• You could say that things in Raleigh hadn’t exactly gotten off to a good start for N.C. State basketball this season. You COULD say that. After losing five straight game — all ACC contests — the Wolfpack went on the road to Pitt Tuesday night, and thanks to 14 points from this guy…

…State scooped up their first conference win of the season, defeating Pitt 78-61. Cat Barber was ridiculous again: 31 points (14-14 from the charity stripe), eight assists and seven rebounds. State’s off now until a Saturday matchup against No. 20 Duke. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

• North Carolina hasn’t lost since waaaayyyy back on December 12th: when Javan Felix sank a jumper at the buzzer, giving Texas a two-point victory. And recently, the Tar Heels have looked pretty freaking awesome. According to KenPom, UNC ranks No. 2 in the nation in offensive efficiency: they’re scoring 123 points per 100 possessions, which is v good (Notre Dame and Duke rank No. 1 and No. 4, respectively, in this metric). Tonight, the Heels are home to visiting Wake Forest; the Demon Deacons are faced with the arduous task of trying to rebound from a 28-point thrashing to Syracuse by entering the Dean Dome and playing perhaps the best team in America. UNC — a 16.5-point favorite tonight — will look to go 6-0 in league play tonight, too.
• I mean, guys, Atlanta can’t be happy about this one. First, the Carolina Panthers win the NFC South three consecutive years; and now that very same team co-opted ATL’s beloved Waffle House. Don’t believe me, eh? Well, MAYBE YOU SHOULD READ THE FRIGGIN WALL STREET JOURNAL ONCE EVERY BLUE MOON. Because this week, the Panthers and their love of all things holy and delicious drew national headlines.

• The Charlotte Hornets will look to make it two straight tonight when they travel to OKC for a showdown with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the rest of the Thunder. These two teams met in Charlotte the first week of January; OKC won easily, and Wednesday night could be some of the same. The Thunder aren’t the Warriors or Spurs or maybe even the Cavs, but they’re in the next tier of title contenders. At times OKC’s defense has been shaky at times, especially with big man Enes Kanter on the floor, but on offense they’ve been predictably explosive: the Thunder possess the No. 2 offense in the NBA. Tip-off at 8 p.m.
• Everyone in North Carolina looks forward to this date: When Cameron Indoor Stadium hosts some of the best cagers in the Tar Heel State for a little game of basketball. No, I’m not talking UNC-Duke; instead, I’m talking about the 2016 Media Hoops Game, which is set for February 9th. I look forward to being embarrassingly out of shape with all of you!
• The Golden State Warriors finish up a three-game road trip tonight in the Windy City against former Buzz Williams favorite Jimmy Butler and the Bulls. Harrison Barnes, back from injury for two weeks, has just now rejoined the stating lineup for Golden State (pushing former Mount Zion product Brandon Rush back to the bench), and Steph Curry is still doing all kinds of awesome things. The Dubs are currently 38-4 on the season; this is insane.
• 
• There are three other ACC hoops games tonight, including two featuring top 25 teams: Virginia Tech at Notre Dame, No. 15 Miami at Boston College (look out, Eagles), and No. 17 Louisville hosting Florida State.
• SNOW!

 

• Duke hosted Syracuse last night with the Blue Devils having lost two in a row, the most recent an exciting back-and-forth with Notre Dame. Last night’s contest was horrifying by comparison, with neither team shooting the ball particularly well. Three-point shooting was a major factor, with Syracuse shooting 11-23 from 3 and Duke shooting a paltry 10-37. Syracuse also grabbed 26 offensive rebounds, which may lead to Coach K to do more performance art to illustrate rebounding technique in his press conferences.

 

• The ending of the game was not without some sort of controversy. With Duke trailing by 1, Greyson Allen missed a layup, and Duke missed another rebound. And then this happened:

Coach K was livid at the n0-call on the collision between Malachi Richardson and Matt Jones. So angry in fact that he zoomed through the handshake line

To dress down the ACC Officiating representative that was in attendance.

Adjust your hot takes accordingly.

• Also, there was another controversy that developed in the post-game locker room, with Matt Jones displaying bite marks on his hand:

However, video replay shows that bite probably didn’t happen there.

We can only speculate that the bite mark was actually punishment dished out for Matt Jones’ terrible 2-11 shooting night.

