Turning to Good News!!
About mid-way through the 2nd quarter of Saturday’s loss to UCF I turned to my friends and uttered something that I haven’t been able to say in almost twenty years when I asked– “When does basketball season start?”
In that spirit, it is worth noting a couple of basketball-related items to help us get into a better mood. (But, you must use what you read to NEVER FORGET the imcompetence and mismanagement that delayed this excitement for YEARS longer than was necessary.)
Last week, Dick Vitale listed ten teams that are improving and that he is looking forward to watching in the coming season.
NC State (20-16): I was so impressed with the toughness of Sidney Lowe’s kids in the ACC tournament. Yes, the Wolfpack won’t have tenacious guard Engin Atsur, but the future is bright. Brandon Costner will be a big-time factor for Lowe’s club this season.
Man…this is BAD NEWS for the former HSSS crew aroud Raleigh. (Forgive me for the use of the term…but, until we find a new label to apply to the ‘do-nothing’ crowd of appeasement then we are stuck with ‘HSSS’ since it is the perfect embodiment of the contrast between the tenants of Lee Fowler’s management and what is reality. Admit it – when you read it, you knew EXACTLY who/what I was talking about. Didn’t you?)
I expect Lee Fowler and his small group of NC State zombies to immediately contest and question Vitale’s praise and excitement about the direction of Coach Lowe’s program. They obviously have no choice but to criticize Vitale since Vitale’s comments and the general excitement around NC State’s Basketball program fly directly in contrast to their philosophies and behaviors over much of the last decade. After YEARS of publicly staking themselves to the belief that it takes five or six years to get a basketball program rolling, there is nothing more for Fowler to do but to contest Vitale’s excitment. The experts obviously don’t ‘know basketball’ as well as ‘Coach Fowler’. Success does not happen after just one year. Or two years. Or three years. Or four years. Or especially five years. Give Coach Lowe until year six and MAYBE NC State will be good enough to be considered for an NCAA Tournament bubble bid.
Similarly, the Fayetteville Observer ran a piece today titled – “New State staff has success in recruiting.”
The article emphasizes the difference between a basketball program’s 13 players and a football program’s 85 players. It also heaps praise on the direction of Coach Lowe’s basketball program after only one season by using the commitment of JJ Hickson as the centerpoint of the article:
“J.J. is almost unconscionably strong,” State assistant coach Pete Strickland said. “He’ll turn, guys will get wedged out of the way and he’ll look like, ‘What happened there? I did that?’ He’s just a thick, strong guy and very, very skilled. And there’s some strength there that he’s not aware of.”
The same may be true of the Wolfpack’s recruiting pull. It’s crazy how these things sometimes unfold.
Just 16 months ago, after a jumbled and laborious search to find a replacement for Herb Sendek, State gave the controls of its basketball program to Sidney Lowe. But the former national championship point guard took over with one prevailing question looming: without a day of college coaching experience to his name, would he be able to recruit at a high enough level to compete on Tobacco Road?
Sixteen months later, the answer is a resounding yes. This year’s crop of freshmen is nothing short of impressive. Hickson, the headliner of the class, is joined by forwards Tracy Smith and Johnny Thomas and guard Javier Gonzalez, additions that will undoubtedly enhance the Wolfpack’s talent level, depth and competitive fire in practice.
Sixteen months? That doesn’t equal six years!? Say it isn’t so!!! Surely this guy doesn’t know what he is saying! This is completely opposite of the Fowler-doctrine that after you delay any kind of accountability until six years after you build the BEST facilities in the country.
This is the beauty of college basketball. Unlike football, where programs need two or three recruiting classes with a half-dozen difference-makers each to vault to championship levels, the fortune of a basketball program can improve exponentially with one decision.
^ We’ve talked about this many times in past conversations but it is something that can never be over-stated. It is much easier to turn around a basketball program in a shorter time period than it is a football program.
For State, Hickson provided that springboard. Suddenly, prospects all across the country were able to see the Wolfpack as a legitimate player at the highest level of recruiting.
With the start of practice less than six weeks away, State has a golden opportunity to make this season its best in recent memory. After a strong finish to last season the anticipation is ready to explode as State returns to the hardwood with even more firepower, thanks to the strong initial recruiting efforts of Lowe and his staff.
