Virginia Tech Gameday Thread
For two programs on such dramatically opposite performance arcs, the head-to-head record is startling – the Pack has won 6 games in a row. For Hokie fans, it must be hard to imagine what your program might have accomplished if not for this strange losing streak. I’m sure Seth Greenburg (aka “Basketball Grobe”) would prefer not to think about it.
NC State needs a 7th win even more than any of the previous 6. A win would build confidence and put the Pack back on the path to a likely NIT bid. With Lowe’s program facing a real crossroads, an NIT bid is the minimum to avoid the dreaded “death spiral.”
We like to point out the player most likely to scorch the Pack for 30+ points. Today, that man is Malcolm Delaney. Let’s hope Fells is right today, as no other Pack defender is capable of even pretending to guard him.
While we are linking to everyone’s favorite newspaper, they also have a long profile on the man who will not be NC State’s next point guard. You know, in case you want to torture yourself for a few minutes.
I read the Wall article and it certainly doesn’t paint him in a positive light, rightly or wrongly. I’m glad we’re in the hunt for him, but I won’t be losing any sleep if he chooses Baylor, Memphis or Kansas.
I have a feeling the Hokies are going to break that odd six-game losing streak to the Pack today. For them, this game is much bigger than just another ACC game. They are playing good ball and in the tournament discussion. A loss to the Pack this late in the season would be devestating.
We are desperate for a win to avoid a 9th place (or worse) finish in the league. If we’re going to make a move, it starts today. Our bigs need to play BIG.
Will be a tough road game. Let’s hope Ben/Costner/Fells play big for us today along with our 3 headed monster at the pg position.
This is definitely one of the games we need to win if we expect to make any post season play.
Walls article- interesting comment concerning NCSU’s lack of talent to be able to run. I would think next years roster would be more of a running team, with the exception of Horner.
Sounds like the best fit would be Baylor or Memphis.
Also, I have some concern over having an undisciplined player who will end up with the ball in his hands most of the game. Just look at Miami (JM).
The one and done isn’t great either, but I am not concerned about that as the discussion concerning the team/coach adjusting to Wall. At least with JJ, he didn’t bring the ball up court. You knew if it went into him, he wasn’t going to pass it back out.
To me, if Wall had good character, he would want to stay close to his mom (due to her health) and would have already committed to NCSU. Let’s face it, if he is that good, he will go to the NBA no matter which school takes him. JJ didn’t have the best of year and still was drafted pretty high.
Also, Wall never stated he wanted to go to the school that provided the opportunity to win championships. It was more focused on his playing style and getting to the next level as soon as possible. Which means he doesn’t care so much about wins/losses as he does of his performance. This is not good either. So, I hope he goes some where else. At some point, we should draw the line.
In a perfect world, we would sign Wall and provide patronage jobs for Brian Clifton and Wall’s HS coach. Coach K would spontaneously combust, and Duke’s program would fade back into the background.
But he’ll go to Baylor or Memphis.
Interesting article. i’m back and forth a little with Wall. I agree Wulf, this article doesn’t seem to be too positive about him. I’m kinda leaning to not having him. i’m wondering what the chemistry would be like if he is one and done. The good news is (hopefully) we do have a committment in Lorenzo Brown and hopefully he can shape up to be a good PG/leader who will stick around for 4 years with us. I think the most important thing right now is not a big named player for a year, but rather a solid foundation of core guys who will stick around for 3-4 years. And i can see Lowe heading in that direction, sort of, with mays, thomas, smith, williams. Hopefully these guys will continue to improve and get playing time and we’ll be in good shape in years to come.
About the game today… i’m hoping we can still keep the streak going. We do need to step up and play big. A win today would get us going and get us on the right track. The opposite, as BJD95 said, would send us in a death spiral i think.
GO PACK!!!
Wall be a one and done and in 2011 who-ever had him will be looking for a PG. Besides, it sounds like his coach is trying to gift-wrap him and send him to Baylor.
He’ll no more build a “program” than Hickson did.
One thing is certain… if we do mirculously land Wall, we’ll get much more air time on Sportscenter.
This is all academic because he’s not going to come here. But don’t kid yourselves by thinking we would be better off without him.
Farnold Degand and Tracy Smith will be our best returning players next year. We need all the “ready on Day One” talent we can get. It’s the only shot we have to be good next season.
