7-2 & Rising Hopes

06-07 Basketball General56

Alabama comes to town on Wednesday night as the Wolfpack plays host in the RBC Center to the only Top-10-ranked out of conference team that I can remember visiting the building. As usual, Section Six has a great preview of the game that can be viewed by clicking here.

(Sidenote – can anyone remember a higher ranked non-conference opponent in the ESA/RBC? It really sucks that the biggest non-conference game in the history of the building gets a 6:30pm tip and is scheduled when the students are home for exams.)

Approximately 30% of the season has passed and – to this point – nobody in their right mind would claim that Sidney Lowe and NC State have not overachieved to this point of the season. In fact, the N&O ran a story today supporting this and highlighting the Wolfpack’s strong play and ‘rising expectations’. (Link to story)

^This comes just one day after the N&O’s blog chimed in on the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest match-up on Sunday.

Virginia Tech ended up beating Wake Forest, 63-60 after Jamie Skeen’s last-second heave missed wide right. If those two teams don’t end up fighting for 11th and 12th place with Miami, the ACC’s in serious trouble.

That’s a nice (and quick) improvement from the preseason prognostications that predicted that the Wolfpack would finish 12th in the ACC and State fans would “get what they deserve” (as a preseason Fox Sports article stated)

State currently sits a surprising 7-2 with an RPI around #115 heading into a thirteen day stretch where the Pack will play five consecutive out of conference televised contests. The Pack will begin conference play in earnest on January 6th vs Boston College. Don’t worry about the RPI right now – the Pack still has eleven games scheduled with teams currently in the Top 40 of the RPI.

Before the season began, most Wolfpackers would have GLADLY taken a 7-2 to start the season WITH Engin Atsur’s presence. Can anyone really ask more than a 7-2 start considering that Atsur has missed two and half weeks of play?

I went “On the Record” with our thoughts regarding the season before we even knew how good Clemson was going to be this year. The entire entry can be seen here but can boiled down as follows:

* For this season’s 29 game regular season schedule – I am looking for the Wolfpack to finish the season 12-17 overall with a 3-13 record in the ACC. I expect a first-game exit from the ACC Tournament. Anything above this is gravy to me this year.

* A “stretch goal/expectation” would be a 15-14 regular season record; I don’t care how the wins are distributed. Finishing the regular season 15-14 (and potentially 15-15 after an ACC Tournament loss) would qualify the Wolfpack for an NIT Tournament appearance that would be unbelievable this season. This is the goal.

As the N&O intimated today but did not express in the framework of records and numbers – at this point of the season the Pack has managed to elevate their performance where they are making a strong run for the NIT and continue to provide a glimmer of hope for an NCAA Tournament invitation.

There, I said it.

Don’t confuse that with a prediction or an expectation that the Wolfpack will earn an NCAA bid; just realize that the Pack’s schedule is laden with opportunities to make splashes like the one that was made in defeat of an 11-1 Michigan team that seems headed to the big dance this year. Additionally, the NCAA Tournament committee does not hide the fact that they adjust for key injuries during the season if a team is at full strength and playing well at the end of the season.

The ACC is tough this year. A team with a strong non-conference showing – like the Pack is building – can make the NCAA Tournament with a 7-9 record in the ACC . It won’t be easy, but an objective observer who has watched teams play this season could definitely contrive a scenario where the Pack can get to 7 or 8 wins in the conference. Of course, a single injury to one of the Pack’s five main players would cripple any of this thought. Another key will be for State’s key players to avoid foul trouble in the games that the Pack has legitimate opportunities to win.

With all of this on the table, this five-game stretch prior to the start of the conference season is pivotal to setting the stage for the rest of the year. It breaks down like this:

* 5-0 and fans can legitimately shift their conversations from aiming for the NIT (with a 15-14 record) to aiming for the NCAA. State would be 12-2 with two very big wins vs Michigan and Alabama.

* 4-1 (11-3 overall) would keep fans hope for an NCAA Tournament bubble appearance alive for another couple of weeks. State’s strong play against Michigan and Virginia generates excitement for the Alabama game and Cincinnati’s early struggles gives the Pack hope on the road this weekend. The Pack would definitely have to finish at least 7-9 in conference play (potentially 8-8) for NCAA dreams.

* Before the season, a 3-2 mark would have been the hope/expectation for this stretch. Because of the Michigan win, a 10-4 overall mark prior to January 6th would keep some NCAA hopes alive but would more prominently place the Pack in solid contention to qualify for the NIT with a 15-14 (or better) overall record at the end of the year.

* Anything worse than a 3-2 mark in the next 5 game run would relegate hopes for the season much closer to what was expected heading into the year.

06-07 Basketball General

56 Responses to 7-2 & Rising Hopes

  1. ShootingGuard 12/20/2006 at 4:52 PM #

    ^^^^^

    Mr O,

    As I believe Mark Twain once said,”There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics…”

    Not trying to pick a fight, but you can throw out all of the statistics you want, but, unfortunately, after Herb “established” himself with a few recruiting classes under his belt, with the rare exceptions of Evtimov and Atsur, he had a real problem playing freshmen—and sometimes sophomores.

    Bell, Sherrill, Mejia, and Bennerman made it very PUBLIC that they were pissed off about their playing time, and Bell and Mejia ultimately transferred because of that. The Sherrill saga was written out over and over in the Salisbury newspaper with everyone in the world seemingly questioning why he never played. Bennerman didn’t go quite that far—he waited until he was actually starting to make it public that he had absolutely no idea what Sendek was trying to do half the time…

    Guidry, Flatt, Simons, and O’Donnell may not have left completely due to playing time, but it sure didn’t help (not that I think any of those guys would have helped the program progress that much, although Guidry and MOD might have proven to be valuable deep bench guys).

