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

    CRAP!

    Don’t start lines with dashes unless you want something to look as ugly as that^.

  2. wolfbuff 02/25/2006 at 12:39 PM #

    Luke, I appreciate your perspective and you are probably right that we may never be able to compete with UNC and Duke year in and year out. I don’t doubt your loyalty as a State fan, but let me give you a different perspective from one who was born and raised in NC. My Dad went to State, Mom to UNC, so I have lived this rivalry literally since birth. Aside from the stories I heard from my Dad from the late 50s an early 60s when we most certainly competed with UNC and Duke, my first real recollection of being a fan were during the DT years when, of course, we not only competed, but dominated our 2 rivals. Let me tell you, it felt good. It felt real good. And in high school, when I was one of 3 State fans, it felt real good again in 83.

    So it hurts real bad when we lose to those two, especially UNC. Aside from my being born into it and experiencing early success, I have to live with many family members, neighbors, and co-workers who are UNC grads. It’s like a knife in the gut when we lose.

    That being said, I am trying to put things in perspective and perhaps this loss won’t mean that much in terms of any post-season success we might enjoy. But there will always be that gut ache.

    As for Herb, I am on the fence with him too. I’m trying to get used to the idea that he will be here for a while, but am trying to come to grips that my gut ache will never go away as long as stays.

  3. Luke Buffum 02/25/2006 at 1:05 PM #

    wolfbuff-

    I realize that probably 90% of State fans have been so for life, most being born and raised in North Carolina. I also realize that we all aspire to have a team as good as the team was from ’73-’75. However, that team had a player by the name of David Thompson, who many call the greatest college player of all time, who played on those teams.

    Since then, we have gone to 1 final four, and it was an absolute miracle run that nobody would have ever anticipated. V followed it up strongly with two other final 8’s. That is what I am saying. Let’s be a consistent final 8 team.

    Since the DT years (31 years ago and counting), how often have we consistently beaten Duke AND UNC? I can respect people wanting to be at their level, especially when you have to deal with family members and coworkers who are fans of those teams. But expecting to consistently beat them, and demanding to consistently beat them, is another thing.

  4. Kingfish 02/25/2006 at 1:25 PM #

    Jeff,

    Great statistics. I have been banned from that site. The sunshiners are very sensitive. Sendek is not the answer. I was on the fence with him but he has no vision. For that matter, no one in the Administraiton does either. Fowler like every one else over there is a typical state employee who wants to get in at 8 and punch out at 5. Until some visionaries(aka Mary-Anne Fox) are in place, our programs will forever be stuck in the middle or outside looking in.

  5. lumberpack 02/25/2006 at 1:34 PM #

    Isn’t it funny how our past never matters with the Herb supporters. Comparisons are to be made only to Les Robinson and from 1991.

    Herb’s supports will tell any lie, distort any fact and smear any prior coach to justify the fact that in a decade Herb has produced nothing. Nothing. PACKDADDY likes to crow about making the ACC finals three times – what about the 2 chokes where herbie sat on his ass while the games went out of control and he made no adjustments.

    Most of his supporters have a personal stake in him or a just plain dumb. Dumb as a stump that sits in the middle of soybean field.

  6. topOtheorder 02/25/2006 at 1:51 PM #

    ^^^^^

    VAWolf,

    I hope I didn’t come off sounding like I didn’t buy into MANY if not all of the statistics that you and Jeff have put together recently regarding what are and should be realistic expectations for State bball under any and every coach that takes the helm (I was just looking at Jeff’s 43 year history and % ACCT Finals and wins in the ACCT Finals as kind of overkill for the folks who want more from the current program).

    I think as much as statistics, Gary Williams takes away the notion that IT can’t be done. That IT that we all want CAN be done, no excuses thanks to Gary. Skip Prosser had a chance when he brought new life to WF and inherited Songaila, Howard, etc. and seized the opportunity that Doherty offered to snag lifelong UNC fan Chris Paul—but he may have blown his chance or maybe one could say that Chris Paul gave The Skipper a harder nut jab than he gave Hodge. Paul Hewitt still has a chance (despite his meltdown this year) because of his magical run in the NCAA tourney and the credibility it brings to his already strong recruiting. Sendek is not quite dead in the water, but he needs his own copy of one of Gary’s trophies or at least an NCAA run like Hewitt ASAP to change the statistics himself or, hopefully, he will simply be made a statistic and the book will be turned to the next chapter…

  7. class of '74 02/26/2006 at 11:10 AM #

    Always remember GW complains of being in Alaska compared to the schools in this area. With this said, he still has done more from as bleak or bleaker starting point than Herbie began. Herb is a Ford Taurus in a league of Bentleys, Rolls and Lexus. The only satisfactory answer is it’s time for a trade-in.

  8. Jeff 02/28/2006 at 11:52 AM #

    If we finish the regular season #2, I will be content. I didn’t expect to be #2, even with the league being down.

    I think that here we have a perfect insight into a huge root of the problem.

    Herb Sendek has been here for A DECADE. If you didn’t “expect” State to compete for the top spot this year (let alone good ole #2)…then you never have…and, you never will. It is exactly this level of expectations and standards that have created our current plight of nothing to crow about (in a friggin decade) and therefore no tangible or historical reason to expect anything in the future (except blind, baseless hope and faith).

1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply