Wildcats, Officials Can’t Stop 4-1 Pack, 69-68

07-08 Basketball115

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A HORRIBLY officiated basketball game and the Wolfpack’s achilles heel of poor rebounding and free throw shooting was almost too much for Coach Lowe’s troops to overcome. But in the end, Gavin Grant‘s 2 (of 3) free throws with 0.4 seconds remaining lifted NC State to the Old Spice Classic Tournament Championship.

* Farnold Degand hit one of two free throws with 20.8 seconds remaining in the game to give the Wolfpack a 67-66 advantage before Villanova took the lead with a rebound and follow-up with 2.2 seconds remaining.

* Winning this tournament is going to be huge for State in March; it is particularly gratifying to ‘get back’ the UNO loss from last week. Now we have to hope that UNO, Rider, USC and Villanova all have fantastic seasons. Before the season, I pegged our record to be 4-1 right now. Of course I would have never predicted how we got to this 4-1, but in hindsight I think that this is the best 4-1 that we could have been.

* It only took the ESPN announcing crew until the last minute of the game to FINALLY highlight one of the bad calls against State. Fran Fraschilla commentated the entire game from the Villanova perspective and Len Elmore…well, Len Elmore can bite me.

* State just won two close games in a row by one possession. What an amazing change from the trend prior to Coach Lowe’s arrival in Raleigh.

* The ACC had a little stumble about a week ago, but since then the conference has really succeeded and seems to be out performing what some people expected heading into the year. The ACC is a combined 51-10 after play on Sunday.

* Coach Lowe has stated that we will have different players step up for us at different times this season and tonight was no exception. Ben McCauley played great in the first half and shooting guard, Courtney Fells was clearly the player of the game scoring 21 points on 6 of 9 shooting from the field including 4 of 6 from the three point line.

* State shot a fantastic 46.7% from the three point line. If the Wolfpack can just shoot at a 35%+ clip from behind the arc (and shoot 70% or better from the free throw line) then we will win a lot of basketball games this year.

* Any “old schoolers” out there remember Walker Lambiotte nailing two free throws with no time remaining on the clock to lift the Wolfpack to a win in an early season tournament in the mid 1980s?

* One of the things that I love the most about the internet is that forums exist for others to help validate my own opinion. I thought that the officiating and announcning tonight were both very, very challenging. So, you can understand how much I loved checking in on some of the message boards and seeing an inordinate amount of fans making similar comments. On one thread two posters with excellent historical reputations for objectivity whose opinions I respect more than most had chimed in back to back on a thread titled “Reffing in the Nova Game”.

There is absolutely no way that the ref that called that last foul on Nova was actually on the court the rest of the game. I dare anyone to prove it. The fact is, State got royally jobbed all night and for the Nova fans to actually boo at the end of the game was pretty sweet revenge actually. Take the refs and their phantom foul calls and over-the-back no calls out and we win by double figures IMO.

ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIC. This was as bad as the Alabama game 2 years ago. Unreal. We would have won this one by 10-15 with honest refs.

I will add that the announcers might as well be wearind Nova jerseys as well. Elmore needs to do a better job of sticking up for the ACC. If I see that 70 year old, no neck midget reffing on of our games again I am going to vomit.

Even though we won I am still pi$$ed. No calls on over the back. Phantom fouls to give them multiple three point plays. JJ geeting hammered time after time with no calls. Every single loose ball out of bounds went to Nova. Hopefully these guys go back to refereeing junior high games in Boca Raton now that the tournament is over.

More fantastic comments from BJD are included below:

* Sid could give a clinic on effective working of the officials. Make your point emphatically, but don’t show the ref up. Although the foul against Grant was legitimate, 9 times out of 10, it isn’t called. I firmly believe it was a make up call.

* Another great sign – Sid and Ben share an enthusiatic post-game hug. I think those issues are behind us as well. It can and will be different guys on different nights.

* Yes, I know he bricked one of the free throws. But we have no chance to win that game without Degand’s hustle play. Not only did he stop Nova from getting an easy two, he skied between THREE Wildcats, and by sheer force of will, got position and drew the foul.

* Hickson is handling the double team better, and his fast break assist was a thing of beauty.

