SleepHawk Worldwide
SleepHawk Worldwide
UNC vs. Duke Game Preview
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In this episode of the Sleep Hawk Worldwide podcast, hosts Brandon Staton and Tyler Hens recap UNC's close win over Boston College, discuss the current state of the Tar Heels team, and preview the highly anticipated matchup against Duke. However, please note that this episode was recorded prior to UNC's 73-65 loss to Pitt, so the discussion and analysis may not reflect the most recent developments. The hosts share their thoughts on UNC's chances against Duke and the team's path to the NCAA tournament. Additionally, they touch on the surprising season for the Washington Commanders in the NFL playoffs. Tune in for the hosts' unique perspectives and predictions, but keep in mind the timing of when this episode was recorded.
and now the sleepwalk worldwide podcast. Here are your hosts, brandon staton and tyler hans bro. What's up everybody. Welcome to Welcome to the Sleep Talk Worldwide Podcast. This is Sleep Talk with the Big Hawk.
Speaker 2What's up everybody? It's the Big Hawk. We're back in studio. A lot of action, man. Everything is kind of you know.
Speaker 1We're about to have the sports world's eyes, college basketball, football's winded down, so I'm excited and yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be back here with you sleep yeah, we kind of picked a weird night to record because unc is going to play pit here shortly and when they do, uh, inevitably whatever we say is probably going to made to be made to look like we're idiots. But just keep that in mind, guys. It's going through this episode right now. We're going to get into, you know, a quick recap of the boston college game. We're going to get in the state of the team and then we're going to preview the one we've all been waiting for and, I think, not so sure about. I think, if we're being honest with ourselves as carolina fans, carolina plays duke on saturday um, you know, if we run through it and still got a little time left, we might, might, touch on the season that was for the Commanders and talk about the NFL playoffs and so forth. But first things first. Look, we haven't been on in a while. Let's just recap sort of the Boston College game, big Hawk, so it doesn't have to be long.
Speaker 1The fan base, right, I mean, look, you go in there, which is what feels like a pretty inferior team, close game the whole damn time and get pushed to the brink in overtime and you pull it out. I think I understand. As a fan. You're sort of like come on, you can't be that close, but we did win and I think it was a needed win. I know it was a needed win because it would have been pretty catastrophic if it were a loss. But just curious your thoughts on the game and I guess what do you take away in a game like that, where I think all signs point to a sort of easy win, even though it's on the road, or was it at home? Sorry, I had it in front of me.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was at home.
Speaker 1Yeah, easy win at home, and yeah, it didn't work out that way. Is it a win or a loss in that case?
Speaker 2I feel like we lost the game from a lot of people's reactions. Listen, I just want to say this You've always said it's not a beauty contest. I just want to say this You've always said it's not a beauty contest. It doesn't have to be pretty. The whole goal of playing the game is to win it. We got that done. A lot of fans. We wanted to just come out there, steamroll them, get off the fast breaks, make the game look beautiful. Didn't happen. Sometimes you've got to win ugly and you've got to win ugly in the tournament, especially in the tournament, guys. You know, the tournament to me is like definition. Can you win ugly Because guys are going to miss? But listen, we're not talking about that. We're talking about the BC recap and I'll say right now listen, we got a dub and we all need to be excited about that because that is a step in the right direction.
Speaker 2There's a lot of positives to take away from this game as well. I think all Carolina fans, we all wanted for us to come out and just take them to the woodshed. And why? Because we just lost to Wake Forest. I think everyone was a little upset about that. We wanted to have a bounce-back game.
Speaker 2Listen, what I take away from the Boston College game is something we haven't done all year and I really felt like we did a great job of executing late in the game and doing what we needed to do to win, and we can't say that in every situation we got stops when it counted. They couldn't get the ball in bounds to really get a bucket to get up a last second shot, forcing it into overtime. I really felt like we scored when we needed, to late in the game, which we struggled with at times. Now, the interesting part about this game is we didn't bring it defensively. It just seems like Boston College just couldn't miss.
