Luke DeCock
@LukeDeCock
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News & Observer sports columnist | USBWA past president | he/him 🇺🇦 | | Shadowboxing the apocalypse, wandering the land
News & Observer, Raleigh, NC
Joined February 2010
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Pinned Tweet
Did he ever get his furniture?
Wait a second Willie Parker is here and he’s not wearing his high school gear.
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Caught up with a very emotional Roy Williams in the stands, mid-celebration: “It’s perhaps, for me, the greatest moment in my basketball career. I’ve never had any more faith and love for one man and to think that he’s just won it -- he’s been better than I ever was, right now.”
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2020 playoffs: Rod Brind'Amour fined $25,000 for complaining about referee Francis Charron
2021 playoffs: Bruce Cassidy fined $25,000 for complaining about referee Francis Charron
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The striking thing about this photo in particular, other than TVR’s hops: Every visible seat is occupied (1) and they’re still occupied after the end of a 5-1 game (2).
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NC State players, yelling after advancing themselves on the big bracket in the hallway: "Two more!"
I happened to be standing with Kevin Keatts. "You want to tell them they need three more?"
"They'll figure it out," he said. "One more is all they need to worry about right now."
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Dave Doeren had a surprise for the State fans: a “Light it Red” t-shirt under his pullover.
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Walking back to hotel, saw a Gonzaga player reunite with his family for the first time in months outside the NCAA’s deisgnated postgame meet-and-greet spot.
A heartrending reminder of the sacrifices everyone made to get to the end of this season. The players especially.
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Don’t get caught up in the Zion/ticket price stuff. Ticket broker sent out release saying cheapest ticket was $2,600. Wow! Asked what it was last year. Answer: $2,581. UNC at Cameron is expensive no matter who’s playing. (Credit to
@TickPick
for being honest about their data.)
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UConn 91, NC State 87.
The Wolfpack finally ran out of comebacks.
Best game of March, any gender.
A shame a No. 1 seed has to play a road game against the biggest fan base in the sport. With such fine margins in this one, it mattered.
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MRI confirms Max Pacioretty tore his right Achilles tendon, two weeks after returning to action after suffering the same injury in August.
Just a brutal turn of events.
Looks like Max Pacioretty ended up having the MRI on his right Achilles today after all, per source, after doctors earlier wanted to push it back to Monday. No word yet on any results. Obviously a very fluid situation. Story will be updated shortly.
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Enjoy the fall weather. Get a new hobby. Adopt a pet. Live a little. Whatever. With apologies to Frankie Luvu and Johnny Hekker, these unwatchable Panthers are no longer worth your time.
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Find a state where your governor tweets this about his own rival school
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Jim Larranaga: “I listened to Charles Barkley tell the CBS crew if Auburn won he would take off his shirt. I thought to myself, no one wants to see that, Chuck.”
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Per Bacot:
Bad practice Monday, halted halfway through
Bad shootaround Tuesday morning
Showed up late for warmups Tuesday night
"We're a great team but we're not talented enough to turn it on and off whenever we want to"
After losing to Clemson here, Armando Bacot and Harrison Ingram say in the postgame that the ominous warning signs for UNC included several players showing up late to pregame warmups today.
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DJ Horne's favorite text or call since winning the ACC title came from his former Arizona State coach, Bobby Hurley, famous around here for other reasons:
"Thanks for beating those Tar Holes."
(Horne apologizes to anyone he hasn't had a chance to reply to yet.)
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NC State no longer has to live in the past. The new legends are here, now, among us. A basketball team that no one gave a chance won the ACC title of a lfetime.
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Kevin Keatts went to join Terquavion Smith at UNC Medical Center when the team returned to Raleigh. Leaky Black asked for Smith's number and NC State provided it.
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A furious Rod Brind'Amour says the officials wouldn't clarify the call on the ice, leaving him to flip a coin on what to challenge.
“This is why the league’s a joke, in my opinion, on these things,” Brind’Amour told the N&O. “That one is a crime scene.”
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NC State goes back to Pittsburgh, where it beat LSU (9) and Villanova (1) in 2015.
Wolfpack had a burly center that season.
