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I feel bad for the guy, the way this is trending it’s beginning to look like he’s not going to be back into playing shape until the post season – if then. We may not see much of the player we expected at all.
Sucks for the team, but even more for Terry.They aren’t shooting well from outside, we aren’t guarding well from outside. Given Pack luck, sounds like a formula for VT to fill it up.
Pomeroy is picking them by 1, but that probably doesn’t consider the loss of Clarke. You’d have to think we are favored, even though it is a road game.
Big Questions for me:
Can Cat keep up the number of minutes without being less effective?
Can Mav handle teams game planning for him?
Can the bigs limit the fouls enough to be effective in league play?
Can the bigs score enough to take some of the pressure off the perimeter?
Are we EVER going to start using our athleticism to play defense?Redisgood – you beat me to it. Now we’ll both get flack for defending Gott and the team.
If you watched this game, hardly anything went well. We played terrible. Cat was in foul trouble for much of the game and faced a defense designed to prevent him from driving, Abu seems to have given up the game of basketball altogether, Mav looked like a HS kid … we were awful. Don’t recall seeing the team even trying to run the high post. And other than a few minutes in the second half, the crowd was not into it.
But we were within 4 points late in the game. If we’d just hit some of our point blank shots – I know Mav missed at least one layup, Cody missed one, all of Nard’s shots were in close, Abu missed a couple – just hitting half of those would have won it.
Our defense held one of the best shooting teams in the country to 3 less made 3PT shots than their average, and held them to shooting 35% from three when they average 42%. Of course our interior defense (due to Abu?) was terrible, so that more than made up for our slowing down the three point shooting. And Mav couldn’t keep up with his guy.
And whoever has been criticizing Gott for not playing Kirk – well, that was embarrassing. He looks to have potential, but needs more work.
Hated losing the game, but looking at their strengths versus our weaknesses, I thought we were in trouble.
I agree with about everyone on this, there are too many bowls. Bowl attendance is devalued to a point that the most that the majority can hope for is a strong turnout by the fan base, and solid regional TV coverage. Everyone I know feels that way. I used to love them, but no more. I typically watch our game, maybe the national championship game, and the NFL.
HOWEVER, the players and coaches love it. The coaches love the 20 (i think) additional practices they get, and the players like being rewarded with a trip and being treated like celebrities.
So, who cares if there are too many bowls? The kids and coaches get rewarded for a season of hard work. Sooner or later, ‘king capitalism’ will determine if they are viable and shut them down if they aren’t.
Gott to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff. If they were the dogs in the ASU game, they were equally exceptional in this one. The team could have been really down over losing to a team we should have beaten, and making so many mistakes. (I admit I was down)
They clearly looked at the film and saw that they would kill us in the paint, so we took it away. That resulted in too many open 3pt shots, but they achieved their primary objective and shut down Simmons’s scoring. And that was enough.
I have to admit I was surprised at the transformation. 24 hours later, we started to look like a team that could be good this year.
I think the barometer this year is going to be the twins. Cat is going to be solid almost every night, Abu should get there as well. Mav is a freshman, so we’ll see some awesome nights, and probably even more ugly ones. (but, hoping Terry gets back and plays well and fills this role) I am sadly reconciled that Nard and BeeJay just aren’t going to be reliable offensive weapons.
The twins are the secret sauce. They can shoot, drive, rebound, pass, block shots, steal, and play defense. With their size and athleticism, I think they are the guys that make us great – or not.Great win, GO PACK.
So, if the shots are falling, we’ve got a chance. We appear to be another team of shooters, with no other way to win. Gott ball.
We’d better figure out defense and rebounding quickly, or this season will be lost early. We don’t shoot well enough to cover all the other deficiencies.
I think we’re going to see that Gott’s “loose reigns” doesn’t work with this team.
I really don’t feel like they’ve every really committed to the high post Maybe a few plays, but I don’t recall every recognizing us as playing it for a half or entire game. But, it may be that I saw it but didn’t recognize it. Certainly possible.
As the season progresses, we start to play better together, no doubt. The passing gets crisper, we start looking for the great pass or the open man – but it seems like either we make an early entry pass that works, or we take a jump shot. It may be that the guard (s) create some action that frees a wing, but it never feels to me like the offense is flowing.