Speaker 2Listen, teams are going to do that. They're going to have spectacular nights every once in a while, guys are just going to make shots. That could have been us a little bit not playing the best defense. It could be a little combination where BC's in the Smith Center. They've got some kids in there probably dreaming about playing at North Carolina. This is their chance to go ahead and go off and have a statement game. But no, if I had something to say to Carolina fans, I think we should be happy about this win and I don't think we should look at it as like ah, we barely got past Boston College, or not. You know they're not a really good team. They haven't had a good year. No, we got a dub. We went out and got a hard-fought conference win at home, which we desperately needed, and so maybe we can get some momentum off this. And you know, as Carolina fans, we've got to come out, we've got to bring the energy and hopefully sometimes the team will feed off that sleep.
Speaker 1Yeah, essentially. Essentially, I'm with you. Look, at the end of the day, especially in the way this season is going, you need wins and you need them. Any way you can get them.
Speaker 1It doesn't have to be pretty, I think it's easy to see, I mean easy to not say anything. Anybody doesn't know this season's expectations sort of outpaced reality. So far this year we've kind of been really optimistic and I mean, look you gotta, this is a season where you just gotta grind it out. You know you gotta like look, you're gonna play a lot of teams that I mean maybe they're better than you are, and just gonna come down to you know how bad you want it you get in the tournament and all bets are off Right. So I think, if you know, yeah, fans, fans are just, you know, going to be irrational.
Speaker 1I wasn't particularly thrilled that. You know we got pushed to the brink in a game like that. But yeah, I mean, dude, the alternative was you can look, you didn't lose the game. So at the end of the day, what difference does it make? Judged on wins, I don't think any of the wins are going to get looked at as, oh, that was a close win, right, like, maybe in times, there will be a close loss. A loss would have been catastrophic in that game. So look, just move on. What's that?
Speaker 2Yeah, listen, we looked at doomsday right in the face sleep, and you know, I got to admit, though, going off of our history, I thought, oh, we might slip, this is going to be a bad loss. But you know what we pulled through and you know that's why he played him. Sleep and I will say, there's no pictures in the record book. So right beside our record there's not going to be pictures of this game. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 1yeah that's a very good thing. So where does that bring us? It brings us to stay the team a little bit right, like I mean let's, let's talk about it. Look, we're heading in to, uh, a game that you know is always marked on the calendar. I really, truly, I mean we all know that just all bets are off in a game like this. You know we've lost two of the last three and got pushed to overtime at home against a bad BC team. Meanwhile Duke's won like 14 in a row. Okay, they look pretty good. Cooper Flagg I mean you can't turn on your television without seeing this guy. I mean you can turn it on Cartoon Network and this dude's on there, and then he leads the team in virtually every category, which everybody thinks is a great thing. It tells me the team might have some weaknesses. I mean, what do you think, big Hawk?
Speaker 2All right, so I'll go into the State of Affairs, which is always one of my favorite segments. Where are we right now? Where do we?
Speaker 1stand with everybody ahead of myself. No, you're good, you brought it up.
Speaker 2You brought two segments into one. But no, listen, this is where we are, uh, with everybody else. So our net rankings again, this is put out by the ncaa. This is what they use to help determine which teams make the tournament. That's why I place more value on the net ranking than any other ranking, especially the AP poll, which is just a bunch of journalists picking who they think they like. The net rankings put out by the committee. Here we go. We have a net ranking of 40 right now. That's not bad. That's not all that bad. I'll just say we have no loss outside.
Speaker 1We played a lot of good teams this year we.
Speaker 2So we have, we have one of the toughest schedules in college. That is one thing. Our non-conference um strength of schedule. There's not a team out there that you know has a tougher non-conference strength of schedule than we do. There's some people that you know, maybe just a. We played some tough teams and we did not duck anybody. So we have no losses outside of Quad 2. Now that Quad 2 loss was against Stanford and that was a heartbreaker at home and a lot of people got a little upset about that one. But listen, when it's all said and done, we don't have a Quad 3 loss or a Quad 4, so that's a positive and we would like to start racking up some of these wins. So our only quad one win, which were one and seven in quad one, happens to come against UCLA on the neutral court in Madison Square Garden. But that's where we rank. We're 40th in the net ranking compared to every other D1 team out there.
