Bubble Coach is Good Enough For NC State

General Media NCS Basketball93

Tom Sorensen from the Charlotte Observer in today’s article:

We hear about bubble teams. N.C. State’s Herb Sendek is a bubble coach.

He’s too good to fire but he’s not good enough to fire up fans.

He has a winning record but he can’t beat Duke or North Carolina.

He always gets to the NCAA tournament but he never competes for the championship.

The best word to describe his work is solid. His seasons at N.C. State have been devoid of scandal. He is a solid citizen. He does a solid job.

Question: What happens to solid coaches at North Carolina and Duke?

Answer: Ask North Carolina’s Matt Doherty and Duke’s Pete Gaudet.

Sorensen’s piece goes on to talk about how tough it is to be at NC State and compete with Carolina and Duke…yada…yada…yada. All the same ridiculous crap that you’ve heard before. As if we play Carolina and Duke every game and as if no other school in the country has to get by Carolina and Duke in the NCAA Tournament. (More on this later).

The problem with all of this “Carolina & Duke” stuff is that it is wrong. NC State DOESN’T have to compete with Carolina & Duke. Can’t you tell? The losers in our athletics administration and at the University DON’T feel that they have to compete with Carolina and Duke and they prove it over and over and over again every single day and in every single (not) decision that they are cowardly to make.

The media talks about competing with Carolina and Duke. The fans talk about competing with Carolina and Duke. But, the only time Lee Fowler and folks at NC State talk about competing with Carolina and Duke is when they are making another excuse for why their version of NC State can’t succeed.

As Lee Fowler so eloquently stated last year,

“Our fans are comparing ourselves to Duke and North Carolina. Every program in the country doesn’t do well when you’re compared with those two on a day-to-day basis. I understand that our fans want to be able to compete with them; we all do. But you can be real good on a daily basis and not be better than those two programs.�

Don’t you get it…NC State can be “real good” without competing with Carolina and Duke. Here’s a question — are we? Are we “real good”? I guess only Lee Fowler can answer that since only Lee Fowler knows the definitions of such immeasurable terms. But, this year’s performance didn’t at all match Fowler’s preseason expectations.

If this is the way that NC State wants to run its Athletics Department and the University, then that is great. Unfortunately…that is not what was told to all of the thousands of NC State fans who the Wolfpack Club solicitied for millions of dollars over the last 15 years. For 15 years…all we have heard is how we have to have these great facilities to compete with the best. We have to have these great facilities to be the best. Suddenly, we are told and we run our program in a completely different manner than we were marketed. It’s called bait & switch. And, you and I are called suckers.

Today, we have a coach that has been given a DECADE of opportunity to succeed. We have a coach that has had the nation’s top college basketball arena at his disposal and has recently added one of the top practice facilities in the country. With those resources, this coach has succeeded in destroying the NC State fanbase’s sense of community in route to compiling:

* The second worst record of performance in the history of the NC State program

* performance that clearly ranks him ahead of a ONE of the 17 coaches in ACC history that have been provided the honor to coach for a decade or longer in the ACC.

Folks…it is as good as it is going to get.

This is obviously as good as the administration wants to aim. You need to know this. You need to realize this. And, you need to stop acting like everyone else in the world has your historical perspective and has your standards of success. The administration doesn’t care about having a championship-caliber program. They never address the topic and at this point, if someone from NC State would dare make such a claim then you need to move away quickly before the lightening strikes them. So, why should we care?

When you finally accept the truth…perhaps you can a chuckle at the University that is currently raising over a billion dollars in what they call the “Achieve!!” campaign so that NC State can compete with higher ranked universities. Gee…where have I heard that before?

I think that they should rename it “Solid!!!”

General Media NCS Basketball

93 Responses to Bubble Coach is Good Enough For NC State

  1. MrTnNC 03/22/2006 at 3:18 PM #

    “The players are beginning to buy into Herb’s system. Why break their relationship with there coach?”

    I’d say the last six games were proof-positive that they’d bought it, chewed it, swallowed it, internally processed it, and deposited the results on the court.

