Sidney Lowe scathed in national media

10-11 Basketball57

As NC State’s Men’s Basketball team prepares for a HUGE opportunity (without Tracy Smith) tonight at Syracuse (click for preview), the hangover from the unacceptable performance at Wisconsin continues.

During the Wisconsin game, I thought color commentator, Dan Dakich, did an excellent job of pointing out NC State’s lack of heart, effort, defense and structure without being excessively critical or attacking.  (I need to hear more, but I think I really liked what Dakich brought to the commentating booth).  Now, college basketball observers and writers around the country are slowly starting to write honest assessments as opposed to the usual homer stuff.

Indianapolis sports personality and sportswriter, Kent Sterling, pulled no punches in this piece proclaiming “North Carolina State Basketball Thrashed by Wisconsin; Sidney Lowe Owes Me Two Hours!”.

Kent, NC State Basketball owes me TWENTY F***ING YEARS and untold thousands of dollars; so get in the back of the *******  line.

Everything below this point are selected quotes from Sterling that have been abridged to focus on the Wolfpack; so, the delusional NC State homers who can excuse and rationalize anything can go argue with Sterling.  The overall entry is fantastic as it focuses on officiating and ancillary items that go on around a basketball game since NC State didn’t show up to play an actual basketball game.   —————–

Last night, I sat on the baseline, with referee Ted Valentine’s ass an uncomfortable four inches from my face to watch the least passionate basketball performance I have ever seen as North Carolina State was too lazy and indifferent to even roll over for Wisconsin.

The ACC is struggling early, and I’m owed part of my life back.

Watching the Wolfpack last night was a total waste of time for the 17,000-plus in the Kohl Center.  The crowd never got involved because their was never any doubt what was happening.  NC State didn’t even go through the motions of playing defense.  Wisconsin knocked down open shots like they were at a shootaround, and coach Sidney Lowe’s energetic behavior on the sidelines was the closest thing to defending the Badgers that fans saw.

As the minds of NC State’s players obviously wandered, so did mine.

I’m mystified by basketball played with such apathy.  It was impossible to get any kind of gauge on whether Wisconsin is any good.  A guy after the game asked me what I thought of Wisconsin.  I said, “They sure can hit uncontested shots.”

There is a sophomore from Marion, Indiana, on the NC State team who played with some effort, but because seeing any effort was startling, it was impossible to tell how deep he was digging.  To say that NC State played like an AAU team is unfairly damning to AAU basketball.

Getting beat is one thing, but playing 40 minutes like it just doesn’t matter is inexcusable.  Maybe no one in the research Triangle gives a damn about NC State basketball, but if I were a fan, my clock on Sidney Lowe would be ticking regardless of the strength of his recruiting.  Great athletes playing like they don’t care can get beat by 40 just as easily as bad talent giving 100%, but the latter is more fun to watch.

Fans pay good money for tickets, and watching that slop wasn’t worth what I paid for a media credential.

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10-11 Basketball

57 Responses to Sidney Lowe scathed in national media

  1. Pack Mentality 12/04/2010 at 1:20 PM #

    ^^just like I believe a team with Inge and Thornton on it should definitely make the NCAA with a good coach.

  2. 61Packer 12/04/2010 at 1:49 PM #

    I don’t think State is much worse off in basketball than most other ACC teams. The league is down a lot, but it’s mainly because of horrendous coaches. Never in my memory have I seen so many just plain BAD coaches in our league.

    Maybe it’s because of bad ADs, who knows?

  3. LRM 12/04/2010 at 1:55 PM #

    If Yow had been our AD last spring, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Sidney Lowe kept his job because Fowler is an incompetent moron, and supposedly Lowe was bringing in the talent he needed to win, not because he ever showed any signs of being able to coach them.

    Let’s be clear: I think Lowe is a tremendously horrible coach, but I don’t wish him to fail, because I’m sick of losing. I hope we recover tonight against Syracuse and improve over the next few weeks.