ACC Tournament Outlook
Speaker 2Now we'll look at the ACC standings. We are tied. We're in a three-way tie for fifth place with SMU and Stanford right now. So the teams ahead of us obviously Duke's number one, clemson's two, louisville's three and Wake Forest is four. Wake Forest has had a pretty good year. They're a little bit of a surprise team, obviously. The turnaround from Louisville and what Pat Kelsey is doing is unbelievable. I think those two teams have definitely been a pretty good surprise. But Clemson is a very quality opponent. When I look at the ACC right now, I would say Duke and Clemson are the two strongest teams right now. Also, clemson, the N Sheflin kid, the Chase Hunter kid. They have some guys who have some experience and they have a team that has experience in the tournament and they're a veteran team. So you would expect that from them this year.
Speaker 2So right now we are coming up on the toughest part of our conference schedule we have. So we right now our next four games lined up at Pitt. Obviously, by the time this hits the airways, that will be already resolved. But after that we're at Duke and then we have Pitt at home and then we're at Clemson. But after that we're at Duke and then we had Pitt at home and then we're at Clemson.
Speaker 2So we could really make up some ground and we could really get off and get some momentum behind us and win some big-time ball games, or we could just, you know, having to figure it out after we take some bad Ls. So I would say, after these next four games, it's going to be a huge determining factor kind of the direction that this team's going to be a huge determining factor, kind of the direction that this team's going to head later on down in the year. Because if we get some of these wins right now at Clemson, in particular, at Duke as well, that would be very exciting. I think that would turn a lot of people's feelings into, you know, into a little bit of excitement, give everybody and all of us a little bit of hope and, uh, yeah, sleep.
Speaker 1So that's the state of uh affairs and that's where we stand right now uh, against everybody, and and where we uh look in the conference standings yes, I mean look I think, given where we started and given where we're at, yes, I mean, look, I think, given where we started and given where we're at, we're still alive, right, I mean, we've had our, we've taken our damn lumps this year. We haven't looked great, let's just call it what it is, but you still got to think that you've gotten this far and you're still alive, with RJ shooting less than 40 percent from the field, right, like a lot of pieces sort of not really, um, playing as big a role as we thought they would, right. So, look, I mean, you start, you're starting to see the rotation tighten. That's something that we had talked about, um, you know, several pods ago. And, look, all all that you got to do is get it together in march, you know, but you got to get there first.
Speaker 1I think, look, I always want to beat Duke. Everything goes out the window when these two teams play, regardless of who's good, who's bad. If one team's good and the other team's not, whatever Turns everything on its head. But aside from that, my question and relative to the state of the team and we'll talk about Duke here in a second is the remaining games that we have. Otherwise, there, you know, we got at, I mean, dude, four of our next five games on the road, including the Pitt game tonight at Pitt, at Duke, back home, against Pitt at Clemson, at Syracuse. You got stayed at home. Not going to be easy.
Speaker 1So my question to you is and I don't know these other teams, even though they're in the ACC as well as you do I mean, how much room do we have? How much room do we have to? We can't expect this team to win out and, honestly, like, if you're just looking flat out on paper, you really need a win against Duke. That would really help your case, right? But like, let's just play the odds here and what the odds makers are going to call it. Odds makers are going to say you're going to lose those two games flat out. Again. This is me just like I hate Duke. I want to win both of them and I think we can Don't crucify me over this Say you drop both to Duke. Do we have any? Do we have any? Do we have to win the rest of them to make the tournament?
