This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. We're internet sensations, guys. Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3 to 7 on WSJS.
When this all gets sorted out, I think you and me should get an apartment together. You're on The Drive with Josh Graham. Welcome to a Wednesday Drive. It is WSJS, News Talk Sports for the Triad, where it's really starting to feel like March today. The ACC Women's Tournament just tipped off in Greensboro this afternoon.
We're going to be visiting with Hall of Famer Debbie Antonelli later this hour, live from the Coliseum. But let's actually start by backtracking to last night. It's the final week of the college basketball regular season, and North Carolina won by its largest margin in an ACC game or against any high major opponent this year. A 32-point win at the Castle in Virginia Tech, and it's time to start taking this team seriously.
Six straight wins, the calendar flipping to March, Blue Blood program. It's time to start taking North Carolina seriously. We've been taking them seriously for about a week and a half now since the Florida State win. It's time for everyone else to catch up, because North Carolina is quickly becoming the most dangerous team on the bubble. No other bubble team has the NBA talent that they do.
Just look at Joe Leonardi's projections. The last team in is Boise State. Are we really doing this again with the Mountain West Conference? Are we really doing this?
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man? Looking at John Rothstein specifically, North Carolina talent against Boise State talent, or even Nebraska, or with respect to Zach Fremantle, who we watched in Greensboro in the tournament a couple years ago, Xavier that's sitting right there. North Carolina has a first-team All-American back from last year, and potentially two first-round draft picks on its roster. ESPN, in its most recent NBA mock draft, projected both Drake Powell and Ian Jackson to go in round one. But you might think, Josh, who cares about the NBA?
How guys project to go into the NBA? This is college basketball. Okay, don't forget that several others on this roster come from a team last year that was a national seed going into the tournament, 17-3 in the ACC and made it to the Sweet 16.
It's not like one guy either. It's Elliott Cadeau, it's Jalen Withers, it's Seth Trimble, it's Jalen Washington. So when you look at the makeup of this Tar Heel team and the potential of some of their young players on this roster who are really starting to figure it out, some of the high-level plays they are capable of making. Last night, on full display, Ian Jackson's step-back threes, R.J. Davis, you know what he's about. This team, no other team on the bubble, has that type of upside, has that type of talent level. They also happen to be one of the hottest teams in college hoops right now. It's not just that they've won six in a row. It's that they've won by an average margin of 20 points per win, including, again, that 32-point win last night. This is a far cry from the first two and a half months of the season where North Carolina played more one-score games than any team across college basketball. They played 10 of them in the first two and a half months. Games decided by one, two, or three points. Had a winning record in those games, but way too many close games, letting leads slip away. 20-point wins on average over this six-game win streak. And Hubert Davis even pointed to this being the biggest difference between North Carolina early in the season and North Carolina now. That's a major difference than what was happening at the beginning of the year, pretty much almost three-quarters of the year, especially at the beginning. We were generating leads, and then it wasn't sustained play.
We would give that back up, and we're not doing that now. You know, when we're playing well, we have consistent, sustained minutes of playing well on both ends of the floor. It's allowing us to extend the lead, and I think the more that we do it, the more confidence that we're getting from it. And confidence is such a key word there. When you get past the first tier, maybe first two tiers of college basketball, the margin between the 10th or maybe the 15th best team in the country and the last team getting into the field among high major teams, it's not that crazy wide.
It's not that wide of a talent gap. It's about who's playing their best basketball, who's playing with the most confidence, and we've learned this lesson in recent years. NC State obviously wasn't the most talented team going into the tournament, but nobody was playing with more confidence than DJ Horn and DJ Burns, and it carried them in the ACC tournament and all the way to the Final Four.
2022 North Carolina, they won four straight games going into that Duke game, the final game of the regular season. They win that, and when you beat Coach K in that setting, you can't tell that team anything. You can't tell that team that anything's impossible. They can do anything, and they nearly did, up 16 at halftime in the national championship game. So confidence is such a big piece of it if you meet that threshold of talent, and obviously this North Carolina team meets that threshold of talent. The big question is, from a metric standpoint, from a resume standpoint, did they get hot too late?
Let's hope they didn't. This streak didn't happen a little too late because they still only have one quad, one win, and that's probably not going to be enough even if your AD is the committee chair of the college football or the college basketball selection committee. They're going to need to beat Duke on Saturday or in the ACC tournament or beat Louisville or beat Clemson, but if they do that, even if they lose Saturday and then they beat Louisville or Clemson in the tournament, which would require them winning a couple of games in order to do so, it's going to be hard to leave this team out because of how well they're playing towards the end of the year. And if you are a two seed, if you are a three seed in this tournament, you're crossing your fingers, you're hoping and praying that you're not paired in the same region with that 10 seed or that 11 seeded North Carolina because you know how well they're playing and you know the talent level that exists on this roster. On X at WSJS Radio if you want in and at Josh Graham Show, that's where we're streaming video in addition to YouTube and Twitch.
Will Dalton, he's the executive producer of this show. Now that's how you know it's March right there. That's how you know. Why don't we have the games on in here? I got it on in here. I don't know why you're slacking.
What's going on over there? It's because you turn on this Fox show that has the witty puns for their graphics and we don't have women's hoops on. That's your fault. I do.
I do appreciate their graphics. Oh, I accidentally hit Dr. Phil. We'll be right back. So I got to take a look here because the ACC basketball tournament, women's tournament in Greensboro, it's already underway. Did this game just go final? The first game just went final. And yes, Boston College just beat Syracuse.
