Fowler Says Pack Will Work It Out While Implicitly Criticizing Himself (Updated 2:45pm)

07-08 Basketball NC State Administration45

Surprise, surprise…”Coach Fowler” is talking.

At the Raleigh Sports Club on the same day that he called into 850TheBuzz, Fowler noted the Pack will be playing just its third home game Saturday when it comes off semester exams to face South Carolina State at the RBC Center.

“Has any other State team played five of the first seven away from home?” Fowler asked.

Excuse me? I guess I am curious as to why the people who actually control the schedule are now trying to use the schedule they control as a reference point of abnormality?

I agree with Fowler’s implied point that this schedule is absurd. I also don’t understand why he would be so stupid as to cite the abnormality of the schedule in public — as HE is responsible for the schedule!!!

(Now, before you run off on a tangent and start telling me how Quinten Jackson and the Basketball office is really in charge of the schedule, allow me to reference you to numerous newspaper articles on the public record from the early part of this decade where Lee Fowler explains to us all that HE is responsible for the scheduling at NC State. [These were written when Fowler first started scheduling ECU on the gridiron despite his head coach’s opposition to the policy.] So…argue with Lee Fowler and not us about it because he’s the one who has publicly stated he is responsible and therefore that is all that we have to use.)

Does Fowler think that us fans who have shelled out all of the money for lifetime rights to watch NC State play basketball have pity on them for so poorly executing the schedule such that all we have gotten to see a month into the schedule is William & Mary and New Orleans?

Jeez. Lee Fowler is the guy who wanted to play at East Carolina. Lee Fowler is the guy who mandated that we play at East Caroline. So, to deliver on Fowler’s mandate his Athletics Department came up with the brilliant idea to schedule the trip for a SATURDAY NIGHT after an 8 day layoff right before exams! All of this because we just had to play in Greenville – where we had NEVER played before – because Lee Fowler said that it would help our RPI. How’d that idea work out?

The bigger picture here is the headline that ‘Fowler Says Pack Will Work it Out’.

I obviously hope and pray that he is right and the Wolfpack gets back on the winning track very soon!

But, unfortunately, Lee Fowler has said so much in his career that I am not going to have faith in our basketball team getting back on track because Lee Fowler said so. As a reminder, Fowler has also said that:

* Playing at ECU in absketball would help our RPI.

* Herb Sendek was going to take us to national prominence.

* Chuck Amato was in strong standing less than a month before he was fired.

* A lot of Duke fans want to get rid of Coach K.

* He liked the idea of Steve Lavin as the head coach of NC State.

* That Sidney Lowe would not coach NC State for a month before hiring Sidney Lowe to coach NC State.

* That Herb Sendek had to leave NC State for safety concerns for his family.

* That only 50 crazy people on the internet didn’t like Herb Sendek.

* That it isn’t fair to hold our coaches accountable until they get brand new facilities.

* That we should aim to finish in the top 3rd of a 9 team conference and the top half of a 12 team conference

…do you feel better now that Fowler has siad that we will work things out?

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07-08 Basketball NC State Administration

45 Responses to Fowler Says Pack Will Work It Out While Implicitly Criticizing Himself (Updated 2:45pm)

  1. choppack1 12/13/2007 at 7:19 PM #

    This is not a popular thing to say, and I’ll catch some heat for it. However, I trust that most on this message board can seperate their heart from their head. And this shouldn’t be taken as me not supporting our basketball coach or thoughts on his potential.

    You want to give him heat for scheduling a game ECU, that’s nowhere near the risk he took and basic management rules he broke when he hired Coach Lowe.

    If Coach Lowe doesn’t work out – Lee should be fired. As a matter of fact, if we have a losing or NIT season this year – Fowler should be canned. If someone on this board can tell me which one of the basic requirements for a big time college basketball coach that Lowe met when he was hired – I’d like to hear it.

    Sidney may end up being the greatest Coach in NC State’s long history. However, if he wasn’t a former PG who won a ring for us, he’d never have been our coach.

  2. Trip 12/13/2007 at 8:00 PM #

    ^^^ Agreed with Choppack. I love Sid, and I believe that he’ll do good things for us, but based off his experience and resume, Fowler should have NEVER hired him. He took a big gamble with Sidney.

  3. BoKnowsNCS71 12/13/2007 at 8:22 PM #

    Coach Lowe will work out. Lee Fowler needs to go

  4. werncstate 12/13/2007 at 9:22 PM #

    I just noticed that the date on my tickets for the VATECH game is 2/6/08. Every schedule I’ve seen shows this game being played on 2/5/08. Are all of the published schedules wrong or are the dates on my tickets wrong? Does anyone else have tickets dated 2/6/08? If the date on the ticket is a day after the event is actually held that could explain the poor attendance for our home games. I bet Jed is responsible for this.

  5. Mr O 12/13/2007 at 11:22 PM #

    Choppack: You should take no heat for that statement. The sad thing is that there will be a portion of our fanbase that will defend Lee Fowler at all costs. It happens everyday at Packpride. Don’t ask me why because I will never understand it. It is almost as if he built CF by hand and with his own money.

  6. spanky 12/14/2007 at 5:20 AM #

    Agreed Choppack. Last night someone pointed out “well Fowler hired Sidney Lowe!” and acted like they had proved to me the Foulup was a great AD. I tried to ask what Sid had on his resume to merit becoming a head coach on TOBACCO ROAD. They never “looked at it that way before.” I don’t think many people look at it that way either.

