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Interesting take from someone who didn’t live in NC from 1982-1987 (arguably the glory years of V). We were getting V on TV in the northeast. NC State had as much publicity as UNC. Those were the two NC ACC teams. Duke was a bit of an afterthought and Wake was virtually unheard of. NC State though had cachet because of 1983, but more so because of JimmyV.

We all know what happened with Duke and K. That was a perfect marriage and would have happened regardless.

NC State though, was completely self inflicted. I won’t forgive our administration of the handling of that, and the local media for their role. When I see how they’ve handled UNC with such kid gloves, the mockery that is the NCAA is just more sickening.

We miss you JimmyV, not just for the on court performances, but just for who you were as a person. I doubt we’ll ever have anyone close in both.

Oh, and the 1980s and 1990s were the heyday of the ACC. We started back sliding about the time of expansion and Swoff and ESPN putting UNC/Duke above the league. Lack of double round robin and the uneven playing field that is the ACC has left our league a shell of its former self.

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I don’t care if we’re wearing purple with pink polka dots. Just win.

We’re going to need to come out hot and pour it on. It’s the only way to win. If we sputter out of the gate, then we’ll fall behind and get crushed.

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Rick: The performance against the press was surprisingly bad. How can we have a McDonald’s AA PG who is great in the open court and pair him with a SG who is really a combo, and who has played point, and turn it over that much? We need to practice breaking the press.

BJD: You mentioned KW and I somehow missed that in my comments. I had mentally thought it and thought I’d included it. He was huge. I love his game.

I think that Washington and Anya compliment each other in a high low. They’re also anchors defensively.

Freeman and Abu are more motor players. I would bring them in as a tandem off the bench and tell them to really go after it.

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I watched the game on replay. There were lots of positives:
– 4-0: Eyes on the prize. The record matters more than anything else and we got another W. Look at what Clemson, BC, Syracuse and FSU are doing non-conference, and we’re going to need every one we can get.
– Defense on USF’s Perry. The kid was averaging 20 a game coming in, and our waves of defenders held him to 1/2 that while fouling him out.
– Anya with a good all around game.
– Lacey carrying the load.
– Des coming in cold off of the bench with 5 minutes left and providing a key defensive spark. The original post here kind of blasts him, but I felt like we wouldn’t have won without him.
– Spurt-ability of this team. It felt like every time USF would get close, the Pack would go on a little run.
– Caleb Martin: Looks game ready to me.

There were some issues:
– I would agree with Rick, there’s no reason to do what our fans deride UNC fans for (so called “Curry math”). The FT shooting is what the FT shooting is — not that good. That’s been consistent under Gott, so I don’t see it changing.
– Cat: This is the type of game where he should have been the dominant guard, and that just wasn’t the case. He’s also got to make clutch free throws because the ball will be in the PG’s hands.
– Killer instinct: As with FT shooting, the other issue that seems consistent with Gott’s teams year in and year out is a general lack of killer instinct. We had several chances to just blow this game open and didn’t do it. The same thing happened against Hofstra.
– I love Anya and his spirit, but he’s going to get T’d up in ACC play. This will happen against UNC and Duke.
– Breaking a press: Again we struggle despite effectively playing 2 PGs and putting 2 other guards (Turner and Des) on the court. You wouldn’t think that this is a team that could be easily pressed, but we were rattled again. We’re going to have to clean this up.
– 3 Point shooting and zone offense: We saw a zone and settled for just chucking shots up over it. The results were atrocious.
– Perimeter defense: It looked like USF was playing a variation of Calipari’s dribble drive offense (which to be fair is really a High School coach’s offense). Our big men bailed us out time and again, but the guards are going to have to move their feet better.

The Purdue and West Virginia games are going to be huge. We can’t go 0-2 in those.

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Great story from a guy who I think has taken some unwarranted flack from the fan base. I don’t understand this staff’s utilization (or lack there of) of certain weapons. Underwood is the prime example. He’s one of the few playmakers we have and should get it on offense, special teams, etc..

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I was a bit disappointed with the lack of killer instinct. We got up big and then kind of shut down.

Our front court needs to improve. They’re young and TJW and Vandy carried more load on the boards, blocks, etc. than we probably collectively remember. I was hoping they’d be a little further along though. I think we’ll see Washington and Anya in a high/low setup once ACC play starts.

I think our strength is our depth. I want to see our top 10 players getting lots of minutes, particularly early. I understand needing to win the game, but once it is at hand, get the young kids in and get them battle ready. I don’t think we could have lost, even with the Martins and Abu in.

We’re going to see a lot of zones and sagging man defense this year. If I were playing this team, unless I was UNC or had great guards, I wouldn’t want to run with us. I’d want to slow it down, pack it in and keep the ball in front of me. It’s not that I don’t respect Lacey and Turner, it’s just that I’m more scared of the break. I also wouldn’t respect Cat’s jumper, at least not at this point.