* Fells rose to the occasion all weekend. As we showed in the first two games, it’s hard to run an effective offense without him.

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07-08 Basketball

115 Responses to Wildcats, Officials Can’t Stop 4-1 Pack, 69-68

  1. PackerInRussia 11/26/2007 at 4:01 PM #

    highonlowe, maybe you’re just schizophrenic.

  2. PackerInRussia 11/26/2007 at 4:35 PM #

    You think State got it bad on ESPN. I was reading the TV listings for our sports channel over here that shows basketball and football and it had a write-up explaining what the Jimmy V Classic was. It had this line describing Jimmy V: тренер команды универстита Северной Каролины.
    Translation: coach of the team of the University of North Carolina. Insult of all insults.

  3. highonlowe 11/26/2007 at 5:41 PM #

    Schizophrenic? I know I am but what am I!

    Other highonlowe – no worries, I’ve been reading instead of posting on here recently anyway. There are plenty of other equally clever handles out there, like Lowe&Towe…. or, theLoweDown… ok, I’ll stop

    As far the ESPN’s Villanova biase – ESPN simply projects the most dramatic angle, that’s all. “Nova getting jobbed by the ref with 0.4 seconds left” is more engaging to a nation audience than “WolfPack earns a hard-nosed win.”

  4. RabidWolf 11/26/2007 at 7:03 PM #

    The last foul call was not, I repeat NOT, a bad call. Not only did Grant get hit on the forearm, but the ‘Nova player sort of “chested” or leaned into Grant. If the defender isn’t vertical, it can be called. It is rare, however, to see a call like that on a last gasp shot. It very well could have been a make up, but Grant deserved one after that push–travel crap call.

    Great win for the ‘Pack….go win one in East Lansing!!

  5. bTHEredterror 11/26/2007 at 9:14 PM #

    универстита Северной Каролины

    Somehow it looks more appropriate in Cyrillic. I took a little Russian in college, and I’m dyslexic, so it was essentially an exercise in futility.

  6. PackGirl 11/26/2007 at 11:05 PM #

    ^^^^^Those game pics are excellent. The N&O does have some excellent photographers, despite the biased, ex-UNC hacks who write their articles. Looks like Gavin and Ben are getting along quite well (see pic#22 and 24) – maybe too well 😉

  7. packman12 11/27/2007 at 12:29 AM #

    A note on the ESPN coverage. On today’s hour long sports center, they had high lights of USC beating 18th ranked E. Ill. No mention and no highlight of State win over 20th ranked Nova. Also, O.J. Mayo is their new poster child in the mode of Reggie Bush or LeBron. In addition to the highlights of the USC game, they even had a feature on him.

  8. JeremyH 11/27/2007 at 1:04 AM #

    I wouldn’t sweat it packman.

    You know usually cnnsi.com’s college basketball page covers every team in the top 25. They did not cover our first regular season game (while ranked) but covered the UNO game, and turned it into a Katrina inspiration story. I suppose this tournament was not as big a deal as the Maui and whatever UNC played in, but Beasley got tons of press. Another thing, it was obvious the half-time commenters tried hard not to say anything good about the pack, and just suggested Nova cannot go right at “the nc state bigs” inside. It almost seemed like they didn’t mind being bias. ESPN, why are you showing a Villanova drive as the halftime highlight when you show the intermission score–that team is behind! Now cnnsi.com did run our story of beating Nova, but obviously because it was Nova as the ranked team.

    So I’ve given up on it, but if we continue to improve they cannot ignore us forever. After what they just did in Orlando, they have no reason to be intimidated by MSU. If we want to be taken seriously we have got to beat top 15 teams, and we will have our shots.

  9. Rick 11/27/2007 at 10:02 AM #

    “good win. lucky, but we’ll take it.”

    Luck had nothing to do with it.

