Welcome back to another episode of Wrl Triangle and two. I am Louis Fernandez. He is Mark Bergen. We are in the middle of February. Um We got what, like nine days left in February, shout to shout to leap years. Um And uh we have plenty of basketball action to discuss plenty of basketball action to look forward to Mark. I just want to get straight into it talking the teams in A P order because we have a new number one in North Carolina for men's basketball in the A P. Duke has hopped over UN C in the top 25. Um Duke moving up to number eight in the A P poll. UN C falling to number 10. So when you look at uh Duke's performance this week, Mark, what stands out to you? What are your main observations from the Blue Devils? I'm gonna pose a question for you, Lewis. OK. Given that it's a leap year as well. I like that reference. But my question is, this is Duke now, Jared mccain's team. Um So I, this is a conversation that I have heard uh been brought up a little bit over the course of the last couple of weeks. I think that, um I think Jeremy Cain is playing the best basketball on that team. Um I do not think that the performance that we saw him tying a Duke freshman record with 35 points against Florida State. I do not think that was an anomaly by any means you watch what he's been doing and he is lights out from three. The word that John Shire uses a lot when discussing Jared mccain is gravity, the gravity that he brings to a team, the defensive focus that has to happen, it should make everyone's job easier. Um And you want to, and on top of that, he has been rebounding a lot more. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I wanna hop in here, Lewis. No, go, go ahead, please. I, I just, I would say yes, but I do not. I do not mean that as like a slight on Kyle Phillips continue 35 points. T Zion Williamson's freshman record and think about all the great players that have come through this program down through the years and I don't want to leave out any in particular just because there have been so many greats, but he ties Zion's record also surpasses JJ Reddick's three point record as well, which I don't think we should look past there. So the outside shooting and people are gonna talk about the fingernails painted as well and duke colors and all of that. But then the rebounding is, well, Lewis for someone who stands at 6 ft three when he goes to the NBA draft, we'll hear Jay Bilas talk all about wingspan. I don't know what his wingspan will measure out to be, but that is a want to Lewis that is a, want to, to conscientiously rebound the basketball double digit rebounding for a guy who stands at 6 ft three in five games this season. So it's not just the shooting, the rebounding as well. Lewis is what sticks out to me. And I think about how he's playing relative to a lot of the Duke greats that have come through this program through the years playing his best basketball at the right time. We're in midway through February. We saw, we, we, we're a broken record on this show. We saw what happened two years ago when a team gets hot with Un C Duke right now up to number eight. We'll see, we'll see, Jared mccain's balling right now. No, he is, he like, Jared mccain is really, really good, really, really good. Um And he's been that way for a while. Like it's, it's just been, um, you know, I think sometimes the focus has been too much on um, some of the other players, but Jared mccain has been phenomenal um this season for the Blue Devils. Um One thing he, he mentioned, um, it was against Wake Forest when, uh he had a double double was that they've really, there's really been an emphasis on giving him the green light to crash the boards and chase after some of those, um, offense, some of those rebounds in general. And it's what happens when he gets defensive rebounds and then pushes the pace, right. Um Dared mccain is, is incredibly deadly in transition, um especially those pull up threes in transition. So whenever he can push the pace, get the ball up, you know, get set, maybe get lost in that defensive transition there for teams, it's dead for what Duke wants to do. Um Really my only thing with, with Duke, just defense needs to continue to improve. Um You know, if I pull up Duke, let me pull up some of Duke's stats here while you do that too with mccain Lewis. Uh I think he's playing himself into the first round of the draft right now and I still think you run through Philip Psy just given the size disadvantage, the inside, outside the game that he brings to the table. Roach is a veteran guard played in a lot of big games, but when he's hot and he's playing right, I think mccain is Duke's best player and I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I genuinely believe that considering eight of the last nine games, double digit scoring. So again, it's the scoring, it's the rebounding for me. It's not just one component of the game where you a casual fans gonna notice the outside shooting and the scoring, right. But the