Home vs. The U – Last Liferaft for NIT Hopes

last-chanceAs we all know, NC State is 1-4 in ACC play. If one is an optimist, one sees a slight chance to secure an NIT bid if NC State drastically improves its performance. But if not now, when? In State’s next 5 ACC games, we play UNC twice and Wake once. That’s alot of guaranteed losses for a 1-5 team to stare ahead to.

Miami is something of an unknown, having beat no really good teams, or lost to any mediocre or shitty ones. As we recently established, NC State currently resides in the ACC’s shitty tier. So, Miami should beat us. Having lost home games against Clemson and Virginia Tech (but with a perfect 3-0 mark against the ACC’s Third Tier), the Hurricanes have to draw a line in the sand to continue on track for the NCAAT. So don’t expect them to be cocky and mail it in tonight.

Fun (but ominous) fact: Miami has lost four home games this year, but is 4-1 on the road – losing only to UNC.

Who can we expect to torch us? So far, Miami has been a two-man team. Jack McClinton outside, Dwayne Collins inside. However, Brian Asbury showed signs of life against the Hokies, and if he plays well tonight, we probably have no shot.

Better late than never? It seems Sid has decided maybe he needs to play his third best player more after all, after rigidly using him solely as Ben McCauley’s backup this year. This despite the fact that Tracy Smith was always more of a natural power forward (being undersized at center). I’m not criticising Lowe so much for failing to experiment with the “three bigs” lineup, but rather his failure to use Smith more frequently in the rotation (at the 4 or the 5). Lowe seems slow to adapt to the more fluid bench roles of college players, as opposed to NBA rotations. You could start many sentences with the phrase “Lowe seems slow to adapt.”

Section Six doesn’t have a preview up yet, but they have a great ACC statistical analysis post that’s well worth your time.