2007.03.20_ Big Dose of Bytes

The last week or so has been very good for NC State. We’ve blogged a ton of items and hope that you will take some time to scroll through the blog and make sure that you haven’t missed anything that of interest. Just this weekend we had almost a dozen entries that looked forward and looked back.

Even though we have been quite busy, a lot of comments/observations have fallen through the cracks. The following are some quick bytes that haven’t been shared since the ACC Tournament:

* Much is being made about the ACC’s poor performance in the NCAA Tournament. Although I think the ACC was the most competitive and deepest conference in America (as highlighted by the RPI), the conference’s failure to advance more than one program into the sweet sixteen does not surprise me. We were very deep this season, but it was never a secret that we lacked the “star power” at the top of the league to advance a lot of teams deep into the tournament.

* Despite the league’s struggles this season, you can always turn to history boost the ego. Dave Glenn logged an entry focused on the ACC’s dominance of the modern tournament history that will make you feel better. Just a couple to wet your whistle:

The ACC’s all-time NCAA Tournament winning percentage (.674) is significantly better than any other conference. The Big East (.625) is second, the Big Ten (.621) third and the Pac-10 (.609) fourth. Nobody else is over 60 percent.

Since 1980, when the NCAA lifted its limits on the number of participants per conference, the ACC has had just one losing season in NCAA Tournament play (5-6 in 1987) and has a success rate over 66 percent. Again, nobody else is close.

Since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, the ACC has had 111 teams in the NCAA Tournament, about the same as the Big East (116). Yet the ACC has 221 wins in that span — 35 more than the Big East. The Big Ten has had 124 participants since 1985 yet has 42 fewer wins. The SEC, with 110 participants, has 61 fewer wins. The Pac-10 has less than half as many NCAA wins as the ACC in the modern era. Since the Big 12 formed in 1996, it trails the ACC 96-72.

The ACC has won three of the last six (50 percent) national championships, with three different teams — Duke in 2001, Maryland in 2002, and North Carolina in 2005. The league also has won six of the last 16 (37.5 percent) NCAA titles, and eight of the last 25 (32 percent).

* UNC-CH had to play ABOVE their normal game to beat us in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship. That’s a compliment, folks.

* The selection of Brendan Wright over Brandon Costner as the ACC Tournament’s MVP was ridiculous. I realize to the victor goes the spoils, except that I remember in 1983 when NC State won the NCAA title and yet Akeem was the Final 4 MVP. I guess only NC State gets a shaft like that.

* It was interesting to hear that many, many VT fans were pulling for UNC in the ACC. Tells you that they are indeed a newcomer and don’t understand basketball in their new league. I had heard that many VT folks were ‘VT football fans but UNC basketball fans’ – guess that was true.

* If I could have chosen the (non-Big Four) team for NC State to sweep this season then it would have been Virginia Tech. As I said in a comment on February 1st:

As likable as Seth Greenburg is, his propensity to publicly comment on NC State’s coaching situation (Herb Sendek) last year really rubbed me the wrong way. He talked A LOT on Fox Sports radio, etc about the situation in Raleigh and was too critical of Wolfpackers for my liking. IMHO, he would have been better served to have kept his mouth shut. In 2005, Greenberg defeated a deep and experienced Wolfpack coached Herb Sendek in their first battle in Cassell Coliseum. In 2007, Greenberg lost a thin and inexperienced Wolfpack team coached by Sidney Lowe. I guess I don’t blame him for loving Sendek so much.

* One of the biggest winners of the last two weeks has been Dennis Horner. The kid is making some clutch shots and is learning how to create his own shot more easily in the flow of the offense. Costner is a given, but Horner will be a critical role player over the next few years.

* The other big winner is obviously Sidney Lowe. Some are comparing Sid’s run to Herb’s in 1997 in believe that this will put some additional pressure on Sidney to produce better results more quickly. That may be true, but I also think that Sidney is more prepared to elevate the program more quickly because of his recruiting philosophy differs from Sendek’s. In addition to his communication style with players and his inability to coach offense, Sendek struggled for his next 4 years because he effectively ignored North Carolina High School talent and opted to cash his ‘rising star’ chips on kids with no local ties like Adam Harrington. When something goes wrong for kids like these, their first instinct is to transfer as they have nothing binding them to the area or the school. This created significant turmoil and trouble in Sendek’s tenure. Coach Lowe has already shown that NC kids are an important cog in his philosophy (Johnny Thomas, CJ Williams, and even Tracy Smith). Te stability that these kids will create in addition to huge marketing boost fromt he last couple of weeks will serve Sidney well.

* Sidney became THE story over the last few weeks, which is much different than when Herb did this in 1997. College coaches are stars, they are mega-stars when they win big (Roy, K). Lowe has elevated himself in the national media tremendously over the past 4 days. His exposure and recognition factors have grown exponentionally – its not a Amex (K) or Coke (Roy) commercial, but the red jacket and Sid Lowe scored major points in the visibility factor.

