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Speaker 1: You were listening to the Wes and Walker show.
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Speaker 2: I will acknowledge that I used to have to go to Walmart.
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Speaker 1: It's Wes.
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Speaker 2: This man say, I have to go to Walmart like it's like a place that you got the dollars bottom. He's like, I used to have to go and Walkers as cheap as it gets when I didn't have any money at all.
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Speaker 3: Oh, Colin, I mean, honestly, I can see your brain from here. That's how far your noses up in the air.
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Speaker 1: This is unbelievable.
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Speaker 3: Only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven FM WFNZ, I'm not.
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Speaker 2: Just dropping dollar bills on whatever I want to get.
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Speaker 1: Butter low Key.
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Speaker 2: Two hours ago on Weston Walker Flounder helping us out. Sports Radio ninety two to seven wfn Z, Terrence Oglesby also helping us out. Let's go over to the guest line. Let's not waste any more time. He's fresh off of his experience at the Final Four, having watched a Michigan and get the job done over Yukon sixty nine to sixty three, And what do you know, Terrence, he's such a renaissance man. He also talks a little bit about the Hornets. He's a basketball analyst with Hornets Live. You could see him on ESPN, NBA TV Field of sixty eight. He's all over the place, terrees. We appreciate the time. Man, How are you doing.
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Speaker 4: I'm doing great, man, Thank you for having me. And another thing, I grew up in a small town. Walmart was the only place we could go to, so I'm not sure where there's Walmart hate comes from. At least that's what I was listening to.
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Speaker 2: I believe, Yeah, you were in terrence. It's this joke that I never meant to happen. But now people call me bougie because I accidentally used the phrase I had to go to Walmart like it was some kind of punishment. Look, I'm from Claremont. Shout out to Kataba County. Claremont is a town of one thousand people. I went to Walmart constantly, and then of course moving to the city, I was able to go to Target in a way I wasn't before and that was it. But now you know, people hate on me for being too bougie. That's what it is.
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Speaker 4: Well, I mean, sometimes got to call it rock a rock, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 3: That's what it's people are nodding usely listening to the airways.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Terrence, Yes, call him Bougie. Terrence oglesby joining us here on Western Walker Sports raty ninety two seven WFNZ.
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Speaker 1: Terrence, how was your experience, man?
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Speaker 2: How awesome was it watching Michigan beat Yukon and overall just everything that you got to witness over there in Indianapolis.
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Speaker 4: Well, I'll say this, going to a Final four is an awesome experience in general. A lot of people end up going, probably on Wednesday before the first Final four games happened that Saturday. It's a huge event and it's a lot of fun. You get to see all the coaches, all the college coaches from around the country all convene in one space, and in the games, to be honest with you, Walker, I think you'll agree, a little bit underwhelming. I thought Michigan Arizona was going to be a barn burner. Michigan just blew the doors off of that team out West, and then, you know, the most impressive thing all weekend in my mind, was the fact that Yukon beatsill andoila a drum and then turns around and keeps it close with Michigan, and that says a lot about how good Dan Her is because I thought his game plan was as good as you can have it against the Michigan team that was utterly dominant in every other part of this tournament, Yukon kept it close. That was about as good as you were.
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Speaker 1: Going to do well.
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Speaker 2: And I did want to ask you a little bit about the shooting. You're right, the games weren't great, you know, I was okay with it. I thought the defense in the championship game, they were just flying around, playing so hard with all these active hands. I thought that part was fun. I'd like to see some made baskets, and we didn't really get a whole lot of made baskets. To your point, is there anything to this like football stadium shooting stuff, Terrence? Have you talked with anybody about that or do you have any theories yourself on why we've seen some poor shooting in final four games in recent memory, and especially in the national championship game.
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Speaker 4: It is a very different feel. I do think it's a couple of things. One is, whenever I was in college, we actually played the a SEC tournament in what was then the Georgia Dome, in Atlanta, and it is a very different feel. And even with that, we played in the end zone to where there were makeup bleachers on one side and then they use the top of everything else down in the end zone. They put a dead center of everything at Lucas Oil Stadium and there's just so much room behind it that it's it's hard to really express how massive the moment is if you haven't been there, because there's people. I think there were seventy two thousand people in there watching the basketball game, and it was just it's out of this world. And when it comes to getting used to that setting, you know, the NCAA only gives teams an hour apiece to practice, so it makes it difficult to really get used to what you're where you're going to play. Every shot looks flat, every and it doesn't matter because of you know where you're at. Everything looks flat because of how massive the place is. But it's it's a very different feel. The goal looks lower because there is no backdrop. But I thought it was interesting that Dusty May took his guys out to the Big House to shoot jump shots on the ground, I mean, just to try to get used to it.
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Speaker 2: It's great insight from true ball noer. Terrence Oglesby here on Western Walker Sports Radio ninety two seven WFNZ. You see him on Field of sixty eight. You see him on the FanDuel broadcast basketball analyst with Hornets Live. I want to go back to your Dan Hurley point, Terrence. It was a masterful coaching performance. I think most people thought that after the championship game. It felt like Dan was also like relatively okay after the loss too. I mean, he just had this painful loss, and I even think he at halftime mentioned how much of a juggernaut Michigan was. I'll ask you this about Dan Hurley. Do you feel like there's a gap. Not to disrespect all the other coaches in college basketball, but the man has won two championships, been there three times in the last four years. Do you feel like it's Dan then a gap than everyone else in the sport right now?
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Speaker 4: I think it's jesty may Dan. You know what, I would probably throw three or four coaches in that mix. Test may Dan john Shire should be in that mix. I don't care how they end of the season, but he's just done it consistently ever since he got the job, and it's kind of the next wave of coaches.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 4: Maybe somebody wants to talk about Tommy Lloyd being a part of that party, but I think he might be. Like, if you're looking at the top three or four, he's probably the next man after those guys. It's a new day in college basketball. The guys who've been able to adapt to the ones who have been successful. As a lake, you know, as far as ex'es and o'ser concerned, a certain style you have to play. I like the way Dan controls the tempo on offense that allows his defense to be good. Right, they weren't in a track meet against Michigan. They were able to keep it close because they walked the ball up the floor and they had several options to get shots at the end of clock. It's just if I had to think about it, you know, Dan would be in that group, Dusty may would be in that group. John Shire would be in that group, and who knows, Mike Malone might be one sooner. Nobody knows.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's just go ahead and take that segue. If you're going to offer it to me, I was going to go there anyway. Let's talk about the hire of Michael Malone. Just overall thoughts, the surprise level once Malone was named the new head coach of North Carolina basketball, and do you think it can work.
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Speaker 4: I had been told Mike Malone was a very serious candidate. On Tuesday of last week. I was a little skeptical, just because it's like he's coming out of nowhere. I understand he was wearing a Carolina sweatshirt because his daughter plays on the volleyball team. This that the third I never really took it seriously until I talked to Tyler Hansborough on Thursday and he's like, I hope he gets the job, and he's very much in the mix. So I went and asked around and I had a bunch of the big hitters. F me, Nope, there's nothing to it. The next day he's named head coach at Carolina. So it's the Carolina family's pretty tight. Yeah, and Tyler called it on Thursday. It happened. I want to say they announced it on Final four Sunday or one, but it's to me, it's an interesting thing because you know, NBA guys coming down has been more prevalent as of late. You look at Luke Laus of Florida State, Kevin Young at BYU. You look at a lot of guys with the NBA experience. You can do that because of how the NCAA structured right now, it's not as big of a jump up or down, or however you want to say it. The games are a little bit more similar than they are different, but you do have to do different things at a high level at the college level to get wins. You can't just go and score one hundred and forty points because a lot of times there's not one hundred and forty points on that roster.
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Speaker 2: Terence Ogle's be joining us on WESN Walker. You're listening to Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ. I'll ask you about another hire here in the triangle. Justin Ganey gets the job. It's funny here we are talking about keep it in the family with North Carolina and c State ends up doing it.
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Speaker 1: More so.
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Speaker 2: The North Carolina hiring Justin Ganey thoughts on him as a new head basketball coach in Raleigh.
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Speaker 4: I've known Justin for a long time and he's had some high level experience. Who is an assistant in Arizona, associate head coach at Tennessee also spent time at Marquette. This is a guy who's right at fifty years old or forty nine to fifty years old. It's if he was going to get a shot right now at the right time, if he's going to be anything like Rick Barnes, the guy he just comes from working for. I think NC State fans should be thrilled because they're big, toy, tough for their physicals. Sometimes they go on some offensive droughts, but at least you're going to be in every game because they control their controllables. I would assume they're going to be very much in the same mold as what he had at Rick Barnes. That's just a general assumption, but from what I've been told, the NIL situation is going to be plenty for him to be able to operate in that mold, big and physical. You've got to have more money because these big guys are getting a lot more expensive each and every year. But I think n C State's going to supply in correctly, and I think they should be a tournament team with him as head coach, provided that he's able to get the right guys.
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Speaker 2: In the full From an NIO opening Terrence, That's what I was going to ask you. I just want to talk about goal for NC State next year. The Will Wade stuff happens, they get to the first for they get bounced immediately, and then he leaves right obviously, a really tough situation to work with if your state enter justin gainey Man, what's the goal as far as just year one under his tutelage? Is it immediately get to the tournament in this environment or do we provide him some grace to work with a little bit.
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Speaker 4: I think anytime you get a head coach that's a first time head coach, he deserves a little bit of grace. But at the same time, that's not how college basketball is functioning right now. He can completely turn around his lineup overnight basically, and with a transfer portal open, he's going to have opportunities to get some guys that sometimes need an extra boost. They need a few extra minutes that you can rewire it over the course of the year. So if you're in C State, it all depends on the money that you're going to give him. If you give him ten twelve million dollars, you need to be in the tournament point blank. Period you need to be in the tournament, so it'll be interesting to see how they're able to proceed forward. I don't know who's on his staff right now. I have to go and check that, but I'm happy for him. He deserves the opportunity and it's time for NC State to have somebody that's consistently good, and I think they could get that with Justin Gainey.