Six or seventy six to seventy three went down. Yeah, it went down to the final second. So Syracuse is out.
BC was getting killed in this game. Right. I see on the graphic third largest comeback in ACC tournament history.
That's it. Boston College. It started in an exciting fashion.
It's a great way to start. Coming up next here in about 20 minutes, you got number 10, Virginia, number 15 Pittsburgh in Greensboro, where the tournament should be all the time. What a welcome interruption.
I was going to get mad at you, but not mad because you're right. What a game that was. BC winning 76 to 73. North Carolina. BC will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow. North Carolina getting this Boston College team that wins it.
How about that? Boston College. What a way to open. Now let's get into a men's game tonight. The story at Lenovo Center in the capital city of Raleigh is Kevin Keats.
Kevin Keats is the story tonight. Seven o'clock, NC State hosting Pittsburgh. This could be his final home game in Raleigh. Jeff Goodman is about as plugged in as anybody is a news breaker in college basketball. He started the week this week by saying, Mike Young, safe at Virginia Tech. Steve Forbes, safe at Wake Forest. Hubert Davis, safe at North Carolina.
And we're all nodding along saying, OK, that makes sense. Earl Grant, safe at Boston College. Boston College. Red Autry, safe at Syracuse.
He did not mention Kevin Keats' name. Now we know about the openings at Virginia, at Miami, at Florida State. It would seem that the last question that needs to be answered, unless something shocking happens at Pittsburgh, for example, with Jeff Caple underachieving this year. Barely missed the tournament last year. Jeff Caple did.
Would be Keats, whether or not he's going to return, and if it is, in fact, his final home game tonight. This is an incredibly important figure in Wolfpack history. You're talking about eight seasons. That's a long time.
How long is it? Well, since Jim Valvano exited, as the AD and coach at State, only Herb Sendak had a longer tenure than what Keats has done right now. And he'll always have last year, ending the droughts of an ACC tournament championship and an appearance in the Final Four.
So he'll always have that. And unfortunately, tonight is kind of like a send-off type of a night it might be. I know they have one more game after this. It's on the road at Miami. Because Kevin Keats is not going to have Charlotte, the ACC tournament, to defend his crown.
This year, the first year that everybody doesn't make the tournament, the bottom three teams do not qualify, he might not get the chance to rescue himself there. He'll need another mini-miracle just to get to Charlotte. You've got to beat Pittsburgh tonight at home. You've got to win at Miami, which seems doable. But then you also need Notre Dame to lose both its games at home against Stanford tonight and then against Cal on Saturday.
That's the only way that NC State can get to Charlotte at this point. So assuming that they don't, you've got to have that debate whether or not to bring Kevin Keats back. I think they should, just because of what he did last year. I think that earned him a chance to try to fix some of the problems.
And he's done a great job in the portal in past years. But that's not guaranteed. And we'll see if there is a move made that's a question mark there. Tonight's also key for Pittsburgh from a standings perspective. If they lose, they're going to be locked into playing on Tuesday in Charlotte. They need to win both their remaining games and have Virginia lose to Syracuse at Syracuse on Saturday. The Panthers, they might not care about that at this point. They've lost three in a row, six of their last eight games.
3-3-6, seven's up at seven, 1-600. Oh, we haven't heard from this guy in a while. An OG listener that we get out of the way for any time. He wants to call in and spew some takes.
He calls himself the human highlighter. HHL, welcome back. Go right ahead. Woo! I love you, Josh Graham. I tell you what, I know it's been a while, but the HHL is back because it is that time of year.
Oh, brother, come set it in Chapel 3, baby. Duke comes in, and you don't have to worry about Carolina making a tournament because they are going to lay a smackdown on the Duke Blue Devils. They have been playing great ball, as you said. They're beating inferior teams, but they are just walking the dog. They're making the HHL some money. Woo! Yeah, let me tell you something.
These boys are ready to play. This is our time of year. People say they want to bury us. They want to put their foot on our chest and say we are done.
But that is not the case. That will never be the case because we are Carolina University of National Champions. And we're going to show our medal come Saturday when we get that big W, and then we march through the ACC tournament. And then, woo, better, as you said, you don't want to face this team. You don't want to face this team in March Madness because we're going to make that run. I'm telling you, I love these kids.
I love these guys. We got the talent. We got the how-to. They have come together at the right time. So get ready. Get ready for Carolina. Woo!
They made a smackdown on Duke and make it run. Woo! Highlight! Good to have him back. Where's the hip-hop air horn just to punctuate everything that he had to say there? I don't even know if I have a hip-hop air horn anymore. Did you replace it with Brett Musburger?
You know, I did. He gets us fired up. Whoa! You're on the drive with Josh Graham.
WSJS! Shot up into the air. Deep center. Mijos running it down.
Makes the catch. And Vandebreak comes in on a walk-off sacrifice fly. That was last night at the Bosch, North Carolina, walking it off against ranked Coastal Carolina. This Tar Heel team, whether it's sweeping my East Carolina Pirates last week, looked great on the weekends, looked good in the midweek too, facing really good competition. They still haven't lost up until this point. They are now number four in the country in the most recent D1 baseball poll. That's higher than any other ACC team. We welcome Darren Vaught to the show now. ACC Baseball, etc. You can find his podcast.
You know him as Lottery Boy. We answer unusual questions in a little bit. We got Wake Baseball tickets to give away against Notre Dame for this weekend that we'll do momentarily. But in your view, granting it's still a small sample size, has North Carolina separated from Virginia and Florida State and Clemson as the class of the ACC right now? I think they're in that top tier with two teams that you mentioned. Florida State and Clemson have just both been so consistent in addition to North Carolina to me. Virginia I still think has the best roster potentially of any team in the ACC.
