NC State @ BC

Hi all – forgive me but I’m posting the game thread the night before this time around … Not sure when I’d have time to post a game thread tomorrow (Saturday) morning, plus Premier BJD has expressed reservations about opening game threads – so I figured I’d go ahead and get this one up 🙂 . I could have used the ‘publish timer’, but who am I to deny those who are hype about State playing BC and want to post thoughts tonight? Onward Red Army!

Not sure about you, but I’m still a bit hungover with my head still in the clouds after Tuesday night. As fans, we can afford that luxury – the team, not so much. Thankfully, Coach Gottfried and the players have expressed that they know what’s at stake with the BC game. This is a business trip. While recent ‘next game’ results are decidedly not in the Pack’s favor after beating either Duke or the Cheats (they’re so bad I won’t state them here), there are some other factors that do weigh positively in our players’ favor.

One of those factors is that this team has already experienced what can happen after beating a top ranked foe, namely Duke, earlier this season. Several State players expressed that exact sentiment after the win over the Cheats on Tuesday night. They know the kind of focus and composure that is necessary in order to hopefully avoid a ‘letdown’ performance. They also know that Tuesday night’s win is now firmly in the past, and a new challenge awaits. It’s one of those ‘thin line’ differences between consistent championship level Top 15 teams and those programs and teams that only catch lightning in a bottle now and then. State has always had the talent to win this season – some of it new and raw – but winning talent nonetheless. A number of State’s losses have been greatly aided by the mental/psychological side of the equation, leading to seeming inconsistency. That’s hopefully in the past for this season.

Another factor playing in State’s favor as they move forward is that this team is this team … it’s not the team from a decade ago, or even last season’s team. As they proved on Tuesday night, past results and trends are not necessarily indicative of current or future results. It’s like a new spin of the roulette wheel, just because you’ve hit black or green 11 straight times doesn’t mean you won’t hit red on the 12th spin. Most Pack players had no idea about any ‘losing streak’ in the Cheat Dome – they just went out and won. What this team’s players know is that they had a collective letdown after defeating Duke, and they know now to be focused from here out. To hell with any past results of other teams – those are completely irrelevant to this team.

All that said, even with great focus at 12 pm Saturday there are other challenges this game presents. One is that the Conte Forum is likely to be a near dead arena. It doesn’t matter who you are, it can be tough to generate energy for a noon start in a moribund setting. Thankfully, this is just as likely to potentially impact BC as it is the Pack.

The other challenge is the BC team itself. It’s been a tough season for the Eagles under first year coach Jim Christian. They’ve won only one league game to this point, and are on a prolonged losing skid. Still, they’ve been competitive in a number of their games and they do own a nice early season win over a solid Providence squad. Olivier Hanlan has been tearing it up in league play, and scored 39 in BC’s last contest – a 71-65 loss at Pitt.

Bottom line: Challenges aside, as in almost all games this team will play – if State can come out and play poised and determined they stand a very good chance of winning.

Go Pack

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About wufpup76

'99 grad. Abundant reservoir of useless knowledge and even more useless skills. Vehement believer in the individual voice and also that it will indeed all be over by Friday.

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Viewing 25 posts - 301 through 325 (of 338 total)
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  • #76567
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    But it could be my fault. I didn’t do my reverses mojo Chewbacca defense and bet against the ‘Pack like I did for the VT game.

    Sorry fellas.

    #76568
    Rick
    Keymaster

    I now understand. Seriously.

    Until Gott changes himself (and I’m not talking coaching), his teams will continue to rise to the challenge when facing adversity, but continue to fail miserably in the midst of success. Think about it. If you know Gott’s history, and watched the u*nc post game, you’ll get it.

    It won’t change. Accept the roller coaster. Enjoy the highs, expect the lows. Beat’s the helloutta everything we’ve had since V.

    Football, on the other hand, is different. DD will quench your thirst for excellence and consistency.

    I agree with this 100%. It is why I have little hippie for basketball. We are not that far from being a top team but the left cannot make the changes necessary to go to the top.

    #76569
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    It is why I have little hippie for basketball.

    Well, it certainly seemed like State had a lot of ‘little hippies’ on the court attempting to ball today.

    #76570
    Wufpacker
    Participant

    That’s a very GOP autocorrect, I must say.