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Speaker 2: Terrence is someone that played in the ACC and someone that covers college basketball as extensively as you do. It felt like this was a huge step up for the ACC, certainly during the regular season and then the tournament a little bit of a let down. Did have many Sweet Sixteen representatives that it was Duke didn't get to the final four after the shot. What's your perception of the ACC right now and where it stands.
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Speaker 4: Improved and going to continue to get better. I think you look at the financial incentive from the ACC and the percentage of repshare that has gone towards basketball is huge. Outside of Thompson and maybe Florida State and Miami, like the rest of the schools are investing in basketball, and I think that's a good thing. And not only that, you kind of got rid of that old guard to where Beaheim's no longer in a mix. Jerry mcferry gets hired, Leonard Hamilton's gone from Florida State. You have Luke Louxs, who I thought did a terrific job there. There's new guys in the league, and I think that's going to certainly expedite things forward. And a lot of schools made the right higher. You look at Virginia with Ryan Odam, I mean, that worked out terrific, and they're going to continue to be good too, because they just resigned their whole front court. So I look at the ACC as much improved, and I see it over the next three, four or five years as getting back towards the top of college basketball. But these things take time, and the ACC very much a traditionalist conference. He died some time to kind of get used to what the new age of college basketball is.
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Speaker 2: All Right, Terrence, we can't get you out of here without asking at least one Hornets question. I saw that you joined Kevin O'Connor on his podcast, which is great stuff. By the way, you can go follow Kevin O'Connor on Twitter at Kevin O'Connor.
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Speaker 1: Terrence olgles We joined him.
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Speaker 2: To talk about college basketball and the Cooper flag Conkin Nipple Rookie of the Year debate. Terrence, I want it. I want it for our guy. I don't want to want it as badly as I do, but here I am wanting Conk Nipple to win Rookie of the Year. How good of a shot do you think he has at over Cooper who just went off for ninety six points over the weekend.
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Speaker 4: He's pretty good too, I think, really, I think the momentum that the Hornets have certainly worked in CON's favor. I think his efficiency levels certainly worked in his favor. The fact that the Hornets are winning works in his favor. And like I told Kevin, who you say follow him on Twitter? I think the whole world does.
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Speaker 1: I think.
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Speaker 4: I look, he has four hundred thousand people.
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Speaker 1: If you're one of the few that isn't, there's the Twitter here.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, he's no. It reminds me a lot of when Lebron and Carmelo were vying for Rookie of the Year. Carmelo was getting to the playoffs, but Lebron was trying to Lebron was putting up these mega stats so they were neck and neck. Who deserves it more? You know, the Rookie of the Year has not generally been a team award. It's been a statistical award. How do the voters see it? I don't have a vote in this, so I hope con wins it. I think he deserves it. I think, you know, he was part of the mentality shift that has happened in Charlotte. So hopefully, hopefully he's rewarded for that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough to gauge that for voters, for sure, but I mean, if you're around the team, you know for a fact he has been a part of the mentality shift here in Charltne. That's why we see the Hornets battling for hopefully a playoff series. Terrence Oglesbat you can see him on the FanDuel broadcast Hornets Live analyst, also Field of sixty eight. He does a lot of talking college basketball, NBA basketball, talking roundball, and we appreciate him for doing that right here on westn Walker. Terrence, thanks so much for the time, man. We'll see you around all right. Appreciate you good stuff from Terrence Oglesby. Wouldn't have expected anything different. Follow him on Twitter. He doesn't have as many, but he still has a decent amount. You can be one of those people that follows Terrence on Twitter at tea underscore oglesby twenty two, we'll take a quick break. We'll come back plenty more on the triangle. What are the biggest questions surrounding the college basketball coaches in the Tri state area. We'll get to it coming up next. Sports Rated ninety two seven FM. Another huge thanks to Terrence oglesby joining us. Last segment that interview will be up on the website SHORTLYWFNZ dot com dot com.
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Speaker 1: Excuse me, don't know why I put an L in there.
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Speaker 2: You can also visit The West and Walker Show anywhere you get your podcast. Every major podcast app, Apple, Spotify, doesn't matter. Just type in Wes and Walker and you'll find all the best dubs segments, all the best interviews, all the digitally uploaded content out there. Again, we mean it when we say every major podcast app. We're broadcasting live from the channel Vaulta Studios, CV Injury Law dot com, CV Injury Law dot Com.
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Speaker 1: One call.
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Speaker 2: That's all the Carolinas personal injury lawyers. And last but not least, got to give a shout out to you the listeners, texting us on the world famous WFNZ text line powered by Affordable siding and Windows, your hometown home improvement experts. Play along with us in this next segment because we have the biggest questions surrounding every single college basketball coach in the trigle not U. Yeah there you go, I've got Okay, wake up. Maybe it's time. That was for you. That was a message from Flounder to wake up and play along with us, asking the biggest questions surrounding all of the new college basketball coaches or some of the old ones in the area. Got to start with Michael Malone right number one on the list the reasons he should be. The real question is sh all of it? Can you do this? That's we can start to dwindle this down into like more fine tuned questions, but really the big question is can you do this at all? Because it is different from NBA basketball. Still it is getting closer to NBA basketball, but it still is different. I think if you're to talk yourself into this higher, I think you want to talk yourself into the basketball acumen, which Brendan Mark says was the biggest proponent of hiring him right like that, that was the biggest thing as to why you wanted to go after him alone with administration basically targeting him once it didn't work out with Tommy Lloyd, once it didn't work out with Dusty May. He was always kind of in the background as a good safety option. He wasn't the first option. Can't buy that. We know it was Tommy Lloyd, we know it was Dusty May, but he was always somewhere in the background, and we know that he is a very very good basketball mind. And I think if you look at Dan Hurley, who runs a bunch of offensive principles stemming from the NBA, a bunch of stagger screens, multiple actions, trying to get you off tilt as a defense, constantly thinking. We see this with Charles Lee, constantly putting the defense in a predicament of where do I go? Just all little things that kind of stop you from being efficient defensively. And man, they run some awesome stuff up there in stores, and defensively they were able to I think, give you a nice defensive game plan, especially with what they did against Michigan. So if you just take principles and applied to the college game. You've seen that work. You see that work with Dan Hurley, to be specific, the best coach in my opinion, in college basketball right now. So it can definitely work with Michael Malone. The question is there's a bunch of them really simply put, can you do this at all? Having never done it at this level before?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And we're going to find out whether or not he can handle doing the first thing that's most important, which is building your roster. Can you actually go out and put together a roster that is going to compete to win the ACC this next year, or even if you don't win the ACC, is going to be in the top three. That's what I said. The expectations are for Michael Malone taking this job is that you need to finish top three in the ACC every single year.
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Speaker 1: I get it.
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Speaker 3: It's an improving conference, There's no doubt about that. You're North Carolina, So can you put together that type of roster right out of the gate. Look, you made a step yesterday towards getting guys on the staff that are going to be able to help you do that. Chuck Martin is a fantastic higher. Yesterday one of the best recruiters in the country. There's a reason he's been the recruiting coordinator at Kentucky. There's a reason he was the recruiting coordinator at Arkansas and they finished with top five classes in each of those three years with wherever he was. So they did the right thing yesterday by bringing in someone that can recruit the high school ranks. Now you've got to figure out how do you navigate the transfer portal? Because, yeah, you could say it's like free agency. Here's the thing, how much, say, does Michael Malone have in the free agents that Denver was going out and getting probably a little bit here, You've got all to say, it's what you want, it's your system. You're building things, and you got to be very involved in that. So can he handle that side of it? On top of then coaching in college basketball where things are going to be a little bit different. Some of the things that you're going to be thrown out. You don't have forty eight minutes in a game, You've only got forty. Is that is that something that you know he talked about it. It is gonna be weird playing two halves as opposed to playing four quarters, and so is that something that he.
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Speaker 1: Has to adjust to.
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Speaker 3: I think there's gonna be some things that people in college basketball will probably have to adjust to too. And one of the things that does give me a little bit of comfort that this can work is what we've seen at BYU under Kevin Young, because he's had success there. Now Again, the reason why they've had success is because they've got the money. So you're gonna need the backing from Carolina donors. But it feels like if you've got that, you've got a chance to be successful here. And I gotta tell you, Terrence Oglesby was great in that last segment. Did not even know that Luke Loux came from the NBA. I had totally forgotten about that. Yeah, And so that's another guy that you look towards the end of last season started trending in the right direction.
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Speaker 2: They certainly did Chuck Martin, by the way, just to talk about that higher real quickly. The resume is really impressive. Everywhere that he's been was at Arkansas last year, was with Kentucky as an assistant under Caliperry, Oregon for a year, South Carolina twenty one twenty two.
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Speaker 1: He was with Indiana for a little while, so Indiana was recruiting good players.
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Speaker 3: He was one that I think headed up Yogi Farrell landing there, which is pretty big.
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Speaker 2: That was twenty fourteen twenty seventeen he was with Indiana, So yeah, that was when you had Zeller, you had I mean, we've done this before, Sheehi. Victor Oladipo was a part of that. If I'm not mistaken entirely, I think it was in that era. So and then you get to South Carolina when they get in Cindarius Thornwell and they get some of those guys like PJ.
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Speaker 1: Doser.
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Speaker 3: What's interesting to me, And I'm not sure if this will be the case here in North Carolina or if there's anything to make about this point whatsoever. But he's going after local guys, which is interesting. So you bring up Indiana when he was there in twenty fourteen through twenty seventeen. My brother actually played at My brothers, both of them, played at the same high school as Jogie Farrell up in Park Tutor, And so he went and got him in Indianapolis, a big time high school.