I'm still a believer in them. They have tested themselves and taken some lumps early in the season, but North Carolina's really good. Florida State is still undefeated just like the Tar Heels. I think they are two of seven teams across Division I baseball currently undefeated or left to be undefeated. Clemson swept their big sort of similar to UNC's ECU series. Clemson swept South Carolina with a home in a home. They played at the Minor League Park in Greenville as well as part of their most recent weekend. So yeah, it's North Carolina, Florida State, and Clemson. I would take it as those three are the class of the ACC. Wake Forest is ranked 15th in the D1 baseball poll. If you want to go see the Deacs play Notre Dame this weekend at the couch.
336-777-1600. Give us a call and all you got to do is ask us a question. It could be baseball related. It could be sports related. Usually it's more fun when it's not sports related as we demonstrate each week and we've been doing so now for four years plus when we answer unusual questions. Last week guys, everybody made it out that I got mad at Josh and I left the press conference.
That's not right. I thought it was an unusual question and it's OK. It's time for unusual questions with Josh Gray.
And I'll give you an example of what an unusual question might sound like if you're a novice at this. During the earlier today, we heard a story about this guy who was disbarred. And he committed a crime and the judge was looking to find him and his listed address that he gave was actually an Irish pub.
Was the just to try to steer people in the wrong direction leads to this question. What restaurant chain would you choose to live at? Like if you had to live in a restaurant chain. That's I'm sorry.
Bad news. You got to live in a restaurant chain. Which chain are you living in? So, OK, so this would be access worldwide to any of these establishments restaurant chain.
No, you there's one. You live at this restaurant chain. You I'm living at Burger King. I'm living, which might actually be a good choice. The ball pit, maybe have some fun. No, but I'm saying I'm saying, OK, so like if I choose Chipotle, do I have access to any Chipotle? I could I could bounce around and live like if I just wanted to go elsewhere for a bit. No, this isn't like this isn't like the local YMCA where it's like, oh, I got a membership at one Y. That means I have Y memberships at all the Y's across North Carolina.
Yeah, that's not what that means. So, W.D., have you given this any thought at all? Yeah, I've thought about it. All right. What do you think? I think you thought about it before Josh asked.
But you did. I discussed this earlier today. This is not something I've thought about prior to today.
I don't think about this on the reg. You know, I think I would stay at Starbucks. Here's my argument. They don't even serve like food. Oh, they got food there, buddy. Have you seen the cake pops? I meant food like actual sustenance will they see. OK, I love fake eggs on fake tortilla. Oh, well, see, here's the thing, though.
It's like I love coffee. Check. They do have food. They got the cake pops. They do have like the that's the food.
Yes, it is. They have croissants with like the eggs on them and things like that. They have the stuff to eat it if you want it hot. And they got great lounge set up.
I can kick it in a booth if I want or get a chair outside. All right. Hold on. They got it. We tell me we have to qualify these selections a little bit now. Whichever place you select, is this assuming that the general public still has access to this place?
Yes. Absolutely not Starbucks. People are there too long.
I'm going to need somewhere where people are in and out. I don't have to concern myself. Jimmy John's the main character of the day every day. Who's just going to sit there and annoy the hell out of me with whatever it is they're doing? Yeah, I'm going to choose probably Chick-fil-A because I'm assuming if people are still serving there are like people are still work going to the place that you also have the staff there. It's chicken. And I mean they're in and out.
You're not going to see the same person for more than 15 seconds. But also like if I need some of the staff to help like chain like you know get the laundry or something, they'll say my pleasure and probably do it. Help you out a little bit. Yeah. Good. Good.
Good staff. I assume the food is is just part of the question. Yeah.
Food's part of it. Yeah. All right.
All right. I'm going with Chipotle. Nice bathrooms. Food that I would eat every day.
Like I'd be OK eating that every day. It's a good it's a good choice. Typically pretty quickly people are in and out.
OK. 3 3 6 7 7 7 1 600. Sean is in Winston-Salem. Sean, what's your unusual question for Darren Vaught and I for Wake baseball tickets? It's not so unusual, but as a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, which leads me to a lot of pain and suffering throughout the year. Would you rather have a you pick your favorite team win a championship once every two decades but have losing records for the next two decades? Or or your favorite team wins the regular season every year.
But there is no chance that they could ever be champions. Sean. So you mean the NC State experience? That's what we're talking about. Let me ask you to see a Cowboy fan.
I get it. Are you also a Dallas Mavericks fan? I am not. I am the worst type of person.
Dallas Cowboys fan, a Lakers fan, a Yankees fan. I'm a terrible person. You didn't have to say that, but I appreciate the call. I was just trying to cheer you up. And thanks.
Thanks for the call. Sean. Yeah.
What's up? You and WD can talk amongst yourselves if you want to about the Yankees and how Luis Hill and and Stanton are never going to play the. It's a good question. I was going to say, at least the good news is you're not a Mavericks fan, because if you're a Dallas Maverick and a Dallas Cowboy fan, that might be Sports Hell USA situation.
Yeah, I think the answer is obvious. I think you'd want to be good and win the regular season every year because my favorite team is the Orioles and. Brother, I've been through the 20 years, but you have the one in 2014 and apathy is not fun. Being in the mix is caring. It's like having a pet.
