I apologize that we didn’t have more on the Wolfpack’s big win over Stanford yesterday. The real world evidently was calling on all of our author group. A lot of fans found what they were looking for on on our message forums. The following is a nice set of highlights from the game.
There are A LOT of interesting items that came out of State’s win over Stanford that deserve discussing. I am going to hit on a few things here and we’ll circle back on some others in the next couple of days.
==========> Although State’s defense continues to disappoint (we haven’t held a major conference opponent under a point per possession), the Wolfpack did manage to block 11 shots on Tuesday night against Stanford. As nice as that stat may be, don’t get too excited about it. As we all know, there is NO WAY the Atlantic Coast Conference officials will ever allow such athleticism to go unpunished by any team not wearing a shade of blue. In the ‘real world’, if we wouldn’t have been called for fouls on plays where the blocks occurred, we would have been called for fouls on other plays that would’ve negatively impaired our ability to be aggressive on the blocks.
==========> Isn’t it AMAZING how Richard Howell has played at an All-ACC level over the last five or six games against (including games against UConn and Stanford) and hasn’t had one ounce of foul difficulty while the ACC officials have been nowhere to be seen? Kinda like last year’s NCAA Tournament where the Wolfpack suddenly was able to kick into gear and advance to the Sweet 16? Gee, what was the difference? Â When officials don’t pre-determine their calls by self-validating their mistakes by ‘studying tendencies’ the results are phenomenally different.
==========> You think I am being over-sensitive on the officiating issue? Consider this amazing statistic that quantifies what we all see with our own eyes — Stanford shot SIX free throws on Tuesday night in the RBC Center in a game with Pac-10 officials. In last year’s game that was officiated by ACC referees, Stanford was behind for most of the second half and shot THIRTY-FOUR free throws. As Lorenzo Brown said,
“I guess Richard (Howell) didn’t foul them as much.”
==========> UNC-CHeats got destroyed by a struggling Texas team who was playing without their best player last night in Austin. Now that we are quarter of the way through the season we have enough observation points to say that The Tar Heels have looked awful in most every game they’ve played against half-way decent teams. Of course, we all know that this trend of getting spanked by good teams will ‘mysteriously’ come to an end the moment the Heels enter ACC play and get the benefit of their good buddies, the ACC officiating crews. Carolina’s ‘improvement’ will be just magical, and will earn Roy Williams praise from the media for doing one of his best coaching jobs ever!!
==========> The Heels defeat in Austin will surely mean bad things for NC State. A couple of weeks ago Carolina actually moved UP the polls after losing to Butler, while NC State has actually been dropping in the polls the last couple of weeks as the Pack has clearly found a gear and started to play well. It doesn’t make an ounce of sense, but it is the way of the world. Look for Carolina to fall to #25 and push the Pack out of the polls. (sarcasm)
==========> Out in the ‘real world’ of non subjective polls, NC State is sitting a super strong #10 in the current RPI while having played the 6th toughest schedule in the country. Conversely, UNC was 48th (96th toughest schedule) BEFORE last night’s drubbing at the hands or Rick Barnes and Texas.
==========> Speaking of being a quarter of a way through the basketball season, you can click here to see the current Vegas odds (before last night’s games) to win the NCAA Basketball Championship. State has slipped a little from where we started the season, but some other schools have slipped more.
