A Shitty End to a Shitty Season

08-09 Basketball118

Maryland 74, NC State 69. That’s your final. Don’t let the margin let you believe that NC State played well, smart, or with any enthusiasm or sense of urgency.

Here is Sidney Lowe’s program in a nutshell – the only guy who consistently played hard and as if he had a brain in his head was Julius Mays. The only guy who even looked for his shot in the last 10 minutes. You remember him, don’t you? He’s the guy who hasn’t played in the last 9 or so games. Yep, that’s a program on the rise. Sure. Repeat it until you believe it, if it makes you sleep better.

After racing out to a 21-8 lead, NC State laid down and died. I don’t remember Maryland taking a tough shot the entire second half. Is Maryland a great team with multiple players that can create offense? Fuck no. One decent player and a bunch of stiffs who might do one thing halfway decently.

Still, the Terps did occasionally miss in the second half. And they got the damned rebound every. Single. Time. Is Maryland a big, athletic team with an NBA-caliber frontcourt? Fuck no. They start four guards and one undersized power forward.

This NC State team will not make the NIT. It may make the CBI or College Insider tourney. Who fucking cares. If this “effort” is all they had to give for such a critical ACC tournament for the program…I don’t want to see them play anymore this season.

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

118 Responses to A Shitty End to a Shitty Season

  1. articwolf 03/12/2009 at 11:34 PM #

    ok, this is my last one, this coors light is my last beer till we get back to the tourney

  2. wufpup76 03/12/2009 at 11:43 PM #

    Very nice post, jeebs.

    Unfortunately, Oblinger cares less about Wolfpack athletics (or athletics in general) than even Fowler or Badour do. I can only imagine what he thinks about “tradition”.

    Sidney Lowe has gotten the tradition and love for N.C. State and it’s fans right. Unfortunately, not much else has gone right. It hasn’t been a complete failure – but there’s not a lot to hang your hat on. God how I wish it were different.

    Syracuse-UConn heading into Overtime # 5.

  3. BJD95 03/12/2009 at 11:59 PM #

    OT #6!

  4. wufpup76 03/13/2009 at 12:05 AM #

    ^Unbelievable isn’t it?

  5. BJD95 03/13/2009 at 12:20 AM #

    I’ve watched alot of sports in my life, and have never seen anything remotely like the game I just watched. A perfect ending, too – with the biggest douchebag in college basketball (Jim Calhoun) walking off a loser. I feel marginally better now, having stayed awake for history. If I wasn’t so pissed off earlier, I would have been asleep hours ago! 🙂

  6. wufpup76 03/13/2009 at 12:30 AM #

    ^You nailed it 🙂

    (Though I don’t exactly love Boeheim either.)

  7. tractor57 03/13/2009 at 1:45 AM #

    I didn’t read all the comments so I might repeat what has been said –

    What the hell were the three leaders of the team thinking (or maybe not thinking)?

    For my money I hope they do well but I’ll be much happier if I NEVER see them representing the Wolfpack again. I really hate to say that on a public forum but at crunch time they were content screwing up.

  8. Wulfpack 03/13/2009 at 5:39 AM #

    I wonder if John Wall watched the game?

    Anyways, what always gets me is the way in which we lose. Hayes comes out and buries five threes. You would think after the third we might want to mark him. And then Neal throws a couple in and Vasquez takes all of our guards off the dribble and does whatever he wants all night long. Hell, he even gets rebounds over our frontcourt guys and puts in a few easy layups. And Tracy Smith only takes six shots and scores four points. Talk about a disappearing act…

    Whatever the case, this Maryland team, if fortunate enough to get a bid, will be out in the first round. Average average average. Which makes us what? Well, it maes us 16-14, pretty darn average. Just about what everyone was expecting at the beginning of the season. Right on the NIT/CBI bubble.

    When Maryland went to the 3-2, we went into a shell and stopped moving. Makes you wonder why Gary Williams didn’t start the game in it.

  9. wolfonthehill 03/13/2009 at 6:44 AM #

    “Our player of the game was the guy who Sid wouldn’t have played if he wasn’t disciplining Degand for the 50th time.”

    That’s honestly the piece that tells me that Sid doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Julius beat Miami. He was our best player tonight. But he didn’t deserve to sniff the court for a month in between? That, my friends, is incompetent personnel management.

  10. wolfonthehill 03/13/2009 at 6:46 AM #

    And I would be careful lumping Ben in with Costner/Fells tonight… he played a solid game.

  11. 66pack 03/13/2009 at 6:47 AM #

    I believe we should wait until the 2nd VCU coach is hired by a top tier bb school before we look for a coach although i know we will not be looking..Just maybe the AD at VCU “knows basketball” better than lee.

  12. blackdom 03/13/2009 at 6:49 AM #

    Ben played well he was on the bench most of the secong half it made no sence at all. He scored when he did get the ball inside,made a few blocks,but like someone mentioned here the guy is the coach. A coach plays who he wants to play.