You never want anything bad to happen to your pet. But, you know, death is still unbeaten, brother. It still is. It happens. But when it does, you still are happy that you loved in the first place that you cared because it's the larger sample of happiness of your team being relevant. And I also think there should be value in some sports to being good in the regular season in college football. I can say if I'm an Oregon fan, I'm feeling pretty good, even though we didn't do good in the playoff.
That's fine. We were the best team in the regular season. We won the Big Ten when the Orioles won the least.
I was super psyched for them, even though they got flamed out because it still felt like over one hundred sixty two games. We did something. And I'd rather have that than be mostly bad, even if it means we win the World Series in a decade. I'm going to disagree here. This is a fundamental world view of mine. The good's not good without the bad. So you got to you got to embrace them both.
You got to have them both. Interesting. Give me give me absolute depression of seasons if it means you can end on the mountaintop at least once. Just once. Oh, because you don't want the North Carolina Tar Heel experience this year where you're bar so high that you're like miserable at winning twenty two, twenty three games, which and maybe being a 10 or 11 seed in the tournament, which Wake Forest would fight somebody in the street for. Oh, let's fire the basketball coach that took us to the Final Four a couple of years ago and was a number one national seed.
At this point, they build a statue for Steve Forbes if he did either of those two things. Yeah. Or like so like I'm going to put the put this in a into a Carolina Hurricanes perspective.
Yes. So when I first moved down here and first started really getting into the canes, I would go to games and I'm telling you, I would be one of a dozen people walking around the car. Nine straight years of missing the playoffs. And now you've been to the playoffs every single year and people are expecting things.
Do I want to win a Stanley Cup championship? Of course. Of course I do. But I do have the perspective to understand that good seasons are good because of the bad. Right.
It's it's just I think you need the bad. I don't know. I think it would it would get boring if you won the regular season every year. I wonder what Yankee slash LeBron James fan W.D. thinks on the subject. I mean, I'm a Hornets fan, so I can relate to this now. Now, just to be specific, more than the specific here. I was on the fence. What was the exact question? The question was, would you rather root for a team that wins a championship once every 20 years, but is bad the rest of the time or be consistently good but flame out in the playoffs every year?
I would want to be bad and then get my title once every 20 years. I'm all about to climb. It's the journey, man. You guys saying people only need one man. People get tattoos because of one. People, people make other huge decisions because of one.
You only need one to enjoy the human experience. W.D., what's your unusual question for Darren Votenai? So I was thinking about phones for for no reason in particular. Some great phones here. Bill Belichick met with the media today.
And this must be a difference between the Patriots, how things are covered and college football. A bunch of media members just sat their phones on the podium, as you do, to record what you have to say. And Bill Belichick had thoughts. Some great phones here. Some great phones here. The first thing he said before he said anything else.
Gonna be a content machine this year, Belichick. So it did get me thinking about phones. What about them? And I got to thinking, like, are you a big swipe out of all your tabs type of person? Like, do you keep your tabs open? Because I'll be honest, once once my day gets started, my tabs are crazy. Everybody pull out their phone right now. Let's see how many tabs you have open right now on your iPhone. Let's see. And I'm not talking about just Safari. I'm talking about how many apps you have closed out.
Yes. Let's count them. When you get a number, you let me know. I got one.
You only have one Safari. That's one. So you close it out every time.
I am pretty methodical about. Yeah, it's done. If I'm done with it, it's done. W.D., how many for you? I got about 13 open right now. How many is a lot for me? No, Darren, in general, just how many is a lot?
I don't know. I feel like I'm not a good I'm not a good number. I think a dozen is kind of W.D. How many is a lot? About what I have open right now.
I try it now. Depends on what part of the day you get me in, because I'll swipe through and clean them out to freshen it up. I've got 20. Oh, 20 things do you have open? I thought I was a lot.
Let me see. I don't think I use 20 apps. Safari X messages Nana, which checks on baby Daniel.
Happy four month birthday, Daniel. Phone, my phone, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, calculator, FanDuel, DraftKings, Mail, Maps, Notes app, Camera, GroupMe, Clock, Hulu, Photos, ESPN podcasts, Apple podcasts. You just don't close any of those things. You've been on a daily basis. On a daily basis, I usually do.
Some great films here. You've been on the air for almost three hours. You haven't used any of those.
I haven't used FanDuel or DraftKings. I have a lot of those probably from earlier. Where's J.C. Horn to tell the people what I've been doing during the show today?
Send me that Cash App family. All right. Real quickly, Darren Bot, what's your unusual question? All right. I took in the new season of Shorzy.
What is that? Shorzy, Jared Kiso, the guy that did Letterkenny. You're not aware of the show Shorzy? Anyways. No. All right.
All right. So it's hockey. It's based around a hockey player named Shorzy.
So it's like a hockey nickname. His name's like something short. Last name is Shor or Shores.
I don't even know. He's Shorzy in the show. He just goes by Shorzy. So in this season, he is mentoring young players. And there is also this love interest throughout the series that he is trying to get this woman and convince her to be with him. And it becomes this thing in the season that he goes and sings karaoke songs to her. He takes her to this place and sings karaoke songs to her as a way of wooing her.
So he and his teammates are trying to impart this wisdom to the younger guys, the teenagers in this case. That like, if you want the girl, you got to do what it takes. And it ends in this great scene where they convinced the kid to sing karaoke to her. What song did they pick? There's this whole, it was My Maria is the country song.
Brooks and Dunn. Excellent. Excellent. So they advised the kid on like, no, the song choice is important. And part of it is it's got to be tough enough. Like there's got to be enough high notes. Yes.