rebounding as a component of his game too, there's a reason why he was a five star recruit coming into Duke. And right now I do think that this is his team right now. I genuinely do believe that Lewis and I, I can't believe that I'm saying that given it's no knock on Philip Posy or roach either. But I think he's playing at that high of a level right now. I, I think I'm always like a little bit hesitant to like, assign teams to people, right? I don't, I don't love that kind of, that kind of dialogue, right? It's because it's, it's a group effort, it's a team for a reason. But I think that um Jared mccann has the ability to impact the theme incredibly. So because of his gravity. Um You know, I think that uh Kyle Philip Posy has leaned into a little more playmaking um from the post. I think that's been good. You see Mark Mitchell starting to heat up a little bit as well. I, I still think that Duke is at its best when you have Mark Mitchell and Kyle Phillips playing well in tandem. Um I, I, I'd say the way I kind of would phrase it is, I feel like Jared mccain is a player who does not need the rest of that team to be hot to get hot. He's a guy who's going to be able to keep Duke in games when other people struggle. Um But no, I mean, he's, he's been playing phenomenal. Um He's been playing phenomenal basketball. I'm really excited to see where he continues to go out, know enough about the draft to be honest to say where he's gonna go or what he's what that situation is gonna be like. But he's, he has really been playing at a very high level, especially in the year 2024 in the past, you know, month and a half, two months. Um One other thing I want to share about Duke from what I've noticed Lewis, um I want to see the backup big. So Philip Psy and Mitchell get most of the run right. I want to see Sean Stewart emerge into that role as a freshman coming into the year. There was a lot of hype where he broke Zion Williamson's vertical leap record. I am not saying he's Zion Williamson, but late in the season when guard play becomes more important, you get into tournament play and you get caught in screen and rolls and your big is gonna be matched up on a guard. I know he can slide his feet and move with guards defensively versus like, like, look, there's no knock on Ryan young senior veteran player, but I wanna see Stewart get those minutes off the bench of when Philip Posy checks out of the game and Mitchell aren't in the game, he's coming off the bench. I want to see Stewart fulfill that role and I just mesmerized by you. I think you're hitting on Ryan Young. I really do. I think he, he provides some facilitation. The thing you have to remember about this Duke team in general, right is that they, they are essentially playing with four guards, maybe even five guards at times. They just do not have a lot of size depth. And that's part of the reason why it impacts um their, their defense, why their defense has played the way it has at times in this one. So I think Duke Duke is very much who they are as a team. It's just gonna be about improving the little parts of who they are at this point. So continuing to grow a little bit depth. Sure. But I, I think it's more about just getting everyone on the same page at the same time. What I am like all, all the parts of that team clicking all at the same time. What I'm looking at with Duke now this week is gonna be really interesting to me because, you know, obviously they're number eight in the A P poll right now. Sure. Um They are 17 in the net. Ken Palm has them 11. Um They have at Miami and at Wake Forest, Duke has played a lot of home games so far this season and so I want to see them get tested a little bit in um on the road against some of these teams that are going to be very desperate for wins. We saw them get a home win against Wake Forest last week. Um Wake Forest is, I think Leonardi has them as, you know, last team out type thing right now. So they are gonna be desperate for wins especially after. Um and it was kind of the way they, they have a lot of opportunities. But um I, I'm gonna, I wanna see how Duke performs on the road. Good win against Florida State. Keep that going. His next two wins or two, next two games, all three on the road. And that's gonna be really interesting for me. All right, let me keep stirring the pot. Lewis. Are you concerned moving to UN C now that Duke is now ranked higher than your beloved tar heels? Am I the, if, if the question is ever, are you concerned about a ranking? The answer is no, the rankings don't matter. They're dumb and stupid like no, like I, I mean, that's just, that's just straightforward. That's how you really feel. I mean, it, it, I don't think it doesn't matter. It just, it matters about how you're playing. Right. NC has not been playing well. They have not played consistent for a long time now really. I mean, you look at it right, you go back to the um Georgia Tech loss before Duke. They beat Duke. Sure lose to Clemson, beat Miami, lose to