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Speaker 1: And okay, you get a local.
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Speaker 2: Kid in South Carolina, Sendarius Thornwell, PJ.
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Speaker 1: Doser.
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Speaker 2: I believe dosers from South Carolina. I know Thornwell is. So you go after a couple of those guys and you keep them in state, and it just feels like a more national brand once you get to Kentucky. I use big too, but you get the idea Kentucky. I guess they get Reach Shepherd. Reach Shepherd was a Kentucky guy, and now was dad having been a Kentucky The ties were there. Really feels like you had to screw that one up colossally if you missed out on Reach Shepherd, but still you got the job done Arkansas. I wonder if Chuck Martin goes after these local guys and make sure that that talent doesn't get out of state lines, which is kind of interesting. North Carolina has a bunch of great as states. Yeah, not bad at all. So I do wonder if he's going to locally recruit and get some of these guys to go to North Carolina instead of saying maybe NC state. But certainly Duke is the big one, right, Like can you steal somebody from Duke? However you can with money being a part of it. That's the other thing. Going back to Indiana, South Carolina money wasn't a part of the equation at that time.
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Speaker 1: Now it is still showing some good recruiting chops. All right.
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Speaker 2: So a bunch of questions about Michael Malone question about John Shire. You have the big one about whether he can win the championship or not. I guess my question too is how much does the regular season matter to Duke anymore? And how much does that show up? So it feels like it's going to be a catch twenty two all year long for Duke. They're not going to care if you win, and they're going to care a gigantic amount if you lose. Every loss is going to feel like the end of the world, and every win is just going to be some level of relief that we talked about when we were going through breakthrough moments. It's not going to be all that much joy, in my opinion, it's just gonna be relief, all right, dodge that landmine, Okay, got another one under our belt, and it's gonna be like that pretty much all the way up until you get to the final four. So with an added element of pressure, he had a lot this past year, but really the only thing that could add more pressure than what he was experienced this past season. Is if it happens twice and I got bad news, John, it happened twice, you lost in a painful way two consecutive seasons. My question for them is how much does the regular season matter? And it's gonna matter to everybody, but how much does it matter in terms of, you know, just trying to get as many victories as possible and that actually doing something for your program winning the ACC championship in the ACC attorney because I don't think fans are going to care all that much.
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Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. What does it do for your fans? Do they care? Are they starting to check out on the regular season success, on the ACC tournament success and saying, you know what, that's fine, that's great.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: We'll take that.
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Speaker 3: We'll take winning the ACC regular season, We'll take winning an ACC tournament title, But we want you to make it back to the final four, and we would prefer that you at least take that next step and get to the national championship game.
00:25:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know yet.
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Speaker 3: Of course, as a Duke fan, you are looking at most years as title or bust. I don't know if this year is necessarily going to be that type of year, because I gotta be honest, I don't know if you've got a generational talent that's going to be on this roster. Cam Boozer, I feel like probably was labeled a generational talent, even though when you would watch him, he doesn't look like the other generational talents out there.
00:25:51
Speaker 1: He was pretty highly talented. I get your point.
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Speaker 2: No, you're right, like you had Keeper, you had Boozer, and now you don't have seemingly that guy. I know, Bet, don't know what about Williams. You guys know me and the high prospects don't know as much about him. But it doesn't feel like they're coming in with the kind of fanfare that those two dudes did.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. We'll learn quickly whether or not he's on that level. And if he is, then you get back to that same mindset of man, it's got to be Final four or bust or potentially even championship or bus. So you're at the point where now all that anybody cares about.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: Is the postseason.
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Speaker 3: Man, they don't I'm not gonna say that they're checked out. They're not tuning in to watch you, but their thinking is, let's just get to the postseason and then find a way to avoid these epic collapses that we've had these last two years that have led to us losing games that we probably shouldn't have lost.
00:26:47
Speaker 2: Looking at just a roster question for Duke or something a little more basketball ye than narrative based question, and does the regular season matter? Do you have a dynamic point guard in Rippy that can help you out in a way You've not been helped out some time since Tyas Jones, when I think was that the last point guard that you trusted with your life? Who ends up winning MOP in that twenty fifteen title run over guys like Winslow and Oka four Because ever since then, I don't know if you have that and you have Cayden and you have Rippy in the backcourt right now set to play for Duke next year, assuming Caden comes back. I guess it's not officially official, but you're assuming he comes back. That's another basketball question for the Duke Blue Devils. Moving on to Justin Gainey, the big question is how much do State fans care about results right away? How much does State care about results right away? We got a little bit of an assist from Terrence Ogles beyond this because I asked him this very question. And if you have a lot of money that you're pouring into the roster and you have a large budget, then we don't have as much patience as we used to. And that's true for every school in the ACC. It's not even just true from North Carolina, where you're not going to have much grace for Michael alone to figure all of this out as a first year power for Kylee basketball head coach Justin Gainey, same thing, has been great at recruiting himself, helping out Rick Barnes.
00:28:06
Speaker 1: I like this hire a lot for State.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: It feels natural, it's in the family, and it doesn't feel forced like Sidney Low. This feels like, Yeah, you've earned your stripes. It feels like you've done a lot to have earned this job rather than it being handed to you without having had any kind of success. You've been on awesome staffs. This feels right for NC State. I love this higher for them. But you go to Virginia immediate success following Tony Bennett. You go to Louisville immediate success after terrible basketball from Kenny Payne and Pat Kelce Miami, same thing, immediate success. It's year one and these teams are getting to the tournament. So you the only reason I thought you might give a little bit longer of a leash to the NC State basketball program is because of everything that you just went through with the Will Wade stuff, and you didn't plan for any of this except if there's going to be a lot of money, then money also by eyes away the excuses and all of these other teams getting to the Big Dance pretty immediately. Yeah, I think that's the thing that NC State fans want to see. It's all gonna be about how it looks if you barely don't get in, but you have a nice showing at the end, or you have some freshmen that are really bought. Okay, cool. There are ways out of getting to of having a successful season without getting to the tournament. There are ways to do it, but I think right away you're gonna have to see some results in this new college basketball landscape.
00:29:30
Speaker 3: Yes, but he's also a first time head coach, so let's also put that into the equation.
00:29:39
Speaker 2: Lucas being the only comparable with the other three guys I mentioned.
00:29:43
Speaker 3: Right, and look, and he had an amazing year the first year that he was there. I don't know if you're an NC State fan, though, if you can go in with that expectation, if you could say, well, if John Lucas was able to do what he was doing at Miami, then we should back the same exact thing from Justin Gainey. I think a lot of it is going to depend on the money. If you sink a boatload of money into this roster and they end up missing the NC DOUBLEA tournament, then yeah, it's okay to be disappointed. But I think your expectations under Gainey unless he just comes out. And from what I saw of the introductory press conference, clearly there weren't nearly as many clips as there were with Michael Malone. I did not see any moment where he stood up there and said, I guarantee we're gonna win. There's a red reckoning on the way. Oh no, you don't want to say that, you don't, I don't. I don't think there's any clips like that. So I think for him, he's doing the smart thing of not setting up massive expectations for this next season. If you make the NC DOUBLEA tournament, and let's say I think a nice goal for him would be make make the field, make the actual field. Don't make it to Dayton, make it into the actual field. You make it in there, and you end up losing in the first year. I don't think it's really that bad because he's a first time head coach. So that's just how I feel as a fan. NC State fans might feel differently with some of the success that they had in that run under Kevin Keats, maybe there is a demand for something a little bit more, even from a first time head coach.
00:31:25
Speaker 2: Like Gaming got a couple of Duke fans pushing back on my thoughts them not caring as much about the regular season victories. Run the Rock says, as a Duke fan, I watch every game. I enjoy all the winning in the regular season and conference tournament, but I do look at it with a side eye until they reach another Final four and get to a championship game at least. Okay, that's kind of what I was thinking. Seven oh four refutes all of it. Duke fan, fifty three years, three grads in the family, you couldn't be more wrong. Still care about every game, and I feel that and I understand it fair enough.
00:31:55
Speaker 1: Of course you do.
00:31:56
Speaker 3: What we're saying is how special is the feeling of winning an ACC regular season title and winning a conference tournament title at this point, Yeah, you've accomplished that already.
00:32:07
Speaker 1: You've accomplished that how many years in a row?
00:32:10
Speaker 3: Now do you still look at that as man, that we're unbelievably ecstatic that we're winning that stuff, or do you have that thought in the back of your head that when you are winning those types of games, you're saying to yourself, this is great, But what about the postseason. That's the point that I think Duke fans are at.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: The bar is lifted. When you are a supreme program, this is what it is. This is the world you want to live in, But just acknowledge this is the world that you live in. Last one, Steve Forbes, I got a simple question, can Wake regain a pulse? We're losing our guy. We're losing Wes, and I feel bad for him every single time we talk about Wake. He's still pulling for him, but he has no hope. He does not have any optimism. Now we're seeing Juke Harris leave, and again it makes sense. He's actually been pretty damn logical about all of this with Duke Harris leaving, had a visit with Michigan. Looks like he could be a member of the championship team from this past season, so.
00:33:11
Speaker 1: That might happen.
00:33:12
Speaker 2: But can we get a pulse from wake because it's been a long time, even before the Steve Forbes era, we had to do the whole Danny Manning thing where he gets to the tournament, once gets to a first four matchup, loses to Kansas State. That's the last level of big time postseason basketball Wake Forest has played in the last ten years or so. It's a real simple question. Can they regain a pulse because right now feels like a cold body.