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Duke lost twice to UNC including Senior Night in Cameron. Lost to NC State in the ACC tournament. Lost to NC State in the Elite 8. That's a particularly brutal 1-4 intra-Triangle record.
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Good morning. Not only are the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, they cut Alexander Semin his last check two weeks ago. Win-win.
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North Carolina Sports Association letter to NCGA: NCAA will remove all NC bids from consideration for 2018-22 without
#HB2
repeal.
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Good morning. Appalachian State is the highest-rated football team in North Carolina (and the Coastal Division!) and with Boise State’s loss last night is currently the front-runner for the G5 spot in the Cotton Bowl.
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Jaccob Slavin was walking around the dressing room afterward in a suit eating a slice of pizza.
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If you stand for nothing, what’ll you fall for?
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Svechnikov, full quote: “He did ask me first for fight, I am not superhero, ask first for fight. I said yes. Like I said, I just want to stand up for myself. He called me right after game, we talk a bit. I said sometimes happen, you never know.”
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I have some personal news to share: I'm excited to announce that I'm not joining The Athletic.
And I want to tell you why I'm staying at the N&O.
(thread)
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Hurricanes will buy out Marleau, Don Waddell said. Owe him his $3 million signing bonus now and $833,333 split over the next two years.
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Rod Brind’Amour on Jaccob Slavin: “He might be one of the best defensemen *ever,* the way he plays the position.”
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Hey look everyone Jim Boeheim finally stuck around until the final day of the ACC tournament.
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The tournament run of a lifetime. A 37-year lifetime.
NC State wins five games in five days, vanquishing both UNC (84-76) and Duke, for its first ACC title since 1987.
Turns out, the ACC does stock red confetti.
The Wolfpack is no longer living in the past. The legend is now.
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Good news heading into second round: John Forslund will call Hurricanes-Islanders for NBC. With Ed Olczyk and ex-Canes goalie Brian Boucher.
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Jordan Staal: “We turn our back for one minute…”
Seth Jarvis: “Let me be me!”
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Hurricanes have agreed to terms with free-agent defenseman Calvin de Haan, per source. Four years, $18.2 million. Left-shot D completes top two pairings.
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Questioning John Forslund’s professionalism is like demanding to know why hockey is played on frozen water. You’re wasting your time with that.
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The Syracuse fans yelling "Let's go Orange!" during the moment of silence for Woody Durham was peak go-back-to-the-Big-East.
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Christian McCaffrey sounding the pregame warning siren. Surprised the Panthers would let him risk his rotator cuff doing this.
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The NHL would demand Rod Brind'Amour's firstborn if he pulled this.
It’s safe to say that Rick Bowness is unimpressed with the Stars loss
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Good for Edmonton. They haven't had a high draft pick in a while.
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Basketball aside, Joel Berry and Theo Pinson were two of the best college players with the media we've had around here in a long time. Open. Honest. Cooperative.
Ralston Turner. Marcus Paige. Matt Jones. Those two. That good.
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After the NC State loss, it seemed like Duke had a Jayson Tatum problem. Over the last month, the ACC has had a Jayson Tatum problem.
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Any Hurricanes fan who lived through 2010-19 will never take making the playoffs for granted. Even if it was inevitable this season, even it’s merely the beginning, it’s still worth celebrating.
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Latest on Svechnikov post-MRI: Not a worst-case scenario. Will be out for a while but could potentially return if Hurricanes advance to conference or Stanley Cup finals. Likely to remain in Toronto bubble at this point.
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Injury updates: Saku Maenalanen will have surgery for a hand injury, expected to miss 10-14 days. Trevor van Riemsdyk will have an MRI on his left shoulder Monday. Out indefinitely. Petr Mrazek considered day-to-day but Hurricanes likely to recall Alex Nedeljkovic from Charlotte.
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Believe the Hurricanes have a deal in place with Anaheim for Faulk. Anaheim is not listed among his 15 preapproved teams, so it’s in Faulk’s hands now. Hurricanes have had a longstanding interest in Ondrej Kase, would be surprised if he isn’t involved.
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The Hurricanes have now gone a full year since their last non-sellout (Feb. 21, 2023). Monday is their 48th in a row.
