Friday Reality Check

General NCS Basketball Stat of the Day83

Of course the HSSS crowd is still out in decent force on the Pack Pride Message Boards. I’ve been able to deduce that the new mantra is very similar to the old mantra — tout the overall “success” that this basketball season seems to be producing by looking at State’s overall record and damn everything else.

If the REAL motivation and desire is to truly paint an accurate portrait of State’s season to this point, then please allow me to share some quick numbers without ignoring the fact that State padded its win total with a disproportionately large number of games against grossly weak out of conference opponents:

* 21-6 Overall
* 10-4 ACC
* 2nd Place ACC Standings
* 3rd ACC Team in RPI
* #24 RPI
* #15 in Sagarin
* 0-4 vs RPI’s Top 25
* 2-5 vs Teams projected in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN
* 4-4 vs RPI’s Top 50
* 10-5 vs RPI’s Top 100
* 13-6 vs RPI’s Top 200
* NC State’s 0 wins against the RPI’s Top 25 rate last in the country in wins against teams in the Top 25.
* NC State’s 4 wins against the RPI’s Top 50 rate #21 in total wins (not winning percentage). vs teams in the Top 50.
* NC State’s 6 wins against teams rated between #51 – 100 rank 7th in the country for games won vs #51-100

(Please don’t pick on me for the last three points. I included them for “Dan”).

* Other than NC State, Arizona and Missouri State are the only two teams in the RPI’s Top 25 to have yet to defeat a single Top 25 team.

* Of the RPI’s Top 25, only five programs have played less games against Top 25 competition than NC State.

* State is 0-4 vs the RPI’s Top 25. Despite State’s ^comparably small number of games played against Top 25 opponents, only four of the top 50 teams in the RPI have a 4 (or more) game negative disparity between the number of wins and number of losses vs Top 25 opponnents.

* Only one team in the RPI’s Top 25 has played more opponents rated 200+ than NC State (8 opponents).

* Only four teams in the RPI’s Top 50 have played more opponents rated 200+ than NC State. One of them being the “great” George Washington (who has played 10)

Note: I think that all of this information is pretty interesting. It is factual. It is unique (have you seen it anywhere else?). And it required a little work to put together. I find it more than a little “interesting” that this exact post was DELETED from a thread on Pack Pride’s Message Boards earlier today. All I did was post factual bullet points and nothing else. Just wanted to give you the heads up in the event that you ever post some facts and information that any of their moderators may not want other people to know about.

General NCS Basketball Stat of the Day

83 Responses to Friday Reality Check

  1. Fish 02/24/2006 at 10:36 PM #

    ^So let me restate your point:

    Case won championships. Sloan won championships. Valvano won championships. Herb has not and will not win a championship.

  2. PACDADDY 02/24/2006 at 11:06 PM #

    “What I have said is this – an ACCT title or an Elite Eight appearance THIS YEAR, and I’ll consider this season validated as a very good one, and give Heb Sendek kudos for it. Can you join me in agreeing to that benchmark?”

    BJD95…I think if Herb had taken over a program that was winning and had at least been competitve in the ACC, I would have been ready to dump him after year 3….but he didn’t…a young 33 year old took over a historically successful program with a bunch of frustrated fans and gradually built this program into a top level ACC program…2nd place is top level.

    In tourney play, so many things can happen that I don’t put success into that narrow of view. Matchups, officiating, luck, timing…sometimes it comes down to one simple mistake by a player or ref and you lose.

    Yes…I have high standards, but they vary, based on how the season plays out and how we lose and who we lose to. If we finish second again and lose in the ACC T final again…how can I get upset? Herb would have made the final game 40% of his tenure(that would be an outstanding job…win or lose) If we don’t finish 2nd and bomb in the ACC tourney(which both could happen), I expect a strong NCAA showing(final 8) or I would consider the season disappointing.

    My problem is so many fans place these high expectations as though we’re entitiled to it from our coach. His job should be to finish high in the ACC, perform well in the ACC T(but only one team can win), get a high seed in the NCAA, and go from there. Too many good teams lose early in the NCAA every year to make it mandatory to get to a certain level or season is a bomb.

    Look…I’m sick about the loss to UNC…espcially the way we played, but UNC has enough talent every year to beat anyone, if they play at high level…we have a team that can beat anyone, if we play at high level…NEITHER TEAM HAS DONE THAT EVERY GAME….unfortunately…UNC has played their best against us, and we haven’t. UNC had a motivating factor(lower ranking) and if anyone thinks they don’t have talent, they don’t know squat about BB…that doesn’t mean they won’t lose poor teams if they aren’t at the top of their game, because they will. We aren’t talented and deep enough to play bad and beat a real good team. We’ve got to shoot well, Ced has got to stay out of foul trouble and our guards need to play better D.