• With this loss, Duke has lost 3 consecutive games to unranked opponents and stands a good chance of moving out of the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2007. If Duke coaches, players, and fans need help on how to cope with this, look east to NC State who falls out of the AP Top 25 almost as soon as they enter it.

 

• Monday’s news was dominated once again by another angry letter-to-the-editor in the wake of a big Carolina Panthers’ win leading us to ask the question … has any one team ever made more people mad than Cam Newton’s Panthers? This time, it was a Vine of Newton being tossed a “12th Man” flag by a fan, and balling it up and throwing it on the ground on the way off of the field after Sunday’s win against the Seattle Seahawks that led someone named “Sarah” to pen an angry letter on the Facebook wall of a local Seattle radio station.

 

• Sarah writes “Seahawks fans aren’t just fans” and then goes on to write a bunch of garbage that demonstrates that Seahawks fans ARE just fans who get really angry about losing and need to write letters to make themselves feel better about cheering for an inferior team.

 

• The Charlotte Hornets defeated the Utah Jazz last night in double overtime 124-119. The big story of the night was Kemba Walker scoring a career-high and franchise-high 52 points. He also logged 9 rebounds and 8 eight assists, flirting with a triple-double. The 8 assists are most impressive, given his refusal to let any other teammate shoot the ball.

 

• NC State travels to Pitt (-8.5) tonight to lose to Jamie Dixon and the Panthers. NC State will cover, however, losing only by 7 points after being down by 18 early in the second half.

• ECU dropped their fourth straight, all conference games, losing to undefeated SMU 79-55. The Pirates were within 8 at the half, but could only muster 23 points after the break in front of a great crowd at Minges. The Mustangs are one of the best stories in all of college sports this season, fighting through the adversity of well-deserved NCAA sanctions after cheating their asses off. Okay maybe that’s not such a great story.
• Duke’s depth issues finally caught up with them in the form of foul trouble as the Blue Devils dropped a close one in Greenville against Clemson. Duke was up 8 with 10:30 to play when Marshall Plumlee joined Brandon Ingram with four fouls, but without enough bodies to play man-to-man defense or, more importantly, attack the basket without fear of offensive fouls, the Tigers surged ahead and never gave up the lead down the stretch. “What do you want us to do,” Coach K rhetorically asked after the game referring to Amile Jefferson’s injury and the apparently strict Nike budget cuts that must keep Sean Obi and Antonio Vrankovic from being issued uniforms.
• NC State’s comeback against Florida State fell short, losing their fourth straight ACC game to start the conference season. The Wolfpack trailed most of the game, but had yet another nice comeback at the end of the game to make things interesting. By “interesting”, I mean it’s interesting to imagine how excruciating it must be to be an NC State fan right now. They play at North Carolina on Saturday, so avoid Twitter accordingly.
• Continuing the trend, Wake Forest also lost last night on the road in Blacksburg. Senior guard Codi Miller-McIntyre had a chance to tie the game after being fouled while attempting a three-pointer with 1 second left. Of course, missing the first one took the drama out of the final two. Virginia Tech and Clemson are a combined 7-2 in the ACC, while Syracuse and Virginia are a combined 3-6. Perfectly normal.
• And if that wasn’t enough of NC catching a fat L on the basketball court last night, the Hornets lost t … wait, what???? The Hornets snapped a 7 game losing streak beating Atlanta behind Cody Zeller’s double-double. According to Hornets beat writer Rick Bonnell, MJ met with the team before the game, presumably to threaten fines for each “Crying Jordan” meme posted at the expense of the Hornets.
• The Hurricanes head out to play the Blues tonight, marking the first time in the two days that a pro franchise traveled TO St. Louis. Oh, by the way, the Canes are just two points out of a Wild Card spot (but giving away a couple of games-in-hand to Boston and Tampa). Carolina hasn’t lost yet during the 2nd half of the season, and if that trend continues, I like our chances.
• The deadline for college players to declare for the NBA draft has moved from April to May, after the NBA combine. This allows players to go work out for NBA teams, get feedback, and then base their early entry decision on actual feedback from NBA franchises. The move also allows ESPN to shift their coverage of Ben Simmons’ decision to a softer part of the annual sports calendar.
• The dead period for college football recruiting ends today as coaching staffs across the country head out to build for the future, but more importantly, to work to keep their 2016 class intact before next month’s signing day. Our recruiting analysts confirm that your team’s commits are all “high character guys” who “understand the meaning of commitment”, and also “would be totally fine if a better player decommitted from somewhere else and got the scholarship that was promised to them.”

