Lowe in the Media; State playing in Hawaii

09-10 Basketball AD & Department Sidney Lowe71

The following is some biting criticism from one of the more prominent national college basketball blogs:

Let’s run through the challengers for Duke in the state of North Carolina (NC State left out for Sidney Lowe obvious reasons).

Ouch! It is very painful to continue to be ridiculed for our complete irrelevance as a competitive college basketball program. No matter how much our neighbors lose to graduation and the NBA, NC State isn’t good enough to even be in the conversation with most basketball junkies. Great job, “Coach” Fowler. Mens’ basketball is fitting in great with your growing stable of sub-mediocrities.

In other news, Andy Katz shows that despite the Wolfpack’s competitive struggles the program isn’t totally irrelevant with this long article on the Wolfpack and Coach Sidney Lowe that highlights a few interesting items:

“I know I’m going to get the phone call,” Lowe said. “But this is where I am. [Saunders] is not the only one who is going to call. One has already called. But there’s so much here. I love working with young men, teaching them and preparing them for the world.”

[snip]

Lowe is trying to upgrade the schedule. The Wolfpack host Florida in a return of a home-and-home series and do return a game at rebuilding Marquette and start a series at Arizona, which is going through a makeover project. Even though two of these three schools likely aren’t headed for the NCAA tournament, the Pack need confidence early before ACC play begins. Lowe said he is also committing to the inaugural Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu in December with headline teams USC and UNLV.

It is weird how ESPN would have such a more thorough piece than local media providers.

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.

09-10 Basketball AD & Department Sidney Lowe

71 Responses to Lowe in the Media; State playing in Hawaii

  1. Clarksa 04/24/2009 at 11:11 AM #

    There have been two constants during Coach Lowe’s time here…Coach Lowe and his staff, and our “Big 3.” We all know how things turned out with our “Big 3.” I am cautiously optimistic about life after our “Big 3” and I think you can read into many of Coach Lowe’s statements since the season ended is that he is looking forward to next year without our “Big 3” as well.

  2. graywolf 04/24/2009 at 11:24 AM #

    I heard that Lowe quietly got an additional year added on to his contract. Anyone know if this is true?

  3. ppack3 04/24/2009 at 11:31 AM #

    Waiting for a Ryan Harrow will be tough. I do believe that he is the real deal, from the vid’s I have seen. Landing J. Wall would help propel this team’s success. I do not expect John Wall to choose NCSU, but you never know. Having said all of that, I do not think that we will ever compete nationally without an excellent point guard. But we can be very competitive (upper tier of the ACC) with the guards that we have, along with the players left and the players coming in next year, especially if we can pull off the recruitment of (and qualification of)DeShawn Painter.
    I contend that landing higher caliber recruits has a snowball effect. Sid has our name on a lot of short lists, and now it is a matter of getting over that hump. I wouldn’t be so quick to write Sid off. There is a chance that we could be looking back on this time as a transformation. If not, we will be looking at rebuilding…again. I am still hoping for the best.

  4. impackt 04/24/2009 at 11:39 AM #

    I had a strange vision last night. I saw a young man, a basketball player, standing at the edge of the court in a large arena, being interviewed by one of the good-looking female sideline reporters. The young man was downcast, but there was an air of contentment and confidence about him. His team had just lost a Sweet 16 game against a top seed in a hard-fought, close battle, but they’d played hard and well. They had put forth exceptional effort and achieved beyond what the experts had expected. The reporter asked him if he regretted his decision, taken more than a year earlier, to pass up the many opportunities he had been offered to step into one of the hot programs, the perennial contenders, with the big name coaches. At this point, the young man did smile, and he said that he didn’t regret his decision at all. He talked about the privilege of playing for a program with a great history and the satisfaction he felt in helping that program along the path to renewed glory. He spoke of the crazy fans and the fine coaching staff who had recruited him early and persisted even when the big boys had entered the picture at the last minute. He talked about his teammates and how they had made him better and that he hoped he had done the same for them. The reporter implied that the exposure he might have received at one of the other programs might have enhanced his draft value, but the young man would have none of it. It might be true, he said, that another school would have slightly increased his chances of a Final 4 berth, or gotten his picture on SportsCenter a few more times. But the true gift had been to spend his one college year at a place where he could truly make a difference, where he became part of a family, instead of becoming a faceless footsoldier in some evil empire… I guess that’s where my vision started to go off the rails a little bit. But it was nice while it lasted.

  5. ppack3 04/24/2009 at 11:45 AM #

    “and it points out again, what an incredibly risky hire Sid was.
    I’ve used the analogy before, but Fowler essentially pushed all in on 2-8 off-suited. There was no reason whatsoever to believe that Sid was qualified to be a head coach in the ACC. It doesn’t mean that it won’t work (just like you could lose if you pushed all in before the flop on pocket rockets to that 2-8 off-suited) – it just means that it was a decision not made based on factual info.”

    Don’t get me wrong, Sid’s hire wreaks of LF throwing up his hands after a bungled coaching search, and saying “F#&k it, you’ve got the job! I just want to go fishin’.”

  6. choppack1 04/24/2009 at 11:52 AM #

    pp3 – here’s my thought.

    We need at least one more big man for next year. The current coaching staff had to have known that for the last 2 years.

    That we are chasing someone like Painter on the off-chance he will qualify really bothers me.

    I know Sid knows basketball – and I’ve seen some stuff that encourages me – but I’m very concerned about his organizational abilities – and when I see that we’re recruiting Painter or another short, lightly recruited PG from FL, well, let’s just say that doesn’t ease my concerns.