Syracuse beat Virginia Tech. They, they have not won two games in a row now, since January 22nd, January 27th. Um, the, the main thing with Un C's kind of stretch here has been their defense. We've seen their defense struggle at times. I mean, the, the loss at Syracuse, some of that was just like, just pure shot making like you gotta give the orange credit, but their defensive numbers have not been good like their points per 100 possession, right? Um For during that huge win streak that they had, they were uh during that huge if you go back to Oklahoma and then you go all the way to Florida State when they won uh nine games, 10 games in a row, right? They allowed one team to score more than 100 points per, per 100 possessions right in this stretch since then. 12345, everyone has been scoring on them defensively. Um Their effective field goal percentage that they're giving up is way up. Um Teams are shooting threes pretty well against them. So really the, the thing for me more is just the defense that UN C is doing. They, they just, they seem off, they're, they're struggling but you did see them kind of turn things around a little bit um against Virginia Tech. You know, that's Virginia Tech is not gonna make the NCAA tournament, but that is still a feisty. So you get that one at home. That's good. They also have not played a lot of home games just in general. I think they have, I, I want to say three of their last four games this season are gonna be at home. They play at Virginia coming up later this week. Their only game this week, much needed rest and then they play three, home games before finishing up with Duke. So it's gonna be big for them. Um They just kind of have to continue to get right. You don't want to be a team that peaks in January and is not in a good position come March. But um they, you RJ Davis is still playing well even though not as efficiently you're seeing like Armando Bacot has his second half against Virginia Tech was massive. Um So just, just like with Duke, I think that you can see who is who they are at this point. You just need to see everyone kind of come together on that same page. Um Cormac Ryan also played well on Saturday, which is much need to need him to continue to play well for, for the tar heels. You're stealing all my thunder from my notes, Lewis. Uh This break is gonna come at a nice time for UN C A six day break and the tar heels played nine players against Virginia Tech. Now you mentioned Baycot five straight, double doubles he's rounding into form to what we know him is a double, double machine. And then you mentioned Cormac Ryan as well, the three point shot is starting to fall and they're really going to need that to stretch defenses as well. So like a hit on each of those things a lot to unpack with what you just said right there, Lewis. But it's like you great mind stick alike or something like that. We're on the same wavelength. No, but I, I think, um I mean, Cormac Ryan is shooting 30% from three and so like which is not what you would expect from Cormac Ryan. So him continuing to improve, I think there is big. Um Elliott Kot is, you know, still has his ups and downs, but when he's hot, he's hot. He looks good when he's open. He's got to shoot him though too and I'm talking about Cormac Ryan here 47 against Virginia Tech, four of nine against Syracuse and then two of five against Miami when he shoot when he's open, shoot it and it, it like look 40% or better. You'll take that every single time. So to keep defenses honest, to stretch the defense, it's gonna be an important component of this tar heels offense to where I if it's open, go for it, let it fly because the last three games, it's been better coming off an o of six performance against Clemson which was a loss back on February the sixth. The, the in uh this is kind of minute, I think but the inbounds or not inbounds, I'm sorry, the passing into the post for UN C the passing to Armando Bacot was phenomenal against Virginia Tech. Vagin Tech. It looked really good. Um They were kind of pinpointing and it was allowing those easy buckets I think helped Armando Bacot. They, they just kind of looked more together as a team, but it's still the, the defense has to improve. It has to get closer to what it was in January for UN C to get to that point where you're thinking, hey, this is a team that could make a final four run. Um, but I, I'm not saying, I'm not saying anything. I don't think anyone has, has said before. Um, but you will see they play at Virginia, which is notoriously a very difficult place for most teams, especially UN C to play, um, their only game this week, but that's, that is gonna be big for them for the AC C because it is no longer a guarantee that UN C wins the AC C out right in the regular season. Let's have a smooth entry into our last topic and that's NC State coming off the heroics DJ Horn dueling DJ S DJ Horn DJ burns. But really from here on out, like for NC State to make the tournament, they're pretty much gonna