Lee Fowler’s Idea of Improvement

07-08 Basketball AD & Department NC State Administration56

I won’t make this long because it hurts my head too much to type.

When Lee Fowler wanted to earn political favor with the more respected and poweful Terry Holland Fowler foolishly scheduled a road game for the NC State Basketball program in Greenville – where:

(1) NO other NC State basketball team had ever stooped to play,
(2) very few ACC programs and no other programs from North Carolina had ever stooped to play, and
(3) all of the NC State fans who pay for lifetime rights couldn’t watch the Wolfpack for the fifth consecutive game over a three week+ period.

When softly asked about the decision in the off-season, Fowler boldly boasted that he was being strategic as road games/wins will help NC State’s RPI.

Just for the record, NC State entered Saturday’s game against ECU rated #36 in the RPI with the #19th ranked strentgh of schedule in the country. After the trip to ECU that “Coach Fowler” so strategically scheduled – NC State is #75 in the RPI with the #52nd ranked strength of schedule in the country.

With this kind of Einstein-esque strategy from someone who self-proclaims that they ‘know basketball’…(finish your own sentence here)…

For the record, the following is NC State’s all-sports rankings in the annual Director’s Cup is listed below. Thank GOD that we have invested so much money into new facilities, eh? Just look at the ‘improvement’ that the increased expenditures have brought.

—Lee Fowler Years—-
2006-07 – #44
2005-06 – #34
2004-05 – #51
2003-04 – #39
2002-03 – #43
2001-02 – #46
2000-01 – #56

—Les Robinson Years—
1999-00 – #40
1998-99 – #63
1997-98 – #43
1996-97 – #57

—Todd Turner Years—
1995-96 – #34
1994-95 – #32
1993-94 – #59

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07-08 Basketball AD & Department NC State Administration

56 Responses to Lee Fowler’s Idea of Improvement

  1. pack81 12/12/2007 at 3:51 PM #

    I’m sure Mr. Fowler expected State to win easily, just like 100% of the fans.

  2. Sam92 12/12/2007 at 4:01 PM #

    I am loathe to defend Lee Fowler, but blaming him for the ECU debacle is unfair – the loss raises more concerns about the head coach than it does about the athletic director

  3. mroli 12/12/2007 at 4:05 PM #

    ^^^^ and the loss would likely have shown itself somewhere else. However, it pains me to no end that it was ECU. Some of my friends have become unbearable.

    ack, it hurts my head as well.

  4. jbpackfan 12/12/2007 at 4:14 PM #

    Enough about playing at ECU. If we had won the game, then we could complain. But we freakin lost. Is Fowler an idiot? Of course, but we LOST.

  5. RedTerror59 12/12/2007 at 4:43 PM #

    I would like to see how LF and others stack up against Willis Casey and that big ole Roy Clogston who brought Earl Edwards in.

  6. RedTerror59 12/12/2007 at 4:45 PM #

    and of course Jimmy V.

  7. ldr of pk 75 12/12/2007 at 4:47 PM #

    Right on, our problem Basketball wise is a poor product at present, not Jed. That’s coaching responsibility. However, all I need to know about Jed is he oversees Carter-Finley during one of the hottest games of the year and lets us run out of water that most fools pay $3-4/ bottle for. In a stadium of 50-60,000 people, what did that cost for the second half? Probably more profit in water than in liquor, so the mans a bonafide genius.

  8. RBCRowdy 12/12/2007 at 4:48 PM #

    They way the team played that night, they would have lost to ECU in Raleigh. Imagine how much worse that would have been.

  9. turnoffthetv 12/12/2007 at 4:52 PM #

    “(3) all of the NC State fans who pay for lifetime rights couldn’t watch the Wolfpack for the fifth consecutive game over a three week+ period.”

    This is one that has me puzzled the most with scheduling, not so much the ECU game being played on the road.

    2 home games then 3 neutrals then 2 away I thought the pack should have been playing at home that last game whether it was ECU or whoever. Now 6 out of the next 7 at home. Looks like it could have been balanced out a little better.

  10. CarnifeX 12/12/2007 at 4:56 PM #

    http://www.fireleefowler.com

    ^why is this not owned and operated?

  11. Sweet jumper 12/12/2007 at 5:13 PM #

    The team lost to ECU; Lee Fowler did not. It is the team’s job to play the schedule and to win as many games as possible. The fact is they lost a game to ECU that should have never been in doubt. Accept it and move on the S.C.State. I am not defending Fowler, but he did not lose that game.

