‘Ballin is a Habit’ needs to make ‘Accuracy a Habit’

Link to Ballin is a Habit (before they go in and fix a crucial mistake that completely changes the premise of their lead-in).

Dear random blogger, fan, &/or media member — How about doing yourself and your credibility a service and have some clue of reality and fact before deciding to implicitly or explicitly draw a conclusion on a topic. Wouldn’t actually KNOWING THE TRUTH be some kind of predetermining factor for drawing a conclusion? Naaaaah. That would be way too much work.

Oh my friggin God! Will someone please sound the alarms of sanity?

Of course, no one can blame “Ballin is a Habit” for coming to the conclusion that Herb Sendek only coached at NC State for five years when every single ‘mainstream’ media member couldn’t help but conveniently omit the parenthetical in the following quote that you have heard until your ears bleed:

“Herb Sendek went to five straight NCAA Tournaments” (after missing five straight NCAA Tournaments and being given an historically unprecedented 6th year of opportunity to finally make the Tournament).”

…or…how about…

“Herb Sendek went to five straight NCAA Tournaments” (while leveraging horrible out of conference scheduling and safely clearing the bubble only a single time)”

You ready for something that really throws the HSSSers for a loop (‘Herb Sendek Sunshine Squad)? Especially those that can’t quite do math or analyze data? —-

Sidney Lowe has not made an NCAA Tournament in his first four years of coaching at NC State (and will need to win the ACC Tournament this season to advance); the great Herb Sendek did not advance to the NCAA Tournament until his SIXTH season at NC State.

^That, of course, means that even if Sidney Lowe misses the NCAA Tournament AGAIN next season, that he will still be on par with the exact same performance that the great Herb Sendek delivered.

Ouch! Slap of reality to the lemmings that only repeat what they think they hear on television.

Of course, some people will argue that Sendek put together a better first 4 years with NIT berths and records than Sidney. I will not argue that. But, these same people can’t have it both ways — because they are the same people who live and die by this consistent proclamation that State fans were crazy not to appreciate Herb for making the NCAA Tournament five times in TEN YEARS. If simply making the NCAA Tournament is the bellweather by which you love and choose to judge, then I don’t accept that anything short of making the Tournament matters one hill of beans.

This hearkens me back to some great old school FACTS that we used to pull together to help paint the real truth behind the lazy truth extolled by the media.

So, how ‘powerful’ were those ‘five straight NCAA Tournaments’ where NC State entered the last week of the regular season needing key wins simply to clear the proverbial NCAA bubble?

Well – after Sendek’s 5th straight NCAA Tournament appearance – NC State was one of only 15 schools that had been invited to the NCAA Tournament in five consecutive seasons. Pretty neat! Of those 15 schools:

• NC State was the ONLY school that failed to advance to at least one Final Eight or won a single conference championship.

• NC State ranked 14th out of 15 in average seed (at least we are better than Southern Illinois!!!)

• NC State’s “best seed” ranked better than only three programs – one of which had made multiple Final Fours and won a recent National Title (Michigan State), and one of which knocked us out of the NCAA Tournament in our ‘4th consecutive year’.

• NC State’s “worst seed” was better than only one program – Southern Illinois.

Unfortunately, our detailed data tables that were included in the work were lost in data migrations to new servers. Regardless, you should do yourself a favor and click on this to go back in time.