    If we play well, we should be a Sweet 16 again, and hopfully more…Ced and the seniors are going to have to playmuch better to hope for more than that…

  3. DznrWlf 02/24/2006 at 11:06 PM #

    If we finish the regular season #2, I will be content. I didn’t expect to be #2, even with the league being down. Everyone knew Duke was going to be #1, but I think plenty of people had BC and Maryland next in line. That’s not to say that this is my ultimate goal, but after losing Hodge my hopes were not that high for this year.

    I agree that the performance against UNC was awful, but I’m not going to write this season off b/c of it. Is it our fault that the league is down? I think our ACC record is impressive despite the state of the conference. It is still hard to win games in this league. If we win out we will have a good seed in the tournament and have a chance to make a run.

  4. Mick 02/24/2006 at 11:29 PM #

    Post E. Case, we won ACC titles in 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1983, and 1987.

    During that same time period (1965-1990), UNC won ACC titles in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1989.

    Duke won 1966, 1978, 1980, 1986, and 1988.

    GT won in 1985 and 1990.

    UVA, MD, and USC each won one.

    That’s 10 for UNC, 6 for State, and 5 for Duke. Why do you people persist in knocking down actual NC State accomplishments? It makes absolutely no sense to me. If you really like Herb, fine. But quit trashing our championships from the past. What is it with you Herb people? Why can’t you judge Herb on his actual accomplishments. Defending Herb using distortions of our Pre-Les years is a mental disorder.

    NCSU shut down competitive hoops in April of 1990.

  5. Cardiac95 02/24/2006 at 11:37 PM #

    Case was 3-3 in the NCAA Tournament after the ACC was formed? Wow….what a bum!!! I guess we’ll overlook the fact that you had to be the conference champion just to MAKE the NCAA Tournament back then. So you not only had to be a champion to make the field, but every game you played was against another conference’s champion.

    Also, ACC Regular Season Standings became significantly less important starting with last season due to the loss of the round robin. The schedules are no longer balanced, so who’s to say our 10-4 record is any better or worse than unc’s 9-4 or BC’s 8-5 since we haven’t played the same opponents evenly in home & home games? The ACC Regular Season now is only good for seeding…which it appears we are a lock to avoid a Thursday game, so kudos to Herb!!!

  6. Mick 02/24/2006 at 11:37 PM #

    ^Not sure how that post go out of whack! It should have read like this.

    PACDADDY,

    Post E. Case, we won ACC titles in 1965, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1983, and 1987. NCSU shut down competitive hoops in April of
    1990.

    During that same time period (1965-1990) UNC won titles in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1989. Duke won in 1966, 1978, 1980, 1986, and 1988. GT won in 1985 and 1990. UVA, MD, and USC each won one.

    That’s 10 for UNC, 6 for State, and 5 for Duke. Why do you people persist in knocking down actual NC State accomplishments? It makes absolutely no sense to me. If you really like Herb, fine. But quit trashing our championships from the past. What is it with you Herb people? Why can’t you judge Herb on his actual accomplishments. Defending Herb using distortions of our Pre-Les years is a mental disorder.

  7. PACDADDY 02/24/2006 at 11:38 PM #

    Fish…My point is there are many levels in which to judge a coach. They vary each season and have different meanings during different era’s. If UNC could manage 25 wins in NCAA tourney(not 32 as I said earlier) over a 29 year span, why could we only manage 8(including ’74) during our most successful run of ACC championships until ’83? Why can we only finish 1 or 2nd(alone) 5 times in 30 years prior to Herb? Do we suggest Case underachieved considering NCSU and Case were the leaders of ACC when it formed?..I don’t think so

    Did V underschieve because he barely had a 50% conference winning record and only finished 1 or 2nd(alone) 3 times during 7 year span after winning National title?…no

    Did Sloan miss his chance when he had built one of the most excited programs of that era, only to make NCAA 1 time in next 6 seasons…no conference titles…no 1st or 2nd(alone) in 6 year span after NT with DT? YES!

    Bottomline…Herb has built a program from the crapper into one simular in success to most any program of our past 50 years(over last 5 seasons), outside of a VERY few outstanding seasons in the early 70’s and 83. The rest are separated by a game or two in a tourney.

  8. Mick 02/24/2006 at 11:44 PM #

    “The rest are separated by a game or two in a tourney.”