    #76571
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Well, we can look at it this way. NC State made the conscious decision to stay in the low-rent, “good ol’ boy” ACC.

    We have a football coach who apparently knows what he’s doing. Luckily for us, it seems like he will stick around, as long as we keep him happy (ie, pay him).

    But back to the low rent thingy. We aren’t realistically gonna beat back DD’s gentleman callers AND pay MG a buyout AND lure a medium-to-high profile replacement.

    So…a good-not-great, entertaining-but-frustrating basketball coach is likely the best we are going to get for quite some time, provided we want to compete in el futbol de norteamericano.

    #76572
    BassPacker
    Participant

    Yea but Bass – how come some 18 year olds give consistent effort and others do not?

    I’m not sure chop, maybe its true, Gott’s persona gives an answer to that question. But one can’t continue to blame it on youth. Again, was it the kids or coach?

    I’m not saying didn’t hope the Pack won today, just history tells me to expect different. 1-19 after a win over Blues tends to temper ones confidence. I ask this question, did Gott have the same results after a big win at Bama in SEC? Say like an upset over Kentucky or Tenn, followed by a WTF loss? Be interesting to know those stats.

    #76573
    WolfWiz11
    Participant

    Yea I think it dawned on me watching Gottfried’s post game with Julius the other night. “We’re gonna celebrate tonight”? I’m sorry, but what exactly are we celebrating? 8-7 in the ACC, still on the bubble looking in? Nothing’s gonna change in Raleigh until we stop celebrating victories over Duke and UNC. Maybe if I stop using unflattering nicknames for those teams and start treating them like any other team that we should just BEAT, just maybe we’ll actually start a culture of winning.

    #76574
    Packzingo
    Participant

    Did anyone hear Gott say what time they were to arrive back on campus?? LOL

    #76575
    choppack1
    Participant

    Bass – I think it’s on the coach (in this case.)

    It’s great that we beat UNC-Ch Tuesday, but we had a chance to almost get off the bubble and we blew it. This wasn’t some January meltdown that we could easily recover – this was the easiest remaining game on our schedule.

    I suspect Foose is probably onto something here…I mean, again, like TOB – you have a track record. We can sit there and ignore it (“This time it will be different!”) But I think we know what we Gott. I just wish he was 2 games a year better. Unfortunately, I think it’s more likely that pretty soon, he’ll be 2 games worse (as happened at Bama.)

    #76576
    redcanine
    Participant

    Boston F’ing College!

    #76577
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Eh, I dunno. We all loved how he was embracing the moment on Tuesday night. And really, that WAS plenty of time to savor things for 24 hours, refocus, and take care of business. There’s a balance to strike, no reason to not be human about such a big win.

    Or else you’ns were hiding your lights under a bushel, so to speak.

    #76578
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    Eh, I dunno. We all loved how he was embracing the moment on Tuesday night. And really, that WAS plenty of time to savor things for 24 hours, refocus, and take care of business. There’s a balance to strike, no reason to not be human about such a big win.

    Or else you’ns were hiding your lights under a bushel, so to speak.

    I have no problem celebrating that win … maybe it went overboard, who knows. He said they had good practices coming into today’s game. Bleh. Then again, good practices =/= being mentally prepared to win … Which is why I feel there may be merit to what foose is asserting. Dammit.

    #76579
    redcanine
    Participant

    Isn’t this our worst loss of the year? Even worse than Wofford. Bloody awful.

    #76580
    choppack1
    Participant

    Yea – BJD – we did. We all enjoyed the hell out of it…but the bottom line is that if you’re say “We’re going to celebrate tonight!” – You damn well better take care of business the next night or people will blame it on that short term thinking.

    Mickey Mantle may have had just as many injury problems if he wasn’t hitting the town and raising hell all the time, but he was and when his body broke down, people naturally concluded it was a result of that behavior.

    I’ve also seen interviews with Gottfried. He’s huge on “making the tournament”. Making the tournament is a minimum goal. It’s the equivalent of showing up to work sober at a school that’s won national championships.

    Again – I have no problem with celebrating. But it’s similar to what I said about Larry Fedora – if you’re going to brag about your six pack of abs, you darn well better produce on the football field. Else, people will think you care more about the results in the gym than you do the results of your team on the field.

