One Weekend, Four Games, Zero Interest

For a weekend that was technically so full of on-field and on-court Wolfpack action, you might notice that there wasn’t much blog (text or comment) activity. Not a very different story on message boards, either.

Alas, this is what you get when you play a Sun Belt also-ran in football, and three 200+ RPI teams in basketball. The results were predictable, and the action was as boring as late night programming on C-Span 2. Personally, I listened to about half of the MTSU game on the radio, and maybe 10 minutes of basketball combined (honestly, I didn’t even check those scores the next morning). I can only imagine how fun it was to see 13 combined points scored (other than by an interception return and a 1-play drive following a blocked punt) in Carter Finley on Saturday. Or to watch so many players trudge through the ESA who were even slower than Ilian Evtimov (who has multiple knee injuries to explain his lack of “quicks”). NOTE: Evtimov is a good guy to have on the team, and a gritty player – I meant this as a jab at our “classic” opponents, not IE.

It was more interesting from a general sports perspective, as Vandy miraculously ended a 22-game losing streak against Tennessee (ensuring only 6 bowl-eligible teams from the SEC), Ohio State pulled out a thriller in the Big House, Texas Tech got the winning TD as time expired (though us poor NC folks were blacked out by a stupid hockey game on FSN), Georgia Tech upset Miami, and Fresno State gave USC all they could handle. And that was just Saturday – Colts/Bengals was a nice way to wrap up the sports weekend.

Can anyone who is more of a glutton for punishment than I am estimate attendance figures for football and basketball this weekend?

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

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37 Responses to One Weekend, Four Games, Zero Interest

  1. Rick 11/21/2005 at 10:09 AM #

    Several times my wife and I had this conversttion
    W- “Are we playing tonight?”
    Me- “yes”
    W- “Are we wining”
    Me- “we should be but who cares”
    The AD should be embarrassed to make people pay to see this crap.

  2. Jeff 11/21/2005 at 10:21 AM #

    ^ But it is not his fault!! Nothing is every anyone’s fault at NC State!!! Don’t you know that Temple backed out of playing us so we were forced to play this MTSU game.

    Ahhh…but that is what the NC State Athletics Department wants you to think, and therefore all of the information that they have shared with you.

    Of ALL of the 12 games on Temple’s schedule….why has nobody asked the question WHY the NC State game was the one that they chose to terminate?

    I will leave this with you for a while and maybe we will discuss more later.

  3. Trout 11/21/2005 at 10:25 AM #

    I figure GT’s win over Miami cost NC State about $1 million dollars. I do think the ACC was headed toward 2 BCS teams. Now, only 1 will represent the conference.

    Is Al Groh feeling as much heat as Amato, with twice the pay check?

    “Or to watch so many players trudge through the ESA who were even slower than Ilian Evtimov.”

    I have to “boo” that comment.

  4. Trout 11/21/2005 at 10:27 AM #

    Okay, WHY was the NC State game was the one that Temple chose to terminate?

  5. Class of '74 11/21/2005 at 10:28 AM #

    The football game was the equivalent of root canal surgery. As for basketball, your system can only tolerate so many cupcakes before you get sick. All the more reason to play home and home with all eleven ACC members, That way the AD and coaches have less control of the scheduling and we get more quality games for our money.

  6. Trout 11/21/2005 at 10:31 AM #

    ^ I’d be in favor of 22 ACC games, but that will NEVER happen. Not even Coach K or Roy would vote for that change.

  7. scott 11/21/2005 at 10:35 AM #

    And, don’t forget, we couldn’t get in the Pre-season NIT b/c BC’s contract pre-dated ours…like Herb’s been trying & trying for 9 years to get into that tourney & schedule better competition. Poor Herb. Better enjoy feasting on Stetson, Citadel, Delaware & VMI before you have to go into the real world of college b-ball & play N. Dame & Iowa on the road. (But, I went to our games this weekend and Simmons & Grant look much improved & freshman Ben McCauley looks pretty good.)

  8. Mr. O 11/21/2005 at 10:57 AM #

    All teams play cupcakes. We have a pretty good schedule this year and no more cupcakes than anyone else. In the past, we have had more cupcakes than other teams, but this year is a bit different. Unfortunately, there are no interesting home games OOC. But we should get Alabama and the Big 10 game at home next year.

  9. BJD95 11/21/2005 at 11:09 AM #

    ^ Mr. O, I challenge you to find a single Top 25-40 caliber program that plays ZERO interesting home OOC games.

    Trout, I will clarify my statement on Evtimov. He has bad knees to excuse his slowness. Our opponents do not.