    That’s the whole point. You made it. Bingo. Give the man a prize. If he won those one or two extra games in a tourney, we would not be having this discussion. He can’t win them for whatever reason.

  9. BJD95 02/24/2006 at 11:45 PM #

    With all due respect, PACDADDY – and I truly am not trying to be a smartass here – even UNC doesn’t hang banners for ACCT title game appearances or for finishing 2nd in the regular season. It’s certainly not an easy thing to do, but not an accomplishment in and of itself. And this is common to ALL fanbases – there are various things that ARE considered accomplishments in college BB: regular season title, ACCT title, NCAAT berth, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, (maybe finals appearance, but not that much more notable than Final Four), national title – that’s really it. Sendek’s getting the NCAAT berths, and he’s made a Sweet Sixteen. Now, he needs to build upon that, and as fans, that’s what we should expect. NOT trumpeting the # of times he’s lost in the ACCT final or crowing about 2nd place in the regular season. Making ACCT finals and finishing high in the conference is nice as a means to an end (i.e., handful of ACCT titles, high NCAA seed to better enable deep runs). Yes, tournaments are unpredictable, but that’s how the game is structured. And OVER TIME, any pure “luck” always balances out.

    Note that you seemingly agree with me – you’ll consider it a disappointment if we don’t make Elite Eight. Is the difference really just that you don’t like seeing that disappointment expressed?

  10. PACDADDY 02/24/2006 at 11:51 PM #

    Mick…good point…but you kind of made my point…I’m not trashing our history. Only showing how expectations based on prior history is misguided. I think the post above better explains my point.

    DO you realize you still had to go back over 30+ years to find 4 of the 6 ACC titles?…That was along time ago guys…Herb was 12 years old when we won the 4th one…understand? It doesn’t take away from the fact we won them, but come on man…that a long time ago.

  11. PACDADDY 02/25/2006 at 12:06 AM #

    I don’t disagree with you BDJ95. I think it’s OK for a fan to have a standard for the NCAA…Look…I want us to win every game we play.

    I just don’t base a season on a loss in a tourney, IF the season was successful. I look at the season as a whole. If the season was crappy but we managed to make Sweet 16 like last year…great!

    As far as the ACC T…I look at it much like the NCAA…Final game to me is an accomplishment much like Sweet 16…but that is my opinion…other fans can be wrong and disagree 🙂 To me it’s about national exposure.

    Can you imagine had we not choked against UM and Herb were to make it this season…That would be 50%…or if he makes it this season…40%…think of the talking heads discussing this and how can anyone really trash a coach for this accomplishment, even if we lose.

    I don’t expect banners hung for for playing in the game but to win the championship, you got to play in it.

  12. PACDADDY 02/25/2006 at 12:32 AM #

    I won’t to clarify what I meant…Sweet Sixteen is without question better national exposure, but making the final game and playing on national TV in the ACC T, is great exposure…isn’t that what the tourneys are all about?

    Making the ACC final is very close to being as hard as making sweet 16…sometimes harder.

  13. JeremyHyatt 02/25/2006 at 2:27 AM #

    ^^^ I heard that!

  15. class of '74 02/25/2006 at 9:35 AM #

    Herb and his record would be the envy of any mid major program, problem is he is not coaching at a mid-major level. For those of you that love Herb remember this season because until Roy or K retires this will be his highwater mark in the ACC. And don’t be surprised if UVA passes us by too!

  16. Luke Buffum 02/25/2006 at 10:12 AM #

    Jeff –

    First of all, I want to thank you for this blog. I have lurked on here for quite some time, but never posted. While I think that your opinion of Herb can sometimes jade your use of statistics, I really do appreciate your (and VaWolf82 and BJD95) time, effort, and research to provide those statistics. I have missed reading your opinion on Packpride, which for the most part has turned into the immature Herb haters (he doesn’t wear a red tie, I hate him!) or Herb lovers (at least we aren’t in last place), rather than anyone using facts to back up any argument. The stats that you provide at least allow people to formulate their opinions from stats, rather than simply from thin air.

    Personally, I really am on the fence on the great Herb debate. Let me preface this statement with some background – I grew up in central PA, and while I followed college basketball closesly, I really never had a rooting interest until going to NCSU in ’94 (got a scholarship for pulp and paper science, otherwise I probably would have gone to PSU). Since I had no favorite team at the time, and I already HATED Duke and UNC, it was really easy for me to latch on to NCSU, even though they we mired in their worst display of basketball in their history. So, after two years of Les, Herb came, started out 0-8 in the ACC, finished 4-4, went to the tourney finals, and took the team on a miracle run into the NIT. Since that time, we have gradually gotten better and better (except for ’99), where we are now finally a rather consistency top 25ish team. I am now a die hard fan who will buy games on pay per view or go to sports bars to catch the Pack in action.

