the dog bark before my dogs kill anybody. Okay. Hayes, is that the dog bark?

I didn't know my microphone was that good to pick them up. But apparently it is. Or they just don't like Creed. Could go either way. Maybe they just don't like Creed.

Possibly. Hayes Permar, Sports Channel 8. We bring him in to play skips or plays with Hayes.

And I think we should just dive right into a Super Bowl theme skips or plays. Hayes Permar is somewhat of a renaissance man. An expert in the finer things. But he hangs his hat on music.

Loves this god and he's no friend of Satan. Feels like 06 getting busy with the sticks. Been watching big Mike and Lil Trinket trip.

I just need a Zion and someone he can dunk on. Today Hayes will decide if this music is smash or trash, blows or blows. It's time for skips or plays with Hayes. I hear more dogs, which brings us to this. Before we get to the songs. I don't know if I like this or not. My wife deciding to create a YouTube account to comment on the YouTube stream.

I don't know whether to use this as like a selling point for being on the YouTube channel. And it's obvious it's her because it says Josh Graham wife and it's a picture of Willow the dog and she's writing Willow the dog would not act like the way that the dogs that we hear on Hayes Permar's phone is acting. But I know she's got to come here. If she sees my dog, she might start barking. Also, I thought you mentioned like a burner account, but like a burner account is unidentifiable where she's clearly identifying herself as Josh Graham's wife here. That's right. So she said, I'm just here to get the record, keep the record straight.

No one's talking about you though. So I don't know if I like her having this straight line of communication. I love it into the show.

I don't know if I like the fact that she can engage with people in the YouTube chat during the show. I don't know how I feel about all that, but let's get to the songs. All right. It's Super Bowl theme. Does that mean we're doing all usher here or how are we doing this? It's not going to be all usher, but it will be Super Bowl theme now.

I thought it was only right. We'll go ahead and start here that we have some Toby Keith and yes, I think we need to do that. This is actually my favorite song of his because at Southwest Guilford where they're the Cowboys, when we would win a baseball game, they would play this song after the game and it should have been a cowboy.

You know what? We're going to give Toby Keith a play on this one. I think it's a legit song.

Toby Keith. We got you. Everything all right? Yeah.

I thought it was loud in my ear, so I thought we were continuing to win a play. I didn't want to step on Toby Keith. You're not stepping on Toby.

All right. So Toby Keith reminds me of like there's a bar next to the theater down in Raleigh. It's called Uncle Jesse's Honky Tonk bar. And like people who are like me are like, Hey, how about Uncle Jesse's Honky Tonk? Like they almost like want to poo poo it, like put that on it where I'm like, come in.

But may not be for me, but it's cool for what it is. And I feel like Toby Keith fits that. Now there's several Toby Keith songs that I like, like Whiskey Girl, Great Songs.

Dude, stop for a second. You mentioned Whiskey Girl first. That's the first song that came to mind. Like, it's not the most traditional answer to say, but the first lyrics to that song, Toby Keith throwing a hundred right out of the gate.

Don't my baby look good in the blue jeans? Yeah. So I don't have to like everything about Toby Keith to like appreciate who he is or what he did. The thing I like most about him is he felt like a guy. Obviously he made money at one point.

And yeah, like you can feel whatever way you want about like the patriotic 9-11 songs or whatever. But from everything I read or learn, he seems like a guy who was grinding, had no clue that he was going to make it as famous and was never really positive that he was. So like, even after this song hit, he still felt like, I don't know if I love another one and I better just keep working hard. And I feel like there's some pro athletes kind of have that same mentality of like, some of those are, I mean, some pro athletes are LeBron. They're going to be good and stay good. And others are like, hey, I know I got this big contract and we won this title, but I don't even know when the next one's coming. I got to keep working. And I feel like Toby Keith is going to fix that.

R.I.P. to Toby Keith, a huge sports fan too, rooting for his Oklahoma City. It's got to be his best song. Whiskey Girl's got to be his best song. Whiskey Girl's his best song? See, I don't see anybody talking about Whiskey Girl today, but I think you're right. I love Whiskey Girl. Great song. It's a great song. What's next? Inevitably Taylor Swift is a major topic this week, maybe even more so than the game for some people. What song are you going to pick?

It's a bit of a throwback. I knew you were trouble. I'm a fan of this.

I forget how young you are. All right, I've got to be careful here because we're going to skip this one. A, it's never been one of my favorites. But also, I've got no problem with Taylor. I've got no problem with her being in football games. I actually kind of like it.

It's cool. I obviously don't believe that it's a conspiracy theory that her team is in the Super Bowl, that they're definitely going to win automatically. But I will say, Taylor can make her way into skips and plays with Hayes almost any week of the year, right? Do we have to put her in here? I mean, I guess she did just win another Grammy last night.

But I don't know. Claiming that she belongs in a Super Bowl team, skips and plays with Hayes, I don't know. I could have done without her, even though I don't hoover and I'm not complaining to that singer on TV. Put it on the ESPN scroll. Hayes Permar is one of those grumpy middle-aged men that are uncomfortable with the 24 seconds of Taylor Swift on the screen. I did like somebody tweeted, they're like, hey, why do they keep showing Taylor Swift at the Grammys? Stick to NFL games, lady, OK?

Stay in your lane. All right, that's the last one that you have here. Now to the main event. Usher. And it's this song specifically that makes me laugh at you claiming that this is not going to be a good half-time show. It's only one song that's a banger, and I know what you're going to play.

When this hits, it's going to be great. I can't disagree with this song. See. Thank you. Where does Clemson play their home games? Little John Coliseum. OK, this is not to say little John. It's not your father's Little John. Not the one I grew up with.

This is a play. This is an amazing song. And I was, I mean, yes, I'm a little biased because I just saw him at Dreamville and because, you know, I was still actually going to Krabs when this song came out. But like, I think there's been a lot of Usher hate and I'm not here for it. I told you one of the things that set Usher apart at Dreamville was even though J. Cole and Drake and Lil Wayne and all those guys who were awesome the next night, they were just rapping over tracks. And Usher had like his full band out there. And I know it's difficult to coordinate sound at a Super Bowl, but if Usher has like a full horn section with him, the set's going to bump. Like it's going to bump harder than you're expecting.

If you're going to play a couple of songs that you weren't thinking even your Usher songs, but it's still just good beats. And then he's obviously he's got this to pull out at some point. And then he could maybe bring, he should be able to bring some of the crew with him. And God forbid, who knows what happens if he brings Taylor on the stage. But I am putting him in the camp and people are going to have to apologize for their Usher slander after this Super Bowl set.

I think it's going to be a good one. Thank you, Hayes. Hayes Permar. Yeah, that's the only song I'm interested in hearing.

Hayes Permar. Appreciate the time. Enjoy the dog part. We'll talk to you next week. No burn.

Seven o'clock on the dot. Well, come on. There's some other Usher songs you can get excited about. Yeah.

I just think that it's a little underwhelming. That's all. I'm sorry. That's all I got. He's going to bump. That's all right. We'll see. There goes Hayes Permar.