  12. RedTerror59 12/12/2007 at 5:20 PM #

    What does a coach do? Does he play a system that ensures wins in November/December or work his plan to develop his players and team to win in March. I’m glad that coach Lowe has the job of integrating a JJ Hickson into a solid nucleus of starters from the year before. And he does have to integrate him without alienating his team because he blew somebody off who has contributed like that bunch did last year.

    Will Costner be a 30% shooter for the season? Will MacCauley rebound and score like a mop-up sub for the remainder of the year. I for one am going to reign in my ego, and stand for Coach Lowe and the staff’s ability to get this ox out of the ditch and upright the cart.

    That’s just one way of doing it. MOst of this week I have complained, assigned blame and in general whined like a hounddog sitting on his nuts, to sorry and lazy7 to get off of them. Personally, I like it better standing for Coach Lowe getting the job done. I wonder how many of our opponents are anxious to play this pissed off team wanting to get the track meet practices off the schedule.

    Losing to teams that are of lesser talent early in the season can be misleading. Teams with lesser talent are often drilled in a system. (See HS years) The system carries the day. Coach Smith was able to use a system and develop talent. Sid (or is it Syd) is the man right now.

  13. hball57 12/12/2007 at 5:27 PM #

    With the meager attendance we State fans exhibit during November and December, it’s really hypocritical to complain about playing away games during those months, IMHO.

  14. Wulfpack 12/12/2007 at 5:31 PM #

    Though Lee is no saint, putting this one on him is a bit of a stretch. No, the game should not have been scheduled. Yes, we should have won. The mud in the middle is where we rest ever so impatiently.

  15. SaccoV 12/12/2007 at 5:33 PM #

    Unfortunately for all NC State fans, especially those who have given money to the Wolfpack Club or purchased season tickets for ANY sport, there will be no honest improvement with our athletics program until Purcell and Murphy put serious, non-monetary pressure on Fowler to improve all sports at the university. The majority of NC State fans, myself included, have sipped the Kool-Aid too easily over the last several years on the premise that improvement is on the way if our facilities are on the upswing. Improve facilities all you want, unless the coaches are pressured to get their teams to consistently perform at a high level with full intent of defeating their conference-mates, there is little hope for having an athletics department in tune with the passion of the fanbase. To hell with one basketball game, Lee Fowler is a much greater problem for this university and (I know I’m repeating myself) I will not spend one cent on a ticket, parking pass, online subscription, etc, for this university’s sports teams until Lee Fowler is gone as AD. Until Fowler is removed, there is no reason for Wolfpack fans and alumni to squander their hard-earned salaries to watch uniformed apathy from the administration. I’ll yield the remainder of my time.

  16. StateFans 12/12/2007 at 6:02 PM #

    How do you people get through life with your piss poor reading comprehension an analytical skills?

    Just out of curiosity…had we won Saturday night, how would our rpi have been impacted in light of the negative impact to sos?

  17. wolfpack1986 12/12/2007 at 6:25 PM #

    I agree with StateFans. The POINT is not that we won or lost the game. The issue is that our AD let us play in hostile place with NOTHING to gain and everything to lose whether or not we won or lost. If we had won our RPI till would have been shot down.

    In addition, who is doing our scheduling? We will have had about 2 games in the last two weeks!! Then we get a slew of games in bewteen Christmas and New Years. The only way this team or any team is going to jell is by getting on the court. Even against scrubs!! And don’t give me the exam excuse. Heck,doesn’t it seem like Duke,Carolina and every other team has played at least two games a week since the season started. Adn doesn’t that get you ready for the ACC season? What is going on with our Athletic Department to let these type of things happen? Man I only hope that Michigan truly doesn’t come after Tom O’Brien, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

  18. wolfpackbball 12/12/2007 at 6:28 PM #

    My goodness. We played a team, albeit a sorry team, in their house (which I agree shouldn’t have happened) and we lost. The basketball team lost that game. If we can’t handle the adversity of playing at ECU then what can we handle? To me it’s not a bad idea to get a team’s best shot when they’re full of emotion. Hell, see if you can handle it and beat them, SOS/RPI or not.