Regardless, I was thinking last night that Hofstra will end up being a solid win. There were teachable moments, but I’d much rather have them in a win than a loss.

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Wake Forest was a must win game and we got it done.

I view UNC as a “minimal expectations” game. I expected us to finish 7-5 (3-5) and we need this one to do so. We lost what I figured were 2 more favorable swing games (BC and GT) that were at home. We need to get 1 out of 3 of those. I don’t think 7-5 (3-5) is unreasonable given the incredibly weak non-conference schedule, the weakness of the ACC and the fact that we had a lot of our most winnable ACC games at home.

UNC isn’t quite must win, but if this staff is going to break through, this is a game they really need. They need recruiting momentum, and to get it in state, they need to beat UNC. UNC’s program is seemingly in turmoil, so they also need to take advantage of that and put the foot on the throat. Beating UNC would give us much needed momentum headed into the bowl and to next year. It’d also give DD and staff some breathing room with the fans (which we saw TOB do time and again by basically beating UNC to “save” and otherwise weak season). Finally, there’s no better way to keep a rival down, than to beat them, particularly if that win keep them out of a bowl.

The UNC game will tell me a lot. Will the staff and players come with that sense of urgency needed or will they just mail it in? Time will tell.

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I’ll gladly admit when I was wrong, and I was sure wrong about the defensive performance against GT. They could have put the athletic trainers in and still be scoring. Crow served and crow is eaten.

I think people are missing the spirit of doomsday’s post though. Let’s say we beat Wake, lose to UNC and finish 6-6 (2-6). We’ll have played the weakest non-conference schedule in my memory, eeked out two wins in a weak ACC, and generally not been remotely competitive against any team with a pulse. Is this really the type of team that deserves to be “rewarded” with a bowl game?

I’m not just picking on this particular team, but I feel the same thing about ANY 6-6 team. Heck, I feel the same thing about 7-5 teams with losing conference records. Beating up on non-conference, home game, cream puffs and not breaking even in conference just shouldn’t be rewarded. It’s like participation trophies in children’s sports.

Now, if we do actually qualify, we should go if for no other reason than the practice. We need all of it we can get.

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I listened to part of the first half on the radio. It was as I feared — we’d struggle to score in the half court when things bog down. We have a lot of people that can step up, but I think they’ll have to do it in the framework of the offense. The UCLA high post can generate great looks, but people have to be disciplined, make the cuts and the passes. That can be tough for a young team. There will be nights where we’re really going to miss TJ Warren, and it will be against teams like UVA, Syracuse, Clemson and Pittsburgh where they want to slow it down, take the air out of the ball, clutch and grab and force us to beat them in the half court.

The news of a 2-3 is promising. I think that sets up very well for our personnel. We’re tall at every position and this lets Anya roam freely on the inside. We didn’t see that in the Red and White scrimmage.

We did see the defensive effort in the Red and White scrimmage. Lee, Martin and Cat in particular really got after it out on the perimeter, and Anya was a cleaner inside. If you get good on the ball pressure and pair that with someone who can alter shots inside, then you will be a good defensive team.

Outside of scoring in the half court, I’m most concerned about PG. We really have no depth there other than players rotating over and we really need Cat to develop.

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I will come and officially eat my crow regarding our defense vs GT’s offense. I’d thought our defensive strength in the front could help neutralize GT’s offense, but it was obvious from the first series that wasn’t happening. All those who said it wasn’t going to happen were correct.

I also stated that if the offense couldn’t hold onto the ball, score and keep the defense off the field, it wouldn’t matter. When we were down 28-13 despite running double the plays, it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen.

I think losing bothers DD a lot. I was looking for something else for another thread and found his post game press conference after La Tech last season. If you compare his responses, confidence, posture, facial expressions and his weight, you’ll see losing has taken a big toll on him.

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Grey: I hope you are right, but I don’t have high hopes for the offense unless something drastically improves in the OL or we get a lot more speed. Until we get an OL that can create running holes, and protect the QB, we’re going to be finesse.

I think this OC’s style of finesse is going to need a whole lot of speed to be effective. To my casual eye, an awful lot is tipped ahead of the play via formation, personnel and motion. You either have to out muscle them, or out run them when that happens. Right now we can’t do either.

VaWolf: I’m not trying to slobber on the defense. Part of it looking better is because we have FSU, Clemson and Louisville behind us. Those are going to skew the numbers some. I suspect UNC will as well. We are better though than the defense that played he first couple of games. We’re also (to my eye) more dynamic and aggressive (which I like).

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ncsu1987: Great job. A larger view of this, with a larger trend line graph would be fantastic.

Grey: I’m one of the ones who requested national numbers. My argument is this — are the conference stats skewed because the conference is collectively good or bad at something?

