Curry 32-Footer Sinks Pack

WRAL Sports: Curry Drops 44 Points, Davidson 72 – NC State 67

Overall, I was really pleased with State’s performance and Sid’s gameplan. Without Curry’s prayer, State would have had the ball at the end shooting for the win (with OT as worst-case scenario). The effort was there, and the defense was much better. Until the last 8 minutes, the rebounding was solid (thus my only critique – would have liked to see more of Tracy Smith in the second half). Other thoughts:

– If Johnny Thomas was healthy, I’d like to see Courtney Fells thrown off the team. Kudos to Sid for benching him for most of the second half, even with 11 seconds left and State down three. What a waste. He should watch Trevor Ferguson out there busting his ass and hang his head in shame. NOTE: Radio guys are claiming Fells hurt his shoulder during the game. If that were true, it still doesn’t explain how he started the game in a fog. I also never saw him getting treatment (on the bench or going to locker room). Sorry, don’t buy it.

– The chip is back on Costner’s shoulder, and I mean that in a good way.

– CJ Williams is much better than I expected. Ladies and gentleman, meet your “glue guy.”

– NC State can be a middle-of-the-pack ACC team. If we had just one healthy PG that didn’t suck out loud, we could contend for an NCAA berth.

– I don’t think Farnold Degand is ever going to be right again. And without his lateral quickness, he can’t contribute at all. Very sad.

– Davidson sure has some douchebag fans, chanting for the asshole who got ejected after almost decapitating Trevor.

– I went a little nuys yelling at the TV at the end. Mike Gminski is such a dumbass, noting “The Davidson people don’t consider this an upset!” Well, no shit, Sherlock. Davidson made the Elite Eight last year, and return the best player in college basketball. NC State finished dead last in the ACC, and lost it’s best player. The game is played in Charlotte. Only a complete fucking moron would have considered it anything other than a huge upset if NC State had won the game!

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.

08-09 Basketball

173 Responses to Curry 32-Footer Sinks Pack

  1. Wulfpack 12/07/2008 at 10:19 AM #

    Ed, I never said I was throwing in the towel and I want so see the same improvement that you want to see. I’ve said it before that I think we will win our share of games this year and contend as a bubble team the way the schedule is lining up. But to get over that hump we have got to stop losing the way we did yesterday and the way we have so many times the past 2-3 years. So my point is, after all of this time to coach the same group of guys, where is the improvement? Why are Costner and Mac getting beat in the post year by inferior opponents year after year? Why is there nobody to spell them if they are so tired? Why are they so tired? Davidson sure as hell wasn’t, and a freshman from England was out there much of the day after Gosselin left anyways. Why are they not stepping up to challenge penetrators like Curry, who the entire world knows can light it up with just a little daylight? It all just isn’t adding up. When NC State, an ACC school, is getting pushed around by Davidson, that’s a problem. And for the last time Curry’s shot is not what ultimately beat us. It was an inability to keep Davidson off the glass that gave them so many additional possessions. His shot even came after an offensive rebound. That was a wasted opportunity to get a good non-conference win. There are only a few more left or else we are going to have to win 8-10 games in the ACC.

    Curry was 15-33. The rest of the team was 11-36 in field goals made. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that you must make someone other than Curry score to beat Davidson. We didn’t do that. And we didn’t do a whole lot of other things that a good team would do in that situation.

  2. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 10:20 AM #

    “red its not me thats touchy.”

    gcpack, on that post of mine up there, it was late, I had had a few, I was just getting goofy, my fault. There’s no call for that.
    I didn’t mean to come off like the hall monitor before that either.

  3. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 10:37 AM #

    “but sid is too scared to ben costner for a far superior player.”

    I’m guessing you meant to add the word “pull” up there AG, but I’ve had that same feeling for quite a while also. It’s almost like Sidney feels he’s somehow obligated to play those guys regardless of whether they’re doing their jobs or not, and even if they’re dead tired and having to drag themselves up and down the BB court. He has Smith, and others like Harris, who give the team a lift and an added level of intensity that seems to be missing most of the time anyway, so why not play those guys earlier and more often?

    Time is slipping by, but in my humble opinion, Sidney should have set his sights on building a BB program rather than worrying about just winning the next BB game. You cannot have players who put effort into part of their jobs, and then disregard the rest. It just sends a bad message.

    The Davidson fans were there watching, hell, LeBron was even there, and right in front of eveyone, the phenom, Stephon Curry got singled out and received an earfull from his coach yesterday in Charlotte. It seemed to have made a difference also.

    So I’ll say again, Coach Lowe, please stop venting your frustration on the ref’s, and start directing it at the players who are NOT doing what it takes to win ballgames. Teach them and TELL them exactly what you want, because if they’re currently executing the game the way you want them to right now, we’re all in for yet another bumpy ride.