  4. Wufpacker 12/04/2010 at 1:58 PM #

    I realize a lot of us are still feeling a sting from the way the team played in the loss to Maryland, and probably a bit perturbed that we aren’t taking part in the championship game today, but I don’t see how any of you can think TOB might be getting any sort of heat, or even a good talking to, from the AD or anyone else.

    8-4 is not a fire-able season and that’s even if they roll over for whomever we play in whatever 3rd tier bowl we end up in. TOB ain’t going anywhere until TOB wants to go. He bought at least another two years’ worth of goodwill with eight wins. Equalling that next year buys him another 1 or 2. At that point his contract comes up and he’ll either renegotiate and stay awhile, or he’ll wander off to pasture.

    Either way he’s here as long as he chooses as long as he wins 7-8 games year, gets to a minor bowl pretty much yearly, and doesn’t start running his program like the Chapel Hillians. Oh, and he probably needs to win 2 of every 3 from them (the cheaters) as well.

  5. Packaddict 12/04/2010 at 2:07 PM #

    NCAA or find another coach. The fact that we have fans making excuses about officiating is embarrassing. The reason Wisconsin bear us so bad is because they had wide open looks nearly every time they shot.

  6. cWOhLFrPAiCKs 12/04/2010 at 2:59 PM #

    ^REALLY??? We’re gonna go there, non sequitur? Honestly, no matter how you try to defend it, that’s just being racist (even if only minorly). The ACC has seen it’s share of bad coaches all around. Would anyone here honestly trade the last 4 seasons with Lowe for 4 more seasons with HWSNBN? Even Roy is starting to look like he’s not that great of a coach when he doesn’t have a “self-coached” team.

    I think the biggest reason for the down turn in the ACC recently has more to do with the talent being spread out over more schools. High school kids realize now they don’t have to go to a UNC or Kentucky to be a highly regarded player and get some decent TV time. Sure, programs like that have an advantage in those areas, but it usually comes at the cost of sitting on the bench for at least a year and having your playing time threatened by incoming talent. Kids can go to mid-major schools, win conference championships, and get into the big dance where they can display their talents for the whole world.

    Also, with all the attention these kids get at a young age, they seem to have become softer and have greater expectations as far as the special status/treatment they’ll receive once on campus. I think the letter from Harrow/Leslie is a great example of this. These kids weren’t even on campus yet and felt compelled to tell us that our concerns were invalid. At this point, I would have much rather them come out and show me that my concerns were invalid, instead of just telling me they were and then proving me right.

    We’ve seen NOTHING from this team so far this year. I have hope that things will turn around and I believe that the character and talent is there on this team to turn the corner and make a run at the rest of the season. But at this point, it will be up to THEM, and NOT LOWE, to make sure that happens. Someone needs to stand up in that locker room, look his teammates in the eyes and tell them that they will not go down like this.

  7. Pack Mentality 12/04/2010 at 3:15 PM #

    This whole BS about the ACC sucks is coming from the crappiest team in the ACC over this period. The ACC is the best conference int the nation period. The ACC has the national titles to back it up. The ACC has plenty of strong teams as well. And they all beat our ass – every year. Just cause we suck doesn’t mean the ACC does. ACC basketball is equivalent to SEC football. You can sometimes say somebody else was better some year and try to dig up numbers to back up your case, but everybody knows the truth of the matter.

  8. Wulfpack 12/04/2010 at 3:40 PM #

    ^You are way off base, non sequitur. I do not subsribe to your “theory”.

    And yes, the ACC sucks as a whole. We’ll be lucky to get 4 teams in the field this year, I truly believe that.

  9. whitefang 12/04/2010 at 4:07 PM #

    Unlike Fowler, I feel confident Yow had a short list of potential new bb coaches on day one. I am sure she had already seen enough of Lowe’s body of work to know that he had a snowball’s chance in hell of morphing into a competent D1 coach.
    I hope the opinion that giving him this year due to his recruits turns out to be correct as it helps land a better coach due to the cupboard not being bare. I am afraid that it ends up being just another wasted year and another year further behind.

  10. TheAliasTroll 12/04/2010 at 4:26 PM #

    Dude, what you said about black coaches is the very definition of racism. But whatever, it isn’t my ignorance that is showing.