    Sure, MacCauley and Fells had some guys ahead of them, but they still should have seen statistical minutes beyond the early cupcake games—I mean, when everyone but Grant had quit on Herb in the Wake Forest games, wouldn’t it be worth trying something new?? Also, if Herb thought he was coming back for this year and was really building a program, he would have had to recognize how many seniors he was losing plus the obvious that Simmons and Brackman were likely not coming back either—and seen value in playing the younger returnees…

    Herb did not rule out playing freshmen, but his “tighten up” over the course of a season approach often excluded freshmen from playing a lot because their freshmen proneness for making mistakes did not jive with the “anal perfectionist’s dream” Princeton Offense…

    Once Lowe gets a couple classes in, perhaps freshmen won’t play as much either, but I have a feeling, based on his style, that if you are “a player,” the more freedom Lowe allows in his system will allow “players” to get on the floor regardless of whether they are freshmen or not…

  2. Rick 12/20/2006 at 5:15 PM #

    Shooting said it far better than I.

  3. Mr O 12/20/2006 at 11:28 PM #

    Shootinguard: Which is the same thing Herb allowed. If you were good enough to warrant playing time, then you played. If you could help the team, then you played. If there were people in front of you better than you, then unfortunately you had to wait your turn and/or earn it in practice. I just layed out ten years of freshman playing major minutes for Herb Sendek not to mention 12 different freshman starting for Herb Sendek.

    You mention Guidry, Flatt, Simons, and MOD????

    What exactly did those guys do at the division 1 level that ever showed they should have played significant minutes in the ACC for NC State?

    Mejia was a shooting guard in a program with better shooting guards in front of him(Sherrill and Bennerman). He didn’t want to wait his turn. Heck, I remeber Guidry playing a lot of minutes as a freshman. I think there was a game against Wake Forest where he scored 20~ points and maybe even started as a freshman playing ahead of the McD AA Scooter Sherrill. Yet, Guidry transfered anyway.

    Mike Bell might have been a player at NC State, but there was no time for him his freshman year because of Wilkins, Melvin, Inge, Kelley, and Thornton all in front of him in the frontcourt. Bell didn’t want to wait his turn and our program didn’t miss a beat because Marcus Melvin was an all-ACC player at Bell’s position in the same recruiting class. And I was one of Bell’s biggest fans coming out of HS.

    If Sherrill/Bennerman had played more minutes as freshman and sophmores, then it would have been because Herb had failed to recruit quality players at the shooting guard position. Logical people would see that shooting guard was one of our strongest postions over the Herb Era

    Herb recruited all-ACC Grundy then Scooter then all-ACC Bennerman and then Bethel which allowed Atsur who averaged nearly 30 minutes per game as a freshman to play shooting guard last year. Then he signed parade all-american Courtney Fells.

    The depth at shooting guard over the years was even with NBA player Adam Harrington transfering who was recruited in the same class as all-ACC Grundy and top 10 recruit Shea Cotten who also was a shooting guard. Where were Guidry, Flatt and Mejia recruited??? Yep, at shooting guard.

    There literally is no evidence to suggest that Herb Sendek didn’t like to play freshman because they were freshman especially if you are trying to use the various shooting guards in his program as examples.

    The best player of the Sendek era Julius Hodge was a shooting guard coming out of HS also.

    Criticize Herb for not winning enough. Criticize him for recruiting too many quality shooting guards and not enough point guards. There are many facts to criticize Herb Sendek for. But the “he didn’t like to play freshman” myth is simply not supported with any specific evidence.

  4. ShootingGuard 12/21/2006 at 3:35 PM #

    “You mention Guidry, Flatt, Simons, and MOD????

    What exactly did those guys do at the division 1 level that ever showed they should have played significant minutes in the ACC for NC State?”

    Which begs the question: why did Herb give those guys a scholarship to begin with??

    Surely with all of the all-american and all-ACC guys you are touting at the front of the rotation, surely, we completely blew out teams so bad that all of the freshmen got significant minutes during mop up time…

    Oh wait…

  5. Rick 12/21/2006 at 4:01 PM #

    That is what I do not understand.
    You can talk about so and so being 8th team all ACC and what not but there were many times when it would have been great to have fresh blood/legs in the game but they were buried on the bench.

    I will repeat, Herb only player freshmen when he had no choice. If there was an upperclassman availabel at that position they played.

  6. redfred2 12/21/2006 at 8:55 PM #

    “But the “he didn’t like to play freshman” myth is simply not supported with any specific evidence.”

    O, about freshman playing time, here is the evidence to the contrary, and you supplied it.

    In his most giving year, and rightfully so with a great incoming class, Herb allowed:

    “Hodge/Evtimov/Powell/Collins/Watkins – 40.2% minutes”
    Which averages out to 3.2 minutes/per player/per game, as a freshman

    In his least giving year, Herb allowed:

    “BENNERMAN/Flatt/Mejia/SIMONS – 5.9%”
    Which averages out to WHOOPING 59 SECONDS/per player/per game, as a freshmen. That is Cameron Bennerman, and a lottery pick in Cedric Simmons.

    Most importantly right now, in the season preceding this one, a season where inexperience and depth were not doubt going to be an issue-

    “McCauley/Fells(Costner hurt) – 6.1%”

    Based on two players, that averages out to 1.22 minutes/game/per player as freshmen

    That is this year’s surprise, a skilled and determined factor down low, Ben McCauley, and/or a very gifted Courtney Fells, SHARING all of less than 2 1/2 total minutes on average, in any game last season.

    Stats may look good from a distance, but when they’re broken down, they’re just as expected, well below AVERAGE.

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