With the future of NC State Basketball looking so bright it may be best to leave you with a great article to help you remember the past. This piece about the of the history of NCAA Tournament turned up on the internet recently and does a great job of paying homage to the NC State’s impact on the tournament’s evolution. The article did not mention the political and administrative role that NC State Athletics Director Willis Casey played in the expansion of the tournament in the 1980s.
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54 Responses to “Turning to Good News!!”
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09/04/2007
iFKgyL Great, thanks for sharing this blog article. Fantastic.
I’ve really been pumped for sometime about the new ceilings of Wolfpack football and basketball. Unfortunately the NCSU administration has been VERY sucessful in tempering that excitement to the point that the idiocy and incompetences of the Foulups and Stiffords, and Oblinger’s willingness to allow them to keep it up, has me almost completely fed up with the whole thing!
Though I only have one season to base this on, I think Sidney Lowe is lightyears ahead of Herb Sendek in terms of in-game coaching and player development.
But still 5 of our top 6 players were signed by Herb Sendek(Grant, Costner, McCauley, Fells and Horner). Four of those players have shots at being all-ACC this year. From what some others have said, our potential starting PG(M. Johnson) was also recruited by Herb Sendek before choosing UT. Surely the familiarity with our program helped when he decided to transfer.
Heck, Sidney almost had Cedric Simmons and Andrew Brackman to work with last year – two more Herb Sendek recruits.
Sidney has had some holes to fill and it looks like he has done a good job of filling those holes. Still, no Sidney Lowe recruit has played a minute of basketball so far. Hickson appears to be a guaranteed big-time player, but it has been said that he is a one and done guy. T. Smith should be a good player, but the jury is still out on Gonzalez and Degand as their ability to play in the ACC is still in question.
J. Mays and CJ Williams are only top 150 recruits at this point in time.
In the next two season, the core of this year’s team will most likely all be gone. The real test for Sidney Lowe wasn’t last year, this year, or even next year. It will be when Sidney enters the 2009 season without McCauley, Fells, and Grant and most likely without Hickson and Costner.
The real test for a coach isn’t if you can have a single good year or even a couple of good years out of the blocks(Think Pete Gillen and the late Skip Prosser). It is whether or not a coach can recruit well enough to go through multiple cycles of players as they leave the program and still win at a high level.
Fortunately for Sidney, the first cycle of really talented players needed to win were already in the program thanks to the previous staff.
I agree that Sendeck had recruited some talented players but then forced them to submit to a very rigid system. Lowe seems to be more able to adjust in game (admittedly only one years track record here) which will work better in my opinion.
We shall see how the Lowe era continues but I’m very satisfied with the opening act.
^^ I disagree that recruiting is the only measure of a good coach, which you seem to imply. As you mentioned, the previous staff had most of these same guys, but couldn’t coach them to do anything but jack up 3′s….not quite what we saw last season. Could you really see Sid blowing 4 or 5 ACC championship games, including two where we held double digit leads late in the game?
The point of my post is not to argue about Lowe’s coaching ability versus Sendek’s coaching ability. Let’s just all assume that Lowe is an upgrade in most important areas so we don’t have to debate Sendek vs. Lowe.
My point was that Herb Sendek’s mark on this year’s roster is still very apparent. Herb was swimming in the right waters for much of his decade at NC State and the talent of the five guys leftover shows that again(unfortunately he just couldn’t ever put it together). While all signs are positive about the new regime, I am as excited as I ever been, but there are still some question marks about our program long term. At this point, Sidney hasn’t built a program. He has built a roster for the next two years that should be a top 5 ACC team(maybe even higher). His real test will be building a roster for the 2009 season.
I’ve heard some college coaches (coaches with championship rings) say that about 90 percent of your success in college is having better players than the other guy.
So…I kinda agree with Mr. O.
Most likely, I am just wording things poorly. Not saying that recruiting is the most important measure of a coach. Winning is the most important measure of a coach obviously. But some coaches win based on the previous staff’s players(Prosser). Some coaches win based on a couple of lucky/key recruits(Gillen.)
When you are about to have several key players graduate or leave, then the great coaches already have the next big time players in the program or on the way. You don’t go from 1st to last like Wake Forest did.