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The Hurricanes have the first two-goal lead of the entire NHL playoffs so far.
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The ACC’s 50-50 partner turned the ACC title game into a four-hour infomercial arguing *against* FSU’s inclusion.
The committee fell for a narrative perpetuated by the SEC and its toadies. (“One of these is not like the other.”) Not deliberately, perhaps, but it was in the air.
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Tack another year onto Kevin Keatts' contract for making the Sweet 16.
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Coming tomorrow: How Andrei Svechnikov became a mentor to a player 9 months his junior … and Pyotr Kochetkov speaks.
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It took Kevin Keatts five games for a signature win at N.C. State -- and its the biggest upset of the season so far: Wolfpack defeats No. 2 Arizona, 90-84. Up next: Northern Iowa-SMU winner.
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Antti Raanta on being the oldest of the Hurricanes’ Finnish contingent: “I have two kids at home. I guess I have three at the rink.”
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Sad news: Wally Tatomir, the Hurricanes’ equipment manager from 1994-2012 and with Jim Rutherford in junior hockey before that, passed away this morning at 76. He was a fixture of the team’s early years in NC and an innovator in the profession with two dozen patents.
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The NCAA couldn't just do the right thing. It had to attack UNC for its "behavior." But does anyone really believe Tez Walker would be eligible if UNC hadn't pushed back?
The NCAA tried to make an example of Walker. That gambit backfired, spectacularly.
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Auburn is 9-for-35 from 3 since the UNC game. Which every UNC fan expected and assumed.
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Your. Choices. Affect. Others. You. Do. Not. Live. In. A. Vacuum. Like. The. One. Apparently. In. Sam. Darnold’s. Head.
Get vaccinated. Stop new and more potent variants from emerging. Maybe save someone else’s life. Like brews at Delta house, don’t cost nothing.
Sam Darnold says he has not yet been vaccinated. "I still gotta think about all those certain things that go into it ... It's everyone's choice, whether they want to get vaccinated or not."
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Seven years ago in Houston, the greatest shot ever forgotten.
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Jarvis today on the two Sebastian Ahos:
“I like to think I work on my Finnish. The other Aho is Swedish so he doesn't understand like we do.”
Jordan Staal: “We turn our back for one minute…”
Seth Jarvis: “Let me be me!”
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After sleeping on it, yes, this angers me because both of these guys are friends whose work I respect. But I’m just as angry that there’s apparently no corporate appetite for sports radio with a brain.
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This was the kind of comeback people will talk about in five, 10, 20 years.
Miracle at Molson
Shock at the Rock
Category 5
The faces change, but the Hurricanes' capability for postseason drama never does.
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The people who complain about NIL ruining college sports are mostly the same as the “players don’t stick around like they used to” folks.
Bacot loves UNC, wants to leave it in a better place than if he left it now and get paid what he’s worth to do it. Win-win-win.
BREAKING: North Carolina big man Armando Bacot is returning to Chapel Hill for another season, he tells
@Stadium
.
“I’m using my last year of eligibility.” Bacot said. “I felt it was the right decision for my future.”
Bacot averaged 15.9 points and 10.4 boards.
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Elk, sauna, video games, food and family — Brent Burns has given the Hurricanes’ younger and foreign players the home they miss. Especially Seth Jarvis, a frequent guest who admits, “It probably means I need the most help.”
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Don't be stubborn. Don't hold grudges. Life really is too short. On my friend (and ECU fan) Busta, and the goodbye I never got to say.
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The NCAA is going to be furious about this. Especially because the Feds said "Player-10" instead of "Student-Athlete-10" in the affadavit.
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Martin Necas had a simple message for the fans who bailed — Rod Brind’Amour called it a “mass exodus” — with the Hurricanes down 4-2 and less than two minutes to go:
“Don't leave early,” Necas said. “It's like a movie."
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Hurricanes are the first team to win a playoff series in six straight seasons (counting 2020 preliminary round) since the 1995-2000 Red Wings.
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The Caulton Tudor Award goes to the Triangle’s most media-friendly player. NC State’s Jarkel Joiner earned it in only one season.
