What the Hell Happened?

General NCS Basketball70

Well, NC State came out as lackadasical as it did against Wake. Against a slightly better opponent, that spelled disaster in the form of an 83-65 home loss. No undefeated home season, and question marks abound. How do you come out that flat 2 games in a row?

In short, everybody sucked. I was glad to see Sendek play Fells and McCauley towards the end (but before pure garbage time). The regulars sure as hell didn’t earn their PT.

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

General NCS Basketball

70 Responses to What the Hell Happened?

  1. SaccoV 01/25/2006 at 9:13 PM #

    Terrible, disgusting, embarrassing, shameful. Unfortunately I’m quoting Jim Mora, the best man in history of summing up poor performances. I don’t think there are enough adjectives to continue this entry, but SUCKED covers most of them pretty well. In conclusion, the Big East is now officially the best conference in the country.

    BJD95 … I was hoping that Sendek would clear the floor earlier and put Fells and McCauley at the beginning of the second half. That would send the best message for the starters.

    Lastly, Gavin Grant is a turnover waiting to happen. Why does he think that he can drive to basket on anyone?

  2. Slader4881 01/25/2006 at 9:40 PM #

    A couple quick points:

    1) This is 100% the coaches fault, you have to have a handle on your team and know how they are approaching a game. A basic rule in coaching is if your team is bad tell them how good they are and if they are good tell them they SUCK. Sendek allowed this team to believe they were 2nd best in the ACC and in the same class as Duke. (Side note Duke held this team to 40 pts at Cameron) It is clear if we are 2nd best then the ACC is a joke. Seton Hall is in the bottom half of the Big East and they killed us in every way possible.

    2) Please play Fells and McCauley more. You don’t have to give them a lot of minutes just some to get them into the flow of the season. Fells looked lost at first but once he got some time he is a heck of an athlete and could be used on D to run at JJ or someone else.

    3) I know some people may feel I am way off base, but even if we come out with our heads screwed on straight we would’ve been in for a battle tonight. Seton Hall was playing out of their minds making crazy shots and playing way out of their normal capabilities. Of course we poured gas on the fire by not showing up until it was too late.

    In conclusion pin this one on Herb and his boys with the ties on. If you can pin this blame on someone else then you’ve been hitting the pipe one too many times.

  3. JeremyHyatt 01/25/2006 at 10:01 PM #

    not able to watch this due to class, but guess I lucked out there. imagine my surprise when I learned we had 6 points in the first 9 minutes. not the type of suprise like when we were ahead of Duke by 1 at half.

    I’m very curious as to what happened, I almost don’t want to know. The silver lining is that this will not affect our conference standing although we should drop hard on the polls. The good news is we are playing a Clemson team Sunday we should be able to beat.

  4. lt 01/25/2006 at 10:02 PM #

    It’s just disappointing. I agree, Grant turns the ball over numerous times a game yet Herb continues to play him. Brackman and Bennerman are the only ones who can add energy. Sendek has two high school state players of the year, yet they have played few minutes this season???

  5. Jeff 01/25/2006 at 10:03 PM #

    Please play Fells and McCauley more. You don’t have to give them a lot of minutes just some to get them into the flow of the season. Fells looked lost at first but once he got some time he is a heck of an athlete and could be used on D to run at JJ or someone

    But…then we wouldn’t have a good excuse of “inexperience” for next year.

  6. Packbackers 01/25/2006 at 11:27 PM #

    Boy, you just never know in college basketball. West Virginia loses to Marshall, Michigan St. loses to Michigan, and we get our butts kicked by Seton Hall. Thank goodness Carolina lost on their home court again; that makes our sting hurt a lot less. And of all these ranked teams going down, at least our loss was non-conference! Let’s hope we get our shit together by Saturday… I have some news for you: Clemson is no slouch, especially at home. Maybe this will serve as a wake up call!

  7. classof63 01/25/2006 at 11:43 PM #

    only word i can think of tonight is PAthetic

  8. TVP 01/26/2006 at 1:10 AM #

    Boy that sucked tonight. not sure what to say. Didn’t seem like they wanted to be there…

  9. class of '74 01/26/2006 at 6:23 AM #

    There’s no way to dress up this pig. The word is inexcusable.

  10. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 7:55 AM #

    That was horrible and I am sorry I wasted my time last night to go somewhere and watch the game. I agree with whoever said that the loss falls squarely on Herb’s shoulders. That was simply inexcuseabel to be unprepared for that game. We missed a chance to win two games this week and move up in the polls.

    However, thankfully it wasn’t a conference game. Clemson is a big game to get back on track and it isn’t going to be easy. I will be there live, so hopefully we will play like crap again.

  11. RickJ 01/26/2006 at 7:57 AM #

    It is the defense that I find most perplexing. In the first halves of our last 3 home games, the offensive efficiency of GT, Wake & Seton Hall has been staggering. These are not real good offensive teams. GT could play another 100 games on the road and not shoot 67% in a half. What percentage of Seton Hall’s misses in the first half led to an offensive rebound? Our defense is totally breaking down – Is it effort, scheme, personnel or all 3? I have no idea.

  12. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 8:04 AM #

    That should read:

    “…,so hopefully we will NOT play like crap again.”

  13. Krpatel 01/26/2006 at 8:17 AM #

    I cannot stand Grant. He is like a Jr. Julius Hodge. He is turnover prone everytime he touches the ball. I cringe everytime he has the rock in his hands. Am I the only one that feels that he needs to be benched for the remainder of the season?

  14. Herb 01/26/2006 at 8:19 AM #

    Where are all the posters who complain about Herb not ever being fired up? Shouldn’t they be posting jubilant messages about how he got a technical and screamed at his players?

    That’s all the analysis I can offer – thank God I didn’t watch this one.

  15. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 8:33 AM #

    Grant had played well the last 3 or 4 games, but then he looked like he got a little overconfident last night and tried to do too much.

    Once we got down, the whole team started trying to do 1 on 1 stuff and they completely went away from our offense and playing as a team. That was what disappointed me more than anything. It was similar to the St. Johns game last year.

    The only other game I can remember being that bad in the RBC was the game against Charlotte where we lost by 20 points. They were actually a pretty good team that year, better than Seton Hall. So I would have to call last night’s game the worst of Herb’s career at home.

    Still, beat Clemson and we are OK. 12-4 in the ACC probably gets us a 2 or 3 seed which means we would be a in great shape going into the ACC tourney.

  16. Fish 01/26/2006 at 8:52 AM #

    This team and coach stink. Many of you are setting yourselves up for disappointment. This team will not win 12 games in the conference because they suck! Good teams do not get pounded at home by a poor, poor Seton Hall team.

    Clemson will spank us because they have two quick guards and a low post player. Need I remind anyone Sendek’s results on the road. Atsur has to be the slowest player in the ACC and when does a player not drive by Bethel.

    Maybe we have a chance to be good in baseball and softabll. Laughable!!

    Someone send a U-Haul truck over and clean out Fowler’s, Yow’s, Amato’s and Sendek’s house. Lets just start over!

  17. class of '74 01/26/2006 at 9:02 AM #

    ^Another game like last night and I’m with you!

  18. BJD95 01/26/2006 at 9:08 AM #

    Bethel was indeed horrible, especially on defense. If this trend continues, maybe Fells should get some of his minutes – he at least played with some energy on the defensive end.

    Atsur has completely disappeared over the last several games. Very hard to explain.

    Evtimov had a really good first 16 minutes of play (performing his role – making good passes and nailing the OPEN three), then committed a rash of bad turnovers on ill-timed drives and failed circus passes.

  19. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 9:16 AM #

    Didn’t Atsur play well against Wake?

    He did play poorly at Duke. Our offense just didn’t produce many good looks early and we settled quickly on long threes because we were down. Evtimov taking over worked in the 1st half. But then he tried to do too much and lost his head again in the 2nd half.

    Again, the fact that we reverted to 1 on 1 play and seemed to fall apart as a team is what disappointed me. It also disappointed me that Herb couldn’t get them back together.

    I just couldn’t believe that we went from 12 point deficit to being 24 points behind in the 2nd half.

  20. Packer74 01/26/2006 at 9:28 AM #

    12-4 in the ACC. We still have 10 conference games to play and if we win six of those, I will be pleasantly surprised.

  21. Krpatel 01/26/2006 at 9:36 AM #

    Why is it that year in and year out, we start off pretty good and win a bunch of games early against poor quality teams, but when it comes time to have to step up and play quality opponents, we crumble easier than a chips ahoy cookie? This is supposed to be our most experienced and talented team in over 10 years and we can’t seem to pull anything together. Why do we always need a wake up call sort of game for us to realize that teams are not going roll over for us just b/c we are ranked or b/c we are NC State. I don’t get it.

    Where is our senior leadership that everyone talked about in the preseason? How many times did a Seton Hall player drive to the basket without having anyone switch to help defend the shot. I must have counted 12 times where one of their players took a clear 15-20ft jump shot without a hand in their face. I thought that Herb’s one staple for this program was defense. Sure didn’t look like it out there last night.

    Now I’m not so sure that we can go down to Clemson (our own personal Death Valley) and take care of business like we should. Clemson is no slouch and can very easily take it to us and send us packing with another 18-20 point loss. Herb had better knock some sense into these boys and get them 1,000 times more focused then what they were last night.

  22. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 9:36 AM #

    Remaining schedule:
    @ Clemson
    UVa
    Maryland
    @Miami
    @Tech
    FSU
    @VPI
    UNC
    BC
    @Wake

    We should be favored in every game at home plus at Clemson, at Tech, at VPI, and maybe at Miami and at Wake.

    6-4 is hopefully a worst case scenario. The game at Clemson is crucial to get back on track.

  23. Mr. O 01/26/2006 at 9:41 AM #

    NC State’s own personal Death Valley?

    Herb is 6-1 versus Clemson the last 4 years and is 3-1 at Death Valley. This probably is Clemson’s best team we have faced though.

  24. Sam '92 01/26/2006 at 9:41 AM #

    maybe i’m crazy, but as awful as that performance was, i don’t think its indicative of the season. at least i’m hoping it was just a one-off tragedy. i think the key is whether the coach and team can use that disaster as fuel to get themselves pumped up for clemson. if we can’t beat clemson i’ll lose hope

  25. newswolf 01/26/2006 at 10:00 AM #

    “sendek didn’t miss those shots last night”

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