The Bloodletting Begins (Again)
It is ACC-Big 10 Challenge week, and that means it is time for another beat down of big boys from the midwest. The ACC has won each of the previous eight challenges and leads the overall series by a whopping 48-27.
Make that 49-27 after Wake Forest won on the road at Iowa last night.
* This entry will provide you a full schedule of the this year’s challenge.
* This entry will provide you a quick look at how ACC teams have performed to this point.
This year’s match-up against the Michigan State Spartans represents the most anticipated match-up of the series for NC State.
Sidney Lowe is 1-0 in the Big 10 Challenge as the Wolfpack gave us our first glimpse that something special was building quickly in Raleigh when State played an exiciting brand of basketball by defeating Michigan last year, 74-67. The game wasn’t all positive for State as Engin Atsur suffered is season-lingering injury early in the first half; while Jimmy Dykes proved to be a miserable announcer. (To Dykes’ credit, he was never this bad again in future Wolfpack games).
I think that you will enjoy looking back at the live blogging entry done during the game last year as well as the post game/media comments entry. Additionally, this entry also provides some great retrospective that included the following comments from ESPN’s Andy Katz:
If I’d told any of you that Engin Atsur would miss nearly the entire game against Michigan, and the Pack would still win… would you have believed it? Lowe has his team motivated. They believe in the “team concept,” but they don’t believe their team depth is too thin. Beating a quality team — without Atsur — is proof positive.
And how about Lowe’s in-game coaching? He’s animated. He’s intense. And his first-half timeouts — which are becoming a game-by-game event — always seem to spark his team at the right time.
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11/27/2007
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Beat Sparty.
I hope we can take them out again…. that would be perfect.
Glad WFU got the conference going last night but WOW Iowa is a bad team.
That was an ugly game last night. Iowa is a really bad team. If wake had any kind of offensive punch they would have won by about 40 points. I think we match up pretty well with MSU, but their propensity for hitting the offensive boards is already giving me nightmares. Since the game is in East Lansing, I expect a tough loss for the Pack, but am hopeful that we finally get into an offensive rythm and pull out a win.
The game last night said alot more about Iowa than it did Wake, IMHO. Iowa has a history of scoring in the 40s in their challenge games – except that when State was their opponent, they freaking WON while scoring 45.
I like this game b/c there’s really nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
A lot of people wondered why Steve Alford bolted to New Mexico at the end of last year. You saw why last night. By the way, New Mexico is off to a 6 – 0 start.
That is still one of the absolute worst basketball games I have ever watched.
My brother-in-law is a Hawkeye. I had already decided, with about 10 minutes to go and the outcome therefore not known, that I was not going to call and rub it in if State had won. And he didn’t call me after witnessing yet another in a long line of HwSnbn’s patented we-have-no-final-shot plays.
A couple things from Wake-Iowa game:
The Good:
It appears that Wake is actually going to play defense this year. I realize that Iowa is a horrible offensive team, but Wake still played pretty decently on D through most of the game. A bit different than in the past years where it was more of a matador-type defense…OLAY.
The Bad:
WF was horrible last night behind the 3-point line (1-15) and if I was a WF fan I would be EXTREMELY worried about who is taking the outside shots for my team.
I watched Johnson and Skeen hoist up 7 3s last night and it got me curious. Johnson and Skeen (both 6-8 forwards) have taken 38% of the 3-point attempts this season for WF (7 of the 15 last night) and are currently shooting only 26% from the 3-point line.
Keep in mind that WF only plays 3 players (McFarland, Johnson, and Skeen) above 6’4” for more than 8 minutes a game. WF may be flirting with disaster if they continue to let the big men shoot so freely especially given the lack of big bodies they have on the team.
We got some good plugs from the announcers during the WF game. They mentioned how appropriate to kickoff Jimmy V week with an NC State game. I plan to tape the Don’t Ever Give Up Speech that will run immediately before our game. Never got around to doing it before. That speech should be required viewing for all NCSU athletes, administrators and faculty.
