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Cheapskates playing in a dang hockey rink thinking they deserve a good team. What a joke, should have built a new Reynolds all brick not some sea green glass hockey rink. 90’s new wavers called. Should be in a brick building on campus and playing on VALVANO court. Until then done cheering for these scrubs.
Yes, what Cat is doing is phenomenal. He’s unstoppable.
But I am going to say this knowing the flak is coming, but his play is doing the TEAM no favors. That’s not on Cat. That’s squarely on the staff. He’s doing whatever he can to keep is in games, and without him we’d be lucky to have won a game. But everybody is just standing around watching the Cat show, and it’s not good for the future of this program.
Every team has three or four guys that can put the ball on the floor and create their own shot. We had two, but one of them got hurt, so we only have one. Cat can pass it until his whiskers fall out, but he’s passing it to guys who can’t do anything with it, so they eventually pass it back to him. Soon there is only 5 seconds left on the clock, and Cat has to go to work. Some of it is recruiting the right players, some of it is keeping the right players, and some of it is bad luck.
Edit: but I do think Mav has shown signs he can develop into more than a catch and shoot player.
Pack1997 wrote:
While I haven’t been a fan of those talking an suggesting we go after Archie, I do think we need a new direction. The talent gap only gets worse next year, and I would rather bring someone in to stop the bleeding than bleed out.Not happening this year. IF this one stays on the same path AND next year is more of the same, then we might be looking next March.
But you all know how this goes … we win a few and fortunes and opinions change.
1. Freeman was a tad busy in rehab coming into August.
2. What was everyone else lacking a switchblade in their socks doing over the summer? I ask, particularly, those peeps who seem to know player developement.
*Greenhorns, Rowan and Kirk, are excused.
Every team has three or four guys that can put the ball on the floor and create their own shot. We had two, but one of them got hurt, so we only have one. Cat can pass it until his whiskers fall out, but he’s passing it to guys who can’t do anything with it, so they eventually pass it back to him. Soon there is only 5 seconds left on the clock, and Cat has to go to work. Some of it is recruiting the right players, some of it is keeping the right players, and some of it is bad luck.
Edit: but I do think Mav has shown signs he can develop into more than a catch and shoot player.
Pretty much. If I shot the % everybody not named Cat shoots, I’d throw it back to him and wait to see what happened too.
If basketball was scored like horseshoes we’d be murdering people.
I think Cat’s first preference is and has always been to set up others. It’s just that there’s no THERE there this season.
I do think we hurt ourselves a little by not living in the moment sometimes. I don’t always want to wallow in the macro suck, especially in game threads. That should be my time to soak up the here and now, micro suck with my fellow wolves in agony, know what I mean?
Plus, it’s not like any of this has changed my views, nor do I see why it changes anyone else’s. I saw the feces train coming in November and I’ve stopped expecting or even hoping for miracles. Ain’t coming this time around.
Look at that box score. Despite having no one who can throw the ball in the ocean, Cat still had 7 assists and a 3.5:1 assist to turnover ratio. That goes with scoring 26 points and playing every minute. His play is good for the team and program. He’s having the best season that a NC State PG has had since Corch. He’s an amazing player. He’s just surrounded by a handful of players (because we have fewer players than teams on probation) that are basically role players.
The best thing that will come from this season is if Cat plays himself into a lottery pick. That would be the best thing for this program at this point given what I am seeing because it’d help with recruiting.
As for the “every loss is an ultimatum on the coaching going back to HWSNBN,” I don’t think that is the case. NC State is very patient with coaches. We gave HWSNBN 10 years, and never actually fired him. We gave Lowe 5 despite only winning 31% of his conference games. Many were all about the “Gottfather” for quite some time. While the signs were clear as far back as year 2, it was only last year that many began recognizing the split in the fan base. Les had his staunch supporters as well.
I’d suggest we’ve just seen a lot of bad basketball. We’ve seen a coach stubbornly dig in with a flawed system and recruit exclusively to that system, a coach that didn’t look like any prep happened between games, and now a coach who hasn’t managed scholarships well and whose teams are glaringly lacking in fundamentals. I’d agree that these past 4 years have been the high water mark (along with HWSNBN’s last 5) in our wandering of the desert since V, but that’s not really saying much when you compare the program to where it has been in the past.
As soon as Henderson went down, this season was done. It’s sad that in year 5 the margin of error is so thin. Also, did anyone watching against Wake not think that their program is in better shape than ours? That’s in year 2 of a coach that is clearly building. What are we building if in year 5 we look less deep, less talented and less fundamentally sound than Wake? Keep in mind, this is WF that was coached by Bzz, who was one of the worst coaches in ACC history. Manning didn’t exactly inherit a great program, or even the talent that Lowe left Gott.
Think you missed my over arching point, rye. The players not named Cat are developing bad offensive habits standing around watching their teammate. There is no movement. I don’t care if they can’t shoot – they can still MOVE. Move. Set screens. Go back door. Heck just do something besides watching like you and I are. Ever seen the movie Hoosiers? MOVE! It is awful, awful, offensive basketball. That is on coach. Cat’s gone come March and the boys are going to have to start from scratch as there is obviously no offensive system incorporated here. Bad habits. Easy to defend. Bad habits.
How conceivable is it at year five for coach Gott that we have so many “gaps”…talent gap, scholarship gap, execution gap, coaching gap, player gap. This is stuff you go thru in year one, not year five. It’s hard to see us winning a single ACC game this year. I know losing Lacey and Washington really hurt, I mean really hurt, and is probably the differnce this year. But after 5 years you have to be able to absorb such loses and the great coaches are able to develop players year after year and recruit and develop incoming players to cover such loses. We were caught with our pants down and now are exposed with all the gaps that exist in the basketball program. I can’t complain with the past 4 years, NCAA bids and 2 sweet 16’s, not many can say that. So Gott can certainly get results. But we absolutely should not be where we are now, in year five, and after Dennis Smith we don’t have anything else coming in next year either. I’m riding the fence on a change right now, but we can’t afford to let Archie get away to another P5 school with little hope of getting him if the time comes.
To Ryebread’s point, I think what all of us are hoping is that Gott changes his system or his philosophy in order to fit what he has. There’s one thing to be stubborn if you’re a proven NCAA championship winner or consistent conference contender, but we haven’t been that since V (to be objective, we haven’t been that since Sloan), and this year is the perfect chance for Gott to throw caution to the wind and play loose with his system.
As for development of our players (which is always valid criticism), our entire team needs to learn how to move their feet to get position without dribbling. Anya’s feet are the worst I’ve seen in history: my feet are better at 38 and I haven’t even seen them in two years. Abu’s aren’t much better, and Freeman’s entire offense is based on rebounding. Rowan and Twin A aren’t great at getting space to shoot without the need of multiple screens. The Twins can work somewhat well together, but lack consistency mostly because of very different roles. Shaun Kirk isn’t getting any better on the bench; IMO that kid needs to get more bookend time (time between a stoppage and before the next media break) to help develop.
Gott is a good coach but I’m still fully unconvinced he’s going to take huge steps at State unless he learns to develop and refine also.Wulf: You make valid points but those are on the coaches, less on the players and definitely not on Cat. The latter is what I thought you were implying.
I can’t put any of this on Cat. He’s playing very hard and at a very high level.
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