For example, let’s say we have 3-4 NFL quality QBs in the league. That has happened in the past and will happen again. Maybe we have one as well, but he’s the 4th or 5th best QB in the league. He might still be in the top 15 or so nationally. Compared against the ACC QBs, that might not look good, but the national view helps us appreciate what we have.

This also allows one to better understand the macro level offense and defensive stats. Let’s say that State is giving up 23 points per game and the conference average is 24 PPG given up. Those points per game are heavily skewed by facing ACC offenses. Are those offenses just all bad? Are we abnormally good at something like take aways that keeps points off the board? The national numbers give us something to compare too that isn’t as highly influenced by our control (ACC competition).

This is also good to help one spot the mid-major effect. A strong mid-major might roll up in conference, but then when the out of conference games are factored in, the numbers dip considerably. Or, simply put, the numbers just aren’t that impressive outside of that team’s control.

I look for outliers — things where our performance looks okay in conference but great nationally, or vice versa. Those are better indicators (to me) of things that we do well or are poor at.

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VaWolf82: I agreed with your assessment of the offense then, and have since. It was average by NC State standards when you made that point, and has regressed since. We peaked in the first quarter against FSU and it’s been downhill since (including our seeming abandonment of the run).

Since this staff was hired, I have always had more hope on the defensive side of the ball. Maybe it’s just me (because I want to see it). Maybe it was the bye week (the rest, the chance to get healthier, and the chance to prepare two weeks for an opponent). Maybe we played a pathetic offense (that admittedly put up only 6 against Clemson). Regardless, I thought the defense looked better. I actually have thought it’s looked better ever since the first two drives of the BC game. I don’t know what it is, but it appears that something is different there (though I do think that Hux is now up in the box).

Call me crazy, and I could possibly be proven very wrong, but I think we could hold GT to ~ 24. A lot of that will depend on the offense though and whether they can generate their own drives. If they can’t, the fact that we didn’t hold GT to 24 or less won’t matter anyways.

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Rick: Did you see Anya at the red and white scrimmage? He looked like a game changer on the defensive side to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think he’s going to be a 35 minute a game guy. We’ll get 20-25 out of him between conditioning and fouls. Those will be a high impact 20-25 though.

I like the schedule. This staff schedules well. We have opportunities to get resume building wins. I expect we’ll probably come into the ACC season with 1-2 losses and be much tougher at the end of the year than in the beginning. It’d be really nice if we went spotless in the non-conference, but I just don’t see it happening given all the youth and questions.

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tjfoose: I agree with you. Our defense matches up better against GT’s offense than our defense against say UNC’s offense. We’re strongest up front and get weaker as we go back.

GT’s offensive system struggles against teams that are strong up front. If anyone watched Navy/ND this weekend, or GT/Iowa a few years back will be reminded of this.

I’m not saying we’ve got the talent up front that ND does or Iowa did that year, but if there’s a type of offense that we’ll match up well with, this is it. We just need to stay disciplined (which DD coached teams are for the most part), stay in our lanes and tackle (which looked better this past weekend).

We also need to grind out some long drives. More than anything, we need to rest the defense.

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Rick: That is good.

I don’t think we’re going to be great, but I think we’ll be dancing, and finish about 6th in the ACC. If that’s over-expectations, then so be it, but I think they’re attainable.

I like our front court. We have more talent and depth there than we’ve had in a long time.

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The game hinges on our offense, as has every ACC game since Clemson. When our defense is on the field against GT’s offense, then I actually think we match up well. We’re strongest on the DL and weaker as we move backward, but that offense is severely limited if the front four on the defense can create pressure.

I absolutely think we’ll given up 2-3 big plays that go for TDs. That’s fine. Stack the box, get GT off the field and give the offense some chances.

The biggest issue with playing GT is that they’re clock eaters. We can’t go hurry up offense, 3 and out and stick the defense out there for another long, grind them out possession. If we do that, we’ll lose, no matter how good the defense plays.

The offense is going to have to produce, and we’re going to have to find some semblance of a run game. We’ve effectively abandoned it in the last few weeks and have become fairly one dimensional on offense. We need balance, some long scoring drives, and we need to punch some scores in for TDs.

This game is a toss up. Wake is the must win. We can’t play UNC at the end of the year with everything on the line.

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CD: You made the comment that I was going to make — the pick 6 was a zone blitz. That was something that I was asking for a few weeks back, along with just overall more aggressive LB play.

I’m not saying the coaches read my posts or anything dumb like that. What I’m saying is that the defense is evolving right before our eyes, at least as it appears to me.

I thought yesterday’s DEFENSIVE game plan was great. Syracuse had piled up some yards on the ground, and flat out ran over us last year. Sure they had some injuries on the line and that probably hurt them, but we also made them that way and made a freshman QB beat us. We were also much more aggressive.

