Random Shots

'08 Football 09-10 Basketball General62

Where do you start when building a college basketball team?

Mike Huguenin’s answer: Give me the elite point guard…..

Jason King’s answer: …To me, though, the biggest key to any winning team is the coach…

Steve Megargee’s answer: … I’d lean toward the point guard because he’s more likely to make an instant impact and also probably has a better chance of staying in school for multiple seasons…

Capel Has High Hopes

Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel already has accomplished more before his 35th birthday than many coaches achieve in an entire lifetime. Now he faces the greatest test of his young career: Can he help Oklahoma remain one of the nation’s best programs even without the nation’s best player?

Ole Miss coach makes plea deal in Ohio

A few hours after he was arrested last December for an altercation with a cab driver, Mississippi basketball coach Andy Kennedy went on the offensive.

He vehemently denied the “heinous accusations” that he punched and taunted the driver. He insisted he would be exonerated. He had a persuasive talk with the Ole Miss athletics director, who publicly took his side.

Four months later, Kennedy is taking blame and apologizing.

Next Step in the Willie Williams Saga

A linebacker who was once widely considered the nation’s best defensive prospect coming out of high school …Williams is less than a week removed from the NFL draft. But rather than sitting in the green room with other celebrated draft picks in New York City on Saturday, he’ll watch with a small collection of family, eating some modest home cooking and hoping that some team, any team, will give him an opportunity to play in the league…

…one NFC personnel man said he expects Williams to go undrafted and that the former prep star will be signed as a free agent.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

'08 Football 09-10 Basketball General

62 Responses to Random Shots

  1. Greywolf 04/21/2009 at 1:14 PM #

    For the record in a similar conversation months ago, I stated my opinion that the way Amato represented the University would justified his being fired. “Biting Steve Stroud’s head off” comes under the category of misrepersenting the University. People like Stroud understand how the University works and would not even try to have Fowler fire Amato. SS mostly likely went to somebody on the board with his upset, and in due process this and any other input traveled down the lines of communication, culminating in the firing of Amato. But please, don’t try to suggest that Fowler had the cohones to stand up to the Chancellor, the BOT or any of the big donors and had to be threatened with his job to do something as simple as firing Amato.

  2. BJD95 04/21/2009 at 1:19 PM #

    ^ I am extremely confident that the Amato firing did indeed come about through the BOT and that Fowler’s job was on the line if he didn’t play ball. SFN reported such when it went down. You are free to believe whatever you want.

  3. BJD95 04/21/2009 at 1:28 PM #

    And also for the record, the notion that Oblinger would be pulling Fowler’s strings re his opinion of Chuck Amato’s job performance strikes me as fairly ridiculous.

    Lee Fowler (of his own volition, not due to pressure from Oblinger or anyone else) did not want Chuck Amato to be fired. Had it been up to him, Fowler would have extended Amato’s contract. I am 99.99999% confident in that assessment, and I stand by my track record when I speak with that level of certainty.

    But again, you don’t have to believe a word. Free country.

  4. Pack Leader 04/21/2009 at 1:34 PM #

    W/O a point guard running the show, you got nothing. (just see years 2006-2009) I truly believe state has the point guard of the future in harrow. Not wall, not zo, not, julius. RYAN HARROW.
    Just incase not every state fan is keeping up with summer AAU leagues,(THE most important time for a rising high school senior) Ryan has been tearing up every tourney he goes to so far getting national attention.
    Most recently this past weekend he played in the Real Deal on the Hill Tourney averaging over a double double and really wowing the fans and national media in attendance. He was voted by Antonio Williams of ESPN as one of the five “Standout players” of the tournament. The other players that made his list were Brandon Knight (5 Stars), Joe Jackson (5 Stars), Tristan Thompson (5 Stars) and Ahmad Starks (4 Stars). Remember Ryan is only ranked as a 3 star right now and isnt even in the top 100 on rivals. EXPECT that to change going into his senior season. He is showing he deserves the prestegious 5 stars next to his name……

    Even Lowe’s critics (SFN: we don’t allow fans to be labelled using your original language on this site – next time we delete the entire post) have to like to talent he found before Ryan expolded to be the player he is today…

    Here is the link if anyone wants to read more about Ryan

    http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/basketball/mens/news/story?id=4083440

    Luke Cothron played in the tourney as well but didnt recieve near the attention and praise as Ryan…. is it 2010 yet????

