Past Perspective, Future Too

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A little something from Andy Katz and the ESPN College Basketball Blog that every Pack fan should take the time to read.

NC State rebuilding for the future (ESPN.com)

NC State was staring at a potential NIT bid in Mark Gottfried’s first season with two games left in the 2011-12 regular season.

The Wolfpack won both to get to 9-7 in the ACC and then won the first two games in the conference tournament.

A tight loss to North Carolina in the ACC semifinals and upsets of San Diego State and Georgetown in the NCAA tournament propelled NC State into the Sweet 16, Gottfried to being a beloved Wolfpack coach and the team to hyped expectations entering last season.

The last was too much, too soon.

“People forget where we were [at .500], and then we wake up and we’re ranked sixth in the country,” said Gottfried, whose Wolfpack were picked to win the 2012-13 ACC title in the preseason. “I said, ‘Timeout now.’ We were missing key players from that season.”

[snip]

NC State sputtered at times, but it did rise up to knock off No. 1 Duke, beat archrival North Carolina and earn a second consecutive NCAA tournament bid before losing to Temple in an 8-9 matchup in the round of 64.

“We still won 24 games,” Gottfried said. “You have to put it all in perspective. I wanted to do a lot more. I wanted to go farther, no question. But at the same time, when I took the job two years ago, if I had said [to the fans] you’ll go to two straight NCAA tournaments, get to the Sweet 16, reach the ACC tournament semifinals in both years, and said who is taking that right now, raise your hands? There would have been a lot of hands up in the room.”

Please do click the link and read the whole thing (here it is again for those to lazy to scroll back).

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About Wufpacker

A 2nd generation alumnus and raised since birth to be irrationally dedicated to all things NC State. Class of '88 and '92.

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21 Responses to Past Perspective, Future Too

  1. packalum44 05/13/2013 at 10:06 AM #

    Refresh all NC State news articles as much as possible b/c the more hits they have, the more they will write in the future.

  2. BJD95 05/13/2013 at 11:03 AM #

    Similar to what I said all offseason – success is usually two steps forward, one step back. And our step back wasn’t into disaster, at least.

    That doesn’t mean there weren’t legitimate areas of concern. Just that human nature is to overreact in both positive and negative directions. And those who had the most stark overreactions to 2011-12’s success were predictably hit the hardest by 2012-13’s (relatively minor) step back.

  3. choppack1 05/13/2013 at 12:49 PM #

    Of course the program is in much better shape than it was 2 years ago.

    However, I think we disturbed me the most (and I can’t speak for anyone else) – is that what we saw this year was what we were warned about with Gottfried – and there are those of us who think we could have very well hit the “ceiling” of the Gottfried era in year 1.

    This doesn’t change the fact that he’s significant upgrade over the last coach. He’s certainly shown to be a better manager of the basketball program.

    It just means that the jury is still out as to what kind of success he’ll have at NC State. He’s absolutely earned the right to coach the team the next 2 years barring non-basketball related issues.

    He’s also managed to piece together enough pieces for us to be excited about the future.

    Still, when I hear “perspective” – it sounds a lot like excuse-making. The bottom line is that this team didn’t live up to its potential – and I believe Gottfried deserves a lot of that.

    This doesn’t mean that he should be fired or that he’s not a good basketball coach. It just means that we ain’t out of the wood yet in terms of being able to say, “We’re back!!”

  4. Wufpacker 05/13/2013 at 1:09 PM #

    ^ Not that you were addressing my choice of headline directly, but FWIW I didn’t mean “perspective” as an excuse.

    The “jury still out” mentality is very apropos and I agree with it fully. If I said I didn’t have any concerns I’d be lying, but as you said we’re definitely enjoying an upgrade of sorts.

    As with most things, time will tell the tale.

  5. wolfbuff 05/13/2013 at 1:46 PM #

    I don’t remember Gottfried issuing any real warnings last year that we were overrated. The rest of us thought it, or said it, especially after the first few games.

    I doubt there are many coaches who could have squeezed out more wins with last year’s team. But I believe there are other coaches who would have done a better job foreseeing and managing the problems. Frankly, I would rather have seen some “tough love” and sacrificed some wins for the principles required to build the program. I like Gottfried and think he can be a good coach for many years. Hopefully, he learned from this year’s experience.

  6. Classof89 05/13/2013 at 2:23 PM #

    I think Gottfried is going to have a similar career arc at State to Gary Williams at Md. Gary hit rock bottom on the rebuild in year 4 with 2-14 ACC record. I can see something like that happening here next year (although hopefully not as bad as 2 ACC wins…)

    But the next year after that 2-14, Gary made the Sweet 16 (that was the Joe Smith year, I believe). And the year after that, he won the ACC regular season, going from 2-14 to 12-4 in two years. After a two year lull (two middling seasons with first round NCAA exits), he ran off six straight double ACC win seasons, culminating with NCAA Championship in year 5 of that six year run.

  7. BJD95 05/13/2013 at 2:49 PM #

    I absolutely agree that the jury is still out. Things could go in many directions from here.