Who-ever gets Wall will get the parasites that surround him, the questions that will certainly surround his decision, and will also get a kid that has an authority problem that basically wants to showcase himself in order to maximize his value in the draft.
I really don’t see how that will solve a lot of NC State’s problems long-term. Sure, we might be pretty good for one year (see Hickson), but the truth is that playing Ravenscroft and playing UNC are as different animals.
Wall would be a great get for us, surely would help get the team back to the tournament next year.
But as BJD95 said, he ain’t comin, so don’t even get upset when he announces he ain’t.
When you are entering Season Four, and have yet to have a good season, you have to take chances on talent (especially if you are a coach like Sidney Lowe who will have to have overwhelming talent to succeed at this level). Even if it backfires, the alternative was a slow death anyway.
I think dealing with a risky, non-coachable, non-team-oriented player may hurt Sid’s progression as a successful coach. Look at how much team chemistry issues he had to deal with last year.
This presents a challenge for even the best coaches. Coach K & Roy basically can sit players with behavior issues on the bench because they have the talent to do so. Sid would struggle to do it because of the pressure to win now.
So, I understand why he would pursue him, but in the end, he is probably better off without him.
Integrating JJ Hickson was maybe 5th on the list of problems facing last year’s team. Even if you think it was an issue, the solution is to do a better job managing your team, not to avoid uber-talented players. Unless you want to stay in the ACC basement forever.
We need an immediate injection of ready-made talent into our program.
Would TOB recruit Wall? My guess is no.
At least from all the posts we see on this site, about how he recruits character, guys with great work ethic, not necessary 5 star guys. We actually solute him for this.
So we are so desparate for BB to get out of the basement, we are willing to except potential Chris Washburn types….
I would rather stay in the basement a little longer and build this program over the next 5 years with good character guys.
No question that we need to sign some difference makers. But we need an impact big man more than we need Wall. We have guards on the way that will be upgrades to what we have — not necessarily to the extent Wall could be — who project to be 3 or 4 year players. What we don’t have is a quality big man — even if he’s a one year guy — to bridge the gap until Howell and Leslie are teammates. I’d much rather see DeMarcus Cousins sign.
Roy Williams might be the smartest guy in this scenario. Instead of dealing w/ Wall’s entourage, he signed the #2 PG. He gets 85%-90% of the game and probably less than 10% of the baggage.
As far as the comment that Sid needs “overwhelming talent to succeed”, I think back to John Wooden who once said that the best coaches are the ones “with the best players”. Sid, Roy, K, Calipari, all of them need top talent to product top teams. This notion that somehow a “good coach” could make a silk purse out the sow’s ear inherited by Sid is nonsense. The guy is a coach not a miracle worker.
One of my favorite all time quotes was the Bum Phillips line about a good coach was the guy who could take his’n and beat your’n and take your’n and beat his’n. Who really thinks “our’n” is capable of beating UNC or any other collection of tier 1 talent? Does anyone really believe that Sid wouldn’t give ole Roy a giant beat down if they traded players?
I have mixed emotions about Wall. Yea, great highlights for Sportscenter, but he won’t bring any ACC championship by himself. It seems we would be better with someone who is going to hang around for more than one year. We need a team that is familiar with one another for more than a year. I’m concerned about his attitude also. This article did him no good. Broughton didn’t even want him! Coach K didnt seem to be involved with him early on until they lost their pg recruit to I believe Kansas. unc has absolutely no interest. I hate the tarholes and roy as much as the next guy, but he knows what he is doing. Now if he does choose the Pack I will be his number 1 supporter. Now Wall, if you do run with the Pack you could be the one who goes down in history for getting our program back in the right direction and we all know that our fanbase is the best in the country. Go Pack
We’re really not in a position where we can be all that selective with which highly-talented players we bring in. If one of the top players in the country shows interest, you try as hard as you can to get him (within reason, of course). Mind you, I’m not talking about sacrificing institutional integrity or bringing in criminals that happen to be good basketball players. I’m talking about whether or not to bring in a guy even if you know he’s only going to be here a year.
Getting pretty good players and then coaching them up to be superstars isn’t a realistic plan for success in basketball, especially when you’re competing in the league that we’re in. The top teams in the ACC and nationally get players who already have elite talent coming in and they go from there. They don’t need to develop them from the ground up. It’s much different than football.
