Yes, State plays at ECU tonight. And, no, we do not think that the trip makes any sense. (Neither does Sidney Lowe). But, other than this link to a preview of the game we are not going to spend very much time on ECU today.
Some relevant bytes today:
* The N&O composed a very great blog entry on the status of local teams one month into the season. They said the following about NC State:
For all of N.C. State’s personnel adjustments this season — the loss of Engin Atsur, the addition of J.J. Hickson — the biggest concern has to be its rebounding and team defense.
State has been out-rebounded in four of six games, holding the edge over Rider and William & Mary. New Orleans, and to a lesser extent, William & Mary, both had their way with N.C. State’s defense, especially to the baseline.
And then there was the clinic Michigan State put on during an 81-58 win in East Lansing.
Suffice it to say, whatever ground N.C. State made up on UNC and Duke last March, has been lost.
* Despite some of the frustrations being felt in the NC State community, the Wolfpack heads into tonight’s game with ECU with a solid RPI of #36 and the 19th toughest strength of schedule in the country.
* We had some great bytes yesterday that you shouldn’t miss. 850TheBuzz followed through on some of the Herb Sendek comments with this blog entry that we enjoyed.
* For the record, Sendek did NOT give an interview to ‘Trey’ Robinson of the N&O. To this day, Sendek as still not granted a one on one conversation with any of our local media that painted him in such a favorable light for a decade. (Don’t forget that the primary reason old Herb is in the business is because of the importance of ‘relationships’) Old Trey just pieced together his article on generic press conference quotes…which were probably pretty damn easy to gather at an ASU Basketball press conference.
* We are excited to see Trey’s article on Matt Doherty that surely is coming soon. We expect the Doherty piece to be a lot more juicy since Doherty - and Bill Guthridge before him - were both more formerly pushed out of their jobs compared to Sendek who had the full support of his Athletics Director and chose to leave for another job that he had secured.
* 50 years ago TODAY ACC Basketball changed forever when “a network of 12 television stations scattered through the South and along the East Coast showed the black-and-white images of North Carolina’s 79-55 basketball victory against the Clemson Tigers at Woollen Gym in Chapel Hill.” (Link)
* Boston College and Maryland kick off conference play this weekend.
This comment on N&O sums up what I think:
“The Pack may have lost ground from where they were last March, but they have picked up ground from where they were last December. Let’s wait until March to make that comparison.”
As far as the ECU game tonight, what i’m looking at the most is rebounding margin. ECU has some big guys on their team, and they’re slightly better at offensive boards than we are currently according to SectionSix (Although, still ranked 228 to our 303). A blowout would be nice, but I think if we can get a decisive edge on the boards I would consider it a good win, since that would show that we ARE improving on the issues that hurt us the most.
Improvement in all of these catagorys would be outstanding, but really Rebounding is the main one.
Limiting turnovers - Currently our turnover king is JJ, with Costner being a close 2nd and Grant trying his best to win his spot back. Which leads to my next…
JJ passing it out of the double/triple team - This would kill most of his turnovers, as I believe everyone of his turnovers have been when 3 people collapse on him and he still trys to go for the basket.
Grabbing more 2nd shots and denying their 2nd chances.
3 pt shooting.
Dear Fells,
I love it when you dominate, please knock down some 3’s so that ECU doesn’t just pack it in and force Hickson to take on 4 people at once.
Love,
Trip
http://www.newsobserver.com/734/story/818325.html
“Wolfpack’s Costner in supporting role”
“RALEIGH - N.C. State’s Brandon Costner wants people to know he’s not lazy.
He’s not jealous of freshman J.J. Hickson.
He’s not thinking of the NBA.
And, yes, the sophomore forward said, he realizes he must be a more aggressive rebounder and more effective defender.”
Good article I suppose… He reiterates that there are no chemistry issues between him/ben/JJ.
Trip,
You’re on fire! Thanks for the great links and comments. We’d love to see more of you!! Thanks!!
Davidson 32, UCLA 22 on HDNET if anyone needs something to watch in commercial breaks of the game.
is there any way to watch the game on the internets tonight??
is there anyway to hear the game without enrolling in gopack’s listening service?
Audio:
http://mmslb.eonstreams.com/Playlist.wsx?PPID=1328
seems that state is rebounding well tonight. Its opening up the fast break
Why can’t we just beat the piss out of anyone? Our opponent is awful, but we can’t put them away.
Thanks a lot, tooyoung!
sounds like we need to throw some water on their shooters.
Why can’t we just beat the piss out of anyone? Our opponent is awful, but we can’t put them away.
Why did some Robinson-era teams beat Carolina teams, at Reynolds, who were better than we are now?
This is the biggest game the Pirates have on their schedule - an ACC Big Four school paying a historic visit to Greeneville - they will play their best basketbal.
Seems like some ECU players are putting up some Lakista McCuller-esque performances.
thanks so much too young
No problem tx and PA. It’s my pleasure to help out my fellow out-of-state alums. TWW isn’t good for much, but they usually have a couple of people who host radio or audio feeds for most of the games (or who post links to other people hosting them like I did).
GOOD FRIGGIN GREIF!!!!!! HOW MANY THREES ARE WE GONNA GIVE UP WITH LESS THAN 5 SECONDS ON THE CLOCK THIS SEASON?????? UGH.
The 4AA Title game is on News14…New Bern just scored at the end of the 1st quarter. Independence 14 New Bern 7.
^Not sure we “gave” that one up; he just “took” it. They can’t keep this up (can they??)….. Sloppy again on our part. Thought we started reasonably well, and just slopped ourselves into a dogfight. ECU is now confident as hell and it’ll probably be another nail biter. Fells is killing us; he’s the missing link and he’s just “refusing to cooperate” at the moment (long moment).