  8. Wulfpack 05/13/2013 at 3:06 PM #

    Jury is still out. Tremendous year 1. Questionable year 2 with supreme talent. Little use of the bench. Some defections. Big year ahead.

  9. tractor57 05/13/2013 at 3:30 PM #

    Agree the jury is still out but I do think perspective is in order – not as an excuse but as a realization of how freakingly bad the program was under Lowe. To this point I’m in Gott’s camp but I do expect progress. Straight line progress maybe not but progress nonetheless.
    Granted in his time with the Pack Gott has had short rotations but that may have been more related to personnel than a desire for a 6 to 7 man rotation. Time will answer that question. If sweet 16 is the ceiling and a NCAA tourney berth the floor I could handle that for a few years but my ultimate goals are the ACCT champion and the NCAA champion as well. We have proved once this can be done in Raleigh but that was a long time ago.

  10. tjfoose1 05/13/2013 at 3:55 PM #

    “I don’t remember Gottfried issuing any real warnings last year that we were overrated”

    Then you weren’t listening closely. When the polls first came out that had the Wolfpack as preseason top 10, Gott put whatever breaks he could on such high projections every time the media put a microphone in front of him.

  11. NJpack 05/13/2013 at 4:09 PM #

    This upcoming year is going to be the true litmus test of Gottfried’s coaching ability. We won’t have any expectations on us, and although we’re replacing 4 starters sans Warren, we should have a good core rotation (no, I don’t include Vandenburg in that core). To me the keys are can we play defense, can we increase our free throw percentage, and can we learn to finish around the rim. Needless to say there are quite a few unknowns, i.e. is Barber the real deal, can the freshman big men quickly adjust to ACC play, can Lewis make a 2nd year leap, but we definitely have a shot at being a tournament team next year.

  12. JKL 05/13/2013 at 4:22 PM #

    Gottfried’s assessment is fair – he did pull back the reigns pre-season – but let’s not forget who came in on a zipline and told us his goal was to be playing “on Monday in April”.

  13. VaWolf82 05/13/2013 at 4:43 PM #

    This upcoming year is going to be the true litmus test of Gottfried’s coaching ability.

    I don’t buy this. No single year can be used to decide anything. Next year will just be another data point.

  14. Wulfpack 05/13/2013 at 4:58 PM #

    Both Gott and Yow both said they expected to be there at year’s end. Coach/AD speak, I know. But he did say it.

  15. groupthink 05/14/2013 at 9:23 AM #

    i keep reading about gott not using his bench last year. i thought we only had 8 scholarship players last year. if i recall correctly all 8 played a lot.

  16. Wolfman 9806 05/14/2013 at 9:29 AM #

    Gott’s done a better job than most would have expected upon his hire. Next year is simply the next year in rebuilding this program. I think it unfair to look at year three as a “litmus test” or “make or break situation.” Last year was difficult because of the unmet lofty expectations, but it sure was/is nice to have that level of optimism again!

  17. 13OT 05/14/2013 at 4:09 PM #

    The next two seasons will be hard for a lot of basketball teams in the ACC when you consider expansion has arrived. The odds of us winning the ACC will become longer with Syracuse, Pitt and Notre Dame in the league, and with Louisville looming in ’14.

    If we’re bad next season, at least we’ll have a lot more company. And if Thursday at the ACCT was bad this year, it might get even worse next season with Wednesday in the mix.

  18. Go Army 89 05/14/2013 at 6:31 PM #

    Thank God for GOTT.
    -48 wins
    -Sweet 16
    -2 NCAA tourneys
    -Beat Duke and UNC
    -4 McD’s AAs
    -Nationally ranked recruiting classes
    -Positive national press coverage

    This in his FIRST two seasons. Anyone who doesn’t think this is a HUGE improvement has not been paying attention.

  19. Greywolf 05/15/2013 at 12:35 AM #

    “The hope is that Warren will mesh with guards Anthony Barber and Desmond Lee and the three new bigs — BeeJay Anya, Kyle Washington and Lennard Freeman — will have an impact, as will returning big Jordan Vandenberg.”

    Has Tyler Lewis transferred? Is he hurt? Or did Andy Katz attend the Heather D school of journalism?

  20. tjfoose1 05/15/2013 at 11:40 AM #

    ^ Giving Katz the benefit of the doubt, maybe an additional implied “hope” is that Cat Barber and Lee are so good that Tyler’s contributions and impact are marginalized.

    But more than likely, he was was overlooking Tyler and slouching towards the Heather D approach to insightful commentary.

  21. tjfoose1 05/15/2013 at 11:43 AM #

    “Anyone who doesn’t think this is a HUGE improvement has not been paying attention.”

    Are you forgetting the fan base to which you are speaking? There’ll always be something wrong, some fault to bitch about.

    Even if the Wolfpack goes undefeated the next 4 years and wins 4 straight national titles, some on this forum will create reasons to bitch and question Gott’s ability coach.

    For a recent example, go back no further than 2010. Don’t forget some in the fan base and forum audience were calling for Russell Wilson to be benched in favor of Mike Glennon. Some would still argue that would have been a righteous move. Apparently, something was “owed” to Mike Glennon, and the normal rules of performance and results based competition that all others players faced were supposed to be suspended.

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