    (NOTE: For that I certainly do not blame the players . . . I give full credit to a system that resulted in 40% of the shots during that stretch being 3-pointers, less than 27% of which hit the mark, and a deficit of almost 5 offensive rebounds per game.)

  2. DCM 03/22/2006 at 3:21 PM #

    Scott, you look at the list and tell me who would do better.

  3. Mike 03/22/2006 at 3:23 PM #

    DCM, what are you smoking? Herb’s record over the last 5 years is built on playing teams in the bottom of the RPI. Looks like you are in the WTNY mentality, which we have been on for 10 years now. We say the same thing every year.

    You did mention UConn. How did UConn become a national power? Time escapes me right now, but it is only about 15 years ago that UConn emerged from nowhere. They have been successful, but they have (or had) nowhere near the tradition that NC State had. Calhoun has built them into a contender every year. Sometimes they stumble, but they are a national title contneder every year.

    We cannot and will not get there under the current regime. If Calhoun can build that at UConn, we should be able to find a guy to do it here.

    You also mention Costner. Costner would not have played had he been healthy. Simmons did not play as a freshman, nor did Fells. Herb does not play freshman, never has, never will. Thats part of the reason we do not get the top kids, they know they will sit. They go where they are promised PT right away.

  4. DCM 03/22/2006 at 3:35 PM #

    Herb doesnt play freshman.

    Julius freaking Hodge.

    The true statement there is that Herb doesnt play freshman that do not play defense. And I liked Fells as much as everyone else the last two games. But look at his line from the Texas game:

    13 mins. 4 pts…..3 FOULS! He took himself out of that game. Costner would have played. No one can prove it. Nor can they prove the opposite. He is a talented kid. Complete game. Im looking forward to next year with him and Ced healthy.

  5. Mike 03/22/2006 at 3:49 PM #

    Freshman have to learn to play defense. Agreed Herb does not play them because they need to learn. Ask anyone though………a game is totally different than practice. Put them in in the early games against the local high schools we play and let them learn. Put the kids in against some of these teams and make an INVESTMENT in the future. Every two weeks I put money in my 401K that I would sure like to spend (though not with the WPC) but I am investing for the future. I have to do that to reap my benefits later.

    “Julius freaking Hodge” is going to refute my point about Herb not playing freshmen? First JH is proably the exception, and you can always find one exception to every rule. Second, if you want to bring up Hodge, he was the #1 player in the country coming to NCState, and he never developed. True, it happens with some kids that they never pan out. But when Hodge says he learned more in a couple weeks of Nuggets camp than he leanred in 4 years in Raleigh…………..enough said.

  6. RAW 03/22/2006 at 4:08 PM #

    When did Hodge say that?

  7. wopacker1980 03/22/2006 at 4:14 PM #

    Packman said yesterday that Herb is 5-17 against UNX while V was 6-16 against them. Well that ignores two obvious facts (which Packman and Sorenson chose to continue to ignore):
    1) Herb won 4 of those 5 in the two worst seasons in UNX hoops history. That means he has won 1 game in 8 seasons (if you take those two bad UNX seasons out).
    2) Valvano did not beat UNX in his first two seasons. That means he had 6 wins over 8 seasons which happened to be arguably Dean Smith best years.

    I think the Pack fans would be happy if Herb could get a win a year over the hells.

    Plus many forget that Valvano owned Coach K. I don’t know the stats off-hand but we matched up well with Duke during the ’80’s.
    Herb? He’s had 3 wins in 10 seasons against Duke.

  8. Mike 03/22/2006 at 4:16 PM #

    RAW, Hodge said that when he was being sent down ie cut from the Nuggets. I read it in the N&O but many posters here have reiterated the point as well.

  9. VaWolf82 03/22/2006 at 4:18 PM #

    Wilkins, Hodge, Evitimov, Powell, and Atsur all played significant minutes as freshmen. All three freshmen last year saw some minutes as well.

    There are plenty of reasons to complain about Herb’s results. The ground is alot less firm when you start arguing personnel decisions. He sees them at every practice from October on. I’m happy to let him make the decisions he was hired to make….I just wish that someone would raise Herb’s performance requirements.