Speaker 2wow. Well, you get into a scenario kind of I'm not saying we're much better than what nc state was last year, but nc state went on that tournament right. I mean you can go and you walk into the ACC tournament, kind of limping, and then you know, start sprinting when that thing's all done, kind of like NC State, and I even hate comparing us to State. It's just disgusting. But I'll say this Sleep, you know, I'll say this. I remember when a lot of Tar Heel fans were a little nervous before we played Duke at the Final Four, when they had that good squad I think they had Zion or whatever Caleb Love hit that historic shot. You know this isn't the first time we've seen Duke and we've kind of had our backs against the wall.
Speaker 2It looks like we're facing a Goliath. You know what pops in my mind is my freshman year. They smacked us really bad in the D-Dome and the last game of the year was at Cameron and it was JJ and Sheldon's senior night and they were the top team in the country. And you know we weren't as talented. But you know we fought hard and we walked in there and you know we won and I don't care what anybody says. You know, whatever you know the media has hyped Duke up to. I just can't believe it. I mean I just want to put them in the Hall of Fame right now. Just put them in Springfield, and that's not a knock to them. You know they're very beatable and they are a very young team.
Speaker 2I've watched the two games that they've lost Kansas and Kentucky. They did not execute down the stretch. They relied on Cooper Flagg in isolation too much late in the game and, in my opinion, ignored a lot of their weapons and Con Canipple, mally Watch. They just stood there and kind of watched Cooper, just expecting him to win the game. Now Cooper Flagg is the best player in college right now in my opinion and he's playing unbelievable and from a resume standpoint, duke is a team you want to. I mean you want to walk into Cameron and smack Duke. I don't care what their rank is, I mean their net ranking is three. They're at the top of the ACC rankings. They're 10-0 in conference play, haven't lost.
Speaker 2Now. They've been played very close at Wake Forest and also NC State went in the camera another night, played them pretty close, a lot closer than a lot of people anticipated, and I watched both games. I watched the game at Wake and of course they protected the court after the game. Like you know there was going to. You know every president former president was going to be there. The security was unbelievable. Never seen that. But you know, especially after you know last year. You remember a kid, almost you know he got hurt in that court storm in.
Speaker 2Wake Forest, but they took care of business at Wake, took care of business against.
Speaker 1NC.
North Carolina Basketball Season Outlook
Speaker 2State. I know, and I'm looking forward to this game took care of business, business against nc state. Uh and uh, I'm looking forward to this game and I would love for us to do it. Uh, just because it would be so unexpected. And I'll say this this isn't the first time that we've uh unexpectedly beat duke when everybody else thought we were going to lose handily.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, my personal opinion is gosh like. I feel like you got to win one, because I just you know we were talking about this before you know the ACC this year, at least in the eyes of the committee or the scheduling or whatever is down a little bit right. But if you finish fourth with a win against Duke and again, this is a lot of season left to play right, so all this stuff is just theory at this point. But if you finish fourth, I feel like I feel like you're in. If you finish fourth in the ACC, it's hard for me to believe that four teams in the ACC aren't going to make the tournament, regardless of how the rest of the season shakes out. You can say what you want about the teams in the tournament. I really have a hard time thinking that if you're fifth you're going to get in this year and you're definitely not going to get in if you don't have a win. And that's the thing I think.
Speaker 1We played a lot of people forget, man. We played Kansas to the ropes. We've played a lot of good teams, a lot of good teams. And this is the other thing. I asked you this we played Memphis and that exhibition game. Memphis good team, oh yeah, we beat them, but it doesn't count, you know. And my question to you then was you think the committee was like, hey, man, look, if you got us versus somebody else? I mean, I know it's not supposed to count, but do they have that in the back? That game is so long gone now that that question has answered itself, regardless of whether or not it's viable. But I just feel like, if I'm Carolina, you've got to dig somewhere. You've got to dig somewhere deep and win one of these games and you win both of them. It changes everything, right? Oh yeah, it's a statement, but you've got to think that we're going to drop this team, has you know? Yeah, I mean, look this team's gritty. If nothing else, I think they're doing as much as they can with what they have and I think the landscape of college basketball is just a lot different now. I think people get angry when our team is not a blue chip title contender. I think, frankly, you're going to start seeing that on. You know, you're going to see that. See, start seeing that a lot become a lot more common.
