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It may sound weird, but I’m kind of watching to see if we’ll have any staff changes, even if they’re coaching different positions. If so I doubt we’d see anything announced until after signing day, but I am still curious.
With respect to the players, I would not at all be surprised to see marginal players getting pushed out or recruited over. I can’t really blame the staff and would probably do the same. There was nothing we had this year talent wise that should have suggested anyone was safe. They’ll get to play the “youth” and “their players” cards. We’re going to be really young this year and next year.
DC_Wolf: Two quick points:
1) I think FSU is winning tonight. They may not win by 2 TDs, but they’re winning. The SEC hasn’t looked that strong in bowls either. Had Duke not absolutely choked their game away, we’d be 5-5 but with our “top” programs scoring wins.2) Not winning a single game in conference was a huge red flag. Phoning it in against Maryland and getting handled by ECU was as well. We’d better hope we can recruit our way out of this mess and that DD and staff look at everything top to bottom.
This is the exact time of the year to begin determining who is in and who is out. I like this analysis and have it shaking out similarly. I had ND on the bubble before losing their player and NC State on the bubble as well (with UVA).
With more and more games being played in conference, the out of conference schedule becomes even more important. It seems counter intuitive, but it’s the case. The league’s relative strength is determined by OOC play and there are fewer opportunities for that to go up or down.
Our weaker teams have really hurt us this year. We have had some bad coaching hires (Johnson, Donohue, Gregory, Bzz) and at least one coach who I thought at the time was a good hire but who isn’t working out (Brownell). The league really needs to upgrade coaching before this is going to change. There’s no way coaches in over their heads (like the list above) are going to upgrade their schedules and risk a more rapid firing. They will continue to play against, and lose to, some RPI killing teams.
With respect to NC State, we need Tennessee to make major noise in the SEC. That’s our only real win. Our Northwestern win is far less impressive, as shown by Wisconsin blowing them out at home. We also need Cincy and Mizzou to do well. I think Cincy will, but Mizzou may end up a bubble team themselves when all is said and done.
I think the meltdown against Mizzou was far more damning than the loss to Central. Yes, the Central loss was bad, but in this day and age, a bad loss can be overlooked. Lack of quality non-conference wins is not overlooked (as Seth Greenburg can tell you). We had a golden chance to take one and let it slip away.
Oh well, I still like this team. I have thought from the beginning that we’d be on bubble watch and one of the last 4 in. I still think we’ll be that way.
Quick thoughts:
– This is a holiday time story. Writers have things queued up in the pipeline ready to release over the holiday season. They’re often older stories, so it looks like the NY Times has been sitting on this one.– UNC is definitely playing the rogue angle. This is consistent with what they did with tutors, etc.. It appears they have a well thought out plan to ensure there’s not “LOIC.” Find a bunch of scapegoats, negotiate some sweetheart deals with them and spin everything else. You have to hand it to UNC. If there’s a book coming out of this, it ought to be how to circle the wagons.
– I hope Nyraango drops a bomb on everyone during his testimony, but I doubt that happens. I suspect he’s got a plea deal set up already paired with a nice parachute payment.
– Nothing is ever going to happen to UNC. At the same time, I encourage all to keep their transgressions in the press. This holiday season, I actually heard some long time UNC homers admitting that they’ve got problems. It only took 3 years, but at least the fundamental and systemic cheating is being made so obvious that even the hard liners can’t ignore it.
Big, big win in a must have early season game. Warren had a rough game (amazing that a guy can have 21 and 11 and shoot 50% and it’s a rough game) and the rest of the team picked up the slack.
That was our best interior defense that I’ve seen in years. When Vandy went out with two quick ones in 3 minutes, I thought we were in trouble. Anya, Washington and Freeman played great down on the blocks.
Dakich runs his mouth, but I actually think a lot of his points are valid. I was in the minority that I thought they were last year as well.
We need to maintain our focus against ECU and resist looking ahead to Missouri. That’s sometimes tough for a young team coming off of a nice win.
If we’re making the tournament this season, even as a last 4 in kind of squad, this is a game we really, really need to have. So far we’re 1-1 against “name” teams. We really need to go at least 2-2 and have undefeated (though coached by Frank Haith) Missouri left on the schedule.
It’s really odd to me. I think Martin is a much better coach than Haith. Haith obviously has better talent. I digress.
I’d have been okay with Martin and he’s been solid against Tennessee. They gave Duke all they could handle early last year.
One thing that this write up doesn’t mention is just how physical Tennessee is. I expect this game will resemble Cincinnati. Look for lots of fouls.
The other real question is how the Pack responds going on the road. This is only our second game outside of Raleigh. Here’s to hoping we learned something the first time.
backnine: That’s how I see it. Clougherty has lost control of this thing. He needs to go and whoever organized this little “show of solidarity” needs to as well. Only by making an example of this will it actually ever get fixed.
There are plenty of highly capable D3 refs that would kill to get an opportunity to ref at this level. It is time to go get some.
My god, I hope Yow’s phone is ringing off the hook. This is finally THE piece of evidence needed to show it’s not just black helicopters.
Man. This is @#($)@*$# bush league.
Check this out for more information from Yahoo:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger-college-basketball-blog/officials-acc-tournament-honor-ref-ejected-n-c-190637077.htmlHmm… I’m seemingly in the minority here, but I didn’t think the officiating lost us the game today. Yes, the 8 point swing due to the BS intention foul was absolute BS. We could have gotten through that but we absolutely collapsed.
Officiating was a factor, but let’s be honest about this. We were on the road in an ACC game and got a vast majority of the calls (along with a number of cheap bail out calls) right up until Greenburg got the technical. Greenburg worked the refs to his advantage and the advantage that one should probably expect on his home court. We actually got jobbed worse at home against UNC.
I wish basketball had injury reports like football does. Injuries would have been the only excusable reason not to play Thomas and Degand today. If we didn’t play those kids solely due to rotations, then @#($*@#$!
I thought we had a meltdown today of HWSNBN proportions. I could see it coming a mile away — long before the 8 point play. IMHO, we lost this game when we came out in the second half and decided to sit on the basketball as opposed to attacking. We almost had VT run out of the gym by pushing the ball down their throats only to then go passive and try to stall for the entire second half. That was a huge tactical mistake that zapped momentum and ALLOWED the officiating to have the impact that it did.
Another second half mistake was not playing the “big” line up of McCauley, Smith and Costner. That line up had effectively kept VT entirely off of the boards in the first half. It also allowed McCauley to move into the high post (which is his more natural position) which gave us nice passing and Smith room to work inside.
When Fells went into his shell (which you could see happen), why not pull him and put Fergie in? One or two shots from a spark plug and this game would have been over.
Once Javi stopped pushing the ball, he became a liability at both ends of the court. Why didn’t we see Mays who is better in the half court and who is a scoring option? Heck, why did we stop pushing the ball (though I’ve already mentioned that)?
Let’s not discuss the end of game management. Yes, there were too many free throws missed and that’s inexcusable. At the same time, our strategy and substitution patterns were absolutely brutal.
We lost today on coaching. Yes, coaching built the lead, but it also blew it. The fact that this reminded me so much of a HWSNBN coached game is what frustrated me more than anything.
I want to see SL win. I’ve been a huge defender. At the same time, games like today make it really, really tough.