have to win out or win the conference championship. But like Lewis, to me, this is just an uphill battle. I'm just gonna be blunt here in terms of what it would take for the wolf pack to go dancing in March. Yeah, I know. I mean, if, if this was, I think I'm more of an up year and I say that in quotes because you know how I feel about the way people view the AC C but, um, you know, they're eight and six in conference. Um, but I mean, they just have kind of dug themselves holes. You know, you go throughout the AC C um the loss against Virginia Tech at home, um losing in overtime at Virginia losing, um, you know, at Syracuse, like some of these games are, you know, they're, they're beating some teams in here, but they're also just not consistent, they're up and down. Um, the Clemson win was, was massive for them DJ Horn. I really think you cannot emphasize enough just how well he's been playing. Like if I go back to the last, uh, five games for DJ Horn, right? All going all the way back to Miami 24 points, 26 points, 25 points, 31 points, 27 points. Um, you know, he is shooting really well from three. you know, his usage is very high right now. Um You know, he is kind of doing, he, he's doing everything that you need from him. It's just gonna be about continued growth from NC State and I know so much of what, when we talk about the wack earlier in the season, right, you looked at their offense as man, their offense has to be better, their offense has to be better. Their offensive efficiency has increased a lot over the past few games or so. Right. Their adjusted offensive efficiency is you're looking at like one hundreds essentially for them going all the way back to that Miami game that I mentioned, it's just, their defense has fallen off a little bit. So, you know, you, you just need state to, you have to win games at this point. That's all you can do. If you're the Wolf pack this week, you've got home against Syracuse and home against Boston College. Those are two games that if you were NC State, you have to win, you need to win those two games and then you have four games, uh, three on the road, one at home at Florida State, at UN C home against Duke at Pittsburgh. Like those, those are significantly tougher. So it's, it's one of those things where, you know, NC State is kind of dug in themselves a hole and all you can do is is just win and, and hope that things kind of fall where they will. But, um, can I share a meatball take with you Lewis with NC State? Can I share a meatball take with you? There's a correlation between like the team's success and then the ticket prices to these games because I'm looking at this right now, we can go to the game tomorrow night for like less than 20 bucks to go see NC State in Syracuse, right? And so it's just like, oh man, like you said, I think they just dug themselves too deep a hole early on in the year. It, it would be, it would take a lot to claw back in uh by, by March. There's talent on this team, there's talent on this team. But um yeah, I mean, that's, there's not, I don't really think there's much more to say about NC state, you know, but um they, they have an uphill battle. That's where things are right now for the wolf pack, I'm with you. Is there anything that you need to tease with WRL Sports fan coverage for this week, Lewis? Because for Battle of the Blues later in March, we have a lot of long form content coming your way on WRL Sports fan.com, but that will be in the coming weeks, but this upcoming week, Luke, what do we got? Um I mean, we, you, you've mentioned it plenty of good stuff. Um Kind of turning to the, the women's game a little bit. Um I'm gonna be at Duke um versus Notre Dame coming up later tonight. This, we're recording this on Monday. Um That's, that's big for the Blue Devils trying to bounce back after losing to Virginia Tech. Um you know, on the road, uh NC State, the NC State women's right, who just went overtime against Georgia Tech, they have at UN C and at Duke this week. So big games for NC State women's basketball. Um And then UN C is coming off back to back wins after losing in overtime to Duke um has at home against NC State and averaging attack. So we're really getting into that crunch time for both men's and the women's teams in AC C play. So we'll do our best to keep you covered on both ends. There. Just um a lot of uh a lot of really good basketball. We're not even in the March. Yeah. NC State win winners of three straight at number six in the A P poll that got released earlier today, Lewis. So at least have a uh winning team on the women's side. But this has been another edition of Wrl Triangle two Lewis. I'll let you wrap it up for the both of us. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you all so much for uh tuning in listening wherever you listen on any of the podcast platforms watching on 99 the fan or on WRL sports fan.com. Um I'm Louis Fernandez. He is Mark Bergen. We will see you next week. Thank you all so much for watching.