00:33:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, because I think there was a pulse the first few years of Forbes because you had all conference caliber players. You had Player of the Year in the ACC one year's I mean that's those are the types of guys you were bringing in. With Alandas Williams.
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Speaker 2: You're still doing it. Yeah, you're still doing Tyree appill Bee Alandas William la Ravia is a first round pick. You just had Juke Harris leave and he's going to go to a premier program. So it's all about you're getting great players offensively speaking, for sure, and so you just haven't been to the tournament in quite some time. I'm not sure the pulse is there over the last couple of years. I think this year they lost the pulse. I think this year you're looking at it and you're saying, wonder, Steve Forbes, this feels like this is pretty dead because you look at the roster this year. Are you going to be able to get somebody that's going to be a juke Harris, That's going to be one of these guys that we just talked about.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: I can't guarantee that.
00:34:37
Speaker 3: Hopefully you can find someone out of the transferport that can be that guy. It ain't coming from the high school ranks because your top rated recruit that you were saying, that's the reason why Steve Forbes is staying here.
00:34:48
Speaker 1: He decommitted. Yeah.
00:34:49
Speaker 2: What's particularly disheartening about being a Wake Forest basketball fan now is that you have to hold yourself back. You have to put yourself in check to get excited during the off season because you've been excited during the offseason how many times now under Forbes, Yeah, because we had this really impressive player. You have the talent at the very top end, and so you can talk yourself all you want into we have Duke Harris, we have Elandas Williams, we have the preseason ACC Player of the Year. And it's usually not the preseason guy that they have. They have at the end of the season, which is the one that actually matters in all of this. But now it's tough to even get yourself going, hey we have this awesome recruit. Hey we have this awesome transfer portal addition. We've done this before though, so I'm just kind of the hamster on the wheel.
00:35:38
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing is they need more than just one guy because the one guy thing ain't working. You've had one guy on these rosters. It's not enough to get you across the finish line. So can you find that second, third guy that's talented enough to be able to get you there? Because yeah, this has to be I'm not saying a big year from Steve Forbes, but I mean, if can you get into the NCAA tournament, because if you don't, I feel like it might be it. That's the goal, and you know, administration we've been saying that for years. That's right. We love Steve though man, Steve, I hate it. I want you to succeed. I want you to succeed badly. To be honest with you, I hope it happens this season. All right, let's talk about the Hornets playoff rotation, the James Josh Green discussion. Is Charles Lee gonna stick with James or is he going to roll over to Josh Green? What's the playoff rotation look like to you? We get to it coming up next on Western Walker.
00:36:35
Speaker 2: Wait one more segment before we close out the one o'clock hour on weston Walker. Doug Branson set to join us at two o'clock. Don't know if you've heard of him, but he's my other other co host on Lockdown Hornets, also the curator of a hornetsbox score dot com. Speaking of the Hornets, I do want to talk a little bit about a possible playoff rotation. They haven't made it yet. There's still some work to do. There's still actually a decent amount of work to do for the Hornets. We went over the playoff chances in each of the seeds. There is a less than one percent chance of the Hornets getting to the five seed, at three percent chance at the sixth spot, ten percent chance at the seventh spot, fifteen percent chance at eight, fifty, at nine, twenty five at ten. So the further down you go, really the bigger the percentages go, and I don't like seeing that. However, there still is a shot at least to get to somehow, some way the five seed. I do want to bring up Matt Moore's tweet as well at Hardwood Paroxysm on Twitter at HP basketball. Excuse me, Hardwood paroxysm on Twitter at HP basketball, and he went through some of the Hornets scenarios as well, and he talked about how if there is a tie between the Hawks and the Hornets, Charlotte has the tiebreaker overboard over both Orlando and Atlanta. So if the Hawks lose out and the Hornets went out, they wind up in any multi team ties, the Hornets jump everyone in that time. The Raptors need two wins to escape that possibility. The Sixers have to go three and oh, the Magic have to go two and oh. So basically, is there any way that Atlanta can lose out and the Hornets went out. I just went through some of the percentages. It's not great, but I don't think it's impossible for the Hornets to win two in a row. And then if you look at the schedule for the Hawks, I'm pulling that up right now because I like that sweet from Matt Moore. The Hawks play the Calves at home tonight. Okay, so they play or excuse me, tomorrow night at seven o'clock. So you have that game still left to go, and then the last game that they have is on the road against Miami. So what you're pulling for. What you're pulling for here is the Hornets to win out. Uh, you want them to win every single game. That would put the Hornet set forty five victories, and you want the Hawks to lose out That would mean four straight losses. Can they lose to Cleveland tomorrow night at home? And can they lose to the Miami Heat on the road Sunday? And the Heat they'll be playing for something depending on where everybody is in this nine to ten spot. So look, possibility. I like that one because everybody kind of goes into a pool. And then you figure out who has the most wins of all of these other squads. And so again they have the tiebreaker over Atlanta and over Orlando. That would be interesting. I thought the tiebreaker over Atlanta was going to be rendered useless a long time ago once the Hawks kept winning and winning and winning. Maybe not maybe not so fast to quote lead Corso. And if they get to the postseason, I'm really interested in this playoff rotation. You guys can let me know how you feel about Sion James playing right now over Josh Green. I know Mack and Boone we're talking about this. If you look at Josh Green in his minutes been going down quite a bit. In fact, over the last two weeks. It's a pretty nice sample, pretty exact sample over the last two weeks. If you go two weeks ago, Josh Green only played two minutes against New York and that game that they won at the Spectrum Center. Before that, Green had been averaging about sixteen minutes a game. In the last two weeks, he's been averaging about ten minutes a game. So as you get closer to the postseason rotation starting to tighten up, and that ten minutes a game that Green has been logging heavy lifting done by that Pacers contest where he played twenty four minutes. So if you put in ten there, how much are we talking about Green actually suiting up starting to squeeze him out. It looks like just a little bit of the rotation. But then you watch this Boston game and you see Seon James go over from the three point line. Joe Mizzoula, sorry to keep bringing this up, but I always think about it, the natoates, Elliott Cado, Seth Trimble defense philosophy. Just letting see On James. I know, I know, it's what I think of every time. It's the ultimate I do not respect you as a shooter type of defense. And that's how they treated Seon. There was a gulf between Seaon and the nearest defender because that's what Missoula and company. They were going to live with. That that was the poison they picked, and turns out it wasn't very potent. So Sion's not a bad three point shooter, by the way. He's a thirty six percent shooter average for wings in the NBA, but pretty decent enough to be a threat unless you're a vet coach and you don't think the rookie is ready for all of this yet and you think those shots are going to continue to miss. Well, okay, one way Seon can combat. That is, if he attacks that empty space, goes right at the defense and gets to the foul line. Except doing a little more digging with Seon and where he's hot and where he's cold. Unfortunately for Seon, he's one of the worst rim finishers in the league, and it's unfortunate. I hate it, but Seon is shooting less than fifty percent at the cup. There's only one that's only one of three players in the league who have logged over one thousand minutes of this season who is shooting under fifty percent at the cup forty nine percent forty nine points something percent to be exact in the restricted area. And so you're just not worried about Sion. If he's not hitting threes, he has to pass it to somebody else. You're rendering him useless as an offensive threat outside of decision making. And the last couple points on this because I am interested in how the rotation is going to play out.
00:42:32
Speaker 1: Right.
00:42:33
Speaker 2: One of the ways that the Hornets win is by having all of these different threats. It's by actually having some depth. It's actually trying to figure out who you would protect in an expansion draft. Only having eight guys that you can protect and lo and behold. The Hornets for the first time ever have more guys that they want to protect than are allotted to them. This is weird, but when you get to the postseason, this kind of feeds into the Bill Simmons theory of the too many guys theory. You can't get enough rhythm if you play ten, so you have to find that happy medium of about nine eight guys really coming off of the bench. So really, who's the wing that you rely on? Is it Seon or is it Josh Green? Right now, Charles Lee is prioritizing decision making, ball handling, and at least a little rim pressure. Even if he's not hitting a lot at the rim, he does drive to the rim way more than Josh Green does. So those are the three things you're prioritizing now with Seon, alongside his point of attack defense. But to put it real simply, if Seon isn't hitting three point shots, then he just can't play. That's just not going to be something that he can do. Assuming all these other coaches deploy the Joe Mizula defense against him, and if he can't hit these threes, Josh Green is hitting him. He's actually doing a really nice job hitting the threes. When he gets to the cup. He doesn't get there a lot, but when he gets there, he's shooting above sixty percent. By the way, not even all that great. It's just a lot better than forty nine percent. It's a real question, and I hate it for Seon because I love the dude. Just had an interview with the man. You guys heard it. Awesome. Awesome guy is going to be a very important part of this team for a long time in my opinion. Already right now is an important part of this team. But playoff basketball is different. And if you can't hit those three point shots and he continues to see that type of defense, then I think you're going to see a lot more of Josh Green. Final thing on this I keep telling you final thing, but more thoughts pop up. Final thing. I do wonder if there's a little bit of an overreaction just because we didn't see Kobe White play. Seon, as your tertiary ball handler is a lot better than your secondary ball handler, and when Kobe is able and ready to go, you don't have to worry about that anymore. Seon is a decent decision maker when he's not being guarded by the best backup or I should say backcourt defender right when he doesn't have to run things and make decisions for everybody. So we'll see what Charles Lee prioritizes once we get to the end the regular season and we get to either play in basketball or playoff basketball. All right, let's talk more about it, Doug Branson, if Lockdown Hornets set to join us next, Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ, Listen to the.
00:45:11
Speaker 1: Wes and Walker Show tweets from noon to three only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven FMFNZ, the
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Speaker 3: Official home of the Charlotte sports Fan
Speaker 1: You were listening to the Wes and Walker show.
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Speaker 2: I will acknowledge that I used to have to go to Walmart.