Where to make yourself vulnerable to this person you're trying to impress. Correct. You got to make a little bit of a fool of yourself. Yes.
Right? Okay. So it got me thinking, of course, about you and maybe the last time you did karaoke. What would you say is like the most challenging song you've ever done for karaoke? Um, challenging. That's a that's a great.
I've done Bruno Mars. Okay. Not easy. No, not easy. And I don't know if I pulled it off.
It's like it was like 50 50. But to your point, people appreciated the try. Yeah, because it because there's a point at which you go too difficult and it's not an enjoyable effort. It's not enjoyable.
But also, if you do it too well, people are like, all right, you're you're not Bruno and you're trying too hard. You don't like it. Why are you singing Whitney Houston?
Don't do that. But I know it was when I was your man by Bruno Mars. That's good.
Although it hurts, I'll be the first to say that I was wrong. Yeah, it's a great song. But again, pretty hard to sing, obviously, as I just my voice is shut down.
I I win. You've only sang karaoke twice. I've well, and I've only sung karaoke by myself once, which was when we went downtown Winston after the fair that one. Oh, you mean like on stage by yourself. Correct.
I was wondering, I was like, I sing karaoke by myself all the time in the shower, in the car. Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft is what we went with. Yeah. Oh, it's good.
Sinatra is a good answer to this. Oh, yeah. No, that's not it's just talking. That's all you're doing.
I don't think you're making yourself vulnerable at all. And now I almost did a Nicki Minaj song and you talked me out of it. You were like, no, you don't want to do that.
That would have been brutal. I'm going to overlook the Sinatra slander. And I love Sinatra, but I just don't think it's great karaoke pick an answer for myself. When I did karaoke more often, I had a blast a couple of times with I believe in a thing called love by the darkness. Because it is such an absurdly high note that you got to hit. You can just like be an idiot with it.
And people seem to enjoy that. We got to go. Darren Vaught, love you mean it. We won't talk to you next week because you got your own conference tournament that East Carolina is in and we'll be in Charlotte. So we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. Sounds good. Excellent. We hit on NC State Pittsburgh for tonight. We'll be following that locally nationally speaking. Tonight's slate is just spectacular.
More on that in a second, because as promised, we need to get to this week's edition. Of Panthers mock draft. Jordan Reed is a draft expert for ESPN.
He dropped his latest mock draft yesterday. And this is a surprise for the Panthers at number eight. Tyler Warren's on the board from Penn State, the tight end.
Jalen Walker's on the board, the Salisbury native from Georgia. But he projects with the number eight pick. In the twenty twenty five NFL draft. That the Panthers go with the other Bulldog edge rusher, Mikel Williams, at that number eight spot.
Here's his reasoning. He sees Mikel as a pure pass rusher in a way he doesn't. Jalen Walker, Jalen Walker with more flexibility at his position.
When you bring in Mikel Williams, you're bringing him to rush the passer. He compared him to Daniel Hunter, that type of guy, which would be a fantastic addition for Carolina if he is, in fact, that type of good. When the topic was brought up to Jordan Reed by a nice wrath of the Carolina Panthers, he had an interesting comp for Jalen Walker.
Listen here. Another native North Carolinian from Salisbury, North Carolina. So him being able to play very close to home will be a great story for him. But he's another player that reminds me of who used to play for the Panthers and Frankie Louvou.
Wow. Have a very similar skill set of where they're just a jack of all trades. Disruptive. You just line them up anywhere, keep them forward and just say, hey, man, just terrorize the offense. That's what he's capable of doing. One of the few players in this year's draft class that you can line it off ball linebacker, but also rush him off of the edge. And it makes sense, Will, when you think about it, why he has Mikel Williams for the Panthers at eight. Because if you project that Mikel Williams is Daniel Hunter and that Jalen Walker is Frankie Louvou, which of those two players would you rather have?
Like they're similar level in terms of how good they are across the league. But I think the Panthers need pass rushing. So he feels that Williams will better fill that need than Jalen Walker would. It's just interesting to hear him say that in terms of the best case scenario for Carolina at number six. It's not miracle scenario that Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter fall to them.
Of course, that's something that you would welcome if it were to happen. But no, he says there is a guy that he has incredibly high graded that it's possible it's possible could fall to number eight. Best case scenario, I would say Mason Graham, the defensive tackle out of Michigan, if he's there. I think you turn the card and you don't make us wait all the way down or run the clock all the way down to make the selection.
If he's there, you turn the card in within a minute or two after you call his family and all that stuff. So Mason Graham will be best case scenario. But I just think the Panthers need to find a way to add some type of defensive presence alongside Derek Brown in the middle, along the defensive line, just because they were just so bad up front with generating pressure. So whether it's a Mason Graham or any of the Georgia duo and Jalen Walker or Mike Hill Williams, I think that would be best case scenario. North Carolina native Jalen Walker might be the most fun possibility because of his background.
But Mason Graham, he fixes a lot of Carolina's problems and he is a terrific defensive tackle. In fact, later on in that conversation, Jordan Reed even described there is a top tier in this draft as he sees it. He calls it pure blue chip guys. He says it's Abdul Carter, it's Travis Hunter and it's Mason Graham.
That's how good he feels that they are. And he has Mason Graham going number five to the Jacksonville Jaguars. It wasn't just the first round projections that we got from him. Jordan Reed has Carolina taking Ole Miss corner Trey Amos in round two.
He also looked ahead at other potential day two and day three fits. Again, this sound from a conversation with Aneesh Raff on the Panthers YouTube channel. Two guys come to mind.