Mr O. I understand what you are saying. Building a program is what Coach K, Dean Smith, Roy Williams, etc have done. Every year they restock and reload. This is in contrast to the Bobby Cremins way of running things when he had one guy go early quicker than planned the entire house of cards collapsed.
I’m excited about the here and now and I’ll let Lowe and his assistants worry about a few years from now
my bad, meant to post this on this thread, and not the other one.
What was so frustrating to me, personally, and why I support Herb for so long was that he kept bringing in great talent. It always appeared, from here in Alabama, that we were on the cusp of breaking through – and the team did have a deep deep hole to crawl out of. I give Herb a lot of credit for what he did, but it was clear he’d taken the Pack as far as he was going to.
Lowe sure made the most of the talent Herb brought in. Lets hope that he proves himself to be as good, if not better, recruiter then Herb. So far, things are looking pretty good.
I think the 09 recruiting class is going to be a huge impact class for us. Ben, Fells, and probably Costner and Hickson all gone at that point. If Hickson and Costner stay around after next season, it may be hard to sell a big man to come to N.C State. What I am most looking forward to is how Gonzo and Degand, CJ Williams and Julius Mays plays. All were either players who were not getting any PT at another college or a players who are 3-star recruits. If we have a good point gaurd next year and some of the guys end up being solid college players….I will never second guess our recruiting again. If Gonzo/Degand/Johnson/Mays cannot get the job done, John Wall is a must in 09!
I’ll try to bring this back to being about Lee versus being about Herb. . . .
You have rememeber something when talking about Lee in this reference. He only has his personal experience to base his thoughts on. He has never been about to do anything in less than six years, so he just assumes that no one can do anything in less than six years.
It is nice to see that MOST of the folks here understand that the points being made are about Lee Fowler’s leadership (and some NC State fans) and NOT about Herb Sendek. The Sendek-situation just happens to be the example used.
As I said in another commment – This is why the posiiton of ‘give Lee Fowler credit for hiring the right guy’ drives me NUTS!!
Had Lee Fowler had his way then Lon Kruger, John Belein and STEVE LAVIN (along with God-knows-who-else) would have been coaching NC State before Sidney Lowe. Lowe was floated as a candidate in the first week of the search and Fowler completely dismissed him out of hand until support for Lowe continued to grow from both the inside and the outside.
This is why I don’t understand how people can “give Fowler credit” for hiring a guy that he didn’t want to hire for a job opening that he never wanted to be open!
^Amen SFN. Everyone now forgets what idiots we looked like in the media for “running” Herb out of town. The only idiot involved is still sitting in a chair at NC State sweating that he may have to replace another coach during his tenure – and please let that remaining tenure be shorter than it has been.
There was no excuse whatsoever why anyone w/ a sane mind would have gone after Lavin for this job.
I can understand going after both Beilein and Kruger. I wasn’t excited about Kruger – but he did a great job at UNLV last year. Beilein’s success speaks for itself.
However, Lavin is a clown. It’s not like this was a guy who loved coaching – when he was fired he went to TV and has remained there. Contrast that w/ Rick Nueheisel or Jim Fassell…These guys stayed in the game – Nueheisel even took a job at a high school. Look at Steve Logan – he coached in Europe for free. Lavin – “I’m just going to watch TV – because that’s easier.” This was the worst move possible for a guy whom many believe didn’t have the correct experience for his first big gig.
^It’s also nice to see that most of the folks on here can type campared to me.
I’ll give Lee some credit. He seems to be a solid administrator. He seems to have a handle on compliance, he seems to have decent project management skills. Good administration skills on comleteing task that he has been told to complete.
But he really seems to be lacking as a leader. Where is the push, where is the vision, where is the motivation. Thankfully it exist now, but it is flowing up to his office, versus flowing down form his office. He’d be a great AD at a smaller private school somewhere or an Asst. AD where he can focus on his strengths, but he just seems to struggle with some of the requirements of a AD job the size and scope of NCSU’s.
Folks need to remember . . He almost put our basketball program in the freezer for another 10 years if not longer. Not only that, but he practically lead the public perception charge that the program could not longer compete with the elite and should just lanquish in the second tier. The worst part is, IMO, that he really feels that way about all of the athletic programs. His expectation is that we should be somwhere between 6th and second in the league. If that’s where we end up, great, but don’t push that down from your office as the goal. The freaking goal is to be number 1. If the AD of NCSU is thinking anything different, then he/she is the wrong AD for NCSU.