* That will help tremendously in recruiting. We arent going to be stealing players from Roy and K, but many of those will at least look at Sid, and I think he’s already elevated himself to the #3 or #4 in the ACC in terms of visibility.

* Its funny, Gary Walters talked about the unbalanced Big 12 schedule on why Texas Tech got into the NCAA over K-State. I don’t give a shit about either team, but did the committee look at UVA’s unbalanced ACC schedule when they gave them a 4 seed despite their RPI that indicated they would be somehere around an 8 or 9 seed? They had the EASIEST schedule within the ACC. They completely folded down the stretch, losing to Miami, Wake and NC State in 3 of their last 4 games. (All 100+ RPI teams). Yet, they get a 4 seed? With an RPI if 52?

* Piece of advice – if you use a computer program (Yahoo, ESPN, etc) to track your NCAA Tournament brackets, ALWAYS re-check to make sure that your edits/changes have been saved properly. I made some changes to be bracket in SFN’s Yahoo Group that ultimately did not save. Of course, most of the changes would have been positive for me and would have put me tied for first place. Oh well.

* F- Wes Miller and Ty Lawson

* The ACC’s poor performance in the NCAA will hurt all of our checkbooks in the coming years. This is a GREAT article explaining he NCAA’s impact on ACC finances.

* Of course, what would a game day be without Section Six’s preview?

There is a certain amount of comfort that comes with playing West Virginia, comfort that is derived from this fact: the Mountaineers suck at rebounding just as much as we do. It’s like finding a familiar face in a foreign town. “Boy am I glad to see you!”

Those other teams, they’re tough. But not you, sweet, sweet West Virginia. Not you. You kindly offer opponents their missed shots while keeping none of your own for yourself.

When we played WVU back in early December, we had one of our best offensive rebounding performances of the season, grabbing 37% of our misses. Mountaineer opponents have posted an OR% over 40.0 eleven times this season (Wolfpack opponents have done it seven times). West Virginia has at least managed some improvement at the offensive end, upping its OR% from 21.3% to 30.4% this season. That’s still terrible, but it’s a step up from inept (and it’s better than our OR%).

With the two teams shooting and rebounding about the same in the first meeting, turnovers meant the difference. NC State turned the ball over 17 times (nine of those were Gavin’s) while WVU gave it away seven times

06-07 Basketball General

200 Responses to 2007.03.20_ Big Dose of Bytes

  1. choppack1 03/20/2007 at 4:41 PM #

    branjawn – Huge difference between Pepp and Davis…actually about 4 inches and 50lbs. Not sure what to make of Davis’ recent abscences since he played so well at Wake Forest, a game which helped turn the season around.

  2. thebigwood 03/20/2007 at 4:48 PM #

    ^spring practice?

  3. Mike 03/20/2007 at 4:57 PM #

    McIntyre was from Lumberton I beleive, but definitely a NC boy.

    Noah, please go back and recheck your stats on Sean Green and Byron Tucker. I played pick up ball with both of them regularly in Carmichael. Green was the “next Jordan” and frankly had the talent. Guy was unbelieveable. Green got homesick and went back to NY after one semester, ended up at Iona and basically sniffed his way out of basketball.

    Tucker stayed 4 years but never got a lot of PT.

    Rehashing old reruits sure is fun and interesting though. The Holiday tournament at Broughton was always good. Remember Kenny Poston? They gave him a lot of press in 85 or 86 in that tourney as the next great NCSU recruit. After watching him in that tourney, I knew we were in trouble. Best player on his team (Whisenhunt) ended up at UNX playing football.

    Lambiotte was not a NC player – he was from VA.

  4. Mike 03/20/2007 at 5:00 PM #

    Cedar, thanks for pointing out how this years team is what it is because of Herb’s recruits. Thanks for posting though, needed a good laugh.

  5. CedarGroveWolf 03/20/2007 at 5:14 PM #

    ^ please don’t confuse me with blockhead

  6. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 5:17 PM #

    ^To which Cedar are you refering? You do realize that Cedarblockhead is a parody of CedarGrove, don’t you. They’re both equally funny, just that one is being so on purpose and the other does so by accident.

  7. Mike 03/20/2007 at 5:18 PM #

    Cedar, FYI, ASU shooting stats – shot .413 from the field, and .319 from 3 pt land. 615 taken from 3 out of a total 1534, more than 40% taken from 3. Averaged 58.1 pts per game.

    NC State this year – shot .494 from the field, and .360 from 3 land. Also, 567 of 1731 were 3 pointers, less than 33%.

    NC State last year – shot .455 from the field and .371 from 3. 777 of 1704 were 3 pointers, which is 45.5% of the shots!

    Please see the pattern and give it a rest. The players have come out and said how much better this year has been. The entire experience has been much better all year long. And yes, Simmons was wasted playing 20 feet from the basket.

  8. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 5:18 PM #

    “please don’t confuse me with blockhead”

    If this site had sig lines, this would be a classic.