  13. 66pack 03/13/2009 at 6:55 AM #

    It might be possible that the AD at VCU “KNOWS BB” and BB coaches better than LEE.Has had two fair coaches in a row but he must have consulted LEE befor hiring.

  14. Rick 03/13/2009 at 7:13 AM #

    I had a glimmer earlier in the season but have given up again.
    What is so sad is I did not even get mad when we lost the lead or when we couldn’t score or when we pooped the bed.

    I cared more that the Canes lost to Dallas.

    I gave up my tickets during the Sendek era and have no plans to buy again any time soon.

  15. Mike 03/13/2009 at 8:39 AM #

    I am sorry we lost, and frankly it was pitiful to watch #33 and #4.

    Now, I am tired of the whiners on this board (or any other) who even pretend to know what is going on. StateFans is by far the best blog around, and I am not being critical of the blog or its leaders.

    ALL season long, most of you complained about Javi and what a waste of a scholly he was. All of a sudden, Javi starts playing better and most of you think he is the best thing since sliced bread. Mays had a good game last night, and all of you are wondering where he has been all year. Go back and read your own posts, and you will figure it out. It’s the same people who were wondering why we gave Mays a scholly, as he was in over his head and he is the human turnover.

    Now to fall on my sword, all season long I have defended Sid and felt like positive progress was being made, even though it may not have been showing up in the W/L column. All of a sudden, we started winning, and the same ones who were calling for Sid’s head were praising him. After last night, I am now questioning his thinking. Where was Tracy? I honestly thought maybe he got hurt in the 1st half and the idiots Nessler and Dykes neglected to inform us. I wanted to reach into the TV on many occasions and pull out #33 and #4. Costner “trying” to post up was awful. He just stood there with a hand up, not even trying to get position or attempt to get open for the ball. That should have been Tracy. And how the heck do we leave those guys wide open all night for 3’s?

  16. ppack3 03/13/2009 at 11:37 AM #

    First things first. Everyone on our schedule this year should have played that 3-2 collapsing zone. In order to beat that zone a team must drive/pass to the foul line and find cutters with good bounce passes. The problem is that we have nobody that can take anyone off the dribble. The corners are vulnerable for outside shooters. The only shot from the corner all night was one Williams three. This zone prevents post play, as Tracey or Ben were double/triple teamed every time they touched the ball. Tracey doesn’t pass well when double/triple teamed, and he couldn’t put it on the floor without a turn-over, hence the bench time. Costner looked like a mannequin in a store front window! Good riddance! He and Fells both are plain lazy, and are both spot up shooters at best. There was no movement, no attacking the basket (even on 3 on 2 breaks!). This is on the players and the coaches. No more one than the other. WE are the Wolfpack!
    I had a feeling that Javi was going to get a little less playing time when he publicly announced that he wanted to punch Vasquez in the mouth. It quickly became a game of one-upsmanship between the two that Javi couldn’t win. I happen to think that there was a method to the substitution madness. Was it enough? No. Am I happy about it? No. Does Sid have his team on a VERY short leash? By all accounts (that I know of closest to the situation) YES!
    There are young kids involved in this program, and I would like to think that you play your upperclassmen whenever possible, in order to save a younger guy from having his ego crushed in his first year. Those things can destroy a college career. I don’t think Sid has made “all the right moves,” but I do think he has made some good decisions and some tough decisions along the way. I guess I will leave it at that for now. :/

  17. Dr. BadgerPack 03/13/2009 at 1:03 PM #

    Re: Degand– Some people, no matter how hard you try, just aren’t going to behave. I’d much rather Sid continually discipline him than pretend things never happened. Like in Chapel Hill. And that monster suspension Ty Lawson got for his DUI… Oh, wait…

    That said, since this is the eleventy billionth time “Degand” and “disciplinary” have been used in the same sentence, maybe it’s time to yank his scholarship.

  18. redfred2 03/14/2009 at 9:48 AM #

    Mike, Good post!

    About your point, If Tracy Smith doesn’t have an immediate lane to the basket, he is not really good on the crowded interior, just YET, that is. He puts the ball out where it shouldn’t be and he doesn’t seem to have the hands to secure the BB when someone swats at it. Again, that’s another of those just YETs. Lowe tried Mays, just like some fans had been wondering about, and Mays responded, but it wasn’t enough.

    In the end, Maryland’s intensity trumped any size advantages we had on the interior and we got beat by a team that was possibly better overall, but mainly because Gary Williams could put any five players out there, that were all willing to fight and play HARD when they were given a opportunity.

    ppack3, Nice post also!

    “In order to beat that zone a team must drive/pass to the foul line and find cutters with good bounce passes.”

    “bounce passes” you say???

    Those seem to be rare commodity these days. I have never seen an upperclassmen at this level, who played in a guard position, who passed the ball straight off of his chest, and directly into traffic, more than we saw this season. Percentage-wise that is. It didn’t happen that many times overall, because you have to want the BB and have it in your hands, in order to make a bad pass in the first place.

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