  5. Greywolf 04/21/2009 at 1:44 PM #

    BJD95
    April 21st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
    ^ I am extremely confident that the Amato firing did indeed come about through the BOT, and SFN reported such when it went down. You are free to believe whatever you want.
    `
    If SFN reported that the BOT threatened to fire Fowler, I will choose to believe something a little more in line with how the BOT operates. You are free to believe that the BOT bypasses the Chancellor and threatens to fire Fowler if you like or whatever you want.

  6. BJD95 04/21/2009 at 1:50 PM #

    ^ I’m not going to get into a debate over semantics – that’s not what’s important here. Of course it was likely communicated in a more subtle way. But the bottom line is the same – Fowler had no choice in the matter, and if he didn’t play ball, he would have been fired (and still almost was). And had it been up to him, he absolutely would have extended Amato’s contract.

  7. 61Packer 04/21/2009 at 8:01 PM #

    Another day has passed, and Lee Fouler is still our AD. Told you so. This afternoon in downtown Raleigh, though, I got real excited when I saw a car flying not one but TWO Wolfpack flags, the kind you see on football day but rarely ever on the other 353 days of the year. Since today was not a football day, I figured that maybe Jed was finally out as AD. But no such luck, and I for one believe that it’s going to be a long wait until 2013. And most of the red flags we see flying for the foreseeable future will continue to be Hurricanes flags.

    On the “Capel Has High Hopes” part of this thread, Jeff Capel indeed has done well so far as a college coach. I don’t think he’ll be as good as last season but common sense tells you that when you lose a player as good as Blake Griffin, an absolute monster inside, there’s going to be a big void to fill. As for those who wish we could get Capel as our HC, I don’t, and that’s because I hope we never have to get a former player from either UNC, Duke or Wake Forest to coach our big 4 sports (football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball) teams. I’d also add ECU to that list for football only. I don’t like the idea of getting former ACC players from teams outside of NC to be our HC either, although I could probably accept it, but I just can’t stomach the idea of getting guys who have played for our biggest in-state rivals to coach our teams. I guess it goes back to Bo Schembechler when he fired Bill Frieder after Frieder accepted the Arizona job as the NCAA b-ball tourney was beginning. Bo said that he wasn’t gonna have someone coach his UM team who wasn’t a Michigan Man. As much as I like Capel, I’d feel the same if he (a Dukie) became our head basketball coach. It just wouldn’t be right to me.

    Hello, aren’t Nate McMillan and Vinny del Negro still out there coaching somewhere?

  8. Noah 04/22/2009 at 5:58 AM #

    The irony was that Bo…WASNT a Michigan man. Bill Frieder WAS a Michigan man…and Steve Fisher WASN’T.

    That worked out well, didn’t it? Fisher had all but five games of his career wiped off the books, the school ended up on probation and missed the tournament for a decade.

    I don’t ever ever EVER want someone who went to school here coaching here (I can’t call Lowe an “alum”). The “thriller” defense makes it impossible to evaluate them and you end up hanging on LONG after you should’ve cut bait.

    Hell, someone with Lowe’s resume couldn’t even get an interview and would have been laughed out of the room anywhere else.

  9. old13 04/22/2009 at 7:33 AM #

    Hell, someone with Lowe’s resume couldn’t even get an interview and would have been laughed out of the room anywhere else.

    Sadly (because of Lowe’s NCSU connection) I concur. This IMO is a MAJOR indictment of what a lousy AD Foulup is and alone constitutes grounds for Foulup’s dismissal.

  10. wufpup76 04/22/2009 at 2:47 PM #

    “He made Thriller man … THRILLER!”

  11. Noah 04/22/2009 at 4:01 PM #

    You got it…

  12. ThomYorkepack 04/22/2009 at 9:39 PM #

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042104004.html

    Does this mean anything to the future of NC State basketball??

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