NC State 63, South Carolina 61

07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball39

Good to see a lot of minutes for Horner today. TFerg doesn’t play. Did Grant play in the second half? MORE TO COME

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball

39 Responses to NC State 63, South Carolina 61

  1. RabidWolf 11/23/2007 at 9:55 PM #

    LRM Says:

    November 23rd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
    South Carolina exposed a MAJOR weakness for Hickson: double team him and he becomes a human turnover.

    Coaching will fix that, and Ben can help JJ with his passing skills just by showing them in practice when they go head to head.

  2. vtpackfan 11/23/2007 at 10:01 PM #

    Not to be overly harsh on Hickson, the speed of the double affected some I think, going from a mid major to SEC opponent. He will improve from experience that comes with the upcoming schedule.

    Hooray for Horner. Sound player, poised and even a little more polished then I expected. Maybe too soon to say this, but could he press Sid’s hand on the three position sometime in the near future.

    Degand played better at times. He is still giving up the lane on defense more often the his blazing speed is occupying on the opposite end. It is a major factor in the offensive rebound disparity so far, with us not stoping the dribble drive penetration. The Cats od Nova will be relentless in this area, and their bigs just go after tips and boards since they don’t run much throught the post. Should be a true test for perimeter D.

  3. sf59 11/23/2007 at 10:29 PM #

    JJ late for team bus

  4. TTandB74 11/23/2007 at 11:03 PM #

    Only watched the first half. Taped the second, and will look at it later. (got a deathwatch at the hospital for a friend who’s on her last legs). But I looked Degand in the first half. He seemed to pick his spots to drive, as opposed to running willy nilly into the lane. He also hit his free throws.
    Hickson looked lost in the first half, but McCauley had some nice passes. And when Costner goes inside first (opening game dunk, nice spin move) he seems to shoot better from the outside.
    Still sick at the defensive rebounding. I swear a few times I saw people jump over Hickson while he stood there. That ain’t the refs’ problem.

  5. ShootingGuard 11/23/2007 at 11:58 PM #

    Hickson will be fine. This is JUST his 4th college game ever…Not sure why people need to make definitive statements with so little info so early, but…

    Degand really showed some improvement today. If he can become consistently average-ACC or better, we will be in business.

    Glad Sid has quit playing around with minutes and lineups–at least in focusing on winning this tournament—and simply gone to the 8 man rotation I spoke of previously. Rotate JJ-Ben-BC at 4 & 5. Rotate Gavin-Fells-Dhorn on the wing. Rotate 2 best pg’s at the 1 now and when MJ joins us. Leave Fergie and the other guys for mop up or major foul trouble moments.

    We have won riding JJ’s 12for12. We have won with JJ starting. We have won with Ben starting. We have won with JJ finishing. We have won with Ben finishing. We have won with Gavin finishing. We have won with DHorn finishing. We have won with JJ starring, Fells starring, & BC starring. We have won with Farnold & Javy splitting time. We have won with Farnold closing it out all of a half.

    NOW, if the TEAM will just realize that that is what TEAM is all about, we will be in business. Some will start, some will finish. Some will star, some will play a role. It will be different all the time. That is a TEAM.

  6. bTHEredterror 11/24/2007 at 12:39 AM #

    “NOW, if the TEAM will just realize that that is what TEAM is all about, we will be in business. Some will start, some will finish. Some will star, some will play a role. It will be different all the time. That is a TEAM.”

    Good point, and the preseason tournament is an excellent way to teach that lesson in a hurry. Three games in four days, and Sid has used interesting subbing patterns. An effort kid like Horner was even more effective today against players who ran yesterday. Sunday will be interesting, ‘Nova is kind of UNO plus a step and some bounce.

  7. DixieBoy 11/24/2007 at 12:50 AM #

    Anybody have any info about the series history between state and south carolina? I know that ncsu leads but I know the two have clashed a lot with so. car. and their history in the acc plus the home and home we had a few years back. I was just curious and I couldn’t find any information on the web.
    I was disappointed with ESPN’s preview (or lack there of before the game). We were in the winner’s bracket for crying out loud. All they wanted to do prior to our game was talk about the later games and games in other tournaments. Dare I think that had it been Dook or UNX playing in the next game they would have talked about them? Naaaah surely I’m sipping the Kook-Aid.

  8. MatSci94 11/24/2007 at 1:28 AM #

    I watched the second half of the So Cal vs Ariz State football game tonight (my wife went to SC), and they mentioned JJ as one of the top scoring freshman in the country. It was nice to see NCSU basketball mentioned on a national broadcast in a game we were not even playing in.

  9. old_pcorone 11/24/2007 at 6:18 AM #

    Man! that was a BIG crowd in the bleachers

    I think it is off to a good start, jitters here and there but getting closer and closer.

  10. Rick 11/24/2007 at 9:06 AM #

    Is it me or is the N&O trying to generate controversy? Someone told me that had a whole article on why Horner did not play more. Why is Sid having to justify playing time to them?

  11. packgrad2000 11/24/2007 at 10:41 AM #

    ^Well if Horner’s PT has been an issue on this very blog, being discussed over and over, then it’s probably worthy of a story in the N&O.

  12. xphoenix87 11/24/2007 at 3:10 PM #

    Javi has incredibly quick hands. Between he and Degand, I think we’re going to have 2 very good defensive point guards on our hands. Holding Downey to 5-17 was a great job.

    Good to see Ben getting minutes and looking like his old self again.

    The rebounding is obviously a huge problem. Hickson is going to give up some rebounds because he’s agressive changing shots, that’s ok. What’s not ok is the complete lack of boxing out that was going on. You absolutely cannot allow multiple tips on the same possession, you have to put a body on someone, and a lot of the long rebounds were lost because our guards were just chasing the ball instead of bumping their man then pursuing. It wasn’t that we weren’t giving the effort, the rebounding technique was just really bad.

    I know he only played half the game yesterday, but I’ve liked a lot of what I’ve seen from Gavin early in the season. He’s still turnover-prone, but he does seem to be forcing things less, and it’s clear that he’s the guy we’re going to with the shotclock winding down. He’s still not my favorite player, but it looks like he’s more willing to step into a complimentary role than I thought he would be.

  13. Stoner 11/25/2007 at 12:10 AM #

    He is still giving up the lane on defense more often the his blazing speed is occupying on the opposite end.

    What I saw of the SC game, it seemed like our perimeter defense wasn’t stopping dribble penetration by the ‘Cocks, so our big guys were sliding over to stop the penetration, which left them out of position for rebounding.

  14. waxhaw 11/25/2007 at 10:15 AM #

    ^ and that pretty much sums it up. We have got to do a better job on the dribble penetration. (probably why you saw us play more zone in the 2nd half)

1 2

Leave a Reply