  4. Dogbreath 12/07/2008 at 10:52 AM #

    The problem with our program is we have a bunch of ragtag rookies trying to run a major division I program, and we have an AD who has been on the worlds longest vacation, replete with lots of golf scrambles and steak dinners.

    You can’t learn on this job.

    My specific criticism from yesterday is that Lowe continues to try to force a rotation that is nonsensical. Right out of the gate with a 16-5 lead, he made a wholesale substitution that completely deflated our sails. This is classic Sendekian behavior.

    Sometimes we project what we WANT to see out of our coach, ignoring all the evidence right under our nose that suggests maybe they just aren’t up to standard.

    We did this for at least 4 years with HWSNBN.

    But alas, we are NC State, where hope springs eternal.

  5. rtpack24 12/07/2008 at 11:19 AM #

    We can not continue to do wholesale subs (3 or more at a time) and win against decent teams. Yesterday we are up 16-5 horn sounds in comes 3 subs- no one tried no one in foul trouble, we just sub. Then it is 16 -16. Watched this in UNC-G game and thought Sidney just trying to get some guys some minutes. It kills momentum and does not allow for chemistry to develop amoung starters when the majority are on the bench for most of the first half. Horner is not a bad player but no way to justify the minutes he gets. T Smith should get triple the minutes he gets. Degand is not healthy and we put him on Curry when he goes into game. Some of this stuff is scary. Coach Lowe needs to adjust to college game soon because NBA sub rotations do not work at this level. We had a very winnable game yesterday that was important and we should have won going away. Hope they turn it around soon and Tracy Smith does not transfer, the kid can play his ass off.

  6. Wolf Dog 12/07/2008 at 11:23 AM #

    My thoughts.

    Interesting that Davidson fans showed up in numbers to see them play us. Not near as many at last year’s game against UNC. Hate to say it but not near enough NCSU fans at the game.

    I thought we gave a good defensive effort except for lapses on blocking out. Fells continues to disappear against quality teams.

    We were standing around too much on offense. We feed the post to McCauley they adjusted and doubled down on him. People didn’t slash to the basket.

    At one point in second half a friend commented that if Costner don’t wake up and give McCauley some help we would lose the game. Costner did wake up to some extent, I think he needs to be more assertive.

    We did not look for the fast break. I don’t know why, we were the faster more athletic team. With no speed at the point it looks like we will play a slow down game.

    Davidson fouled rather than give up easy baskets to our bigs. We can expect everyone to collapse on Costner and McCauley until someone can step up as a shooter and can nail a 3.

    It was a good game to learn from. Davidson is well coached. I thought overall we looked like a potential top 30 team. We came out with good effort and lost a close game to a top 25 team on the road.

    We got a huge home stretch coming up, we need improve and build on this game.

    Biggest observation. We need Costner and/or someone on this team to be a go to guy and a leader. We lack leadership, outside of Ben. I don’t see anyone that wants the ball with the game on the line.

  7. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 11:26 AM #

    “Sometimes we project what we WANT to see out of our coach”

    No denying that, but this is a particularly different/odd situation from any you’ll see at any D1, ACC, BB program. I personally do not blame any of that on our current coach either. Not that all of this bitching and moaning is not without cause or unjustified, it’s all part of the job and comes with the territory. But IF, we are not willing to allow this inexperienced college BB coach, who was hired by the administration to do this job for NC State University, a fair amount of time to develop on the fly, then we have to except the fact that, it’s just the same as it was back before this coach was hired, there are no other silver linings out there.

  8. Defenestrator 12/07/2008 at 11:30 AM #

    I love all of these posters that seem so surprised and disgusted that we are “irrelevant”. I’m pretty sure we sealed that last year ending up last in the ACC.

    After seeing last years team are YOU PEOPLE really expecting us to secure an NCAA berth? I think BJD is dead on with where our expectations should be. We have to tough this year out with the “talent” we have and hope the players keep giving a solid effort. Sure, Sid could probably learn a thing or two as well.

  9. triadwolf 12/07/2008 at 11:36 AM #

    I watched the game yesterday and I saw a lot of effort and hustle – more than I saw in 90% of the games last year. I also saw a team that has no consistant outside threat and we paid for it when Davidson collapsed their defense in the 2nd half (btw that is the reason we didn’t go inside as much in the 2nd half).

    As for rebounding I really don’t have an answer. We did pretty well in the first half, but we couldn’t buy one in the 2nd. Maybe what was said in an earlier post is correct – we need to recruit players with a history of rebounding.

    My overall impression is that if we play with this effort all year the team should see post season play. But we better find some outside shooting; we don’t need great, just enough to command a little respect from the defense. CJ looks like he may be the guy to help in that area with a little more experience.

