Late pushes fall flat for Pack; Baseball represents last hope

After failed attempts to garner some kind of notable success by a couple of NC State’s non-revenue sports fell flat this week (men’s golf and women’s softball), NC State’s Baseball team remains as the last primary opportunity for Lee Fowler’s athletics department to do something special and win a “major” ACC Championship.

It is something that hasn’t happened at NC State in a LONG time. And, as you will see from the statistics below it is something that hasn’t happened at NC State in far too long when compared to other programs throughout the country.

The following is a quick picture of the last ACC Championships won by NC State in the four major sports:

Football – last title in 1979; 7 total ACC championships
Men’s Basketball – last title in 1987; 10 total ACC Championships
Women’s Basketball – last title in 1991; 4 total ACC Championships
Baseball – last title in 1992; 5 total ACC Championships

With this said, we are desperately rooting for Coach Eliott Avent to win his first ACC Title in over 12 years of coaching the Wolfpack. If Avent were able to get the proverbial monkey off his back he would do the NC State Athletics Department a huge favor. (I don’t think that you can be prepared for the statistics that you are getting ready to see)

Did you know that there are only 5 progams in BCS conferences to fail to win at least one conference championship in Football, Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball and/or Baseball during Lee Fowler’s tenure at NC State? Those schools are as follows:

    • NC State
    • Virginia
    • Arkansas
    • Missouri
    • Texas Tech

Did you know that there are only 2 progams to fail to win at least one conference championship in Football, Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball and/or Baseball since 1992-1993? Those schools are:

    • NC State
    • Missouri

(SFN tries to strive to provide you a lot of different experiences. One of the things we are most proud of is the unique statistical analysis and research that we are blessed to receive from the entire community and particularly VAWOLF and WVWOLF. A special thanks to WVWOLF for the aforementioned stats)

Come on baseball!! Help soothe our wounds after…

* Men’s golf was one of 82 programs invited to participate in NCAA regionals. The Wolfpack finished 14th in their regional and will not advance to the NCAA Championships. Locally, Wake Forest and UNC-Charlotte both advanced.

* Women’s golf team finished 11th in their regional, missing the championships by 1 stroke.

* The Wolfpack Women’s Softball season also ended early and is reviewed in this piece by Tim Peeler. State finished 5th of 8 schools in the ACC and failed to earn one of the conferences four NCAA bids (Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, UNC-CH and FSU), but the Wolfpack women made a little push in the ACC Tournament before losing 2-0 to defending-champion Virginia Tech.

Even though these performances were far short of noteworthy – standard fare for the Lee Fowler era at NC State – they may still serve to help NC State improve upon our embarassing rankings in the all-sports Director’s Cup where the Wolfpack is currently tied with Cornell at #66.

NC State is currently #66 in the Director’s Cup, behind such athletic powerhouses – many of which don’t have very many sports or even athletics scholarships like:

#46 Boston College
#47 Wake Forest
#48 Maryland
#49 Harvard
#50 Clemson
#51 Hawaii
#53 Denver
#54 Princeton (N.J.)
#55 Utah
#56 Georgetown
#58 California Poly San Louis Obispo
#58 Kansas State
#60 Texas Christian Uuniversity
#61 Navy
#62 Northern Iowa
#63 Miami (Fla.)
#64 Southern Methodist
#65 Texas Tech
#66 Cornell (N.Y.)

I guess that Lee Fowler and Bobby Purcell would be mad at us for sharing these factual realities and would therefore label us “negative” for sharing with you what a free-thinking human would call ‘neutral’ factual statistics. I don’t quite understand their thinking or why they would spend their energy getting mad at the people who discuss the facts as opposed to spending their energy attempting to change these facts (which make NC State people sad).

So, in an attempt to be ‘positive’, let’s not focus on the 65 programs ahead of us; and, instead positively focus on those that we are currently beating in the Director’s Cup. (Thank goodness that we have built so many great facilities and have a Top 5 Booster Club or who knows what other programs would be ahead of us?)