  10. Rick 11/21/2005 at 11:32 AM #

    Of course other teams have cupcakes.
    But do these other teams keep wasting their exempt tournaments on this worhtlessness?

  11. Jeff 11/21/2005 at 11:42 AM #

    ^ “Wasting”?…I hardly think that a scheduling philosophy which has been THE REASON for getting us into 3 of the last 4 NCAA Tournaments is a “waste”. I don’t agree with the administration’s acceptance of the program’s need for these games to make the Tourney…but, you can’t argue the effectiveness of it.

    I agree with BJD that you would be hard pressed to find any other top program that neglects its season ticket holders and fan base with the kind of arrogance that our administration does when it comes to home scheduling in BBall.

  12. BJD95 11/21/2005 at 11:45 AM #

    I’m not at all convinced that the “overall win” total has been what has gotten us in. I think that ACC membership, good Sagarin #s (which the committee apparently does look at), and a perception of “finishing hot” have, at various times, been the final straw that got us in.

    It does, however, feed the notion that we are a program that needs a crutch, and can’t compete on the same plane as everyone else.

  13. Jeff 11/21/2005 at 11:50 AM #

    BJD…go back and look at last year’s bubble teams and tell me what you think of the overall win total. Compare our overall year (and scheduled) to that of Indiana (as an example). Add 3 meaningless wins to their schedule and tell me who you would have taken into the Tourney?

  14. Class of '74 11/21/2005 at 12:03 PM #

    If you really believe that 8 or 9 cupcakes gets us in the Big Dance think again.
    The # of wins, the RPI and where we finish in the conference, with the emphasis on RPI and conference finish being the primary in consideration.
    As to Coach K, if he had his way we would be an 8 school conference. But he is slowly changing his mind as the football $ roll in to the new ACC.

  15. Trout 11/21/2005 at 12:07 PM #

    ” Add 3 meaningless wins to their schedule and tell me who you would have taken into the Tourney?”

    You should really only add 2. The “Classic” exempt format allows us to play 3 games whereas you could normally only play 1.

  16. Class of '74 11/21/2005 at 12:20 PM #

    11 teams home and home equals 22 games. Presently almost everyone has a 30 game schedule. That’s ample room to have a cupcake and a Maui or Alaska trip with one or two decent tests. So what’s the problem???

  17. Trout 11/21/2005 at 12:24 PM #

    I think 27 games is the limit for the regular season.

  18. Jeff 11/21/2005 at 12:25 PM #

    Trout, splitting hairs. Take away one of Indiana’s ridiculously strong OOC opponents and replace them with a cupcake, if you must. Makes no difference.

    Class of ’74… ou are drinking the Kool-Aid that they serve about their “criteria”. All of those other criteria that you list are true…but it all starts with “total wins”. Whether it is stated or not stated…if a team doesn’t have enough total wins to look worthy (no matter how tough their schedule is), they get excluded early.

    In fact…based on every criteria that you shared OTHER than total wins, NC State lagged many teams that got left out of the NCAA last year. You think our 7th place ACC finish & #64 RPI & #275 OOC schedule got us into the NCAA? Or our 4-8 record against ranked opponents?

    NO WAY!

    State’s formula to get in is simple — schedule cupcackes to build the total win total, let the ACC’s strength boost our overall SOS, and squeeze in after dogpaddling near the middle of a well-respected conference. It works!!!

    Based only on all of those other criteria…Indiana clearly deserved an NCAA bid over NCState last year. BUT, in almost every media outlet, the comments about Indiana were simple & accurate…”the NCAA will never take a 16 win at large team.”…”16 wins won’t do it”…”etc, etc”.

    They had everything else that they needed…but didn’t have enough total wins to look attractive enough.

    Had they scheduled just a little easier (like NCState) &/or been able to add 2 more cupcake wins to their base from a “tournament”…they would have been in over us by using the same method we use.

  19. Mr. O 11/21/2005 at 12:39 PM #

    Our RPI would actually be better if we played less cupcakes which would give us a better chance to make the tourney. So you could argue that the Herb Sendek Cupcake Classics actually hurt our NCAA tournament resume. I have never seen the NCAA talk about total wins as a factor in teams getting in the tournament.

    I don’t argue that our past schedules have not stunk. All I am saying is that this year’s schedule is right in line with the rest of the ACC. Unfortunately, we had the road game first in the Alabama series.

    Wow. I have been looking at schedules of other similar ACC teams as BJV95 asked. I would consider Wake, BC, GT, and Maryland as top 24-40 teams or better. The trend on everyone’s schedule including Duke’s is that teams are playing the more interesting OOC games at neutral sites very often.

    After looking at these schedules, there are all pretty similar. All schools have boring home games.

