Recapping the BC Game, Cliffs Notes Version

General Media NCS Basketball Quotes of Note23

Courtesy of the N&O’s ACC blog, this simple quote:

“We knew exactly what they were going to do after the timeout,” BC’s Sean Marshall said.

Lather, rinse, repeat…

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 Media NCS Basketball Quotes of Note

23 Responses to Recapping the BC Game, Cliffs Notes Version

  1. Hunwolf 02/25/2006 at 9:54 PM #

    Not suprising since most everyone in the game thread was predicting a rushed 3 pointer from 25+ feet. Al Skinner is not a great coach by a long stretch, but he knows enough to realize that Herb will keep going to the same analytical well until he finds that mythical drip of water at the bottom.

    Never has a team (or a coach) found more creative and inventive ways to blow games. You have your blown early lead (Maryland in the ACCT and numerous others), you have late game meltdowns (Vandy and Duke-ACCT championship and MANY), and then you have the games where you have momentum and homecourt on your side just to piss it away with dumb strategy or a momentum deflating TO.

    I truly think that our record is a reflection of the talent level we have on this team (which is a credit to our recruiting), and that we often win in spite of very questionable or non-existent bench coaching.

  2. ResidentPack 02/25/2006 at 10:02 PM #

    hunwolf, I said something very similar earlier this year that pretty soon the talent level will start to overcome some of the coaching deficiences. All I got for that was laughter. I think it is very true and it has shown several times this year.

  3. VaWolf82 02/25/2006 at 10:04 PM #

    After playing poorly in any number of games this year against teams that State should have handled easily, a member of the sunshine squad would pronounce that “This is the type of game that State would lose in the past.” Unfortunately, being just good enough to beat teams that won’t make the NCAAT doesn’t cut it against teams that will.

  4. Todd Fuller 02/26/2006 at 3:10 AM #

    Well well, once again… This game should have never gone into an overtime. Why can’t we pound the ball down low and either get the basket or draw the foul to win the game? Instead Herb calls a TO and comes up with NO scheme to get points. As always, they’re forced to heave a shot well beyond the three point line… It seems Archie Miller has more fire and passion on the sidelines than our head coach.

    Hated to see the seniors go out like that at home.

  5. JeremyHyatt 02/26/2006 at 5:19 AM #

    Hindsight is 20/20, but one thing that always used to irk me about Sendek teams, or even Les Robinson’s teams, is that there is no perspective, no recognition of patterns and then adjustments and strategies, as the game progresses, or none that i see when they are really needed. You would think perhaps Sendek would have this quality being somewhat of an intellectual. Maybe it is easier to make these judgements when you can watch a TV rather than me on the wood in the heat of it all. Still, I have seen this less once Sendek took over and less the longer he has been here.

    I will say it again, this is a good team. It was a tough week for the team and fans. However fortunately we are not “on the bubble” and were really playing for momentum and seeding. I was not disappointed by the effort given today, but somewhat devistated by the outcome. We had chances to close it out but didn’t, and at certain junctures of the game we are not hitting threes when the team did in the past games, similar to earlier this week. If anything that is a concern since we rely so heavily on the three.

    This is a good team, but there is a lack of physicality which hurts rebounding and defense, and has caught up to them. Still i would take this team over last year’s team to an [ACC|NCAA]T. Commenting on next year hopefully Costner can bring a physical/athletic game and compliment Simmons in the post and Brackman on the wing. And I hope Fells can turn into a good rebounder and stopper.

  6. lumberpack 02/26/2006 at 8:35 AM #

    Why do people attack Les Robinson? He was a much better coach than Herb, but his talent level was totally non-existent thanks to the Administration. Les won with Jim’s left over talent until they began screwing with Avie Lester and his eligibility and the eligibility of the other kids.

    Once that happened that ended Les’ ability to recruit.

    Even though he could get his scrubs up to play Carolina.

  7. ADS95 02/26/2006 at 9:43 AM #

    I don’t really want to think about the bubble…

    our RPI as of this morning is 35 per Ken Pomery’s site, which is starting to get close.

    Although, what’s the highest RPI an ACC team has had and not gotten in?

  8. Cardiac95 02/26/2006 at 9:51 AM #

    First 4 minutes…..4 possessions…..3 turnover…..ZERO attempts from the field….1 made free throw….

    How is that even possible?

  9. WufPacker 02/26/2006 at 9:55 AM #

    The unfortunate thing is that, despite the talent on this team and the numerous “weapons” that it SHOULD have, when it comes down to brass tacks this team becomes very one dimensional. This makes them very easy to defend at crunch time, or even when they are trying to hold onto a lead (see a pattern here?), and is not a good thing for a team that wants to advance far into the ACC and NCAA tourneys.

    And I’m sorry to tell ya, but that’s squarely on the shoulders of the coaching staff.

  10. class of '74 02/26/2006 at 11:47 AM #

    For the HSSS’s crowing about the quickest year to 20 wins. You may see another record the quickest retreat of a 20 win team to double digit losses! This team looks tired, slow and not too smart right now and the coach well, beating up on him right now is like smacking a pinata. It’s too easy.