#68 Boise State
#69 Old Dominion
#70 Oregon State
#71 Baylor
#72 Memphis
#73 San Diego
#74 UC Santa Barbara
#75 Texas El Paso
#76 Massachusetts
#77 Miami (Ohio)
#78 Pennsylvania
#79 Portland
#80 New Mexico

..and others like New Hampshire, Northern Arizona, Boston University, Rutgers, Vanderbilt (who doesn’t have an Athletics Director), Delaware, St. Johns (N.Y.), Southern Illinois, Georgia Tech (who just hired a new AD), Appalachian State, Tulsa, James Madison, Liberty (Va.), Nevada, Army, Dartmouth (N.H.), South Carolina, Western Kentucky, Xavier, Oakland (Mich.), Vermont, Villanova, Washington State, South Florida, Santa Clara (Calif.) William and Mary, Sacremento State and Air Force

Take that you negative people!!! NC State is better than all of those schools in Athletics. WOOO HOOOO!!! And, we are not last place in the ACC. WOOO HOOOO!!!!

(positive, cheering) Way to go, Wolfpack!!! (positive, cheering)

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Baseball General NC State Administration Non-Revenue Required Reading Stat of the Day

27 Responses to Late pushes fall flat for Pack; Baseball represents last hope

  1. Dogbreath 05/18/2008 at 11:06 AM #

    #58 California Poly San Louis Obispo

    Goodness gracious. I knew it was bad, but damn.

  2. StateFans 05/18/2008 at 11:24 AM #

    ^ Lee Fowler would tell you that you’re so negative.

    We should be focusing on the positives like the schools that we are ahead of.

    I think that I am going to add this to the entry. Good call, Dogbreath

  3. RickJ 05/18/2008 at 11:36 AM #

    We finished 14th (in the golf regional) with the top 10 advancing to the NCAA Championships. We were 6th after the first round, had a terrible second round and decent third round to miss the top 10 by six strokes. The women’s golf team was even more disappointing – they finished 11th in their regional, missing the championships by 1 stroke.

    I am hopeful that softball coach, Lisa Navas is a great coach. This was her 5th year and because she had to start the program from nothing, she had a huge class of players that graduated last year. That group won an ACC championship in her third year. This year’s team developed a very good sophomore pitcher and catcher, the ACC Freshman of the Year. Coach Navas also has the knack for winning when it counts the most. She has a 12 – 5 record against UNC’s strong program. This includes a 4 – 0 record in the ACC tournament.

    SFN: Rick, that is exciting news about the softball team. Quick question/curious — do you know when all of the other ACC teams started their softball programs? I understand that ours is relatively new — it would be interesting to know how old/news their is?

  4. packpower 05/18/2008 at 12:47 PM #

    On the other ACC softball team question, I’m certain that UNC has had a softball program since the NCAA went to fast pitch and VPI is known for its program. Don’t know about the others.

    Lisa Navas, who is known as one of the top softball coaches on the east coast, was hired after being an assistant at UNC. Before she was at UNC, she was head coach Miami-based Barry University, which is a Division II powerhouse in Olympic Sports that has won national championships in Women’s Soccer, Volleyball, Golf and Softball. Barry is also strong in the other Olympic Sports and has only had an athletic department for 25 years (1984).

  5. RickJ 05/18/2008 at 12:59 PM #

    ^I don’t know when the other ACC teams started their programs but most probably started in the mid to late 80’s. We had a slow pitch program in the mid 70’s. I am pretty sure we dropped the sport when the NCAA went to the fast pitch game as noted by packpower. This was in the mid 80’s. I’m not sure when the NC high schools made the switch to fast pitch. It is safe to say that fast pitch programs are less than 25 years old, at most.

  6. WV Wolf 05/18/2008 at 1:18 PM #

    Just to clarify, the stats on the other schools that haven’t won championships came from my good friend ruffles31.

    Now that baseball is starting to wrap up I can start putting the final touches on summarizing the performance of all our sports for the past season and for the 8 years Lee has been AD, hopefully I’ll be able to get some initial stuff out in the next week.

    To echo some of the softball comments, I’ll admit I don’t follow the program that close, but it seems like Coach Navas has done an excellent job of starting up a program, winning an ACC title and coming close again this year with a young team. And all without those precious facilities that are supposed to be oh so important. As much grief as we give Fowler, we should also give him credit for making a great hire for the softball program.

    The ACC softball championship goes back to 1992 with 4 schools (FSU, UVA, UNC and GT).

    Years softball programs began, I have no idea in what conference or what level they played at before 92:
    BC–1992
    FSU–1978
    GT–1987
    MD–1995
    UNC–1984
    NCSU–2004
    UVA–1980
    VT–1996

  7. TheAliasTroll 05/18/2008 at 1:47 PM #

    I’m a regular reader, but I had to register a username so I could tell you how funny I thought this article was.

  8. Dr. BadgerPack 05/18/2008 at 2:06 PM #

    It was a shame the women’s softball team lost the ACC title game. VT’s 2 runs came on an error by Shanna Smith (1st team All-ACC SS). Lindsay Campana pitched pretty well, scattering her hits. Of course, VT threw out one of– if not the– best pitcher in the country in Angela Tincher (although Taryn Mowatt out in Arizona might have something to say about that).

  9. cowdog 05/18/2008 at 2:35 PM #

    Again,
    Boys you continue to hit me with some posts near and dear.

    Womens fastpitch…who would’a thunk!

    By even making it mention, no less a bit of focus tells me that ya’ll follow every freakin’ thing.

    The last competing “household” athlete just completed her Soph year.

    We learned on Thurs. that she made All Tri- 7 (8) again for 2 straight yrs.

    Now, it may appear that sounds bragadoccio, but that’s not the intent. (oh, maybe a little tone of it from a proud Dad )

    What is outstanding and my point is the fact that over the last 4 to 5 years the east coast schools have rapidly overtaken a formerly west coast dominated sport. A good sport as witnessed by the coverage. If not overtaken, at least competing on the same level.

    The ACC is in the mix and within the mix is NC State.

    My daughter has attended State camps and UNC camps…State’s by far is the most impressive. I think that will payoff very soon. In fact due to the freshness of the program, it already has.

    Very obvious to me that Fowler has been kept completely out of the loop.

    That said, as I go over some bills and write while watching a Man’s sport ( PHI-PIT )

    How the HELL am I gonna finance a summer’s worth of College Showcase tournaments that her travel team is in?! Only 2 in NC ….The rest in SC, Tenn or Va and ( What did you say dear? ) NOVA SCOTIA!!!?

  10. choppack1 05/18/2008 at 3:29 PM #

    We know Fowler was really off in basketball. Either Sendek was a good coach and he made a terrible hire, or Sendek’s program was getting ready to fall apart and we were lucky to find Sidney to take the job.

    As far as the overall state of the athletic program, it’s really sad the void of any great sport puts all of the others in. Basically, it creates pressure on any sport that’s decent.

    Fowler has done a pretty good job upgrading facilities. However, as I’ve stated time and time again, facilities don’t make a great coach bad or mediocre. I also find it terribly sad that he’s willing to ask State fans for results, but apparently doesn’t demand it from the coaches that report to him.

    In athletics and journalism, it’s perfectly fine to criticize those “dolts who don’t know anything about how tough your job is”. These professions are the only 2 that I know of where you can publicly criticize your customers and still have any kind of business.

  11. packpower 05/18/2008 at 5:01 PM #

    As most of you know, I’ve been one of the ones asking for less criticism of Lee Fowler on this board; however, I’ve don’t recall other ADs publicly calling out the “lunatic fringe”.

  12. cowdog 05/18/2008 at 5:39 PM #

    TROLL SAID ” HAD TO REGISTER TO TELL YOU HOW FUNNY THIS ARTICAL WAS ”

    Funny how? Funny Ha, Ha?

    Funny like a clown? We’re here to amuse you?

    What do you mean funny? The way we write?

    What’s so funny about us? You said it, what’s so funny?

  13. TheAliasTroll 05/18/2008 at 6:13 PM #

    If I may briefly break the topic while I’m out and about on the internet as a casual NC State athletics fan. I’d like to direct this comment to Lee Fowler.

    #1) I have caught you in a lie. You have tried to say that you do not read the blogs. Curiosity killed the cat. I wonder if you feel ashamed for lying to tens of thousands of people, or do you just let it roll off your back?

    #2) Good job on the facilities.

    #3) Lets move along now and start trying to get our athletics programs more in the WIN column rather than the LOSS column.