The first one is Jack Sawyer. Ohio State. And we saw what he was able to do in the college football playoff. But last year he was really productive.
And, you know, if there was a definition of pro ready, he is exactly that. Another is Landon Jackson out of Arkansas. That's probably going to go somewhere in the third round if I had to guess right now.
Very similar to Jack Sawyer in that he doesn't have overwhelmingly great physical traits. But he's another player that can come in and be a part of a rotation right away. Going back to the first round. Some might be mad to go Mikel Williams rather than Jalen Walker because of those local ties. My bar is not high, Will. If you want to make Josh Graham happy, Dan Morgan. If that's your goal, which it shouldn't be, it should just be to get the best player.
We have fun. If you go defensive player at number eight, I'm fine. And I'll trust your evaluation. If you feel that it's a safety and you love Malachi Starks, won't crush it. Mikel Williams, Mason Graham, Will Johnson, the corner from Michigan, won't crush it. The only thing that will make me mad is if you take Tyler Warren or take an offensive player.
That's what would make me upset. So that's this week's edition of Panthers Mock Draft. Getting to that national slate tonight in College Hoops. As good as last night was, and it was great.
Number one went down. You had two double overtime games. Tonight should be even better.
You have two at six thirty and seven o'clock respectively. You have two ranked matchups tonight. Number five Florida's at number seven Alabama. The winner of this game will maybe be the favorite to get that fourth number one seed.
Joe Leonardi said that the top three feel kind of locked in. Auburn, Duke, and Houston will be the top three. And then you'll see which probably SEC team will get that number four overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Number thirteen Maryland is at number seventeen Michigan.
That could be a lot of fun too. There are two monster games for bubble teams tonight. Oklahoma is hosting number fifteen ranked Mizzou. Oklahoma is the first team out on Leonardi's projection.
You're probably bumped in if you beat a top fifteen team. Boise State, first team in or the last team in I should say. And they face Colorado State, one of the better teams in the Mountain West. So that's a pretty big showdown there and the game is in Boise. Then you get to the Big East. How about number twenty Marquette, an underdog at unranked UConn later tonight. So in addition to all the ACC action we'll be following, those are games to have circled as well.
Coming up, an ACC team that you likely haven't given much thought about but that is starting to become an absolute nuisance. Keep it here on The Drive. Did you ever used to watch Breaking Bad? I never got into it, no. I can't say that I really got that much into it.
I did something shameful. I think it's six seasons if memory serves and the sixth season was about to start. I might have been just out of college and all my friends were interested in watching it. They were big fans and I wanted to have something to talk with them about. So I just Wikipedia'd what happened the first five seasons to catch up.
I didn't watch the shows and then I watched the final season. One of the characters in that show, Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul, has become a very popular internet meme. Where he's crying, he's talking about Heisenberg and he says out loud, He can't keep getting away with it! He can't keep getting away with it! That's how I felt last night sitting in the basement of my house watching SMU Syracuse last night. SMU can't keep getting away with it! They've become a nuisance to me, Will. I don't know if anybody else this relates to.
If it does, YouTube comments, or on X, at Josh Graham Show or at WSJS Radio, The Drive With Josh Graham on YouTube, 336-777-1600. SMU's become a nuisance. It was charming during football season. They go unbeaten in the regular season. They played an awesome ACC Championship game, might have been the best ACC Championship game ever, got the Clemson kicker nailing close to a 60-yard kick in order to win it. That allowed Clemson to steal a spot from an SEC school where you tick off Paul Feinbaum, you tick off Lane Kiffin, Kirk Herbstreet saying crazy things, Nick Saban's mad on TV. We enjoyed that. We appreciate you for it. It's amazing that you jumped into the league without receiving TV revenue from a conference and you're instantly exceeding expectations.
You're instantly thriving. But you're crossing the line, SMU. You're crossing the line by being in play for an ACC tournament double-by.
That's where we're drawing the line right away. If you are in a fraternity, Will, you can't have one of the pledges running the house right away. You can't have that. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You're now dating one of my exes? That's not acceptable, pledge. Go grab me some coffee, pledge.
Do that. I wasn't in a fraternity. This is how I assume folks in frats act. That doesn't surprise me at all, Will.
It's one of the things I like about you. But they're crossing lines here, SMU is. And if the Mustangs beat Florida State on Saturday and Duke beats Carolina, they're going to have that double-by. And do you know what that would mean? That would push not one but two of our locals, Will, to having to play on Wednesday.
It would push Wake Forest and North Carolina to having to play on Wednesday. And do we like that? No, we do not. We do not like that at all, especially when the team doing so are absolute frauds. They're frauds, Will.
They're frauds and they can't keep getting away with it. Last night, did you watch this game? I did not watch this game. Syracuse led the entire game. Is Syracuse good?
No. They're not. This game's in Dallas at SMU's house, Moody Coliseum. And with five minutes to go, Will, Syracuse leads 72 to 74. They're up eight.
And what does Syracuse do the rest of the way? They don't hit a field goal for the last five minutes. They miss two foul shots in the final minute. Tie game, 75-all. SMU scores a bucket with two seconds to go to win at 77-75. They finish the game on a 13 to 3 run.
They can't keep getting away with it. They haven't beaten anybody. Will.
Well, they beat Syracuse. No, no. Hold one sec. Hold one second. Will, I want you to guess a number. The highest ranked, according to right now, the ACC standings at this moment. Take a guess. What seed the best team SMU's beaten through 19 conference games. 19 conference games, the best seed in the current ACC standings that they've beaten. I'm just going to guess maybe eight.