Speaker 1Um, you know, as kids get paid to go elsewhere, it doesn't seem like. Is there still a concentration of power. Right, kansas, kentucky, like all these teams, are still good this year, right, but what's going to? I mean, I don't think people realize just how few people players it takes in a situation like this kid from Utah going to BYU. Right, there's only so many of those guys and I get the one and done issue. Okay, fine, One and done guys can go, but there's also a top 100. You know, there's like a top whatever 200, 300 players and when you start getting outside of you know the top five guys.
Speaker 1You know everybody at this point on McDonald's All-American is going. They're going to follow the money, and why wouldn't they? Right? So I just think that, like, as a Carolina fan, you gotta be realistic, and as a Carolina program, you gotta be realistic. And and and we haven't talked much because frankly I don't follow recruiting at all, cause who knows that? The who knows where kids are going to be when they actually recruit or when they actually commit, and then these whole like little song and dance things about where they're going. But this kid, caleb Wilson, that we got, you know, I mean that's a big get for sure. So it's, it's signals that the program is is at least starting to pay attention to what it's going to require. No idea what this kid's getting paid, if he's getting paid or if he just loves Carolina that much.
Speaker 1But I've said it before, you're not just going to be able to get by anymore forever on the legacy of the program at Carolina or anywhere else, and I think honestly, the reason Duke has what it has, the reason they're landing guys like Cooper Flagg, is because their legacy really is more recent. If you really think about Carolina's legacy, I get Dean Smith, which is the start of it, and Roy and the championships. But dude, michael Jordan is a cornerstone and time is catching up. Man Kids, don't look at Michael Jordan the way I did when I was a kid and I think that's just reality.
Speaker 1Anyway, I'm rambling on and on because the question was about Duke and did we need to win? Somehow I went off into this tangent, but my point is I think we need to win one of those games. It's going to be very hard to look at just the evidence and think that we're going to run the table. So yeah, I think we're going to need that Duke win, because we're probably going to win out. We're going to need another one to make a compelling case Anyway.
Speaker 2Well, it would be nice, and I'll say this Sleep. What I think we need to do is we need to walk over to Cameron on Saturday and then get that win and then worry about beating Duke at home when it comes. That time it's a good idea.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah, it's a great idea.
Speaker 2Yeah, I would love that, Couldn't have said it better myself and Sleep.
Speaker 2The other thing is, guys, carolina fans, let's calm down just a little. We were a number one seed last year. Okay, don't forget about that. We were a hell of a team last year.
Speaker 2Uh, listen, uh, we have two young kids in in Drake who continue to get better. Who's to say that they're not gonna even improve even more than what they have this year? Uh, in the later half of the season, when they're getting more minutes and their confidence is going up, uh, I've always said that we're going to be a different team. I, you know, I'm not. I'm not throwing in the cards. Yeah, if we lose both of them, so what? We'll go into the tournament. We'll try to win that thing.
Speaker 2Uh, clemson we got an opportunity at Clemson to get a dub. That would be a big one as well. That would be a quad one win. That would look good on the resume. Clemson's tournament team. Um, but uh, yeah, we've got a fight and we can't get sorry about not having a great year. I mean, there's a lot of ball to be played and UCLA went to the tournament a few years ago as a play-in team and ended up in the Final Four, so they had a pretty good ending to the year. There's a lot of ball to be played, so let's support this team right now and let's see if we can't get some momentum. I hope we get a win tonight at Pitt, just because there's been some smack talk in the past with that one. But that would feel good and I would love to walk into Cameron and say you know we'd be celebrating that one.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, that'd be quite an accomplishment. So, yeah, I mean, I think, look, you hit it on the head. I picked it up then. By the way, guys, hopefully there's no um. It's lagging pretty badly as we're recording this, but I think it's just coming through fine, um, uh.