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Team was given 18,660 seats by NHL. Sold out in three hours. Hurricanes went back for more from league for a total of 30,000. Obviously still not enough to satisfy demand.
"The most tickets sold to any season-ticket base of any franchise," for an outdoor game, Waddell said.
Waddell said Canes' outdoor game allotment was sold out in three hours.
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UNC fans: We ruined K’s farewell season and made the title game with a first-year alum coach.
Two weeks later: An endless loop of Kris Jenkins’ shot as Jay Wright retires.
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Have confirmed with the Hurricanes’
@mike_brownie
that last night’s Orlov (Svechnikov, Kuznetsov) goal was the first all-Russian goal in franchise history.
Na zdorovie.
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Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon says he'll have a plan in place for PNC Arena part-time workers by Monday. "We'll do something," Dundon said.
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If you're an NC State AND Panthers fan, I assure you watchable offense exists out there, somewhere. But this hasn't been your 24 hours.
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The lesson here, again, is you can never count NC State out. Except in Winston-Salem.
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Today in Seth Jarvis’ world: “Look at my sick beard now. It’s awesome. … This is how it’s grown in. I hate that this is what’s going on but the goatee is all I’ve gotten so far.”
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I don’t normally get into ~rafters discourse~ because UNC can do whatever they want but I have one strong opinion on the subject:
Kennedy Meeks would have been MOP at the Final Four in 2017 if they’d waited longer to collect the ballots and he should be up there too.
This means that R.J. Davis will be the first UNC player to have his jersey in the Smith Center rafters since Joel Berry II and Justin Jackson off the 2017 title team.
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”I see regulars. My dog knows dogs on that trail. There’s dads every quarter mile. But, well, if there’s a kid with a gun, he’s got a killing field.”
Inescapable mood reading
@joshshaffer08
/
@skyoutbriout
:
This could be any of us.
This is all of us.
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William Harris grew up a Duke fan in Durham long before he spent his nights polishing Cameron to a fine shine.
Mike Krzyzewski is the only Duke coach he’s ever known. Saturday will be emotional for Cameron’s other caretaker, too.
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Looks 200 by 85 to me. Surely just a coincidence Gary Bettman is attending tonight’s Canes-Kings game.
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“Hello, I would like to donate to your scholarship fund to help deserving underprivileged students.”
“Sorry, we’re only accepting donations to buy our former football coach a new boat or to construct a pavillion for our confederate statue. Which option would you prefer? Hello?”
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Justin Faulk just found out Hamilton the Pig was not on the road for Game 1. “Nice to know it’s not just the pig. Some of the boys in the room get some credit, too.”
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John Forslund will call his first Hurricanes playoff game of this postseason for CNBC on Tuesday.
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Hurricanes are 5-1 in elimination games over the past *check notes* 16 years.
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Draft pick, roster player and prospect going to San Jose for Burns, per source.
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Someone’s going to have to explain this to me. Nobody tried harder to push local sports radio in new directions — with tremendous success — more than these guys.
Today was the last edition of “The OG” and the end of 13.5 years at The Fan.
@giglio_OG
and I did some really great stuff in just over 3 years of the show. Thanks for making us part of your routines.
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How far will Clemson fall in the polls after yet another narrow win?
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Carolina Hurricanes: one day, one game, one win.
Carolina Panthers: 31 days, five games, zero wins.
The Panthers had a five-week headstart and the Hurricanes still got there first.
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How thin are the Hurricanes stretched in goal? They're trying to sign Minnesota goalie Jack LaFontaine, a third-round pick in 2016, in the middle of the NCAA season.
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Raleigh cops escort a handful of Rangers fans from Section 330, to applause.
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Canes offered earlier second-rounder than Colorado for Grubauer and were willing to take Orpik's contract (not permanently, presumably, for obvious reasons) -- but Caps apparently wanted him out of the Southeas...er, Metro.
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Brett Pesce, who suffered a non-contact injury turning up the ice in his own end during Game 2 — officially “lower body” — is likely to miss the rest of this series, per source. Timeframe beyond that still unclear, looks like a couple weeks at the least.
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NC State, the ACC all-time leader in finding newer and more painful ways to lose. Absolutely gutwrenching.
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