    Racism – the belief that the genetic factors which constitute race are a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

  11. NCSU84 12/04/2010 at 4:45 PM #

    non sequitur, I believe TheAliasTroll is correct – there is no need to interject a coaches race into these discussions. Please take that elsewhere.

    Now, I too am upset with the current situation we are in. But we should probably wait until February to pass judgment. The season is early, the players are young. Let’s see how they handle adversity and develop as a team. If progress is not made, then Sid will more than likely be gone by years end.

  12. JeremyH 12/04/2010 at 4:51 PM #

    There are many ways to interpret and “hide” data to which you apply statistical methods. One could argue that the sample size for African descent coaches is simply too small to judge, because they do not have the same opportunities. Given the history of this country and social stratification, I give this argument some credence.

    No matter how empirically grounded an argument seems, there is always some sort of bias (in the most general sense of the term `bias’).

    Are you convinced? : )

  13. Sweet jumper 12/04/2010 at 5:48 PM #

    I have just cooled off enough to comment on the Wisconsin debacle. That was inexcuseable for the coaching staff AND the players. I have always supported Sid, but I say NCAA tourney this year or bye bye. We made the mistake of keeping HWSNBN after 5 years with no NCAA tourney appearances and then he snuck in off the bubble for the next few years and the rest is history.

    Now on to what really good coaches do. I saw a 30 minute feature on the Celtics last night. They were talking about Rondo’s development as a point guard/leader over the years. They showed him come over to Doc Rivers during a game a couple of years ago and tell him to tell another player what to do. Doc Rivers screamed at him, “You are the leader of this team. You tell him. Take charge and run this team on the court and I will handle the bench.” I have seen Coach K and also Brad Stevens do this as well. Those are good coaches. I think about the dialogue between Sid and Javi over the years, and I doubt it was anything like the Doc-Rondo exchange.

    Go Pack! Beat the Orange! Get healthy soon Tracy! Take over as the leader of this team Ryan and/or Lorenzo and let’s turn this thing around!

  14. PoppaJohn 12/04/2010 at 6:13 PM #

    Good thing there’s a game starting, we’re starting to turn on each other. Give it two hours, then you can start screaming about Sid again cause we’re going to get our hats handed to us again tonight. It is not going to be pretty.

  15. Pack Mentality 12/04/2010 at 6:22 PM #

    Oh and btw, I think the author of that article went way too easy on Lowe.

  16. runwiththepack 12/04/2010 at 6:40 PM #

    I can’t believe what I just saw. C.J. was clearly THERE, but called for the blocking foul. All of you keep that in mind. No longer are they “deer in the headlights”, but the refs SUCK! How can they miss that one???

  17. runwiththepack 12/04/2010 at 6:43 PM #

    Thank God and Indiana for WOOOOOOOOOOOD!

  18. runwiththepack 12/04/2010 at 6:52 PM #

    MY!! What a difference a day (or two or three) can make.

  19. runwiththepack 12/04/2010 at 6:54 PM #

    A little “C” helps a lot, it seems. A Smith would help a lot, too.

  20. runwiththepack 12/04/2010 at 6:55 PM #

    Smith must be aching to get back in there.

    Again – Thank God for Wood and Indiana.

  21. NCSU84 12/04/2010 at 7:40 PM #

    Really quiet on this board. Hello. Sid haters. Are you there?

  22. Wufpacker 12/04/2010 at 7:45 PM #

    Can’t say even at this point that I expect we’ll win…but at least we got off the bus tonight. Of course the biggest difference score-wise (but not the only difference) is that Scott Woods is unconscious so far…hope that continues.

  23. Wufpacker 12/04/2010 at 7:47 PM #

    “Really quiet on this board.”

    Go to forums…NC State @ Syracuse Preview thread.

  24. Wufpacker 12/04/2010 at 7:50 PM #

    ^ that would free up his ‘ship.

  25. PoppaJohn 12/04/2010 at 8:24 PM #

    We win this game with Tracy on the court.

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