  7. packof81 12/14/2007 at 5:31 AM #

    There is one thing Lee Foulup can be counted on to do and that’s to bollix things up.

  8. joe 12/14/2007 at 7:44 AM #

    Lowe met the only requirement that was necessary after NCSU was turned down 5 times – he would take the job.

  9. DireWolfNY 12/14/2007 at 9:22 AM #

    Hey, at least Fowler didn’t give TOB a $291,000 raise this year like the smurfs did to Butch Davis. And we didn’t have to post our head coaching job on the internet like duke…

    http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?p=2788161

    I agree the overall “state” of our athletic department leaves much to be desired, and he should be held accountable. But do we really think a change is coming amytime soon? Lee Fowler is like Aunt Bee’s pickles… we’re just gonna have to learn to love ’em.

  10. tmb81 12/14/2007 at 10:32 AM #

    Lee Fowler must be an expert a playing the fans. He secure enough in his position to offer himself up as a target to absorb criticism. The fans need to vent after 5-7 and UMd Whitewash. They need to vent over the BBall teams poor start. It does not make sense to most fans to blame TO’B and Sid at this stage of their tenures. So Fowler comes out of his ivory tower and raises his profile to give the internet crowd a target to vent their anger.

  11. Rick 12/14/2007 at 1:27 PM #

    Yeah, thats what it is. Lf is falling on the sword.
    Anyone who thinks LF has enough insight into the fans mindset to determine that self immolation is necessary does not know Lee “open mic” Folwer very well.

  12. packgrad93 12/14/2007 at 3:19 PM #

    “Had we won the game our RPI and SOS would have both significantly FALLEN”

    what about playing SC St, Western, Presbyterian, Central, etc…? Does those help our RPI if we win?

  13. Wulfpack 12/14/2007 at 4:00 PM #

    That is exaclty my point as well. To me, the bigger issue is that we lost. The same goes for Davidson, though they are certainly much better than ECU. In fact, I expect Davidson to be favored in this game based on how they have performed against top-10 competition thus far. No question Lee is an idiot. But had we won, as we did last year, we wouldn’t be hearing half as many gripes.

  14. spanky 12/14/2007 at 4:39 PM #

    As many gripes…. I’m not sure, we may be hearing less… but hearing them still. I remember multiple complaints that the game was being played from the time back when the schedule was released right up until the week before it was played.

  15. redfred2 12/14/2007 at 8:50 PM #

    Shouldn’t have ever trailed in the game after the first two shots went up, and the game should have never been in jeopardy. We definitely shouldn’t have lost the game. But less importantly, we shouldn’t have ever “traveled” to ECU.

    But, that’s our Lee Fowler, stooping is common place with him. He’d be more at home and comfortable if he was permitted to schedule ECU, WCU, and Lenior Rhyne, every week anyway. He knows programs like those are on his level, and more in line with his skillset anyway.

    All of that aside, it was poorly played and poorly coached. There are no excuses for it at any level, from anyone in Raleigh.

  16. vtpackfan 12/15/2007 at 6:54 AM #

    I’m not sure Penn or Yale got more time off around exams then we did, we better have the highest GPA’s in school history after this scheduling blunder.

    Maybe we should kick the dust off of this measely conference and go out and see the world. We could start new rivalries with MIT and Cal Poly. Forget basketball matches, we want to build things. Airports, bridges and sky scrapers….

  17. redfred2 12/15/2007 at 8:19 AM #

    ‘Red’ Alert: More concern over basketball.

    In an article on gopack Coach Lowe says “Effort is not the concern, it’s more about technique.” Or something like that. WHAT??? Is the coach watching the same games I am?

    Then he goes on to say that the scheduling, which was done before he arrived, and the ten day layoff before the ECU game, were all factors in how the team responded against the mighty Pirates.

    Like I said in an earlier thread, there are NO excuses for the coaches, the players, or Lee Fowler, in that embarrassment.

    SC State LOOMS!

  18. redfred2 12/15/2007 at 9:27 AM #

    I am torn about how I want this next game to turn out. In reality, the final score be should be about 143 to 57, but I’m not too sure that would help this “team” right now. They need some more humility and they need to learn to WORK while concentrating on basketball fundaMENTALS. I think the coach needs to FORCE them play hard by constantly substituting different line ups and seeing who is willing to put forth maximum effort, regardless of the competition that SC State provides in this one game.

  19. redfred2 12/15/2007 at 3:37 PM #

    Good link charger17, though not so good for the Wolfpack. We had the #1 spot and then got another mention on down the page. Not good.

    I went Christmas shopping with the old ball and chain. Anyway, I tuned in on the radio with about three minutes left in the game. The first thing I heard was that Costner picked a foul. The thing that upsets me about that is that it was his FIRST!!!

    Lowe sounds not at all like he did late last season, and more subdued in the post game radio interview.

  20. GAWolf 12/18/2007 at 11:06 AM #

    To add a little more fuel to the fire of the argument that Fowler too often speaks of things he is not well-informed, I just heard on ESPN an advertisement for the Tech/Kansas game tonight and they said that this will be Tech’s first home game since their season opener in November.

    Hmmmf. Fowler is simply a terrible representative of our University… not just our athletic department. Even when he pushes an idiotic point he’s not informed on the facts of the issue.

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