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Speaker 1: It's Wes.
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Speaker 2: This man say, I have to go to Walmart like it's like a place that you got the dollars bottom. He's like, I used to have to go and Walkers as cheap as it gets when I didn't have any money at all.
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Speaker 3: Oh, Colin, I mean, honestly, I can see your brain from here. That's how far your noses up in the air.
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Speaker 1: This is unbelievable.
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Speaker 3: Only on Sports Radio ninety two point seven FM WFNZ, I'm not.
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Speaker 2: Just dropping dollar bills on whatever I want to get.
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Speaker 1: Butter low Key.
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Speaker 2: Two hours ago on Weston Walker Flounder helping us out. Sports Radio ninety two to seven wfn Z, Terrence Oglesby also helping us out. Let's go over to the guest line. Let's not waste any more time. He's fresh off of his experience at the Final Four, having watched a Michigan and get the job done over Yukon sixty nine to sixty three, And what do you know, Terrence, he's such a renaissance man. He also talks a little bit about the Hornets. He's a basketball analyst with Hornets Live. You could see him on ESPN, NBA TV Field of sixty eight. He's all over the place, terrees. We appreciate the time. Man, How are you doing.
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Speaker 4: I'm doing great, man, Thank you for having me. And another thing, I grew up in a small town. Walmart was the only place we could go to, so I'm not sure where there's Walmart hate comes from. At least that's what I was listening to.
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Speaker 2: I believe, Yeah, you were in terrence. It's this joke that I never meant to happen. But now people call me bougie because I accidentally used the phrase I had to go to Walmart like it was some kind of punishment. Look, I'm from Claremont. Shout out to Kataba County. Claremont is a town of one thousand people. I went to Walmart constantly, and then of course moving to the city, I was able to go to Target in a way I wasn't before and that was it. But now you know, people hate on me for being too bougie. That's what it is.
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Speaker 4: Well, I mean, sometimes got to call it rock a rock, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 3: That's what it's people are nodding usely listening to the airways.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Terrence, Yes, call him Bougie. Terrence oglesby joining us here on Western Walker Sports raty ninety two seven WFNZ.
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Speaker 1: Terrence, how was your experience, man?
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Speaker 2: How awesome was it watching Michigan beat Yukon and overall just everything that you got to witness over there in Indianapolis.
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Speaker 4: Well, I'll say this, going to a Final four is an awesome experience in general. A lot of people end up going, probably on Wednesday before the first Final four games happened that Saturday. It's a huge event and it's a lot of fun. You get to see all the coaches, all the college coaches from around the country all convene in one space, and in the games, to be honest with you, Walker, I think you'll agree, a little bit underwhelming. I thought Michigan Arizona was going to be a barn burner. Michigan just blew the doors off of that team out West, and then, you know, the most impressive thing all weekend in my mind, was the fact that Yukon beatsill andoila a drum and then turns around and keeps it close with Michigan, and that says a lot about how good Dan Her is because I thought his game plan was as good as you can have it against the Michigan team that was utterly dominant in every other part of this tournament, Yukon kept it close. That was about as good as you were.
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Speaker 1: Going to do well.
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Speaker 2: And I did want to ask you a little bit about the shooting. You're right, the games weren't great, you know, I was okay with it. I thought the defense in the championship game, they were just flying around, playing so hard with all these active hands. I thought that part was fun. I'd like to see some made baskets, and we didn't really get a whole lot of made baskets. To your point, is there anything to this like football stadium shooting stuff, Terrence? Have you talked with anybody about that or do you have any theories yourself on why we've seen some poor shooting in final four games in recent memory, and especially in the national championship game.
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Speaker 4: It is a very different feel. I do think it's a couple of things. One is, whenever I was in college, we actually played the a SEC tournament in what was then the Georgia Dome, in Atlanta, and it is a very different feel. And even with that, we played in the end zone to where there were makeup bleachers on one side and then they use the top of everything else down in the end zone. They put a dead center of everything at Lucas Oil Stadium and there's just so much room behind it that it's it's hard to really express how massive the moment is if you haven't been there, because there's people. I think there were seventy two thousand people in there watching the basketball game, and it was just it's out of this world. And when it comes to getting used to that setting, you know, the NCAA only gives teams an hour apiece to practice, so it makes it difficult to really get used to what you're where you're going to play. Every shot looks flat, every and it doesn't matter because of you know where you're at. Everything looks flat because of how massive the place is. But it's it's a very different feel. The goal looks lower because there is no backdrop. But I thought it was interesting that Dusty May took his guys out to the Big House to shoot jump shots on the ground, I mean, just to try to get used to it.
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Speaker 2: It's great insight from true ball noer. Terrence Oglesby here on Western Walker Sports Radio ninety two seven WFNZ. You see him on Field of sixty eight. You see him on the FanDuel broadcast basketball analyst with Hornets Live. I want to go back to your Dan Hurley point, Terrence. It was a masterful coaching performance. I think most people thought that after the championship game. It felt like Dan was also like relatively okay after the loss too. I mean, he just had this painful loss, and I even think he at halftime mentioned how much of a juggernaut Michigan was. I'll ask you this about Dan Hurley. Do you feel like there's a gap. Not to disrespect all the other coaches in college basketball, but the man has won two championships, been there three times in the last four years. Do you feel like it's Dan then a gap than everyone else in the sport right now?
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Speaker 4: I think it's jesty may Dan. You know what, I would probably throw three or four coaches in that mix. Test may Dan john Shire should be in that mix. I don't care how they end of the season, but he's just done it consistently ever since he got the job, and it's kind of the next wave of coaches.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 4: Maybe somebody wants to talk about Tommy Lloyd being a part of that party, but I think he might be. Like, if you're looking at the top three or four, he's probably the next man after those guys. It's a new day in college basketball. The guys who've been able to adapt to the ones who have been successful. As a lake, you know, as far as ex'es and o'ser concerned, a certain style you have to play. I like the way Dan controls the tempo on offense that allows his defense to be good. Right, they weren't in a track meet against Michigan. They were able to keep it close because they walked the ball up the floor and they had several options to get shots at the end of clock. It's just if I had to think about it, you know, Dan would be in that group, Dusty may would be in that group. John Shire would be in that group, and who knows, Mike Malone might be one sooner. Nobody knows.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's just go ahead and take that segue. If you're going to offer it to me, I was going to go there anyway. Let's talk about the hire of Michael Malone. Just overall thoughts, the surprise level once Malone was named the new head coach of North Carolina basketball, and do you think it can work.
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Speaker 4: I had been told Mike Malone was a very serious candidate. On Tuesday of last week. I was a little skeptical, just because it's like he's coming out of nowhere. I understand he was wearing a Carolina sweatshirt because his daughter plays on the volleyball team. This that the third I never really took it seriously until I talked to Tyler Hansborough on Thursday and he's like, I hope he gets the job, and he's very much in the mix. So I went and asked around and I had a bunch of the big hitters. F me, Nope, there's nothing to it. The next day he's named head coach at Carolina. So it's the Carolina family's pretty tight. Yeah, and Tyler called it on Thursday. It happened. I want to say they announced it on Final four Sunday or one, but it's to me, it's an interesting thing because you know, NBA guys coming down has been more prevalent as of late. You look at Luke Laus of Florida State, Kevin Young at BYU. You look at a lot of guys with the NBA experience. You can do that because of how the NCAA structured right now, it's not as big of a jump up or down, or however you want to say it. The games are a little bit more similar than they are different, but you do have to do different things at a high level at the college level to get wins. You can't just go and score one hundred and forty points because a lot of times there's not one hundred and forty points on that roster.
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Speaker 2: Terence Ogle's be joining us on WESN Walker. You're listening to Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ. I'll ask you about another hire here in the triangle. Justin Ganey gets the job. It's funny here we are talking about keep it in the family with North Carolina and c State ends up doing it.
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Speaker 1: More so.
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Speaker 2: The North Carolina hiring Justin Ganey thoughts on him as a new head basketball coach in Raleigh.
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Speaker 4: I've known Justin for a long time and he's had some high level experience. Who is an assistant in Arizona, associate head coach at Tennessee also spent time at Marquette. This is a guy who's right at fifty years old or forty nine to fifty years old. It's if he was going to get a shot right now at the right time, if he's going to be anything like Rick Barnes, the guy he just comes from working for. I think NC State fans should be thrilled because they're big, toy, tough for their physicals. Sometimes they go on some offensive droughts, but at least you're going to be in every game because they control their controllables. I would assume they're going to be very much in the same mold as what he had at Rick Barnes. That's just a general assumption, but from what I've been told, the NIL situation is going to be plenty for him to be able to operate in that mold, big and physical. You've got to have more money because these big guys are getting a lot more expensive each and every year. But I think n C State's going to supply in correctly, and I think they should be a tournament team with him as head coach, provided that he's able to get the right guys.
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Speaker 2: In the full From an NIO opening Terrence, That's what I was going to ask you. I just want to talk about goal for NC State next year. The Will Wade stuff happens, they get to the first for they get bounced immediately, and then he leaves right obviously, a really tough situation to work with if your state enter justin gainey Man, what's the goal as far as just year one under his tutelage? Is it immediately get to the tournament in this environment or do we provide him some grace to work with a little bit.
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Speaker 4: I think anytime you get a head coach that's a first time head coach, he deserves a little bit of grace. But at the same time, that's not how college basketball is functioning right now. He can completely turn around his lineup overnight basically, and with a transfer portal open, he's going to have opportunities to get some guys that sometimes need an extra boost. They need a few extra minutes that you can rewire it over the course of the year. So if you're in C State, it all depends on the money that you're going to give him. If you give him ten twelve million dollars, you need to be in the tournament point blank. Period you need to be in the tournament, so it'll be interesting to see how they're able to proceed forward. I don't know who's on his staff right now. I have to go and check that, but I'm happy for him. He deserves the opportunity and it's time for NC State to have somebody that's consistently good, and I think they could get that with Justin Gainey.