  10. pacman23 11/27/2007 at 1:05 PM #

    I have just sent this comment to ESPN and “Dougie” (Tool) Gottlieb:
    This one’s for Doug Gottlieb, who claims NC State was “given” the Old Spice Classic title on Sunday night versus Villanova.
    Doug, while the call on Grant’s 3-pointer was surprising, since refs generally swallow their whistles at the end of games, there is no disputing that Cunningham did indeed reach out and hit Grant on the right arm and then coil backwards when he realized what he had done, hoping the refs hadn’t noticed. He knows what he did and it WAS a foul, regardless of which ref made the call.
    It seemed to me and many others that the refs were trying to “give” the game to Villanova all night until the end when maybe one of them actually had a conscience and decided that he couldn’t go through with ESPN’s grand scheme of crowning Villanova the tournament champion so they could have endless interviews between the photogenic Jay Wright and his “buddy”, Fran Fraschilla. Didn’t think anyone noticed those post game interviews after the UCF and George Mason games, did you?
    All game long you had phantom foul, backcourt violations and traveling calls against the Wolfpack-many against the man who made the winning free throws, Gavin Grant. In the last minute or so of the game, when NC State had a chance to add to their tenuous lead, you had Grant fouled on a rebound of a missed free throw on the Wolfpack end of the court. Yet, he was called for traveling, instead of going to the line for two shots. And shortly before that, he was in excellent defensive position in the lane on the Villanova end and was pushed from behind into the man he was defending, resulting in a foul call and points for Villanova
    I could go on and mention every uncalled over the back violation, like Cunningham’s rebound and putback over the top of a bent over to his knees, Gavin Grant (there’s that name again!) with 2.2 second left, the quick and early phantom foul calls on the Wolfpacks’s leading returning scorer, Brandon Costner which rendered him ineffective the entire game or the constant hacking of State’s big men in the second half, when Villanova realized the only way they could win was to cheat and get all the help possible from the referee crew. And just how much time was Villanova given on their final possession with only .04 seconds left on the clock, anyway? (they tipped the ball two or three times when the clock should have expired as soon as the ball was first touched). I was truly expecting another phantom foul call on State at that point, when the sloooow clock operator’s ploy didn’t work out!
    So, in retrospect, “bad call”? I don’t think so, Doug.
    Sweet justice for the team that truly deserved to win the game-absolutely!
    I congratulate the ref who actually had the guts to make the call, and hope many more display the same type of courage this season in similar end of game scenarios.
    A foul is a foul, no matter how much time is left on the clock or whether resulting free throws will possibly decide the game. It was a good call and the right call.
    Now, why don’t you spend your time talking about Cunningham’s bonehead foul on the play and quit making it sound like NC State’s deserved victory over a great, but ESPN anointed, Villanova team is tainted.
    Sorry your big plans went awry ESPN. Maybe next year, the Old Spice Classic will be an unbiased affair, but somehow, I doubt it.

  11. pacman23 11/27/2007 at 2:21 PM #

    Here’s the reply I just got back from ESPN:
    Hello David,

    Thank you for contacting us.

    ESPN’s on-air personalities are not available to handle inquiries,
    comments or questions via email.

    However, you can write to them directly at:

    Doug Gottlieb
    ESPN
    ESPN Plaza
    Bristol, CT 06010

    Thanks for visiting ESPN.com.

    You’d better believe I’m printing and mailing this to that jackass TODAY.
    You’ve got his address folks-go for it!

  12. packgrad93 11/27/2007 at 2:26 PM #

    “Luck had nothing to do with it.”

    that could have very easily been a no-call at the end so we were lucky it was called. Shouldn’t have been in that situation anyway.

  13. Rick 11/27/2007 at 3:35 PM #

    “that could have very easily been a no-call at the end so we were lucky it was called. Shouldn’t have been in that situation anyway.”

    How is that “luck”?
    He was fouled, it was called. He hit the foul shots.
    What part of that sequence had luck involved?
    None

  14. packbackr04 11/27/2007 at 6:27 PM #

    it is frustrating that we dont get the coverage of some other big programs, but the best way to get the coverage is to keep winning. keep overcoming adversity, keep beating teams you are supposed to beat. and eventually it will all work out. but yeah, NCSU gets no love from the tv people, or media in general for that matter.

    -PS, has anyone noticed that Sid is wearing his championship ring this yr.??? he didnt wear it last year but he has been wearing it recently.

  15. packgrad93 11/28/2007 at 11:30 AM #

    “How is that “luck”?
    He was fouled, it was called

    That gets called about 50% of the time. We were lucky.

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