Here’s another hope for tonight – that all ACC teams (except Duke) win, so that there’s no chance we’ll need to hope UNC wins tomorrow – either for an overall challenge win or for an 11-0 mark.
Maybe it’s an omen with Jimmy V week beginning this week-MASN ran the “Glass Slipper Still Fits” last night at 9:00pm. I hope all of our current players have had a chance to see it. Still brings tears to my eyes 25 years removed from that magical season. It’s great to see Sidney and his comments during the show. Who would have ever thought he would end up coaching here at the time that program was filmed.
Shut down Neitzel and we have a really good chance at winning this game. The only other scorer they have is Raymar Morgan, and I hope he doesn’t take the embarrassment from Hickson personally.
That NC State-Iowa game two years ago was so bad that I remember falling asleep before halftime while on a business trip in a hotel room in Greensboro.
For anyone who ‘wants’ to remember…I just love looking back at the old entries of these games.
I have a bad feeling about Neitzel and what he’ll do… I don’t think Degand can guard him, so if DNs shots are falling (and he hits some of the most f’d up looking 3s when he’s on) look for Fells to get switched onto him. Courtney could get into a bit of trouble if he starts swatting at 3s– hopefully that won’t be the case.
Heh… how about a box-and-1 on Neitzel, and trying to make him drive/dish inside…
This could be one of the few pre-Jan games where we could genuinely need Marques Johnson’s size and athleticism and 5 fouls.
We can just pull a John Chainey and send Simon Harris in to guard Neitzel for couple of possesions. CAN’T SHOOT IF YOU CAN’T FEEL YOUR LEGS, AMIRITE?
In Sid’s press conference he says that Courtney Fells will probably start out guarding Neitzel to start with and will keep him on “whoever is scoring for them…”
SFN- Good call on Johnson.
Another option (if he can handle it) would be increase Javi’s minutes a touch and press Neitzel– make him expend energy on the way up the court.
On second thought, maybe that isn’t such a good idea– Mike Conley did that to him last year and he still almost single handedly beat Ohio State.
Maybe put Ferguson on him, and hope Neitzel laughs so hard he can’t shoot straight?
I probably have too much Neitzel paranoia– but having watched an absolute mountain of Big 10 hoops the last 6 years, I know what he’s capable of.
badger/ bad call on fergie guarding Neitzel.. he is a defensive liability on the practice squad. he was being abused by UNO guards. fergie is a terrible defender. the only thing he does worse than defend is shoot 3′s and that makes for one excellent shooting guard. because defending the perimeter and shotting 3′s is not something most shooting guards are supposed to be good at anyway.
I’m not 100% sure but I think my man packbackr04 is being sarcastic.
The funny thing is he totally missed BadgerPack’s sarcasm.
Does anyone have a link to our performance history in the Challenge? It seems to me, if I remember correctly, that we’ve always alternated wins and losses each year since it started. So, since we beat Michigan last year, that doesn’t bode too well for us tomorrow.
Cosmo, let’s hope your gambler’s logic fallacy is exactly that.
Degand could guard him in a pinch were fells to get in trouble..
I think Fells may be up to the challenge. he has 5″ on him and some long arms. That would leave ferg or Javi to guard their PG who i think is about 6″. (Section 6 has a nice entry one the game). I think DN will score; we just need to keep him from going off and I think Fells can do that.
I worry about someone else going off……
I think we are 5-3 in the challenge.
I just recall Michael Flowers getting pretty well lit up last year in the Wisconsin/MSU late season matchup and he’s regarded as one of the top defensive players in a defensive league.
Of course, if we do force Neitzel to miss shots and go ahead and give up the offensive board, the defensive effort will be all for naught anyway.
I’m not so much worried about MSU scoring, I know we can match them in that category. I’m worried about the amount of opportunities that they’ll have to score, (ie. offensive rebounding). They are assassins on the boards, and we’re quite the opposite.