  19. PackerInRussia 12/12/2007 at 6:33 PM #

    StateFans beat me to the punch. Certainly Lee Fowler cannot be blamed for the loss. The harm comes in the SOS being weakened which negatively impacts the RPI. Had they come out of Greenville with a W, the SOS would still have dropped just as far. Therefore, win or lose, this game would have hurt State’s RPI. Sometimes you can’t tell if a team is going to have a bad season and adversely affect the RPI, but when a team is consistently bad year after year with a rock bottom RPI, there is no need to schedule them.

  20. NCSU84 12/12/2007 at 6:47 PM #

    I think most of us posting here have VERY short memories. If you recall last year’s game with ECU at the RBC, we barely won that game. It was close until the very end and it too was a December game. The point is that this game last year was not indicative of the basketball season. I think we all should give the coaching staff a chance to show us what this year’s team can really do.

  21. Trip 12/12/2007 at 6:51 PM #

    “Just out of curiosity…had we won Saturday night, how would our rpi have been impacted in light of the negative impact to sos?”

    Our RPI would have still dropped, since it is calculated based on the opponents strength of schedule and their wins/losses.. and ECU has losses to grand basketball schools such as Liberty. I seriously didn’t know Liberty University fielded competitive sports teams until just now. I tried explaining this to one of my friends before the game (And promptly ate my words after the game) and she still didn’t understand it.

    Bottom line:
    “When softly asked about the decision in the off-season, Fowler boldly boasted that he was being strategic as road games/wins will help NC State’s RPI.”

    Scheduling ECU at ALL, no matter where we play them, no matter the outcome, lowers NC State’s RPI unless ECU goes balls crazy and destroys their conference, which it isn’t looking like so far, and certainly didn’t look like when the game was scheduled. We could literally blow them out 100-30 and it would hurt our NCAA tournament chances because of the blow to our SOS and RPI if we were a bubble team. Fowler needs to read up on how RPI is calculated, or maybe he needs to read scouting reports on other teams, because if he can honestly say something like that, he lacks a fundamental understanding somewhere.

  22. RickJ 12/12/2007 at 6:56 PM #

    I’m with Statefans on this issue but I wouldn’t want to play them if there was no such thing as an RPI. I understand the feeling of being pissed at the team’s performance at ECU but you just don’t schedule this game.

    In 36 years, Dean Smith had a policy of not only not playing in-state teams on the road, he wouldn’t even play them at home. Below are 3 choices of why he did this:

    1. He was an idiot.

    2. He was a coward.

    3. He was completely selfish when it came to his program and every out-of-conference game he scheduled was for the sole reason of helping his program and not doing anybody a favor.

    Some of you may be old enough to remember the old North – South doubleheaders in Charlotte. For 2 nights, State and UNC would play South Carolina and Clemson as part of regular season play. You don’t hear as much about this event but it was one that Everett Case (a brilliant schedule maker) loved. Coach Case sold it as a great event for the Carolinas, blah, blah, blah but told many people in private there was only one real reason for this tournament -to avoid having to play in Columbia and Clemson in the same year.

    One last V story to finish the thought. The NCAA coaches convention is held every year during the Final Four. V was doing his radio show one year and asked this question to his audience – “How do you start a stampede at the coaches convention?” V’s punch line was – “Stand up in the middle of the room and yell, I need a road game in December.” In my mind, the guy standing up and yelling is Fowler.

  23. Trip 12/12/2007 at 6:56 PM #

    Also, to add to that, I don’t blame Fowler at all for the loss to ECU, the team wins that outstanding achievement. I blame him for the opportunity to lose or win to ECU because there was no possible positive outcome for NC State in this case.

    It’s not like with Naawlins where we had a positive because we grabbed their coach, there is literally no benefit for NC State to play at ECU. The only benefit came to ECU, and as the Athletic Director of NCSU, Fowler needs to keep NCSU’s interests far above ECU’s interests because NCSU is writing his check, not ECU.

  24. packwolf90 12/12/2007 at 7:39 PM #

    Anyone who has a rivals account go check out the new hightlight video of John Wall. Landing him would be huge

  25. wolfonthehill 12/12/2007 at 7:52 PM #

    This team would NOT have lost at home to ECU. As poorly as we played, we led most of the game, and we lost by a couple buckets.

    I’m not an irrationally sunny kind of guy, but we win that game at the RBC… which is why you NEVER play that game on the road.

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