Semantics. I don’t care if it’s poor defense, good defense, a circus shot, or an open catch and shoot. It’s gotta stop. This is the third or fourth time in seven regular season games.
***NEWSFLASH***
ncsu plays the exact same way they have all year.
no defense, no offense, no effort, no intensity.
after a week of practice this is how we show up. shoot me in the head.
and its time to evaluate our genius coaching staff
I have to agree with lush…I’ve been watching Wolfpack b-ball for about 34 years now and I’m scratching my head on this… I think Lee Fowler must go, he has single handedly killed our b-ball program!!! I know I’m frustrated at this point in hte game and we are “losing to ECU”, but we have played this same way since the first game 6 games ago… Something has to change… These guys have not gotten any better as a team! This maybe a LOOOONNNNGGGGG year!
i would say this is the seventh time in 7 games. what have we improved on in any game?
HOW THE FUCK DO YOU PLAY THE SAME BULLSHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN?
This team looks worse way worse than last year, and i beleive noahs prediction from last year has a very good chance of happening now.
how in the hell will we win an acc game?
gavin at the point, fells, horner, hickson, and mccauley is our only chance, let them play 38 minutes a game.
costner can transfer, he is as usefull as cornelius williams. oh wait cornelius didnt chuck 3’s
This is a mediocre basketball team that is painful to watch.
I hate to say this, but Sidney has until the late signing day of ‘09 to show me something.
When we lose this game to ECU, I have absolutely no problem with serious heat being applied to Sidney, whatever that looks like.
The effort is inexcusable and a total embarrassment to the university and conference.
That was goaltending by the way
ive never seen a “basketball team”play with such a lack of interest, emotion, or intensity. we are a joke. every team we play looks better than we do. coaching, coaching, coaching….
refs arnt helping
i cant beleive im saying this but herb would would have won this game by 20.
shoot me in the head
absolutely no defense, how is this possible? not a singel payer on the floor is in his mans face. this is on c lowe, not making the players do ther damn job
Maxwell sounds like an incredibly bad referee
Side does not look like a good coach. I really doubt if we can go dancing this season.
I’m with BJD95 - we should be manhandling a team like this. The anonymous internet faction is getting restless.
i am most certainly not anonymous and i am absolutely livid. this game is over and we are once again a laughing stock.
wow costner, air ball a free throw!! see you later son, your pissy attitude and lack of production spells transfer
1. looks like officiating does suck
2. shouldn’t matter
3. how? could this happen?
This is BS. Total BS. I’m at the end of my rope as a wolfpack fan.
how do we lose to the worst team in NC? because we are the worst team in nc.
On the radio, sounds like we’re still getting killed on the boards. God knows what we do in practice, but it’s not working.
I’m not saying it has to be Sid, but someone has to get fired over this.
Someone. A janitor. A secretary. A towel boy. I don’t care who, but somebody damnit! I WANT SOME BUTTS!!!!!
oh my god. im done. yall enjoy the season
Thank god we’re no longer ranked. I would hate to see the highlights on SportsCenter.
This team isn’t going to do anything this year until Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley show up. I have no clue what happened to those two guys in the off-season, but they are horrible. Costner in particular because he is certainly getting his opportunities. Airballing free throw? Hardly drawing iron on layups and wide open three point shots? Maybe last year was just a fluke. At this point, he is the next Marcus Melvin in Europe….wow he just turned it over again.
Why the hell do other teams get tons of offensive rebounds against us but we hardly ever get one? Rebounding is positioning and hustle. We are severely lacking in both.
ECU deserved to win this game and this loss isn’t on Lee Folwer.
Well WF looked pretty worthless against Georgia earlier today, but they’ll shoot 75% against us.
Can you make up any execuses, coach Lowe?
Can’t be tired legs tonight.
I’m done. Tell me when we are a worthy Top 25 team. No more “give the coach time to put his team on the floor.” I’ve waited 15 years for a turnaround and I’ll come back when they put something on the floor worth watching. To hell with Hickson’s star status. Screw positive signs in the stats. If we can’t beat the like of a mediocre CUSA team, why should I have any hope of us performing well in the ACC? I *dread* our upcoming game against Davidson. Oh — check that. I don’t care…
I would at least like to see Sid fired up on the sidelines. Looks like he could give a sh*t less at this point.
This is a bad, uninspired, boring basketball team right now.
I mean, BAD.
This is one BAD, BAD team. They are as unwatchable at this point as anything that Herb ever put on the floor. I’m absolutely shocked. Pitiful, just plain pitiful. Not only is Brandon a mere shell of himself from the March run, JJ appears to be the same from just the past month. Could be a long nasty season. The curse is alive and well.
coach lowe needs to coach. we have not done anything different in any game. you would think that after losing to uno we might try something different, but obviously coach lowe doesnt thin we need to chang eanything.
we need to replace his current staff with someone who can coah defense, omeone who can coach a big man to rebound, and someone who can coach a point gaurd in todays game, cause these idiots arent doing a fucking thing.
its bad enough to lose, its worse to keep losing the same the same way for the same reasons over and over again.
The powers that be will say the loss is due to young guys playing in a hostile environment against a team who is playing their biggest opponent of the year. They wpm’t say that this is a team that can’t manage to get anything done in over a week of practice to prepare for a much less talented team.
BS. I’m done. See ya next year.
The radio guys are saying this was an upset. Sounds like a beatdown to me. “When you’re NC State you’re going to get everyone’s best shot.” I don’t think too many teams are really worried about us right now.