The answer is seven. And that's Stanford. They won that game at home. Lost to Stanford last week, by the way. Do you want to know the best road team that they've beaten this year?
The answer, whoever you think's better between Virginia and Virginia Tech. Those are their best wins the entire season. They do not have a quad one win.
They're ranked top 50 in the net. They do not have a quad one win. They can't keep getting away with this. They're going to get a double buy in Charlotte.
Are you serious? Man, you're on the warpath against SMU right now. It's likely, Will. Because again, all that needs to happen, SMU beats Florida State. Which might not happen because, as we pointed out, SMU doesn't have a lot of good wins. That might be their best road win of the year if they get it, because they've beaten nobody, frauds. But if that happens and Duke beats Carolina, they are your number four seed.
Your double buy in the ACC tournament. Hold one sec, I got to puke. SMU. Newsome. Smoo. Smoo. Ponies.
Mustangs. We don't like you. You're crossing the line. You're crossing the line. Over the line, Donnie. This isn't Nam. There are rules.
There are rules. Debbie Antonelli will join us in less than ten minutes. The Drive is brought to you by our friends at the YMCA. YMCA Camp Haynes is open for registration.
Some are this year. Some are day camp. Opens, well it's already open registration, but only open for a few more days. Multiple locations across the area. Three locations at Forsythe County, plus Davey Stokes' Y's as well. Go to campaigns.com to register. Because remember, if you're a member at one Y, whether it's Forsythe County, Davey Stokes, you're a member of all of North Carolina.
Otherwise, at www.ymca.org. There you go. Should we talk about the Hornets or the Hurricanes? I think I'd rather talk about the Hurricanes, to be honest with you. Carolina Hurricanes beat the Detroit Red Wings last night 2-1.
They were up 2-0 going out of the third place. It's still staggering to me how much of the content of this show is just interrupting Josh. That is true. Interrupting Josh equals content.
It does. Whether it's the women's basketball updates. I don't argue with the audience. We have to respect their wishes. The Canes have now won three of their last four. They will host the Boston Bruins tomorrow at Lenovo Center. The day before the NHL trade deadline where I'd see teams all across the league or beat riders, hockey folks from across the league, speculating about the Panthers or the Hurricanes trading Mico Rottenen, who they just acquired before the deadline. Steve Levy saying, well, Utah would make a lot of sense. How about let's keep this guy on the team if we think that he's going to help you win a Stanley Cup.
Unless he flat out says, no, I am not going to resign and rally, plain and simple. Then you get to the Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets are in action tonight, Will. Does Charlotte have a chance? Was that no or oh? I think it was just oh.
Oh, from Eric Tiles. Yes. They have a chance, I guess. So they're playing the T-Wolves. Minnesota is on the second night of a back to back. They beat the Sixers last night.
So they go from Minnesota to Charlotte. Charlotte lost by 19 to Golden State. Not convinced that Charlotte is trying all that hard to win basketball games, which might factor into the calculus tonight. In terms of who's playing, which is always a fun question to answer when it comes to Charlotte. It's actually a pretty good injury report, all things considered. Because neither Mark Williams, LaMelo Ball nor Miles Bridges is listed on this injury report. Taj Gibson and Yusef Nurkic are probable to play. So this might be the most healthy that Charlotte's been in a little bit. You're facing a team on the second night of a back to back. Do you believe in miracles?
No. It's Minnesota heading to Charlotte tonight. You can add that to the list of things that we're going to be paying close attention to before Charlotte faces one of the best teams in the East on Friday. The Cleveland Cavaliers coming to town.
This is something significant too. So Charlotte is second worst in the NBA when it comes to record. Two of the teams that Charlotte is right behind, one of them's got to win tonight because they're playing each other. Utah is facing Washington. Actually, Washington has the worst record, so technically not. But I guess Charlotte would be one game closer to having the worst record if Washington wins, and Utah would have a little bit more distance if they win.
Listen to what we're talking about here. Who's going to have the second worst record versus the worst record? So much fun. Let's just get Cooper. My favorite tweet of the night last night was the person who said, is there a chance that if Charlotte wins the lottery, Cooper flag decides, I'm just going to go back to school. I sent you what somebody quote tweeted in response to it, and it was a Hornets fan that said, and I'm quoting, we going to be ass again next year, buddy. I'm going to do this all day, Cooper. I swear.
It made me laugh. With the ACC's women's tournament underway in Greensboro, when's the next time the women's tournament is going to be in Greensboro? When should it be in Greensboro again? We'll ask a Hall of Famer in Debbie Antonelli live from the Coliseum next.
Your attention, please. What a way to begin the ACC women's tournament in Greensboro. The Boston College Eagles are racing a 19 point deficit to beat Syracuse 76 73. Their prize is facing North Carolina at 11 a.m. tomorrow. And right now, we're being joined from the Coliseum. Our friend, who happens to be a Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Curt Gowdy Award winner, Debbie Antonelli, back on with us.
Let's start here because B.C. draws North Carolina. How much do you like the Tar Heels chances of winning a couple of games in this tournament and perhaps giving us a state Carolina showdown in Greensboro Friday night? Well, hey, Josh. First of all, thanks for having me on, man.
I love coming on your show. And who wouldn't want to see a NC State North Carolina showdown, of course, in the ACC tournament? That would be Saturday.