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Speaker 2: Terrence is someone that played in the ACC and someone that covers college basketball as extensively as you do. It felt like this was a huge step up for the ACC, certainly during the regular season and then the tournament a little bit of a let down. Did have many Sweet Sixteen representatives that it was Duke didn't get to the final four after the shot. What's your perception of the ACC right now and where it stands.
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Speaker 4: Improved and going to continue to get better. I think you look at the financial incentive from the ACC and the percentage of repshare that has gone towards basketball is huge. Outside of Thompson and maybe Florida State and Miami, like the rest of the schools are investing in basketball, and I think that's a good thing. And not only that, you kind of got rid of that old guard to where Beaheim's no longer in a mix. Jerry mcferry gets hired, Leonard Hamilton's gone from Florida State. You have Luke Louxs, who I thought did a terrific job there. There's new guys in the league, and I think that's going to certainly expedite things forward. And a lot of schools made the right higher. You look at Virginia with Ryan Odam, I mean, that worked out terrific, and they're going to continue to be good too, because they just resigned their whole front court. So I look at the ACC as much improved, and I see it over the next three, four or five years as getting back towards the top of college basketball. But these things take time, and the ACC very much a traditionalist conference. He died some time to kind of get used to what the new age of college basketball is.
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Speaker 2: All Right, Terrence, we can't get you out of here without asking at least one Hornets question. I saw that you joined Kevin O'Connor on his podcast, which is great stuff. By the way, you can go follow Kevin O'Connor on Twitter at Kevin O'Connor.
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Speaker 1: Terrence olgles We joined him.
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Speaker 2: To talk about college basketball and the Cooper flag Conkin Nipple Rookie of the Year debate. Terrence, I want it. I want it for our guy. I don't want to want it as badly as I do, but here I am wanting Conk Nipple to win Rookie of the Year. How good of a shot do you think he has at over Cooper who just went off for ninety six points over the weekend.
00:13:04
Speaker 4: He's pretty good too, I think, really, I think the momentum that the Hornets have certainly worked in CON's favor. I think his efficiency levels certainly worked in his favor. The fact that the Hornets are winning works in his favor. And like I told Kevin, who you say follow him on Twitter? I think the whole world does.
00:13:19
Speaker 1: I think.
00:13:20
Speaker 4: I look, he has four hundred thousand people.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: If you're one of the few that isn't, there's the Twitter here.
00:13:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's no. It reminds me a lot of when Lebron and Carmelo were vying for Rookie of the Year. Carmelo was getting to the playoffs, but Lebron was trying to Lebron was putting up these mega stats so they were neck and neck. Who deserves it more? You know, the Rookie of the Year has not generally been a team award. It's been a statistical award. How do the voters see it? I don't have a vote in this, so I hope con wins it. I think he deserves it. I think, you know, he was part of the mentality shift that has happened in Charlotte. So hopefully, hopefully he's rewarded for that.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough to gauge that for voters, for sure, but I mean, if you're around the team, you know for a fact he has been a part of the mentality shift here in Charltne. That's why we see the Hornets battling for hopefully a playoff series. Terrence Oglesbat you can see him on the FanDuel broadcast Hornets Live analyst, also Field of sixty eight. He does a lot of talking college basketball, NBA basketball, talking roundball, and we appreciate him for doing that right here on westn Walker. Terrence, thanks so much for the time, man. We'll see you around all right. Appreciate you good stuff from Terrence Oglesby. Wouldn't have expected anything different. Follow him on Twitter. He doesn't have as many, but he still has a decent amount. You can be one of those people that follows Terrence on Twitter at tea underscore oglesby twenty two, we'll take a quick break. We'll come back plenty more on the triangle. What are the biggest questions surrounding the college basketball coaches in the Tri state area. We'll get to it coming up next. Sports Rated ninety two seven FM. Another huge thanks to Terrence oglesby joining us. Last segment that interview will be up on the website SHORTLYWFNZ dot com dot com.
00:15:15
Speaker 1: Excuse me, don't know why I put an L in there.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: You can also visit The West and Walker Show anywhere you get your podcast. Every major podcast app, Apple, Spotify, doesn't matter. Just type in Wes and Walker and you'll find all the best dubs segments, all the best interviews, all the digitally uploaded content out there. Again, we mean it when we say every major podcast app. We're broadcasting live from the channel Vaulta Studios, CV Injury Law dot com, CV Injury Law dot Com.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: One call.
00:15:43
Speaker 2: That's all the Carolinas personal injury lawyers. And last but not least, got to give a shout out to you the listeners, texting us on the world famous WFNZ text line powered by Affordable siding and Windows, your hometown home improvement experts. Play along with us in this next segment because we have the biggest questions surrounding every single college basketball coach in the trigle not U. Yeah there you go, I've got Okay, wake up. Maybe it's time. That was for you. That was a message from Flounder to wake up and play along with us, asking the biggest questions surrounding all of the new college basketball coaches or some of the old ones in the area. Got to start with Michael Malone right number one on the list the reasons he should be. The real question is sh all of it? Can you do this? That's we can start to dwindle this down into like more fine tuned questions, but really the big question is can you do this at all? Because it is different from NBA basketball. Still it is getting closer to NBA basketball, but it still is different. I think if you're to talk yourself into this higher, I think you want to talk yourself into the basketball acumen, which Brendan Mark says was the biggest proponent of hiring him right like that, that was the biggest thing as to why you wanted to go after him alone with administration basically targeting him once it didn't work out with Tommy Lloyd, once it didn't work out with Dusty May. He was always kind of in the background as a good safety option. He wasn't the first option. Can't buy that. We know it was Tommy Lloyd, we know it was Dusty May, but he was always somewhere in the background, and we know that he is a very very good basketball mind. And I think if you look at Dan Hurley, who runs a bunch of offensive principles stemming from the NBA, a bunch of stagger screens, multiple actions, trying to get you off tilt as a defense, constantly thinking. We see this with Charles Lee, constantly putting the defense in a predicament of where do I go? Just all little things that kind of stop you from being efficient defensively. And man, they run some awesome stuff up there in stores, and defensively they were able to I think, give you a nice defensive game plan, especially with what they did against Michigan. So if you just take principles and applied to the college game. You've seen that work. You see that work with Dan Hurley, to be specific, the best coach in my opinion, in college basketball right now. So it can definitely work with Michael Malone. The question is there's a bunch of them really simply put, can you do this at all? Having never done it at this level before?
00:18:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, And we're going to find out whether or not he can handle doing the first thing that's most important, which is building your roster. Can you actually go out and put together a roster that is going to compete to win the ACC this next year, or even if you don't win the ACC, is going to be in the top three. That's what I said. The expectations are for Michael Malone taking this job is that you need to finish top three in the ACC every single year.
00:18:45
Speaker 1: I get it.
00:18:46
Speaker 3: It's an improving conference, There's no doubt about that. You're North Carolina, So can you put together that type of roster right out of the gate. Look, you made a step yesterday towards getting guys on the staff that are going to be able to help you do that. Chuck Martin is a fantastic higher. Yesterday one of the best recruiters in the country. There's a reason he's been the recruiting coordinator at Kentucky. There's a reason he was the recruiting coordinator at Arkansas and they finished with top five classes in each of those three years with wherever he was. So they did the right thing yesterday by bringing in someone that can recruit the high school ranks. Now you've got to figure out how do you navigate the transfer portal? Because, yeah, you could say it's like free agency. Here's the thing, how much, say, does Michael Malone have in the free agents that Denver was going out and getting probably a little bit here, You've got all to say, it's what you want, it's your system. You're building things, and you got to be very involved in that. So can he handle that side of it? On top of then coaching in college basketball where things are going to be a little bit different. Some of the things that you're going to be thrown out. You don't have forty eight minutes in a game, You've only got forty. Is that is that something that you know he talked about it. It is gonna be weird playing two halves as opposed to playing four quarters, and so is that something that he.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: Has to adjust to.
00:20:14
Speaker 3: I think there's gonna be some things that people in college basketball will probably have to adjust to too. And one of the things that does give me a little bit of comfort that this can work is what we've seen at BYU under Kevin Young, because he's had success there. Now Again, the reason why they've had success is because they've got the money. So you're gonna need the backing from Carolina donors. But it feels like if you've got that, you've got a chance to be successful here. And I gotta tell you, Terrence Oglesby was great in that last segment. Did not even know that Luke Loux came from the NBA. I had totally forgotten about that. Yeah, And so that's another guy that you look towards the end of last season started trending in the right direction.
00:21:00
Speaker 2: They certainly did Chuck Martin, by the way, just to talk about that higher real quickly. The resume is really impressive. Everywhere that he's been was at Arkansas last year, was with Kentucky as an assistant under Caliperry, Oregon for a year, South Carolina twenty one twenty two.
00:21:18
Speaker 1: He was with Indiana for a little while, so Indiana was recruiting good players.
00:21:22
Speaker 3: He was one that I think headed up Yogi Farrell landing there, which is pretty big.
00:21:27
Speaker 2: That was twenty fourteen twenty seventeen he was with Indiana, So yeah, that was when you had Zeller, you had I mean, we've done this before, Sheehi. Victor Oladipo was a part of that. If I'm not mistaken entirely, I think it was in that era. So and then you get to South Carolina when they get in Cindarius Thornwell and they get some of those guys like PJ.
00:21:45
Speaker 1: Doser.
00:21:46
Speaker 3: What's interesting to me, And I'm not sure if this will be the case here in North Carolina or if there's anything to make about this point whatsoever. But he's going after local guys, which is interesting. So you bring up Indiana when he was there in twenty fourteen through twenty seventeen. My brother actually played at My brothers, both of them, played at the same high school as Jogie Farrell up in Park Tutor, And so he went and got him in Indianapolis, a big time high school.