  11. Mr O 02/26/2006 at 12:22 PM #

    Class of 74: That quickest team to 20 wins doesn’t mean so much now IMO considering we padded our record with the Cupcake Classic. Take those three additional games out and we would miss the 20 game mark in the regular season.

    We had a real opportunity this week and we simply blew it. The season isn’t over, but the regular season grade probably dropped from an A- to a C+/B-.

    Herb needs to get it done in March. ACC title and/or Final 8 would make almost everyone feel good about the year.

  12. class of '74 02/26/2006 at 12:53 PM #

    ^Totally agree on the cupcakes. Too early to grade but they are looking at a C at best. No way the team I saw this week is in anyway capable of either a ACCT or going beyond 2nd round of NCAA’s.

  13. topOtheorder 02/26/2006 at 2:22 PM #

    I don’t know why everyone acts like we have “so much talent” and that it “overcomes the coaching” on many occasions.

    Sendek’s biggest downfall is his recruiting, always has been. It doesn’t matter what play Sendek draws up, we don’t have anyone who can execute it. No one on our team can break down his defender and create his own shot or create a shot for another player in a late game, in your grill, tight defense moment. We don’t have any ballhandlers in the mold of Towe, Lowe, Spud, Nate, or Corch, and we don’t have any in-your-face clutch shooters like Whitt, Vinnie, Rodney, or even CC. We have the talent for a very solid college frontcourt, but we don’t have the guards to make our frontcourt guys look great. Although Cam is incredibly athletic, he is a terrible ballhandler, and Engin and Tony are both slow, spot-up set shooters. Not what you need in an end game situation. The Princetonesque offense is like a running, ball control offense in football. Great for grinding people down if you are patient and stay ahead in the game, but terrible if you get behind or need a big play. Our results will NEVER change until this coach puts a better TEAM of talent together or we get another coach who puts a better team of talent together.

    ps – Before anyone jumps on me and starts throwing out recruiting rankings, let me say that recruiting rankings totally miss the point. It doesn’t matter how many top 100 players you have—if you have 5 top 100 combo forwards 6’7″ – 6’9″ and 5 top 100 slow poor ballhandling set shooting guards, you don’t have a TEAM. They may be INTERCHANGEABLE, but interchanging 2 slow guys who can’t create their own shot or a shot for someone else in a pressure situation is NOT an advantage. Sendek could call Jimmy Chitwood coming off the picket fence, but it won’t matter, we only have half of the picket fence and no Jimmy Chitwood…

    pss – Before anyone jumps on me as if I am making an excuse for Sendek, please don’t bother. Recruiting IS part of the coaching requirement. This is ALL Sendek’s fault. I just can’t ever think too far ahead to what play Sendek is going to call at the end of the game because I know if they are quick and athletic like Maryland was in the ACCT a couple years ago, we are too slow to get free to get the ball in and/or too weak on the dribble to get the ball up the court. With BC, Skinner was really nice to let us get the ball in, I guess because he knew if his guys got in our jocks, we couldn’t dribble around them anyway…

  14. PACDADDY 02/26/2006 at 3:07 PM #

    ^^…I’m extremely disappointed in the BC game. I agree…this loss completely takes the luster off the season, unless we can show some new life in the tourney. My concern is we’ve shot the ball fairly well in many of these games, but still winning too close for comfort against teams we should have blown out.

    The BC game was a terrible display of senior leadership and judgement on many levels. BC is a very good team and will present most teams with mathup problems if they’re making their shots, but we simply gave the game away. NO EXCUSE!

    I give us a B- right now if we beat WF…lose to them and I give us a C-, mainly because of how we played the last 10 or so games.

    We NEED to figure out a way of getting the ball to Ced without him having to constantly post up and us go over top…This offense allows for one on one penetration, but most of the time we do it, they players go straight to basket and miss layups. Ced needs to learen how to better space himself when the opportunities arise…Brackman does a better job at that, but doesn’t finish as well. IE will keep Brack on the bench, Brack should have played more towards the end of that game…especially if IE isn’t willing to take an open 3 ptr with 5 second s left.

  15. TVP 02/26/2006 at 4:07 PM #

    This team is what it was expected to be prior to the season: Decent, especially in a down ACC, due to a group of solid (but not great) veterans. That’s it. Seriously, name me the last team that was a top 10 or even top 15 level nationally that didn’t have a single player in the running for first team All-Conference. College basketball doesn’t work that way.

    We’ve never had the players under Sendek to be a top 10-15 team, and he’s not the kind of coach who can create wins against more talented teams more than once or twice a year. It’s that simple.

    We aren’t in a terrible position; we just aren’t in the great position a lot of folks thought we might be prior to this past week.

    Long-term, the best thing that could happen to this program is to have a deep NCAA run this year (still possible given the right draw), which could hopefully be parlayed into a monster 07-08 recruiting class (Wright plus an All-American caliber big man complemented by say a McMillan). If we can’t load up on enough raw talent to compete w/ Duke and UNC despite Sendek’s mediocre game coaching, the only other way to take the next step would be for Herb to leave and for us to find a transcendant coach; which at the moment seems highly unlikely.