    I would like to see us take the next step and become a consistent top 10 team, but this next point is where I differ from many people on here. My expectations do not inculde CONSISTENT victories over UNC or Duke. I do agree that we should win one ACC title every once in a while, like every 5-7 years, but I really do not think NCSU, no matter who is coaching, can consistently compete with Duke and UNC. Maryland did so for a few years, and Wake did so for a few years as well. I would like for NCSU to step up and be on their level- have some NBA talent, win a regular season titlle every now and then, win a tourney title every now and then, but otherwise be consistently in the top 4 of the ACC and earn a first round tourney bye. As seen by this year, even Wake and Maryland can have an off year.

    Duke and UNC are on an entire other level (if you eliminate the Doh years). The Mcdonald’s AA game is consitently loaded with their recruits. The NBA is loaded with their players. They have beautiful, historic campuses. They have been consistently top 5 for 20 years (UNC for 35 years). They are THE face of college basketball. Nobody else is close to their success over time – not UConn, not Mich State, not Kansas, not Kentucky, not even UCLA, since their run is such a distant memory. So, since no other teams nationally are close to them, it has to be tough to try and compete with them on a day in, day out basis when you are only 20 miles down the road. Everything you do is compared to UNC or Duke. You can’t win.

    I don’t know if this makes me a bad fan, maybe the “Sports fan” me is rather jaded due to my rooting interests. My professional teams of interest have always been the Browns, Eagles, Celtics, and Dodgers. Each team had their run of great teams, each had their terrible years. The last championship team I have rooted for has been the Dodgers of 88. I also grew up a PSU football fan, and other than their undefeated year of 94 where they finished #2 in the nation, they also have just been a consistent top 15 performer, with some bad years and some top 5 years sprinkled in.

    So, in summary, I do not expect this team to be consistently top 5. I do expect they make the move to consitent top 10-15 status, where you expect to win just about every game you play, and you don’t get blown out on your home court.

    Is Herb the man to take us there? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I think it is time for us to part ways. As long as he is the head man, the debate will ALWAYS revolve around him, and NOT around NCSU basketball. Herb has done an admiral job of digging this team out of the basement of the ACC. Now, it is time for another coach, one who will be given a fair shake by all fans, to step in and take us to the next level of success. Incidently, I feel the same way about Chuck Amato. I feel his act has also run its course, and a day does not go by where the debate about the team does not turn into a debate about the coach.

  17. class of '74 02/25/2006 at 10:14 AM #

    ^Do you disagree? If so you would be in a group of probably 1 – 2% of ACC followers.

  18. Cardiac95 02/25/2006 at 10:34 AM #

    >>Herb has built a program from the crapper into one simular in success to most any program of our past 50 years(over last 5 seasons), outside of a VERY few outstanding seasons in the early 70’s and 83.

    Out of 52 seasons in the ACC, you can easily find 14 seasons when we either finished 1st in the ACC Regular Season, won the ACC Tournament, made AT LEAST the Elite 8, or finished the season ranked in the Top 10 Polls.

    Irregardless of where the program was at when Herb came in, is it too much to ask Herb Sendek to have ONE season in ten that ranks among the Top Quartile of seasons in NC State History?

  19. class of '74 02/25/2006 at 10:48 AM #

    For those Herb supporters I ask this: How many more losses to K and Roy does it take for you to honestly believe Herb will supplant either one?
    Second question: If Herb can’t beat Roy or K how does he finish 1ST or 2nd in the ACC regular season or ACCT?

    Facts are facts and history says Herb will forever vie for 3rd, 4th or 5th place until Roy or K retires.

  20. BJD95 02/25/2006 at 10:53 AM #

    “Real'” – there are plenty of rose-tinted glasses sites out there (gopack, etc.) if you just want to see spin and a “positive” outlook. That’s not the aim of this site. Your “never post positive articles” tripe apparently disregards the list of positive posts I listed about 3/4 down the comments.

    Luke, hope to see you posting more often! Same goes for you other lurkers, both “old school” and “new school.” It’s definitely good to see more and more names from the “old” StateFans pop up.

    One clarification – I do think that Sendek’s first team making a run to the ACCT final was an accomplishment in and of itself. A Cinderella run (at least when the coach wasn’t responsible for the team being in the basement to begin with) is indeed very special, and creates great exposure for the program.

    But consistently good regular season records followed by post-season flameouts and repeated conference title losses don’t generate media or fan notions of “greatness” – they make you Marty Schottenheimer. Maybe it’s illustrative that I’ve never been a “Marty ball” fan.

  21. topOtheorder 02/25/2006 at 11:52 AM #

    ^^^^^

    Jeff,

    I think this a great site, and the math/statistics provided by you and VAWolf especially help make the discussions reasonable/objective rather than emotional/subjective, BUT…

    I think your use of the “43 year history” above ventures on Mark Twain statistics. All of those numbers are built on a stellar lineup of Case, Maravich, Sloan, and V in succession. The success of Case, Sloan, and V especially are what we all want, but you can’t just omit or gloss over V’s demise and Les’s 6 years of destruction and act like that didn’t rock the foundation of that 43 year history and change the historical comparisons for Sendek to a certain degree (without making excuses for him). By anyone’s account, that first Sendek year in a stronger ACC with the great Rick Barnes-Tim Duncan-Gary Williams-K-Duke-Dean-UNC, completely balanced round robin schedule, etc with the run to the title was very commendable, even if Sendek’s ragtag bunch lost to Dean’s NBA lineup. The two later whiffs vs Duke, especially the meltdown (even with officiating help) are more disturbing, although it should be noted that, unless my memory is really bad, in Sendek’s 10 years, only Maryland (thanks to John Gilcrist), has won an ACCT Title other than UNC & Duke. In Sendek’s 10 years, the great Rick Barnes never got close (even with K going down with a back and opening up an opportunity), Dave Odom went down the tubes, the great Skip Prosser hasn’t ever come close, Bobby Cremins went down the tubes, Paul Hewitt whiffed his chance vs Duke (helped by the same officiating Sendek got previously), former ACC player and coach Jeff Jones didn’t, the great Pete Gillen didn’t, I don’t think the great Dave Leito is going to make a magical run to the ACCT Final in his first year, etc etc etc. It has been the Duke-UNC conference despite Matt Doherty briefly allowing Maryland to grab some stage and make the Duke-Maryland games THE big games of the year for a brief period (boy, how times have changed over there).

    To me, more useful than churning up statistics with questionable relevance, would be to state the obvious and more disturbing aspect of Sendek’s history which is that Gary Williams rose out of similar ashes and took full advantage of the Doherty opportunity to put Maryland on the highest stages. That is why Gary can be called a great ACC coach, and Sendek remains, to date, just a so-so, average, or, at best, pretty good ACC coach depending on one’s take. Sendek has taken too long and has been unable to seize the opportunities when they were there. Being in the same boat as Barnes, Prosser, and others who have failed miserably in the ACCT over the years doesn’t make it any better…I hope Sendek has saved up all of his magic for a midnight surprise and end run this year because I don’t see as much opportunity to do so next year.

  22. Daniel 02/25/2006 at 11:57 AM #

    What makes me more nervous than losing Herb is the prospect of Lee Fowler making the next hire. If Sendek goes, Fowler needs to follow.

  23. class of '74 02/25/2006 at 12:04 PM #

    ^I think LF is a puppet and Murphy and a few others pull the strings.

  24. VaWolf82 02/25/2006 at 12:21 PM #

    I think it’s OK for a fan to have a standard for the NCAA

    That would be a fine goal for many mid-major conferences. But this is a BS requirement for a team that is supposed to be a major player in a premiere conference.

  25. VaWolf82 02/25/2006 at 12:34 PM #

    To me, more useful than churning up statistics with questionable relevance, would be to state the obvious and more disturbing aspect of Sendek’s history which is that Gary Williams rose out of similar ashes and took full advantage of the Doherty opportunity to put Maryland on the highest stages.

    Many of the previous “stat entries” that I have done were specifically written to dispute certain common themes frequently thrown out by the Sunshine Squad. In hind sight, I should have made a number of the entries more balanced by including the specific BS that I was disputing. I think that this would have made my motivitation clearer.

    My motivations were never to raise a lynch mob to run Sendek out of town. I dislike having smoke blown up my skirt and was hoping to reduce the pure BS that is too often thrown around in support on Sendek.

    Your point about GW is valid. Over the last five years, teams not from Chapel Hill or Durham have accomplished:

    – Regular Season Titles (WF and MD)
    – ACC Tourney Title (MD)
    – Final Four Appearances (MD twice and GT)
    – National Champion (MD)

    There is no reason not to expect a coach at NC State to reach some of the same milestones that other coaches in the conference have reached.

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