    Let’s not jump off the bus just yet.

  10. Greywolf 12/07/2008 at 12:14 PM #

    Gene
    Dec 6th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
    “Tracy Smith has a knack for scoring and rebounding close to the basket. I don’t get why he doesn’t see more minutes. When he’s in good things seem to happen.”

    Gene, The rap on Tracy is that he doesn’t know how or wasn’t coached in the fundamentals by previous coaches to play defense. At the previous level of play, he could, as you say, score and rebound without contributing on defense. When a player is available like Smith was without being heavily recruited, there’s a reason. If Tracy scores every other trip down the court and his man scores every trip back up the court, we are no better off, if not worse off, than we are now. Sid is not so dense as to just sit him or overlook him.

  11. Rick 12/07/2008 at 12:31 PM #

    “Gene, The rap on Tracy is that he doesn’t know how or wasn’t coached in the fundamentals by previous coaches to play defense.”

    A couple of points to this post
    1) Have you seen our defense? How much worse can he be?
    2) He has been with the program over a year. If they have taught him defense, it is on them.

  12. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 12:47 PM #

    “wasn’t coached in the fundamentals by previous coaches”

    Um, if that’s the criteria, let’s wipe the slate and start this thing all over. Smith can rebound can’t he? I’d say that would have pretty much eliminated the bulk of the need to even play defense yesterday.

  13. choppack1 12/07/2008 at 1:31 PM #

    I missed the substitution in the first half, but had I seen this, I probably would have gone through the roof.

    I want to be clear, that I haven’t given up on this season, team or staff for the season. Unfortunately, however, I didn’t see any evidence in this game that 2009 will end up any better than 2008 did. Yes, the effort was good, but in 2008, it wasn’t always bad either. Bottom line – if we can’t rebound or defend, we’ll be lucky to see average results.

    I’m also really concerned that Davidson’s “bigs” wore down ours. That doesn’t bode well for our future.

  14. Greywolf 12/07/2008 at 1:57 PM #

    50% of what is said in this blog has got to be wrong. I don’t don’t see how one hand Costner and McCauley are ‘gassed’ and on the other hand, not be putting out effort. Ben and Brandon will NEVER amount to shit if we the fans can only see last year’s play. Put the past in the past and let the future unfold.

    in Sid’s first year here our big men could and did take a play off in order to be there for the necessary 40 minutes. They are asked, and respond, to playing full out for the time they are on the court, which leaves them gassed, dragging and less effective when adequate subs are not available.

    IMNSHO NCSU basketball is in a similar boat with NCSU football. In football we got a coach who can bring class to a program, can coach talent upward to higher levels and who intends to stay here a long time. We have a coach we can proudly say, “He coaches at NC State.”

    Basketball is in the predicament where we have to take a lesser accomplished coach but one with NCSU loyalty and the possibility of being an outstanding coach. His player days indicate he can do it. We can’t “red shirt” a coach so Sid is developing on the fly. Learning involves failure. What we could provide, what I assert would make a difference, is the space to learn his job. This board did an outstanding job of giving TOB the room to fail, and therefore the room to succeed and we are being rewarded.

    Sid seems to be an excellent recruiter. Recruiting competition isn’t just with UNChoke, Puke, other ACC schools and BCS schools. EVERY D-1 basketball school wants the best players available. The competition for athletes who can score in the classroom as well as on the court is intense with EVERY school, who has a chance at landing one, offering to the available players in the pool of outstanding prospects. And God only knows and he ain’t saying what some of these schools are offering under the table or the promises they are making that they have no intention of keeping.

    MY only concern with Sidney is teaching skill. Can he develope talent? I’m sure he knows the X’s and O’s but does he and the staff of assistants have what it takes to get the most out of the players we have. (TOB, his counterpart in football definitely does that.)

    IMO Rebounding is not all desire and fundamentals. Oh, it might be in an intramurual game where 1 in 10 can dunk. A man’s body, a wide wingspan and a 42 inch vertical jump trumps desire and boxing out. Think not? Ask a 6′-6″ white boy who could not dunk a ef-ing basketball and he will tell you differently. The game today is played where I and most of us have never been — 12 to 18 inches above the rim. ‘Ally Opp’ was a comic strip in my day.

  15. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 2:34 PM #

    Greywolf, I was right there with you, until that last paragraph. In the instance of NC State versus Davidson yesterday, it was NC State who had all of those advantages you are talking about. You’re basically saying that we were at a physical disadvantage against Davidson, which is not true at all.

  16. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 2:42 PM #

    As far as McCauley and Costner being “gassed”, I think more the blame for that can attributed to the coaches, the trainers, and all of the preparedness that goes back to well before they even start playing a real game. Also, there seems to be an frustrating unwillingness to implement a proper substitution pattern during the games themselves.