  16. Mr O 02/26/2006 at 5:50 PM #

    Our problem in our end of game execution this year goes back to not having players that can create off the dribble. I don’t think it was so much coaching as it was not having recruited a player who can bail you out in those situations. We had Hodge for four years. This season we didn’t have a guy to take on that role.

    Bethel, Atsur and Bennerman all tried to get it done. But none of them did.

    The tough part is there really isn’t an easy solution. I think that Herb can still get it done here, but it is going to take wins and top 15 type of seasons to attract the players we need to compete with Duke and UNC. That can still happen this year, but this week really took the luster off of what had the making of a very good regular season.

  17. Victim's Mentality 02/26/2006 at 7:52 PM #

    “We knew exactly what they were going to do after the timeout,â€? BC’s Sean Marshall said.

    This is known as feedback. It is also what is known as becoming a laughing stock. Duke and UNC players have known this “secret” for some time but they are smart enough to not utter it in print. However, now opposing players are brash enough to start bragging about how pedantic Mr. Sendeck is. It is reaching the level of absurdity when opposing players are given the green light to make fun of a major college program and their coach. If Mr. Sendeck will not listen to us, perhaps he will find a quiet moment to be with Mr. Marshall’s comment. One definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and to expect a different result. Mr. Sendeck’s physical appearance yesterday did not look like that of a man who is well—physically or mentally. He has to realize that he is perhaps the only coach who has a proven track record of taking NBA quality talent and somehow working magic that turns them into non-NBA talent. For example, what hinterland was Julius immediately bannished to by the Nuggets? They instantly saw that tremendous damage had been done and that “repairs” had to be made to their new purchase. I imagine the psychologial damage done to these players is perhaps the worst “crime.” You can see it in their faces. It looks like classic signs of severe depression. If Mr. Sendeck will not listen to those who love NCSU, perhaps someone will point him to the fact that it is an open joke now being discussed in print with no concern for retribution on the court—-because everyone now knows the man just ain’t right in the head.

  18. All your base... 02/26/2006 at 8:51 PM #

    ^^^ “because everyone now knows the man just ain’t right in the head.”

    I’ve known this for a _long_ time now…which is why I had to stop watching a _long_ time ago.

  19. Rick 02/27/2006 at 9:25 AM #

    “The tough part is there really isn’t an easy solution. I think that Herb can still get it done here, but it is going to take wins and top 15 type of seasons to attract the players we need to compete with Duke and UNC.”

    It is much more likely that a new coach would bring enthusiasm and recruit better than to think Herb will miraculously start recruiting better.

    I do not see an end to this good but not great problem.

  20. TVP 02/27/2006 at 4:20 PM #

    ^I don’t know. We’ve recruited at a very high level in the past actually. I’d have to go back and find my post on here where I examined this in detail.

    I think the odds of us getting a new coach anytime soon are around the 5% range. It ain’t happening.

  21. Todd Fuller 02/27/2006 at 10:28 PM #

    You would think that Sendek is smart enough to realize that his mechanical play calling where everyone gets a touch outside the three is
    no secret to everyone else in the league… It’s very similar to women’s b-ball. ( not bashing women )

    In 95 we were playing WVA in the NIT at Reynolds, down by 8 with about four minutes or so, same lame offensive schemes back then as now with no sense of urgency or trying to get easy baskets. Goes to show, even with much better players, still the same old song and dance…

    Anyone know Rick Barnes phone number??

  22. Syd 02/28/2006 at 12:26 AM #

    CURLING? Got hooked on it during the Olympics. Right speed, low pressure, lack of intensity, athletism is not required, Herb could be a coaching Hall of Famer!

  23. Syd 02/28/2006 at 2:26 AM #

    topOtheorder: There has been talent in the past and there is talent now. It’s not top ten talent, but Herb recruits reallistically and to suit his own needs. Coach Sendek’s philosophy discounts talent anyway. Take Julius Hodge who played at an equal or lesser skill level throughout his four years. Damion Thorton as a freshman. Marcus Melvin was a manchild when he first showed up. Etimov has never been athletic, he has been injured and is a lot slower, but he is highly skilled and was a hell of a lot better player early on. Cameron Bennerman is a hell of an athlete but his coach doesn’t emphasize athletism and he doesn’t seem to know how good he is. I see flashes in Gavin Grant, and Cedric Simmons has great potential. Watch the players at other schools as they develop over the years and compare. No one has left the NCSU program in the past nine years much improved at playing the game of basketball than the first day they arrived on campus, some were much worse off. That is coaching.

    You mentioned Vinnie D and I would add Tom G as two players who were not highly recruited at the time, but after they arrived at NCSU their skills were built upon and developed. Now they both have their jerseys hanging in the rafters. That was a different kind of coaching.

    Speaking of Etimov. What happened to the offensive set that was used up until this season, where he is posted at the top of the key and triggering the offense. That is were the team benefits the most from his great passing skills and court awareness. Maybe Herb has forgotten about that offensive scheme or maybe he thought Etimov was getting to good and he needed to slow him down.

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