The majority of Gott’s team’s success has always seemed to rest on outside shooting. TJ was an aberration (a fantastic one!), but it’s seemed to me that we’ve needed a Scott Wood, a Ralston Turner, or a Trevor Lacey to get hot and hit that key shot to win the important games. The mature player that knows when and how to get that score.
Not sure if we have that guy this year. I had hoped it might be Terry, but for now, he’s out of play. Maybe it’s Cat.But I worry he’ll have no legs left by February and that will show in his shooting.
So I think, to reach a high level of success this year, we’ve got to run the offense (or SOME offense). Gott always talks about ‘relying on the offense.’ I think the team can be really good, if it will do that. Lots of talent, but at this point, completely disorganized on both ends of the court. We’re not going to beat anyone of significance until they get this figured out.
Can’t decide what was more note worthy, the effort of the Miami players to just keep it going – or the absolute clown show the refs put on.
All we have done so far is exactly what the team was supposed to do. Beat four lesser opponents and improve the product on the field in preparation for the real season. And, as a bonus, we got to play a lot of the backups.
No chest thumping warranted at all.
Win three of the next four, then we can start having bigger dreams.
But I have to say, I really like the program’s trajectory.
And it can’t be overstated how important the position DSJ plays is. He’s a great player, but also plays the position that can make other players great as well. And is stepping into our biggest recruiting need.
All in all, a phenomenal pick up. Congratulations Gott!
tractor57 – agree
Gott may not be the bench coach that Valvano was, but he seems to coach with ‘looser reigns’ the way the better players want to play these days. I’m sure it is a tough line to walk between giving them freedom, and training them to have enough discipline to do the basic fundamentals (defense, rebounding, etc.)He’s got a good team of coaches.
Think about the players DSJ should be playing with next year. The twins, the three bigs should all be there, Rowan, Kirk – could be a great team.
These are exciting times for Wolfpack basketball.
This is a team with the potential to be really, really good. Plenty of ACC caliber talent and enough experience. (you just don’t see many of those senior laden teams anymore)
But having said that, there’s still the question marks. BeeJay??? Abu could be dominant, will he? The twins could be our secret weapons at both end of the court, will they? Is Terry the upgrade on defense over TL and RT, and the strong scorer we think? Is Cat going to have the all world season we think he should? Can Nard give us some more offense? And will Mav and Kirk fit in and give us quality minutes this year? (I don’t even want to think about Mav possibly being the scoring machine out of the gate some people are hinting he may)
If all or even most of these questions are answered positively, this could be a really fun year.The first questions I want to hear answered when practice starts are:
1) Is BeeJay in playing condition?
2) Is Nard recovering as scheduled? We really need him because question #1 makes me nervous.
3) Is Mav showing signs of living up to his press clippings?Thanks for sharing the video, I had not seen it.
A very impressive man. He has 12 brothers and sisters, so I can see that kids were probably important to him.
Best of luck with the Panthers this year JC!
I expect Wolfpack sports as usual. We’ll lose one we shouldn’t and win one we probably shouldn’t. Another season of peaks and valleys. No consistency here.
If we don’t win 9 in the regular season, I think most of us will be disappointed and feel like we plateaued a little bit, but obviously our trajectory had to flatten out a little. We aren’t going to win 13 games.
I think a 9 win regular season, plus one in the bowl – for 10 wins overall would be great. How many times has the Pack ever won 10 in a season?
Well, according to this site, technically the answer is NEVER. But we did win 11 in 2002 when PR beat Notre Dame. But other than than, 9 is the best ever. So a 10 win season would be phenomenal!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NC_State_Wolfpack_football_seasons
^ Was going to link to the same article
Very complimentary of Phillip, and very positive about the Bolts this year.
Good things happening to good people.
While so many of these high profile athletes get media attention by being knuckleheads, Phillip fairly quietly goes about being one of the best in the league at his position. Remember all of the talk about “can he be successful with such a non-standard release?” And Phillip ignored it all.
Congratulations Mr. Rivers. I believe you deserve being paid as one of the most valuable players in the NFL, glad to see it actually happen.