  10. boo man group 03/22/2006 at 4:52 PM #

    My one wish of Herb would be to scrap the offense and play that more up tempo/press style we did against Texas with Fells and Grant in the game. then magically Herb stopped sniffing the glue and we went back to jacking ill advised 3’s in the second half. If the guy learned under Patino, why not pay Patino ball? Fast, up tempo, pressing. We’d get the more athletic recruits. I know he did this Offense when he came in because the talent pool warranted a slower style of crap. We have better players, but it’s still crap to watch.

  11. James 03/22/2006 at 5:01 PM #

    We all need to face the fact that Carolina and Duke will always be better than we are at basketball and move on.

  12. GAWolf 03/22/2006 at 5:10 PM #

    VAWolf… the problem I have with the decisions he makes with his personnel is that it sure seems that all of the players you listed… “Wilkins, Hodge, Evitimov, Powell, and Atsur” played better as Freshmen as they did as Seniors… if they even got to be seniors.

  13. VaWolf82 03/22/2006 at 6:21 PM #

    Maybe Nova, Washington, and UConn are the only programs that could go head to head with the current Duke – UNC tandem, and finish better than 3rd in the ACC.

    What BS. By my count, 15 different teams have made the Final Four over the last four years. Only Kansas made more than one appearance. Two ACC teams besides UNC and Duke also made Final Four appearances.

    So there have been plenty of teams that could have competed with Duke and UNC….but State surely isn’t one of them.

  14. Frank 03/22/2006 at 8:54 PM #

    Historical data on the NCSU basketball program.

    In all time wins and winning % according to the NCAA, NCSU ranks in the top 25 in wins, top 20 in winning % and average wins per season. In the ACC NCSU ranks #3 in NCAA Titles, ACC Regular Season Titles, ACC Tournament Titles, Wins and winning %. In the ACC they trail only UNC and Duke, also they have a winning records vs all other teams in the ACC except UNC and Duke. These are fairly impressive #’s when you consider how terrible they were in the 1990’s. So if anyone ask what do fans expect the argument can be made that the standards over time have been fairly high.
    In regards to Sendek he needs to lighten up some, a little personality and passion can sure help in times of some adversity, I am tired of the phrase “chopping wood”. When coaches accept the large salaries they know that part of the job is to install hope, excitement and passion into the program and in this part he has been terrible, sometimes winning is not enough. People say that D Smith was very similar but he won a heck of a lot of games and after 10 years he had UNC as one of the top programs in the nation, not meandering around the middle of the ACC.

  15. Dana'81 03/22/2006 at 9:58 PM #

    That Lee Fowler reminds me of Dubya’s spin doctors. They ignore the wishes of the people and continue to pursue bad policy.

    Hit ’em in the wallet. That’s the only way to get their attention.

  16. colby 03/23/2006 at 1:05 AM #

    For the HSSS’ers who are undoubtably going to their #1 man back for as long as he wants to stay. I can’t take credit but someone once said:

    “As far as the consecutive trips to the NCAA goes, sometimes it’s better to just go on home early before you totally embarrass your conference, school, and all the fans, by being in the national spotlight, and while taking away the spot of a more deserving team, then to show up looking like a group of pre-programed robots with no hope of winning a competitive game.

    To continually showcase the coach’s inept ability to fall far short of all expectations and his player’s abilities, while under the microscope of national sporting events such as the ACC and NCAA tournaments, is nothing but damaging for the future. Get off the radar screen as fast as you can, take your licks and go on home.”

  17. class of '74 03/23/2006 at 6:55 AM #

    Herb’s obstinance will be his downfall and next season do not be surprised if things other than epithets are tossed his way in the RBC. This is shaping up as a holy war between the two factions. Stir into that mix the football situation and you have a tinderbox that just awaits the right spark. We may witness a few WWF type moments with our basketball coach and fans. Stay tuned.

  18. choppack 03/23/2006 at 9:12 AM #

    class of ’74 – I agree w/ you 100% on those statements. Both programs better start strong or it will be uglier than it’s ever been around here.

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