Speaker 1But one thing I did catch, you know you mentioned, was um, you know, supporting the team, right, and not to get all sentimental and stuff, but like literally, uh, there's, there's some fair weather out there, right, and it's easy to get frustrated, right, and that sort of thing. But your point is, is what I mean, look at what NC state did last year and and and and, like your point about UCLA, and like, just get to the tournament, right, figure it out then. And, uh, you know, I think there's um, there's a story to be written here. If, if, uh, you know, we can just put our head down and grind through it.
Speaker 1It's been a tough season, I think, by the standards of carolina and of this team and rj, and, and you just got to get there and if it clicks at the right time in college basketball, man, that's all it takes. So I'm with you 100%. Just take care of business, just walk in there and get a W, and walk in there tonight and get one, so we don't all real look like idiots, please. But then we'll kind of go from there. So you know, big Hawk, I was going to get into into the playoffs, but given the fact that we're having these technical issues, you know, I'll just say this is a great run for the commanders. Dude, what a season, even even got big hawk on our side. I mean, at the beginning of the year big hog didn't want nothing to do with the commanders. Yeah, now he's a. I think he's a fan of the guys.
Speaker 2I don't know, I'm not jumping. I mean I just uh, I've laughed at the commander fans for so long. I just can't. I mean I'm happy for you guys because, listen, you guys have been through it. You guys have been through it and, uh, blue expectations out the water and, uh, I knew it wasn't getting to get into the Super Bowl like a lot of people thought. But you know what? Congrats Lee.
Speaker 1I'm happy for you. You don't have any. Yeah, dude, one game away, one game away from the Super Bowl, dude, and I'll tell you what that game I mean, dude, we wound up losing by boatload, but it was a close game until I mean it was. It was a. Let's see, it was close Cause it did look kind of lops. It wasn't as lopsided as the score indicated, but there was just no doubt.
Speaker 1Philly is just better team, a hundred percent better team, some kind of iffy calls, but I don't think Philly is kind of. You know, I don't think Philly was going to intentionally get calls over Washington in that scenario. So you know, you kind of I think everybody was predominantly cheering for Washington and cheering for the Bills, and what do we get? But here's, here's what I'm going to leave you with. Okay, this is my Jimmy's famous seafood call of the year. Okay, we owe this to Jimmy's because this is been a while since we did a podcast.
Speaker 1But I'm telling you, this is the call that no one has made and I can't believe it. Kansas City is going to win the Super Bowl and Travis Kelsey is going to propose to Taylor Swift on the damn stage after it's over, no, and the whole world is going to spiral out of control because you're going to counteract Donald Trump with Taylor Swift and then you're going to put it in a bottle and shake it up. And I'm telling you guys, super Bowl Monday, the world might not even the Big Bang 2 might happen. Sleep, I hope.
Speaker 2I'm telling you I hope. Tell me, it's not true I did not want to see a proposal. I tuned into a football game. I want to watch football. I don't. No, I can't. I hope not. I hope not. I mean, I had to watch Dan Campbell. It's going to happen.
Speaker 1Get ready for it.
Speaker 2Wipe his tears for you. I can't do it.
Speaker 1It's going to be civil war. It's going to be civil war. And everybody thought the civil war was going to come from politics and it's not. It's going to come from the Swifties versus the people that don't want to see it. And I'm telling you, man, look, I'm in for a good love story, but I swear to you, dude, that's what's going to happen. Mark my words, it's going to happen. I hope everybody waited until the end of this podcast, because it will happen.
Speaker 1I hope not, tell me. Tell me you've ever heard of greater. This is Nostradamus right here. So anyway, that's the Jimmy Sane of seafood. Down and dirty the salt water, the tea.
Speaker 2The damn drawn butter. You heard it here first, baby. Uh, right here on sleephawk worldwide back better than ever. You got anything else? Big hawk, stay safe, thank you.