Steve Lavin, Steve Lavin, he’s a nice guy and I really appreciate his nice coments about the NCSU position, but how in the world could Lee even remotly consider Steve as the right fit for NCSU. He should have been fired on the spot, because oblivously he doesn’t get. He never will.
Let’s just imagine (heaven forbid) that ” ” is still the BB coach in Raleigh as I type this, are Brandon Costner, Ben McCauley, Gavin Grant, and etc. still considered all-ACC caliber talent right now? I hardly think so. It’s not what you have, it’s how you use it.
Mr O, you can keep on trying to give ” ” major credit for signing kids to participate in the premier basketball conference in nation, like that’s remarkable or something, but myself. I think I’d rather see them actually learning and playing the game after they’ve arrived.
It’s really like the same battle all over again with the HSSS’ers. Who could we get to replace Lee that will be better. (Herb’s not great, but who could we get better . . . .Chuck is not perfect, but who could we get better. . . . )
We can get a lot better than Lee, it’s jsut a matter of pulling the trigger. Don’t think so, take StateFans’s advice and look what happened when we pulled the trigger on the basketball and football positions. We got better.
If we have a desire to consistantly be number 1 across the board in athletics within the ACC, we will have to replace the AD.
That’s the bottom line.
He’s a nice guy, but he’s not fully capable of the leadership required to take NCSU BACK to the top.
Fowler is no Willis Casey, that’s for ding-dang sure.
^ I think O has hit on a reasonable concern.
It’s too early to proclaim success and a return to greatness b/c Sid’s staff hasn’t yet provided real long-term stability for NC State. O puts this in terms of recruiting, which is pretty valid, IMO. However, I’m not sure that recruiting is quite the end all that it once was, thanks to the early departures. At this point, I think coaching, which Sid has in spades, may trump outright talent hoarding. The exceptions are there, UNC still hoardes with astounding consistancy, but you can no longer rely on the talent maturing in your gym. A running, digestible, adaptable system that gets you an extra 3-4 wins/year can go a long way towards sustaining a program. I think Sid did that last year. I think Bielein has done it every year. By contrast, Gillen and others that did make a flash in the pan w/ early talent, generally, were not particularly gifted coaches and, therefore, could not sustain without super talent. Sid can coach (really, really can). That’s going to help smooth the roller-coaster of highly-rated talent coming in and out the door.
Herb laid a great foundation & built the program back. Sid is doing a good job of building on that foundation so far. Hopefully his recruits work out better than some of Herb’s.
Statefans: My intention was not really to discuss Herb Sendek as a coach or his tenure in any ways. I was just adding some perspective on where our program is now and tried to point out that while Sidney didn’t have to completely rebuild the program(he had to plug the hole at PG and add depth which he has done both), Sidney is going to need a group of players similar in talents to the the guys we will lose over the next two seasons.
Personally, I don’t think Sidney could have accomplished any more than what he has done so far. While the cupboard wasn’t completely bare of talent, it was completely bare of proven ACC talent minus Atsur who missed much of the year. The strides that McCauley, Costner, Grant, Fells and Horner made last year were incredible.
The next 2-3 recruits that are signed or verbal to us are extremely important to 2009 season. John Wall would be absolutely huge.
Where is Wall ranked?
I don’t really pay much attention to rankings until the very end. Just curious how highly regarded he is.
Noah, scout has him ranked as the #2 PG in the nation.
Also don’t forget that sidney has gotten a 2010 verbal from the kid in Holley Springs, he’s a blue chipper already, started his sophomore season last week. He’ll likely be a top 5 overall player barring any injury of course.
Wall is arguably the top PG in the country. Way too early for official rankings to mean much since he is only a sophmore in HS, but at this point he sounds like a definite top 25 guy if not higher. Based on everything I have read, he gets to the basket any time he wants and dominates from the PG position.
He and NC State 2009 commitment CJ Leslie are playing on the same HS team this year. Wall is apparently nowhere close to choosing a school.
There seems to be a lot of talent in NC right now at just the perfect time.