00:22:12
Speaker 1: And okay, you get a local.
00:22:13
Speaker 2: Kid in South Carolina, Sendarius Thornwell, PJ.
00:22:17
Speaker 1: Doser.
00:22:17
Speaker 2: I believe dosers from South Carolina. I know Thornwell is. So you go after a couple of those guys and you keep them in state, and it just feels like a more national brand once you get to Kentucky. I use big too, but you get the idea Kentucky. I guess they get Reach Shepherd. Reach Shepherd was a Kentucky guy, and now was dad having been a Kentucky The ties were there. Really feels like you had to screw that one up colossally if you missed out on Reach Shepherd, but still you got the job done Arkansas. I wonder if Chuck Martin goes after these local guys and make sure that that talent doesn't get out of state lines, which is kind of interesting. North Carolina has a bunch of great as states. Yeah, not bad at all. So I do wonder if he's going to locally recruit and get some of these guys to go to North Carolina instead of saying maybe NC state. But certainly Duke is the big one, right, Like can you steal somebody from Duke? However you can with money being a part of it. That's the other thing. Going back to Indiana, South Carolina money wasn't a part of the equation at that time.
00:23:20
Speaker 1: Now it is still showing some good recruiting chops. All right.
00:23:23
Speaker 2: So a bunch of questions about Michael Malone question about John Shire. You have the big one about whether he can win the championship or not. I guess my question too is how much does the regular season matter to Duke anymore? And how much does that show up? So it feels like it's going to be a catch twenty two all year long for Duke. They're not going to care if you win, and they're going to care a gigantic amount if you lose. Every loss is going to feel like the end of the world, and every win is just going to be some level of relief that we talked about when we were going through breakthrough moments. It's not going to be all that much joy, in my opinion, it's just gonna be relief, all right, dodge that landmine, Okay, got another one under our belt, and it's gonna be like that pretty much all the way up until you get to the final four. So with an added element of pressure, he had a lot this past year, but really the only thing that could add more pressure than what he was experienced this past season. Is if it happens twice and I got bad news, John, it happened twice, you lost in a painful way two consecutive seasons. My question for them is how much does the regular season matter? And it's gonna matter to everybody, but how much does it matter in terms of, you know, just trying to get as many victories as possible and that actually doing something for your program winning the ACC championship in the ACC attorney because I don't think fans are going to care all that much.
00:24:50
Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. What does it do for your fans? Do they care? Are they starting to check out on the regular season success, on the ACC tournament success and saying, you know what, that's fine, that's great.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: We'll take that.
00:25:05
Speaker 3: We'll take winning the ACC regular season, We'll take winning an ACC tournament title, But we want you to make it back to the final four, and we would prefer that you at least take that next step and get to the national championship game.
00:25:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know yet.
00:25:23
Speaker 3: Of course, as a Duke fan, you are looking at most years as title or bust. I don't know if this year is necessarily going to be that type of year, because I gotta be honest, I don't know if you've got a generational talent that's going to be on this roster. Cam Boozer, I feel like probably was labeled a generational talent, even though when you would watch him, he doesn't look like the other generational talents out there.
00:25:51
Speaker 1: He was pretty highly talented. I get your point.
00:25:53
Speaker 2: No, you're right, like you had Keeper, you had Boozer, and now you don't have seemingly that guy. I know, Bet, don't know what about Williams. You guys know me and the high prospects don't know as much about him. But it doesn't feel like they're coming in with the kind of fanfare that those two dudes did.
00:26:07
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. We'll learn quickly whether or not he's on that level. And if he is, then you get back to that same mindset of man, it's got to be Final four or bust or potentially even championship or bus. So you're at the point where now all that anybody cares about.
00:26:25
Speaker 1: Is the postseason.
00:26:26
Speaker 3: Man, they don't I'm not gonna say that they're checked out. They're not tuning in to watch you, but their thinking is, let's just get to the postseason and then find a way to avoid these epic collapses that we've had these last two years that have led to us losing games that we probably shouldn't have lost.
00:26:47
Speaker 2: Looking at just a roster question for Duke or something a little more basketball ye than narrative based question, and does the regular season matter? Do you have a dynamic point guard in Rippy that can help you out in a way You've not been helped out some time since Tyas Jones, when I think was that the last point guard that you trusted with your life? Who ends up winning MOP in that twenty fifteen title run over guys like Winslow and Oka four Because ever since then, I don't know if you have that and you have Cayden and you have Rippy in the backcourt right now set to play for Duke next year, assuming Caden comes back. I guess it's not officially official, but you're assuming he comes back. That's another basketball question for the Duke Blue Devils. Moving on to Justin Gainey, the big question is how much do State fans care about results right away? How much does State care about results right away? We got a little bit of an assist from Terrence Ogles beyond this because I asked him this very question. And if you have a lot of money that you're pouring into the roster and you have a large budget, then we don't have as much patience as we used to. And that's true for every school in the ACC. It's not even just true from North Carolina, where you're not going to have much grace for Michael alone to figure all of this out as a first year power for Kylee basketball head coach Justin Gainey, same thing, has been great at recruiting himself, helping out Rick Barnes.
00:28:06
Speaker 1: I like this hire a lot for State.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: It feels natural, it's in the family, and it doesn't feel forced like Sidney Low. This feels like, Yeah, you've earned your stripes. It feels like you've done a lot to have earned this job rather than it being handed to you without having had any kind of success. You've been on awesome staffs. This feels right for NC State. I love this higher for them. But you go to Virginia immediate success following Tony Bennett. You go to Louisville immediate success after terrible basketball from Kenny Payne and Pat Kelce Miami, same thing, immediate success. It's year one and these teams are getting to the tournament. So you the only reason I thought you might give a little bit longer of a leash to the NC State basketball program is because of everything that you just went through with the Will Wade stuff, and you didn't plan for any of this except if there's going to be a lot of money, then money also by eyes away the excuses and all of these other teams getting to the Big Dance pretty immediately. Yeah, I think that's the thing that NC State fans want to see. It's all gonna be about how it looks if you barely don't get in, but you have a nice showing at the end, or you have some freshmen that are really bought. Okay, cool. There are ways out of getting to of having a successful season without getting to the tournament. There are ways to do it, but I think right away you're gonna have to see some results in this new college basketball landscape.
00:29:30
Speaker 3: Yes, but he's also a first time head coach, so let's also put that into the equation.
00:29:39
Speaker 2: Lucas being the only comparable with the other three guys I mentioned.
00:29:43
Speaker 3: Right, and look, and he had an amazing year the first year that he was there. I don't know if you're an NC State fan, though, if you can go in with that expectation, if you could say, well, if John Lucas was able to do what he was doing at Miami, then we should back the same exact thing from Justin Gainey. I think a lot of it is going to depend on the money. If you sink a boatload of money into this roster and they end up missing the NC DOUBLEA tournament, then yeah, it's okay to be disappointed. But I think your expectations under Gainey unless he just comes out. And from what I saw of the introductory press conference, clearly there weren't nearly as many clips as there were with Michael Malone. I did not see any moment where he stood up there and said, I guarantee we're gonna win. There's a red reckoning on the way. Oh no, you don't want to say that, you don't, I don't. I don't think there's any clips like that. So I think for him, he's doing the smart thing of not setting up massive expectations for this next season. If you make the NC DOUBLEA tournament, and let's say I think a nice goal for him would be make make the field, make the actual field. Don't make it to Dayton, make it into the actual field. You make it in there, and you end up losing in the first year. I don't think it's really that bad because he's a first time head coach. So that's just how I feel as a fan. NC State fans might feel differently with some of the success that they had in that run under Kevin Keats, maybe there is a demand for something a little bit more, even from a first time head coach.
00:31:25
Speaker 2: Like Gaming got a couple of Duke fans pushing back on my thoughts them not caring as much about the regular season victories. Run the Rock says, as a Duke fan, I watch every game. I enjoy all the winning in the regular season and conference tournament, but I do look at it with a side eye until they reach another Final four and get to a championship game at least. Okay, that's kind of what I was thinking. Seven oh four refutes all of it. Duke fan, fifty three years, three grads in the family, you couldn't be more wrong. Still care about every game, and I feel that and I understand it fair enough.
00:31:55
Speaker 1: Of course you do.
00:31:56
Speaker 3: What we're saying is how special is the feeling of winning an ACC regular season title and winning a conference tournament title at this point, Yeah, you've accomplished that already.
00:32:07
Speaker 1: You've accomplished that how many years in a row?
00:32:10
Speaker 3: Now do you still look at that as man, that we're unbelievably ecstatic that we're winning that stuff, or do you have that thought in the back of your head that when you are winning those types of games, you're saying to yourself, this is great, But what about the postseason. That's the point that I think Duke fans are at.
00:32:32
Speaker 2: The bar is lifted. When you are a supreme program, this is what it is. This is the world you want to live in, But just acknowledge this is the world that you live in. Last one, Steve Forbes, I got a simple question, can Wake regain a pulse? We're losing our guy. We're losing Wes, and I feel bad for him every single time we talk about Wake. He's still pulling for him, but he has no hope. He does not have any optimism. Now we're seeing Juke Harris leave, and again it makes sense. He's actually been pretty damn logical about all of this with Duke Harris leaving, had a visit with Michigan. Looks like he could be a member of the championship team from this past season, so.
00:33:11
Speaker 1: That might happen.
00:33:12
Speaker 2: But can we get a pulse from wake because it's been a long time, even before the Steve Forbes era, we had to do the whole Danny Manning thing where he gets to the tournament, once gets to a first four matchup, loses to Kansas State. That's the last level of big time postseason basketball Wake Forest has played in the last ten years or so. It's a real simple question. Can they regain a pulse because right now feels like a cold body.