    Duke’s home games:
    Boston U – NIT
    Seton Hall – NIT
    Penn
    Valpo
    St. Johns
    Bucknell

    BC:
    Dartmouth
    Shawnee St.
    Buffalo
    Sacred Heart
    Texas Southern
    Harvard
    U Mass
    Holy Cross
    Stony Brook

    Maryland:
    Fairleigh Dickinson
    Nichols State
    Minnesota(Big 10 Challenge)
    Western Carolina
    American
    Delaware St
    VMI
    Texas A&M – Corpus Christie

    Should we count George Washington at the MCI Center as a home game?

    Wake:
    Miss Valley St.
    George Mason
    UNC-A
    App St
    Wisc. (Big 10 Challenge)
    Depaul
    Richmond
    East Carolina
    Charleston Southern
    Charlotte

    GT:
    UNC-A
    Elon
    Illinois-Chicago
    Tennessee St
    Jacksonville
    Bethune Cookman
    Vanderbilt

    NC State:
    Stetson
    Citadel
    Delaware
    VMI
    App St
    UNC A
    New Hampshire
    UNC G
    George Washington
    Seton Hall

  20. Trout 11/21/2005 at 12:40 PM #

    Some other things to consider, re: Indiana vs NC State. The Big 10 was the 5th best conference last year, the ACC 1st. Indiana didnt have 16 wins last season, they had 15 (15-14).

    Using Sagarin #s, Indiana did play a stronger SOS than NC State (12 vs 13) . They were 2-5 against Sagarin’s Top 30, NC State was 4-9. That is 13 games for NC State against Top 30 compared to 7 for Indiana.

    Hell yes NC State uses the ACC’s strength. It boosted our overall SOS to #13 in the nation.

    I wish I had some of those Brock’s Bytes when it was argued in ’98 or ’99 why NC State deserved a bid over some other teams that made it. Now, the opposite seems to be in play.

  21. Mr. O 11/21/2005 at 12:41 PM #

    Those are some horrible home schedules for ACC teams.

  22. Mr. O 11/21/2005 at 12:49 PM #

    15-14 and 67th in the Sagarin?

    Anyone know the RPIs of Indiana and NC State without the NCAA tournament games factored in?

  23. Class of '74 11/21/2005 at 12:56 PM #

    If total wins is “the” criteria then explain how the 8 or 9 teams in the NIT with better records than NCSU were left out of the big dance and we got in? Oor greatest strength is our conference period! If your bar is set at just getting in the big dance go for a .500 ACC record and overall winning record and you are a lock. I would hope our sights exceed this minimal view just as I hope we would maintain a schedule void of excessive cupcakes. We really are better than that!! And say this with history (not the past 15 years only) on my side.

  24. Jeff 11/21/2005 at 1:57 PM #

    Great conversation guys….so much here that I can’t keep up. First, allow me to clarify my comments with a little more precision —-

    I do NOT think of “total wins” as “THE criteria”. I do not think that any of us think that their is a single, most prominent criteria. I think that we all realize that the criteria the NCAA uses is more of a sliding scale.

    I think that “total wins” is effectively the NCAA’s FIRST FILTER. 15 total wins as doesn’t get you considered, period. No matter how wonderful all of your stats are (RPI, OOC Scheduling, etc)…if you don’t have a decent number of “total wins” then you aren’t being considered. I think that we can all accept that as the reality.

    Forget IU because the purpose of this is NCS and we went off on a tangent because I used IU as a “reverse example”. Back out our 2 (extra) wins from the BCA last year and you have 15 wins at the end of the regular season along with an RPI in the 60s and a 7-9 ACC record (7th seed). (Oddly, by having such a bad season, we were able to play an extra game in the ACCT against FSU. This worked to our benefit as well).

    The REASON I used IU as an example is because they ended up with the same amount of 15 regular season wins before their tourney, and nobody was talking about them at all as having a change to make the NCAA.

    Without the BCA, we ALSO had 15 wins prior to the ACCT while playing a weaker OOC SOS than them. THAT was the purpose of my comparison. And, I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t realize that without those extra wins that we aren’t even on the NCAA’s radar (just like IU).

  25. BJD95 11/21/2005 at 2:02 PM #

    Remember the one year where Georgia got in at 15-13, and Alabama stayed home at 19-11. I really don’t think overall wins matter that much. If the committee has changed their thinking since then, it’s a real shame.

    The Big Ten’s overall weakness brought Indiana down, as did their lackluster performance in the conference tournament (IIRC).

    Poor scheduling is killing college basketball. Other than the conference tourneys and the Big Dance, I find myself paying less and less attention every year. Too many cupcakes for everyone, and it’s a growing trend.

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