Yeah, I know — it’s not 8 a.m. but it’s a Monday, so deal with it. You should be honored by our lateness:

• N.C. State went west along I-40 Sunday to face off against Wake Forest for like the one millionth time; Cat Barber played 40 minutes (he’s currently averaging 41.33 minutes per game in conference games right now, by the way) and scored 26 points, but the Wolfpack fall to the Deacs 77-74, which drops them to 0-3 in the ACC.

• On the other side of the coin, Danny Manning’s crew scoops up their first league win of 2016; once again, Devin Thomas was dominant: 20 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and a block. That’s three straight double-doubles for DT — two of which have been 20-10 performances. Beast.
• North Carolina welcomed Jim Boeheim back to basketball Saturday night, defeating Syracuse 84-73 at the Carrier Dome. UNC dropped 51 points after intermission, and Isaiah Hicks looked awesome again: 21 points on just five shots (all of which were two-point field goals). Seems efficient, no?

Good to have Jimmy B back, but gotta admit: I’m a little disappointed he didn’t finish that fire mixtape of his to go with this glorious piece of cover art while he had time off from coaching. Oh well. Streets will be watching, tho.

• Duke looked scary good offensively Saturday against Virginia Tech, especially during their 52 points first half performance. Marshall Plumlee had 21 points, Brandon Ingram blocked six shots and Derryck Thornton had seven assists as the Blue Devils cruised 82-58 over Tech.
• In attendance Saturday in Durham was none other than the head coach of your 15-1 Carolina Panthers, Ron Rivera, who went all Analytical Ron to help the replay officials in Cameron:

His appearance also produced this gem, too:

Coach K and Rivera apparently went over some blocking schemes following the game. This was an interesting meeting of the minds for Rivera, to be honest. Duke — under Coach K — is notorious for drawing charges, and avoiding block foul calls from the zebras. Hmmm.

• While good times were aplenty in Durham over the weekend, the same can’t be said about the Charlotte Hornets, who entered play Saturday against the Clippers riding a five-game losing streak. Well, after falling to Chris Paul and the Clips that afternoon, the Buzz got Nic Batum back for Sunday’s showdown in Denver, which the Nuggs won 95-92. Steve Clifford’s squad has dropped seven in a row now, including two recent L’s to two of the weaker Western Conference opponents: Phoenix and Denver. On the bright side, they did get to hang out in Denver for a day. Break out the headband(s), boys. Our friends at At The Hive can sum up my current mood in one excellent tweet:

• Poor Blair Walsh, you guys. But really. Seriously. That was painful to watch. With 26 second remaining, and the Vikings trailing by a mere point to the Seahawks, Walsh toed the line for a 27-yard chip shot field goal. However, the righty kicker hooked it wide left, and Seattle escaped with a 10-9 victory in arctic weather conditions.

Ugh, this is agonizing to watch. It also means that the Panthers — the NFC’s top seed — will have to play the sixth-seeded Seahawks; I’m sure Rodney Harrison is giddy with excitement.

• I’ll be honest — I didn’t watch one minute of this Green Bay-Washington game yesterday, which saw the Packers go to Landover and roll easily 35-18; I was too busy watching Leo DiCaprio get run over by bears in The Revenant, which, good god, was intense. Much more intense than this joke of a game. Also, never forget, y’all:

• Two dull stretches of play where Louisville played good defense and Cat Barber actually got tired did in the Wolfpack as NC State lost a tough one at home 77-72.

Look at this GameFlow chart. Just look at this stupid diagram. pic.twitter.com/JT0cFg5hDH

— Weather Moose (@WXMoose) January 8, 2016

• After a 90% free throw shooter missed both shots, NC State had the ball with 17 seconds down by just 3 points. Naturally, instead of running a play to get a good look at a three point shot, Cat Barber drove the lane looking for a foul with 10 seconds left and lost the ball out of bounds.

 

• NC State drops to 0-2 in the conference and 10-5 overall, and travels to Wake Forest on Sunday night for what is essentially an NCAA Elimination Game for both teams. Although both the Pack and the Deacs have beaten Ben Simmons, which should be a golden ticket to the Big Dance.

 

• On a positive note, last night’s game marked the return of Red Panda to ACC basketball.

