How sweet it was to experience such a wonderful weekend in Wolfpack Athletics!!
Basketball:
Let’s start on the hardwood since we’ve had plenty of time to discuss football.
===> See, that wasn’t so tough was it? It wasn’t difficult at all to schedule a decently-named team AND get a win. Who cares how poorly Notre Dame played? That’s what happens from game to game. Historically, we’ve scheduled so few interesting non-conference games that we don’t get the pleasure of running into a bad night from one of our opponents that often.
===> I was a little disappointed in The Wolfpacker over the weekend as they stated that NC State’s record against Notre Dame was now 2-3.
Notebook: Notre Dame still leads the overall series with NC State 3-2.
That just didn’t feel right to me, because I remember when I was young beating Notre at least twice in South Bend. A look back and I found 18 and 20 point victories in South bend in 1980 and 1982, respectively; both when Notre Dame was pretty significant on the national map.
I know that the big current trend is to do everything possible to diminish the history of the NC State Basketball program, but let’s at least try to not be like Brett Friendlander and just make up records.
It is not often that we say this, but at least GoPack.com got this one right. They might not have had the television coverage of the game accurate on their website until the week of the game, but at least they got the State-Notre Dame series record correct, “the Pack would improve to 3-4 against Notre Dame in the all-time series.”
===> Unfortunately, my cable box died over Thanksgiving weekend so I did not get to see the second half of the NC State – Notre Dame basketball game. From an excitement perspective, it doesn’t sound like I missed much. I honestly could care less how boring we are as long as we win. It was nice that Notre Dame totally sucked on Saturday night…but it was nicer that we won. I’ll take any of it!! Good work, guys. We are currently on our way of staying OFF of the NCAA Tournament Bubble this year. It is nice to have a little interest in our next game at this point in the season.
Football:
===> I think that we’ve covered Saturday’s game and the resulting bowl situation as it has been evolving.
===> What we didn’t cover as the beauty that of beating Maryland to become bowl eligible. Outside of Carolina, is there a team that should be despised more than the Terps?
Not only have their players physically attacked our band (2 years ago prior to Philip Rivers’ senior day) and generally acted like thugs in their last 2 visits to Carter-Finley…but the “Terps and the Fat Man” have handed us losses on our own turf that have kept us out of the Peach Bowl on two separate occassions. On Saturday, their team ran onto the field (AGAIN) making gestures and engaging the Carter-Finley crowd. None of the players were as cocky (and stupid looking) as Vernon Davis, who stood in front of the fans around the 40 yard line taking mock bows and tipping his hat.
It was a wonderful feeling to keep the Turtles out of a bowl for the second consecutive year and be a part of sending such a clear signal to recruits that their program has stagnated and is in trouble. The Fridge is a super coach, as he proved when he was winning with Mark Duffner’s players. But, we are now seeing the results of top talent shunning the opportunity to play for such an ass hole.
===> Did you know that NC State has led Maryland at halftime in each of Chuck Amato’s previous five seasons? Yet we had compiled a 1-4 record in those games (prior to this weekend)?
===> We also didn’t cover the beauty of Carolina losing and NOT becoming bowl eligible. You probably heard/saw Matt Baker’s comments, but you need to read the comments from our readers (especially from “Eddie”) in this entry. Clarity, facts, and solid analysis always is a bitch to an individual’s dream world. (I also want to use those comments from Eddie and our readers as an example of how solid and sophisticated the discussions are on this blog. Thanks to everyone for participating!)
Happy Anniversary To Us
Can you believe it? This little blog effectively got off the ground one year ago today!! Since then, we have had over 2 million hits and growing all of the time. (Please let yout friends know about us as we have never “pushed” the site for traffic).
It’s a little ironic that this entry included complaints about Fox Sports coverage of ACC Basketball when I posted this entry 365 days ago.