    I’ll put it this way – if we lose out – which is a damn possibility (but unlikely) – how will his post-game dance look? It will look foolish, and we’ll all rightly point to that as “the Todd Maranovich” moment. “Hey, look what we did – this is good enough!”

    #76581
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I would feel there was more merit to it had the Hole game been on Wed or Thurs. I just have no ‘splanation of what went down today. It is beyond my pea brain, fo sho.

    Anyway, basketball is a tournament sport. I think we can get by with a Charlie Kelly (wild card, bitches!!!) identity, it’s not fatal like it is in football. If we can only do ONE THING (and I think that IS the case), I pay DD rather than go fishing in the hoops pool. I think I can live with MG, warts and all.

    #76582
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Isn’t this our worst loss of the year? Even worse than Wofford. Bloody awful.

    Wofford’s not even top three. Either this or home to Clemson (Wake being #3). Being uncompetitive at home to an NIT bubble squad is pretty embarrassing.

    #76583
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Chop – VERY fair points.

    You can be big on making the dance because you believe once in, anything can happen. But you can’t keep flaming out every year or THAT becomes a trend, too.

    #76585
    Whiteshoes67
    Participant

    I don’t have a problem celebrating a win. What’s troubling is the lack of recognition of what goes right, what goes wrong, win or lose. There’s just a lack of discipline, and little expectation of excellence there. I think most realize it, and that’s the rub. We know this school recruits itself. A mediocre coach can win here, regardless of system, and can be competitive the majority of the time they take the court. After the previous two coaches, a mediocre coach was an improvement.

    But as time goes on, that loses its luster. To both fans and recruits. The changing shape of the ACC will have a lot to do with Gottfried’s future success. The top tier coaches are aging. When will they step down? Who will replace them? Ours is lower middle, upper bottom tier, at least imo. Hard to can when you make the tournament, but hard to get excited about also.

    Just an embarrassing loss for this staff and team.

    #76586
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    I would feel there was more merit to it had the Hole game been on Wed or Thurs.

    Not with this coach’s personality type. You want regimented, no time to waste, no room for error.

    Anything less leads to a focus and urgency reflective of it.

    That’s the cycle. Learn to accept it.

    #76587
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Assholes couldn’t bring in my fridge because of the ice, either. Didn’t ask about that when they told me to stay home all day waiting for them to call, either.

    FUCK. EVERYTHING.

    #76588
    choppack1
    Participant

    Yep BJD – one of the unique things about basketball is that it gives 3 opportunities for success. The regular season conference slate, the conference tournament and the post-season tournament.

    I sometimes think that V’s magic spoiled us. People forgot – he had started to build a pretty consistent winner in Raleigh – and the main reason we weren’t a “consistent winner” in 83 was that we lost our best offensive player for much of the year. As much as V emphasized the tournaments – he had some pretty good results. Even still, it’s a lot easier to build during the regular season – get a good seed and roll through those last 2 tournaments facing worse performing teams than it is to hang banners when you’ve got to go through a gauntlet.

    #76589
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    One of the strengths of MG’s personality is that he allows (and actively encourages) players to have their own identities, and to be creative on the court. That is VERY V-like. The key is to balance that with responsibility to the greater good (ie, their teammates). He’s not a drill seargent. That CAN be good.

    #76590
    Gowolves
    Participant

    This game had upset written all over it. I mean they have three seniors and two juniors staring. One of the best players in the conference. Pack is coming off three straight wins and feeling good. Being played in cavernous barn where you could hear a spider burp. As someone said earlier we all knew this coming

    #76591
    choppack1
    Participant

    And chalk this up to the ying and yang of life. I was planning on vacuuming Tuesday evening to burn off my frustration of another heartbreaking loss. Needless to say, I got that vacuuming in today. (Don’t ask me why, but I typically have to be in a bad mood to vacuum – and I’m usually in a pretty good mood, but a $225 cleaning bill will sour that!)

    #76592
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    Look at this way. Think of your top college coaches, any sport.

    When is the last time you ever saw one react as Gott did (in actions and words) Tues after a regular season win.

    The players absorb that. They adapt it. They’ll occasionally say the right thing, but it’s not a switch that can be flipped.

    After the Louisville game, the team knew they were still in the hole and much work left to be done. Not so after Tues.

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