  7. BJD95 04/24/2009 at 11:52 AM #

    I am fairly certain that Lowe has three years left on his deal after next season – the original six plus the one-year extension he got awhile back (i.e., not after this season). Pretty typical for coaches to have 3 years left on their contract when they get fired.

    I don’t at all look forward to the shitstorm we’ll endure when Harrow is used to try to compel a 5th year for Lowe (assuming Lowe fails next season, which as I noted earlier, I believe is 95% likely).

    For a long time, NC State was John Wall’s “safety” school. Now, Duke has passed us for that role. He’ll end up at Duke if he decides to stay local rather than join Calipari at UK and can’t work things out with the Holes.

  8. haze 04/24/2009 at 11:53 AM #

    The Lowe issues aside, I think Javi’s improvement last year was substantive. He is a decent ACC PG at this point and, frankly, that is better than most of us dared to hope prior to February. He should have started over Mays and it wasn’t close. The real question concerned Mays’ complete lack of PT. That was weird.

    Now, are Javi or Mays reasons to be fired up for 09-10? Not really, b/c they are hardly Lawson and Ellington. The reason to be at least a little excited is the freshman class and their coming integration into a system that will likely be more dynamic than our recent front-court dominated teams. Can we pull that off?

  9. kyjelly 04/24/2009 at 11:54 AM #

    I hoped Sid would be able to do the job when he was hired.
    But it has really been 4 yrs of zero accountability with him. It is always something else with him and he shares not an inch of blame.
    If Gavin and the Big 3 were such a problem he should have shed himself of them if they did not tow the line.
    Now what is next wait till Horner goes?
    I don’t care who the other teams lose ,I am not at all optimistic about our chances next year. If Tracey is out big man he has to be able to play De as well as score a little besides on dunks.

  10. BJD95 04/24/2009 at 12:04 PM #

    Tom O’Brien was willing to have 7 walkons is his two-deep at times last year. He preferred that to letting players stick around and play when they wouldn’t buy into his way of doing things.

    So, blaming the “Big Three” is either a lame excuse (my take) or Sid’s fault for not doing something more proactive about it.

    Javi has grown into what many of his teammates are – adequate to solid ACC-caliber backups. Problem is, three of ours are going to start next year.

  11. ppack3 04/24/2009 at 12:19 PM #

    Chappack- I think your points are very valid, but you don’t need me to tell you that. I think that one of the toughest parts of the college game has to be scholly management and recruiting. I think there have, and always will be surprises in these realms, and unless you are Duke or UNC (who gets to choose from the pick of the litter) you are always going to lose recruits/players to a variety of situations. It is the most inexact science out there. I’m certainly not saying that Lowe shouldn’t be held accountable for shortcomings in the roster, but things happen along the way. But, when a guy like Painter comes along, who we recruited before his commitment, I say that we jump back in there. Was Sid counting on that situation? He couldn’t have. But it says something for him to be right back on top of this situation. Doesn’t it?
    People that are done with Lowe, are determined to be rid of him. I’m simply not one of those people.
    BTW, it was an incredibly huge risk to bring in Sidney while the Amato thing was nearing its apex. LF is an idiot. But you know he was the only one in the office that was still ready to offer Amato an extension, and at the time of Sidney’s hire, LF was probably thinking that the whole NC State family could head up to the lake and sing around the camp fire. He’s a lucky individual, to still be employed.

  12. Thinkpack17 04/24/2009 at 12:21 PM #

    “Javi has grown into what many of his teammates are – adequate to solid ACC-caliber backups.”

    Lucky for us that is what the ACC will be filled with next year.

  13. BJD95 04/24/2009 at 12:26 PM #

    ^ Not necessarily. Many ACC teams have guys that are capable starters, who have just been waiting their turn. They won’t be playing star-caliber guys, but most won’t trot out multiple starters that should be backups at best.

  14. Thinkpack17 04/24/2009 at 12:30 PM #

    ^Your opinion of a capable starter might be someone that I believe CJ Williams or Dennis Horner can take to the wood shed.

  15. BJD95 04/24/2009 at 12:34 PM #

    Time will tell. I would be very, very surprised if that’s the case.

  16. choppack1 04/24/2009 at 12:39 PM #

    “People that are done with Lowe, are determined to be rid of him. I’m simply not one of those people.”

    Nor am I – but if Wolfpack basketball was a stock, I wouldn’t recommend you to buy it right now.

  17. ppack3 04/24/2009 at 1:16 PM #

    That is true. But I would hold tight on my shares for now.

  18. choppack1 04/24/2009 at 1:46 PM #

    Definitely – for the same reason you don’t sell GM or Chrystler right now – you don’t want to sell low when the bottom isn’t much farther away.

  19. edog05 04/25/2009 at 9:41 PM #

    buy buy buy. We will not finish lower than 10th next season in the ACC. We are as low as we will get. The class we have coming in is a great base to start over with(basically). Things can only go up. If we add another big in this class that can contribute 5-10 minutes we should be around the 5-7 spot in the ACC – right around .500 conference and in contention for a tourney spot.

  20. choppack1 04/26/2009 at 7:13 AM #

    We will not finish lower than 10th? I hope that’s not the case since the conference is potentially the weakest it’s been in my lifetime.

    I’ll put it this way, if we don’t finish in the top half of the ACC w/ what’s coming back, I doubt we ever will w/ Lowe at the helm…regardless of whether we add another or not.

  21. Cosmo96 04/26/2009 at 8:47 AM #

    Looks like we got a commitment from the 7-foot Australian guy, Vandenberg.

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