My apologies. Not Friday. Yeah, that would be that would be fun. In fact, if we could get that far, if North Carolina is healthy, they certainly have a chance to get there. We'll see tomorrow if us being Renia Kelly are able to play.
We have no word out of North Carolina on that yet. So I'm excited to find out myself. Yeah. And then if you're trying to a lot of people think that with our backgrounds and broadcasting that there are teams that we root for when we're working games or, you know, we're just working in this job. No, we root for the best stories, or at least I do. And when I'm trying to forecast what would be a dream scenario that we get on Sunday, because of how the double OT game played out at Reynolds between Notre Dame and NC State, is there a better scenario for this league than those two heavyweights going head to head Sunday?
I don't think so. And not only for the league, I don't think there's a better scenario for women's basketball right now. Both those teams are so loaded, their back courts are good.
And when you have good guard play, you always have the opportunity to advance. But you're absolutely right. We're not rooting for a team. We're not cheering against the team. We're calling the game as we see it.
And we're trying to do the very best we can to push forward the great narratives around our game. Debi, looking at this tournament from a 1,000-foot view, we're here in the Triad. The audience that we have is across the Triad area of North Carolina, including Greensboro, obviously, and we call ourselves Tournament Town in Greensboro. And it's crazy to think that this tournament has been in Greensboro every year but one, 2017, this century.
This century, it's only been in one other place, and that was in 2017 amid the HB2 controversy. And we don't know where the tournament's going to be next year, and we know it's going to be in Charlotte in 2027. How does it strike you that as we talk right now, we don't know the next time that Greensboro is going to be hosting the women's basketball tournament? It feels a little odd. It feels a little sad, I will admit.
I mean, I've been coming here for so long. I'm trying to remember if this is my 25th or 26th tournament here in Greensboro on the ACC calling the games. Of course, I played in four when they were in Fayetteville a long time ago. But I know how much the Greensboro Sports Commission has meant to ACC, women's basketball in particular, the hospitality, the way they've hosted all the teams, the way they've worked the local market to try to draw fans. All of that's important to advancing our game, and I would give them an A-plus for doing all of that.
So I get the league wanting to try some things out. We've seen the success in Charlotte, for example, and you've called a lot of Kaitlyn Clark's games. When Kaitlyn played her final year in Charlotte, I think against Virginia Tech, and you have that incredible crowd at Spectrum Center, that was the first place my brain went when we learned that they are not going to be playing at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte or on a campus.
No, they're going to be playing in the Spectrum Center, and that's going to be an interesting test study a couple of years from now. What most interests you, if they asked you for your input, assuming they haven't already, what would you be interested in now that they've already opened the door for moving this tournament around? Yeah, they have not asked me, so I have not been able to provide any suggestions and or solutions for helping to continue to grow the game. I want to be a part of anything that I can do to help those metrics in any way to advance our game, Josh. I did help put the Ally tip-off together in Charlotte with the Charlotte Sports Commission and Danny Morrison. When you have a sponsor like Ally that comes in in a big way, it certainly allows you to do some things differently around the tournament.
In terms of providing amenities for players and making it more fan accessible for the fans that attend, there's a lot of things you can do when you have some sponsors. I'm always about creative inventory in our game. I want creative inventory, and I want us to sell.
For the longest time, we were not selling. And now you referenced Kaitlyn Clark. I call it Clarkonomics.
It was a name that was born out of that event in Charlotte. I actually spoke in Tara Vandevere, the retired head coach from Stanford's masterclass last night at 11 p.m. on the East Coast. This was an opportunity for me because she asked to talk about Clarkonomics and how it impacts our game and what it means and where we need to go and what we need to do next and things like that, Josh, because it's really important that we have to continue to build and move forward.
We've always been trending very slowly in the right direction, and I use Clarkonomics as a term because it's the greatest disruption in the history of our game. We've never had anybody disrupt the marketplace like Kaitlyn Clark did. Debbie Antonelli with us here. You'll be seeing a lot of her from the Greensboro Coliseum over the next few days calling games, and then, of course, you'll see her covering the men's tournament for CBS Turner. Looking forward to the start of the men's NCAA tournament. And the reason I spell out your expertise on both sports, I have to correct a lot of people when they say the ACC has a basketball problem. No, I always correct them and say, no, they have a men's basketball problem when it comes to getting teams in the tournament because the women aren't having any problems.
We hear that North Carolina has been behind when Hubert Davis hasn't had a general manager, and I have to correct and say, no, the men's program has that problem because Courtney Bancart's had it the last few years. When you examine what the ladies might have gotten right in recent years that the men have some catching up to do, is there anything that you can pinpoint? You know, the women are dealing with similar issues to the men, maybe not at the highest degree from an NIL standpoint or a transfer portal. It's about the money. There's not as much investment on the women's side as there is in the men. We know it's about buying players.
You may not like it. You don't want to hear it said that way, but that's exactly what we're doing. Certain teams in the league have higher payrolls than the other teams in the league.
That's why we're going general managers and all these things. But the one thing the women have had that I think that has helped their storytelling is they're not playing one year and leaving college sports. They got to stay for four and sometimes five years. I do believe the NCAA is going to give everyone a fifth year. And if that happens, I think that'll even help the women's game in a greater way because then they'll stay longer. They'll develop their skills.
Resources are equal, men and women, except for buying players. That's different. Debbie Antonelli, we'll let you get back inside watching Pittsburgh, Virginia. Thank you so much for making the time for us out at the Coliseum and we'll see you out that way sometime soon. Thanks for doing this. You're the best, Josh. Thanks. Look forward to seeing you soon, bud.