    #4) You seem to be a very nice guy. It is absolutely nothing personal, NC State fans just want to feel that adrenaline of winning again. If you could only get us in the direction of that win column I would imagine the Wolfpack fans would wear T-shirts with your face on them.

    #5) I wish you the best of luck. Stop lying to yourself. Work harder. Get those W’s.

    Edit for cowdog: It was funny haha. Read the last two paragraphs of the article again. It was entertaining and clever.

  14. cowdog 05/18/2008 at 6:20 PM #

    Thought my Joe Pesci was too… ( Good Fellas )

    All in fun my man.

  15. TheAliasTroll 05/18/2008 at 6:31 PM #

    touche 🙂

  16. john of sparta 05/18/2008 at 9:14 PM #

    women’s softball?
    well, back in the day, we used to field a boxing team
    and a rifle team in conference tournaments. how long
    until we post about a Halo/Madden/etc. team…?
    we have to win in Revenue Sports.
    Money is Scoreboard.

  17. ruffles31 05/18/2008 at 9:32 PM #

    Hey, think of the bright side.

    uhhh

    no

    oh yeah, I can say…

    uhhh

    There is no bright side to this.

  18. PackerInRussia 05/18/2008 at 9:39 PM #

    As the saying goes, “Missouri loves company” (snare-snare-cymbal).

  19. StateFans 05/19/2008 at 6:15 AM #

    ^ that is really good

  20. mafpack 05/19/2008 at 7:11 AM #

    I’ll probably be late for work now but I had to login real quick just to agree with Troll, this article actually made me laugh out loud. Then I had to finish reading all the comments too!

    Dang you SFN and your engaging quality content that forces me to finish reading every last word before I can leave the house in the morning… keep it up fellas 🙂

    PackerInRussia… lol that’s awesome.

  21. Sw0rdf1sh 05/19/2008 at 7:40 AM #

    The article was great.

    The comments are a hoot and just keep getting HA HA funnier.

    I agree about the comments on Lee, if he can get us back to winning, I would also wear a shirt with his damn face on it.

    Great Stats on the article too….you guys stay busy.

  22. b 05/19/2008 at 1:53 PM #

    I think Lee Fowler and Co. are sitting around a boardroom table like the guys in the Direct TV commercial.

    “We can’t improve our fanbase, but we can improve the ticket price and LTR’s……we can make ’em higher”

  23. redfred2 05/19/2008 at 6:49 PM #

    “Missouri loves company”

    Funny stuff!!!

  24. redfred2 05/19/2008 at 7:04 PM #

    I’m going to go watch the news about the war, the terrible tragedy in China, check the latest gas prices, watch a replay of Hillary’s latest campaign speech, or just about anything.

    I gotta get outta here though, the news around here is waaay too depressing lately.

  25. statemech 05/20/2008 at 1:06 PM #

    check this out

    ESPN’s Jeremy Mills predicts 5 ACC teams could host a regional.

    I’d say it would only be fair for the NCAA to award our conference with 5 hosts seeing as how we have 5 teams in the top 10 RPI along with great strength of schedules and records

    UNC – RPI: 1 Coaches Poll: 1 SOS: 2 RECORD: 45-10 (22-7 conf)
    MIAMI – RPI: 2 Coaches Poll: 2 SOS: 6 RECORD: 43-8 (23-5 conf)
    FSU – RPI: 3 Coaches Poll: 3 SOS: 11 RECORD: 46-9 (24-6 conf)
    GT – RPI: 6 Coaches Poll: 24 SOS: 7 RECORD: 38-17 (16-14 conf)
    NCSU – RPI: 8 Coaches Poll: 22 SOS: 12 RECORD: 37-18 (18-11 conf)

    (from warrnnolan.com)

    pretty impressive if you ask me. I’d imagine they give us a regional before they give on to GA Tech, at least that’s what I’ve been picking up on.

    how our conference performs in our tournament could be very important, especially our pool that includes Miami, GT, and Clemson. The teams in the other pool don’t have much at stake. UNC and FSU are virtual locks as national seeds, it’s just a matter of which one they get, Virginia is going to a regional baring a complete meltdown, and Wake really has no hopes at an NCAA bid. On our end we and GT are playing for our hosting bid and Clemson is trying to get that 7th ACC NCAA bid.

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