00:33:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, because I think there was a pulse the first few years of Forbes because you had all conference caliber players. You had Player of the Year in the ACC one year's I mean that's those are the types of guys you were bringing in. With Alandas Williams.
00:33:55
Speaker 2: You're still doing it. Yeah, you're still doing Tyree appill Bee Alandas William la Ravia is a first round pick. You just had Juke Harris leave and he's going to go to a premier program. So it's all about you're getting great players offensively speaking, for sure, and so you just haven't been to the tournament in quite some time. I'm not sure the pulse is there over the last couple of years. I think this year they lost the pulse. I think this year you're looking at it and you're saying, wonder, Steve Forbes, this feels like this is pretty dead because you look at the roster this year. Are you going to be able to get somebody that's going to be a juke Harris, That's going to be one of these guys that we just talked about.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: I can't guarantee that.
00:34:37
Speaker 3: Hopefully you can find someone out of the transferport that can be that guy. It ain't coming from the high school ranks because your top rated recruit that you were saying, that's the reason why Steve Forbes is staying here.
00:34:48
Speaker 1: He decommitted. Yeah.
00:34:49
Speaker 2: What's particularly disheartening about being a Wake Forest basketball fan now is that you have to hold yourself back. You have to put yourself in check to get excited during the off season because you've been excited during the offseason how many times now under Forbes, Yeah, because we had this really impressive player. You have the talent at the very top end, and so you can talk yourself all you want into we have Duke Harris, we have Elandas Williams, we have the preseason ACC Player of the Year. And it's usually not the preseason guy that they have. They have at the end of the season, which is the one that actually matters in all of this. But now it's tough to even get yourself going, hey we have this awesome recruit. Hey we have this awesome transfer portal addition. We've done this before though, so I'm just kind of the hamster on the wheel.
00:35:38
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing is they need more than just one guy because the one guy thing ain't working. You've had one guy on these rosters. It's not enough to get you across the finish line. So can you find that second, third guy that's talented enough to be able to get you there? Because yeah, this has to be I'm not saying a big year from Steve Forbes, but I mean, if can you get into the NCAA tournament, because if you don't, I feel like it might be it. That's the goal, and you know, administration we've been saying that for years. That's right. We love Steve though man, Steve, I hate it. I want you to succeed. I want you to succeed badly. To be honest with you, I hope it happens this season. All right, let's talk about the Hornets playoff rotation, the James Josh Green discussion. Is Charles Lee gonna stick with James or is he going to roll over to Josh Green? What's the playoff rotation look like to you? We get to it coming up next on Western Walker.
00:36:35
Speaker 2: Wait one more segment before we close out the one o'clock hour on weston Walker. Doug Branson set to join us at two o'clock. Don't know if you've heard of him, but he's my other other co host on Lockdown Hornets, also the curator of a hornetsbox score dot com. Speaking of the Hornets, I do want to talk a little bit about a possible playoff rotation. They haven't made it yet. There's still some work to do. There's still actually a decent amount of work to do for the Hornets. We went over the playoff chances in each of the seeds. There is a less than one percent chance of the Hornets getting to the five seed, at three percent chance at the sixth spot, ten percent chance at the seventh spot, fifteen percent chance at eight, fifty, at nine, twenty five at ten. So the further down you go, really the bigger the percentages go, and I don't like seeing that. However, there still is a shot at least to get to somehow, some way the five seed. I do want to bring up Matt Moore's tweet as well at Hardwood Paroxysm on Twitter at HP basketball. Excuse me, Hardwood paroxysm on Twitter at HP basketball, and he went through some of the Hornets scenarios as well, and he talked about how if there is a tie between the Hawks and the Hornets, Charlotte has the tiebreaker overboard over both Orlando and Atlanta. So if the Hawks lose out and the Hornets went out, they wind up in any multi team ties, the Hornets jump everyone in that time. The Raptors need two wins to escape that possibility. The Sixers have to go three and oh, the Magic have to go two and oh. So basically, is there any way that Atlanta can lose out and the Hornets went out. I just went through some of the percentages. It's not great, but I don't think it's impossible for the Hornets to win two in a row. And then if you look at the schedule for the Hawks, I'm pulling that up right now because I like that sweet from Matt Moore. The Hawks play the Calves at home tonight. Okay, so they play or excuse me, tomorrow night at seven o'clock. So you have that game still left to go, and then the last game that they have is on the road against Miami. So what you're pulling for. What you're pulling for here is the Hornets to win out. Uh, you want them to win every single game. That would put the Hornet set forty five victories, and you want the Hawks to lose out That would mean four straight losses. Can they lose to Cleveland tomorrow night at home? And can they lose to the Miami Heat on the road Sunday? And the Heat they'll be playing for something depending on where everybody is in this nine to ten spot. So look, possibility. I like that one because everybody kind of goes into a pool. And then you figure out who has the most wins of all of these other squads. And so again they have the tiebreaker over Atlanta and over Orlando. That would be interesting. I thought the tiebreaker over Atlanta was going to be rendered useless a long time ago once the Hawks kept winning and winning and winning. Maybe not maybe not so fast to quote lead Corso. And if they get to the postseason, I'm really interested in this playoff rotation. You guys can let me know how you feel about Sion James playing right now over Josh Green. I know Mack and Boone we're talking about this. If you look at Josh Green in his minutes been going down quite a bit. In fact, over the last two weeks. It's a pretty nice sample, pretty exact sample over the last two weeks. If you go two weeks ago, Josh Green only played two minutes against New York and that game that they won at the Spectrum Center. Before that, Green had been averaging about sixteen minutes a game. In the last two weeks, he's been averaging about ten minutes a game. So as you get closer to the postseason rotation starting to tighten up, and that ten minutes a game that Green has been logging heavy lifting done by that Pacers contest where he played twenty four minutes. So if you put in ten there, how much are we talking about Green actually suiting up starting to squeeze him out. It looks like just a little bit of the rotation. But then you watch this Boston game and you see Seon James go over from the three point line. Joe Mizzoula, sorry to keep bringing this up, but I always think about it, the natoates, Elliott Cado, Seth Trimble defense philosophy. Just letting see On James. I know, I know, it's what I think of every time. It's the ultimate I do not respect you as a shooter type of defense. And that's how they treated Seon. There was a gulf between Seaon and the nearest defender because that's what Missoula and company. They were going to live with. That that was the poison they picked, and turns out it wasn't very potent. So Sion's not a bad three point shooter, by the way. He's a thirty six percent shooter average for wings in the NBA, but pretty decent enough to be a threat unless you're a vet coach and you don't think the rookie is ready for all of this yet and you think those shots are going to continue to miss. Well, okay, one way Seon can combat. That is, if he attacks that empty space, goes right at the defense and gets to the foul line. Except doing a little more digging with Seon and where he's hot and where he's cold. Unfortunately for Seon, he's one of the worst rim finishers in the league, and it's unfortunate. I hate it, but Seon is shooting less than fifty percent at the cup. There's only one that's only one of three players in the league who have logged over one thousand minutes of this season who is shooting under fifty percent at the cup forty nine percent forty nine points something percent to be exact in the restricted area. And so you're just not worried about Sion. If he's not hitting threes, he has to pass it to somebody else. You're rendering him useless as an offensive threat outside of decision making. And the last couple points on this because I am interested in how the rotation is going to play out.
00:42:32
Speaker 1: Right.
00:42:33
Speaker 2: One of the ways that the Hornets win is by having all of these different threats. It's by actually having some depth. It's actually trying to figure out who you would protect in an expansion draft. Only having eight guys that you can protect and lo and behold. The Hornets for the first time ever have more guys that they want to protect than are allotted to them. This is weird, but when you get to the postseason, this kind of feeds into the Bill Simmons theory of the too many guys theory. You can't get enough rhythm if you play ten, so you have to find that happy medium of about nine eight guys really coming off of the bench. So really, who's the wing that you rely on? Is it Seon or is it Josh Green? Right now, Charles Lee is prioritizing decision making, ball handling, and at least a little rim pressure. Even if he's not hitting a lot at the rim, he does drive to the rim way more than Josh Green does. So those are the three things you're prioritizing now with Seon, alongside his point of attack defense. But to put it real simply, if Seon isn't hitting three point shots, then he just can't play. That's just not going to be something that he can do. Assuming all these other coaches deploy the Joe Mizula defense against him, and if he can't hit these threes, Josh Green is hitting him. He's actually doing a really nice job hitting the threes. When he gets to the cup. He doesn't get there a lot, but when he gets there, he's shooting above sixty percent. By the way, not even all that great. It's just a lot better than forty nine percent. It's a real question, and I hate it for Seon because I love the dude. Just had an interview with the man. You guys heard it. Awesome. Awesome guy is going to be a very important part of this team for a long time in my opinion. Already right now is an important part of this team. But playoff basketball is different. And if you can't hit those three point shots and he continues to see that type of defense, then I think you're going to see a lot more of Josh Green. Final thing on this I keep telling you final thing, but more thoughts pop up. Final thing. I do wonder if there's a little bit of an overreaction just because we didn't see Kobe White play. Seon, as your tertiary ball handler is a lot better than your secondary ball handler, and when Kobe is able and ready to go, you don't have to worry about that anymore. Seon is a decent decision maker when he's not being guarded by the best backup or I should say backcourt defender right when he doesn't have to run things and make decisions for everybody. So we'll see what Charles Lee prioritizes once we get to the end the regular season and we get to either play in basketball or playoff basketball. All right, let's talk more about it, Doug Branson, if Lockdown Hornets set to join us next, Sports Radio ninety two to seven WFNZ, Listen to the.
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