  17. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 2:58 PM #

    Greywolf,

    As far the “desire” issue that you bring up, as a player you’re usually matched up with an opposing player that you are supposed to be able to contend with, and compete against, on a fairly equal basis. While that’s not always true, as Stephon Curry showed us yesterday, that basic idea of playing an apple against an apple applies in the case of scoring as well as it does for rebounding. Now, if there are players on the court who seem very willing and very able to take their man and score points on him on ocassion, then they go to other to other end and that same guy is ripping down rebound after rebound right in front our guy’s faces, and if something isn’t clicking to make our kids want to do something to stop that, and win the battle on both ends of the court, then I don’t think there is very much to be said about the coaches, or the coaching.

  18. blpack 12/07/2008 at 3:04 PM #

    I was not pleased with what I saw. At the half I thought this was a game we should win. Too many turnovers and our defense and rebounding left a lot to be desired. I want to see more effort and maybe block out occasionally on the defensive end. Maybe we are not that good. At least we have time to improve.

  19. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 3:24 PM #

    I don’t have any problem whatsoever with us not being “that good” overall, or losing to a ranked opponent, or even a lesser opponent, right now. What I have a problem with is what seems to be an inability, or rather a refusal to notice that we are sorely lacking in some of the most basic of BB skills. It almost appears that the staff is conceding the fact, and saying that these problems are inherent and beyond their control, and it’s like they’re trying to concoct alternative formulas to circumvent some very fundamental deficiencies that good coaching should be able to at least correct, to a certain degree anyway.

    NOTE: Please don’t go back read what I typed about four posts ago, I just contradicted the hell out of my ownself.

  20. Rick 12/07/2008 at 4:24 PM #

    “What I have a problem with is what seems to be an inability, or rather a refusal to notice that we are sorely lacking in some of the most basic of BB skills. ”

    You post so much I usually do not wade through it but this I 100% agree with.

  21. transylvania 12/07/2008 at 4:44 PM #

    Honestly, this is about the result I expected. Would have been surprised if we’d won. I must admit it’s tough to be watching Beilein’s squad at UM already knocking off top-five teams (including Dook) and thinking about what might have been…

  22. Wulfpack 12/07/2008 at 4:58 PM #

    ^I was thinking about that too. The future is cleary bright in Ann Arbor. Of course, it helps that they play in the “rugged” Big 10, where if you can find a way to score 70 your likely going to win, and you can beat up on some of those terrible teams. The thing about Beilein is you know what you’re going to get. Nothing flashy, just good ‘ole solid basketball. I thought, and I heard it from Sidney, that he was going to bring a brand of basketball we could all be proud of and enjoy watching at the same time. As it surrently stands after our first big test in year three, the experiment hasn’t exactly gone to plan. I am NOT calling for his head. That’s crazy at this juncture. But I said it at the end of last year, if we don’t start seeing some marked improvement this year, we’re going to fall further and further behind. And we just can’t afford that. I’m excited that he appears to know how to recruit top tier talent, but right now, what we need is for him to show us that he can coach,and bring a team together, too. That’s what I am looking for this year.

  23. packalum44 12/07/2008 at 5:27 PM #

    Guys: we suck. Don’t care what rankings are. Quite simple, we were out coached. Nót talking about the particular game. Our guys do not play up to their potential. We need to hire McKillop asap before someone else does. Curry is good but he is ALL they have, Lowe is low on the totem pole. One way to judge a coach is by looking at the schools who want to take him. Who would take Mat Daughtry? Who would take Guthridge? Who would take Lowe? No one. He sucks. We have better talent than Davidson. Lowe sucks. Get your heads out of the sand and come to terms with reality. With all due respect….love you guys. But Lowe has had time to coach. No more excuses this year. 2 years is plenty to at least change the culture and maximize talent if not the talent. See TOB and football team for example. Love Lowe as a person but he sucks as a coach. If I was reviewed in this manner, I’d be happy.

  24. redfred2 12/07/2008 at 7:28 PM #

    “You post so much I usually do not wade through it but this I 100% agree with.”

    Uh Rick, you remember that time I posted about crooked officiating, then there was post about the plight of the ACC in general, then there was that one where I posted my thoughts on the PO, as to how it directly related to Eistein’s theory on relatively, and it’s effects on the universe. That was some good shit, I know.

  25. 66pack 12/08/2008 at 9:49 AM #

    The bottom line is we hired a bb coach for the wrong reasons and they were (1)he offered to take the job and (2)he had been ncsu player.His history as a pro coach was to be fired from all head positions and no experience in college coaching.AD was in panic mode and needed a body.Chuck and Les are other notable hires because they were players at ncsu.

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