Did the defense play perfectly? No. But their points differential on the day (what they gave up versus what they scored) was 10. We will win an awful lot of games when that happens.

I don’t know what changed starting with about the second half of BC forward, but I like what I’ve seen out of the defense. This is more of what I expected when we hired a defensive coach and paired him with a DC that had put together good defenses elsewhere.

As for the O, well, after that first possession, there really wasn’t much. We need to get 7 as opposed to 3. We couldn’t convert on third down. We couldn’t run. Our trick plays didn’t work. I guess it was improvement that we didn’t try any wildcat, and weren’t telegraphing the snap timing with the jet sweep, but it was still interesting. I will admit that I’m not sold on Canada, and maybe my view of the offense is through that lens.

Oh, and we should give a major thumb’s up to the kickers yesterday. Baumann’s punting has really been our MVP this year, and Sade made some clutch kicks and had some nice kick offs. Nice job guys!

It’s a win, and we’re 1 behind where I thought we’d be right now. The good news is that all three of the last games are winnable. We need to come out of GT injury free, and get that win against WF. UNC looks like it could go either way. I’m not counting us out of GT. I feel like our strength (especially with this more aggressive scheme) plays into their weakness (they really struggle when they can’t control the middle up front on offense). We could win all three, but I’m kind of leaning towards 2-1 at this point.

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Skip to about the 21 minute mark to hear the QA:
http://www.wralsportsfan.com/rs/video/14127555/

Good god the hypocrisy of Swofford is sickening:
– About UNC: Separation of Church and State between academics and athletics is what makes sense.
– Asked about whether athletes should get paid: No, because what is special about NCAA sports is the marriage of academics and athletics.

It was also interesting to see all the talking points I’d predicted come out of Swof’s mouth:
– Need to move on
– Things are behind
– I knew nothing
– Separation of athletics from academics
“Carolina” as Swof called them clearly had the talking points nailed.

I’ve felt for years that the Swoff should go and that his presence has propped UNC up, held NC State down, and generally hurt our league’s overall value in contract negotiations (see the Pac 12 deal for reference). Watching this press conference and the media questions, it has to be painfully obvious to the rest of the adults that he’s bad for business.

Fire the bum!

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Must win game. Get it done Pack!

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I have us about 6th or 7th. For whatever reason, I just don’t think that ND or FSU finish ahead of us.

I also don’t think Buzz finishes last. I know VT doesn’t have much talent, but it is just a hunch.

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pakfanistan: I fear that Emmert is setting up to wash his hands of this as much as he can. After all it’s not a NCAA issue, but an academic fraud issue that should be dealt with by the accreditation process.

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All I want for Christmas is for UNC to receive the double whammy — the Death Penalty in sports paired with a significant knock on their academic standing.

If a school has ever earned the Death Penalty in sports — not just for lack of institutional control on the off campus stuff, but for complete and reprehensible policy in the classroom — it is UNC. It’s the complete package. Taking illegal gifts, funneling money, covering up illegal actions is possibly forgivable if the academic mission is in order. But to have it all as it is and to find people at all levels of the university over multiple iterations of people in every position, yet still continue is systemic. They should be finished, at least for 5 years.

Beyond this, what I’m waiting for is this hit on the academic side. Everyone knows that the NCAA is a complete joke and the universities are just in it for the cash. They’re all willing to collectively look the other way on that. But what about systemic academic fraud dating back 20 years (and beyond, but there’s just not enough of a paper trail)? It will be interesting to see if UNC keeps their accreditation.

How will UNC stay in the AAU (which we still can’t seemingly get into) given the following requirements:
– as well as general recognition that a university is outstanding by reason of the excellence of its research and education programs.

– current members whose research and education profile falls significantly below that of other current members or below the criteria for admission of new members will be subject to further review and possible discontinuation of membership.

– Undergraduate education: The Committee assesses the institution’s undergraduate programs to determine that the institution is meeting its commitment to undergraduate education.

That’s just what is posted on the AAU website. Imagine how this looks behind closed doors when the administration of the university, time and again, across multiple decades, has committed this sort of fraud. Academia is a snooty thing. Do the other schools still want UNC in the club?

I think the AAU has to do something. The academics will need to rise up and take some power back, and this is a way for that to happen — and to send a strong message to other schools about the relative importance of sports.

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I personally think that we should hang banners for our ACC basketball title game losses to UNC in the Finals. The ACC may not award us with the titles, but they will hang there with a reminder that UNC did in fact cheat when they won those years.

If nothing else, maybe it becomes a discussion point for 20-30 years down the line when all of that has been neatly swept under the rug by UNC.

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This is all great, but I’m afraid nothing is going to happen. I think the NCAA, Swof and UNC cut a deal a while back. That’s the only reason the football program got even a slap on the wrist.

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