Red Panda, the official Queen of Halftime, works her magic at Louisville-NCSU pic.twitter.com/favOid506z

— SportsChannel8 (@SportsChannel8) January 8, 2016

• ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery made a strong hire by bringing in Hillside High School head coach Antonio King as the Pirates’ new running backs coach. The hire gives the Pirates an immediate pipeline to the high school ranks, and Duke and North Carolina will certainly push to have one of “their guys” take over for King in Durham. Meanwhile, Dave Doeren may want to float his own name as a candidate for Hillside to squeeze an extension out of Debbie Yow.

 

• Boston College lost to Notre Dame 82-54, dropping the Eagles to 0-2 in the ACC on the young season. Why do we care? Because not only could Boston College become the first ACC basketball team to go winless in the league, they went 0-8 in football too, setting up the dream double of going 0-26 in the same season.

 

• Blue Devil Lair reported yesterday that additional utilities work ahead of the switch from field turf to natural grass at Duke’s football practice facility could delay the completion of the project and force Duke to open fall camp inside the indoor practice facility. While the school responded confidently that the project would be finished in time, moving indoors would allow Duke to get an early start on Peach Bowl preparations … the semi-final site for the 2016-17 College Football Playoff.

 

• Former Duke head coach Bill Foster passed away yesterday. In Foster’s six seasons at Duke, he led the Blue Devils to two ACC championships, three NCAA Tournaments, one Elite 8, and one National Championship appearance. The man who followed Foster, Mike Krzyzewski, was unavailable for comment, but his grandsons did respond via text to say “😥👍😈🙏👨‍👩‍👧‍👧” which roughly translates to “We are saddened to hear the news of his passing. He was a great Blue Devil. Our prayers go out to his family”.

• UNC women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell spoke to the Raleigh Sports Club yesterday and said that her program isn’t involved in any  NCAA allegations, leaning on the same party line that men’s basketball coach Roy Williams and football coach Larry Fedora have used over the past few months.

Sylvia Hatchell said later at the Raleigh Sports Club that she feels there are no allegations against the women’s basketball program.

— Andrew Carter (@_andrewcarter) January 6, 2016

•  The only problem for Coach Hatchell, her program has been established as the lone athletics connection to the academic scandal through academic advisor and alleged scandal architect Jan Boxill. UNC fans reacted to Hatchell’s comments in the same manner that most everyone else reacts to Williams and Fedora.

Um… https://t.co/jcdxuYhPUe

— Brian Barbour (@tarheelblog) January 6, 2016

• Duke beat Wake Forest in a bit of a surprise, turning a close game into a comfortable win where the Blue Devils nearly doubled the 8.5 point Las Vegas spread. The game broke open midway through the 2nd half when Wake wasn’t able to overcome Devin Thomas’ foul trouble while Duke managed to ride Marshall Plumlee, Brandon Ingram, and Luke Kennard while Grayson Allen and Matt Jones were saddled with four fouls each.
• The win meant a lot for Duke, who continues to fight through the loss of senior co-captain Amile Jefferson. It feels like many are ready to throw dirt over the 2016 Blue Devils, and last night set up to be the perfect opportunity to do just that. But somehow, Duke keeps managing to miraculously squeeze whatever they can get from their hall of fame coach and 7 All-Americans.
• Wake Forest drops to 0-2 in the conference in advance of a critical stretch starting this weekend in Raleigh against the NC State Wolfpack. There are no guarantees for the winner, but the loser is likely eliminated from the NCAA Tournament barring an automatic bid from an ACC championship. NC State takes on Louisville tonight in the battle of … okay, no, we’re not going there with the coaches.
• The Hornets lost again, but the good news is they snapped the Suns’ 9 game losing streak. I bet our owner is so sad. How sad? So sad we photoshopped Crying Jordan on his … oh, wait.

• The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired head coach Lovie Smith yesterday, the same day where the Saints announced that Sean Payton would remain in New Orleans. The vacant position in Tampa still ranks ahead of Payton in the NFC South coach power rankings.
• In shocking news, the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame still exists. Ken Griffey Jr. led the voting, but was not unanimous in order to keep with the idiotic tradition of not having a unanimous Hall of Famer. Sports fans who have countless boxes of old baseball cards stored in their mom’s attic would probably rank Griffey, Jr. as one of the most recognizable athletes in baseball history, but Hall of Fame voters remain skeptical while they play with their baseball cards in their mom’s basement.