That being said, its all a moot point anyway. Wall, Cousins, nor Favors are coming here, but at least they mentioned us! We only get rejected by the BEST! That’s something, right? I mean, that helps our RPI, doesn’t it? That weighs heavily with the tournament selection committee, right? Right?
Simply a hypo, but suppose Wall comes and we still suck. Would that be more damaging than sucking without him? That would mean Sid would have failed with two big-time recruits (Hickson and Wall). Even though the chances are that Wall will make us much better quickly, I still say he comes with problems and if it gets ugly, Wall ain’t going to be shy about building his NBA resume (i.e I was the only one that knew how to play basketball on a crappy team). His ego just seems like it could be a real issue if we aren’t careful.
Basketball is indeed different than football, in that elite talent makes a more immediate and noticeable impact. That’s the difference between having 5 starters and 22.
That said, there are basketball coaches that routinely get more out of their medium-level talent. Three such coaches – Al Skinner, Seth Greenburg, and Oliver Purnell – are in our conference.
From what I see from Sid, if he’s going to succeed (which I highly doubt), he’s going to do so in the “overwhelming talent” route, not the “overachiever” model.
Unfortunately, I’m certain he whiffs on Wall and almost certain that he does the same with Cousins. This is not a good harbinger of things to come. Which brings us back to really needing the NIT this year to avoid the death spiral.
Wulfpack – if we sucked with Wall, no real difference. Death spiral, either way. Might as well give yourself the best chance to avoid sucking than worrying about which way it’s better to suck.
BJD- Not only is there the difference in number of starters from basketball to football, but also the fact that elite basketball talent impacts the full duration of the game. In football, an elite talent is generally idle for about half the contest.
You go after Wall full force and hope like hell you can get him here. His presence helps Zo Brown tremendously. No one doubts Wall can run the point in a college game. Brown would have much more of an opportunity to be successful. And it would be pretty nice to get exposure on ESPN, build some excitement, and MAYBE get our games with Wake televised.
Basketball players are also usually much closer to being at their physical potential when being recruited (as opposed to football players). Thus, there’s less body reshaping and “coaching up” involved, and it’s harder to find diamonds in the rough. Not impossible, mind you, but harder to make a living that way.
I just cannot agree with what I’m reading from Cosmo and BJD95. If Sid turns out to be successful, I just wonder if you’ll be as vocal in your support as you are in your criticism during this rebuilding period. Or will you just roll out the old anyone could win with that talent argument?
Oliver Purnell has been at Clemson for 6 years. Go back and look at his third year team and tell me exactly where there is a dime’s worth of difference between Clemson in 2005/6 and NCST in 2008/9. Until he was able to get guys like Rivers, Booker, Oglesby his claim to fame at Clemson (still trying to live it down) was for folding down the stretch.
As I’ve said before, Al Skinner does a great job, and he has the best PG in the ACC. Rice has been there 4 years. He always seems to have at least one guy who no one wanted that turned out to be super — Rice, Dudley, the power forward before Dudley whose name escapes me. There is a correlation.
Greenburg at VaTech: they get a big win or two each year balanced out by some horrible losses. Not a perennial NCAA force. I’m not sold.
People need to acknowledge the magnitude of the rebuilding job that was NCST. It probably had something to do with difficult hiring process we went through 3 years ago, and it definitely has a lot to do with the team in transitioin we all see on the court today. I’m as frustrated and tired of losing as anyone, but I have to look at the situation objectively and recognize the challenges / hurdles to be overcome before any conclusions are reached. The reality is we have two more years before we know if Sid is the right guy, so we should all get on board and support NCST.
Now!
these next 9 games are huge for Lowe and his staff. a 5-4 finish should change the “funk” surrounding the program. A 4-5 finish at least provides some hope and some tepid momentum for what will probably be a rebuilding year.
^’ A 4-5 finish at least provides some hope and some tepid momentum for what will probably be a rebuilding year.’
I can only assume you say ‘rebuilding’ in terms of raising the level of performance to that was observed 20+ years ago? If you are only talking about the Lowe era, then you cannot use the rem ‘rebuild’ as nothing has been built and destroyed. We’re wallowing in the crater left by lack of positive leadership over the past couple decades . . . and we’re not likely to see the sun shine for a little while longer. Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, do not tell me we are ‘rebuilding’ to the highest level of performance seen since Lowe’s first season. Then I will REALLY be depressed!