  9. Mike 03/20/2007 at 5:20 PM #

    Holy Cow, my bad! There are 2 cedar’s here. I did not realize. I just see the 1st few letters and get prepared for what I am about to read. My bad.

  10. redfred2 03/20/2007 at 5:26 PM #

    westwolf

    You are loving this thread aren’t you.

  11. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 5:52 PM #

    If there was a smiley-face emoticon available, I would be using it now.

    Red, the ultimate irony, of course, is that both Cedar’s say the same thing.

  12. Mike 03/20/2007 at 6:06 PM #

    Which is exactly why I did not know there was a difference!

  13. Jeremy Hyatt 03/20/2007 at 6:19 PM #

    Hi, I am not a tree type but I have a question. When do you guys think we will be _consistently_ competing for 4-5 star recruits? I think we have a PG and SF both 3 star that can’t hit the three..

  14. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 6:23 PM #

    “I think we have a PG and SF both 3 star that can’t hit the three..”

    ^Do you mean on the current roster or incoming recruits.

  15. Jeremy Hyatt 03/20/2007 at 6:38 PM #

    sorry-incoming, i was just looking over our scout.com link.

  16. thebigwood 03/20/2007 at 6:44 PM #

    these recruits are just juniors…their stock will probably improve

  17. Jeremy Hyatt 03/20/2007 at 6:49 PM #

    oh you thought I was referring to Williams and Mays for 08′, I was actually meaning Gonzalez and Thomas for 07′, but I guess that proves my point (and I’m not really asking for an explanation of how the star system is inaccurate and doesn’t represent the level of talent, i.e. there is a reason UConn, Kentucky, Duke, Carolina are going after the same guys, and we are competing for guys, with teams like Virginia Tech.

  18. redfred2 03/20/2007 at 7:27 PM #

    westwolf

    Actually blockhead’s exaggerated parody comes off more believable.

  19. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 7:35 PM #

    ^Interestingly, Kentucky looks to be firing their coach soon, Duke lost in the first round of both tournaments this year, UConn didn’t even make any post-season tournament, and Unc lost last year in the 2nd round and will, hopefully, lose in the 3rd round this year.

    But that’s avoiding your question. I think our goal is to be in the mix for top players(5 star) each year, and land at least one, maybe two, each year. That’s enough talent to win a conference and National championship. The difference is that Duke and Unc can sign those guys even if they will sit the bench for a year or two where we can’t. So what. It’d be nice, but it’s not necessary.

    At State, we need to have something to give us an advantage to overcome any shortfall in talent. And that probably has to be superior coaching. Honestly, it’s hard to tell how good a coach Roy is because he’s never had to coach a team without multiple McD AA’s. Same with K. But I’ve now seen Sidney lead a team with one freshman McD AA, a gimpy point guard, and a solid group of underclassmen role players to within a shot or two of winning the championship of the Acc tournament and possibly the Final Four of the NIT.

    Enjoy the ride, because it’s only going to get better.

  20. westwolf 03/20/2007 at 7:35 PM #

    Red, good point. And his grammar is better too!

  21. WolftownVA81 03/20/2007 at 7:50 PM #

    From Morgantown, 30 minutes to tipoff and almost no red in the house – about one per section. Too bad, tickets were still available at the door.

  22. redfred2 03/20/2007 at 7:53 PM #

    westwolf

    Good post up there, but duke and can unc only sign about 30 players between them. I think there are plenty more 5 stars out there to go around. Let’s face it, nothing was used in recruiting in these guys we have right now, nothing about NC STATE, no WOLFPACK or WOLFPACK tradition. But I guess the chance to play in the ACC was mentioned at some time in their recruiting, MAYBE, but who really knows. I say we have enthusiam and energy surrounding this ACC program once again and that will put us in a great position to pick up not only the players we need, but the ones we WANT.

  23. redfred2 03/20/2007 at 8:05 PM #

    The women picking up the pace, GO PACK!!!

  24. beowolf 03/20/2007 at 11:28 PM #

    red, don’t feel bad. Same thing happened to Alice when she met the Tweedles, Dum and Dee.

  25. noah 03/21/2007 at 9:14 AM #

    “Green was the “next Jordan” and frankly had the talent. Guy was unbelieveable. Green got homesick and went back to NY after one semester, ended up at Iona and basically sniffed his way out of basketball.

    Tucker stayed 4 years but never got a lot of PT.”

    This is incorrect.

    Sean Green averaged 13, 20 and 23 ppg at Iona, played three years with the Pacers in the NBA and had a very successful career in Europe. He may have been homesick, but the reason he gave for leaving in the N&O was playing time. He was stuck behind Brian Howard at the three and Del Negro and Monroe at the two. But he was our top reserve while he was here. Fantastic athlete.

    Byron Tucker went to George Mason and averaged 11, 18 and 21 ppg. He is also in the top 10 at George Mason in career rebounds. He got hurt his senior year and only played in 12 games.

    He played in the CBA and then went to Europe.

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