Pack Back on Track in Mass

General NCS Basketball43

Despite what I am sure were their best efforts, the Boston College facilities crew responsible for watering the artificial turf to slow down NC State’s football team was not successful in turning the lights off in the gym for last night’s basketball game. 🙂

In a no pressure atmosphere (somebody needs to teach those fans in that high school gym the importance of ACC Basketball) and a no intensity game (does BC care about their season?), the Pack finally rolled to a victory over a Boston College program who had beaten State in two straight non-conference affairs in 2003 and 2004

The Eagles outlasted State 66-65 in overtime in the January 2004 game at Conte Forum behind Smith’s 20 points and 10 rebounds. The year before, the Eagles came to the RBC Center and beat the Pack 93-81 — a rare nonconference loss at home for Sendek.

If only the football team could have looked so good in their first visit to Chestnut Hill.

Tuesday night’s game was decided by the exact same two keys that almost every NC State game will rely upon this season: (1) 3-point proficiency and (2) Cedric Simmons’ presence on the court.

As much as the Wolfpack’s exceptional 10-for-17 three-point shooting was responsible for the victory, the fact that State took 17 good three point shots may have been more responsible. In Chapel Hill on Saturday, State jacked up 20 threes (making only eight) and experienced long episodes of very poor shot selection that, first led to the Tarheel comeback from a 0-11 deficit, and later led to a Tarheel victory. Poor shot selection by the vetern Wolfpack did not persist on Tuesday night.

Additionally, if you had any doubt regarding the importance of Cedric Simmons’ presence to NC State’s basketball fortunes this season (originally highlighted in a December entry and then again before the Carolina game this weekend), then your doubt should be absolved now. From the News & Observer:

Sophomore center Cedric Simmons was at his best against the Eagles, competing hard against Smith, a 6-foot-7, 250-pound senior power forward with a linebacker’s build and a preseason All-America. Simmons had a game-high 17 points — 16 in the second half — to go with seven rebounds and two blocked shots, but Sendek said to forget the statistical sheet.

It was very nice to earn a victory for the “old ACC” in BC’s first home ACC game, especially after falling flat in a similar attempt last year at Miami.

Section Six has more numbers on the game if you are interested.

“The Position of the Pack”
After playing over half of the season’s schedule, the Wolfpack logged their first win against a team currently ranked better than #72 in the current Ratings Percentage Index — Boston College has fallen to bubble territory at #49 in the RPI and 0-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Eagles are #44 in the Sagarin Ratings, where the Wolfpack currently sits at a strong #14 (compared to #30 in the RPI).

State will host Georgia Tech on Saturday at noon before traveling to Cameron Indoor Stadium for the Pack’s only game of the year versus #1 Duke on Wednesday night.

(Sidenote: As much as some Wolfpackers complain about the new ACC, had the Pack had to play Duke twice last season, the resulting 6-10 ACC record would have been too big of a hole from which to climb to achieve an NCAA Tournament bid with wins over Florida State and Chris Paul-less Wake Forest in the ACC Tourney. So, you won’t hear me complaining too much about not getting to play the Blue Devils more when our current coach is only 3-20 in the last decade against Coach K and has never won a game in Cameron.)

Forgive me if I am not overly concerned about playing struggling Georgia Tech in Raleigh. The Yellow Jackets are one of the four ACC programs against which Herb Sendek actually has a winning record (Numbers as of March 2005). In fact, no Georgia Tech squad has mustered a win in Raleigh since Sendek’s arrival, making them one of the only four programs that Sendek has a winning record against in Raleigh. (Sorry…since I bought season tickets and contributed to the Wolfpack Club every year….those first five seasons really did exist no matter how much you may wish that they didn’t).

The BC win definitely puts the Pack back on track in the ACC. The good news is that program is in the mix for a strong finish in a weak(er than average) ACC. The bad news is the only way State can legitmately claim to be competing for a regular season ACC Title is with a win at Duke. Anything else is second place….which, in our fanbase….is really something to crow about.

General NCS Basketball

43 Responses to Pack Back on Track in Mass

  1. Rick 01/11/2006 at 12:12 PM #

    Good win.
    Nice to see us bounce back after that debacle at UNC.

    I would also like to see more of Fells. Any foul trouble or injuries and we are immediately guard poor.

  2. Class of '74 01/11/2006 at 12:21 PM #

    No Mike you are not the only one wondering. No one answer here, for some it’s the $ and others it’s their grades and interest were slipping. Tulloch is the one that really hurts due to our lack of depth but McCargo doesn’t help either.
    But McCargo’s situation is problematic he could be injured easily or he could see a bunch of double teams and then his stat’s go down so… And most agree he is a 2nd, 3rd or worst case 4th round pick. But the bus that’s leaving is getting darn near full and I think it is catching the coaches a little bit off guard.

  3. Cardiac95 01/11/2006 at 12:43 PM #

    That was a HUGE win in terms of keeping the season momentum going. Another chance at a STATEMENT game comes next week.

    I do have wonder though how some of our wins against ranked or previously ranked opponents will look at the end of the season. BC’s stock is definitely dropping & they’ll likely be unranked soon. Likewise, Bama’s ranking was all pre-season fluff. Maybe GW can hang in there for us.

  4. Sammy Kent 01/11/2006 at 1:03 PM #

    re: Smith’s trip of Brackman: I don’t know if anyone else caught it, but on the previous play when Smith and Brack were going for the loose ball and Smith dove for it and Brack went over him, it looked like Brack caught Smith on the back of his head/neck with a foot while tumbling to the floor. This doesn’t condone Smith’s bush league tripping retaliation, but might explain why he did it. He might have thought Brack stepped on him purposely. I think that was what got his jaw and chin out of whack for a couple of minutes. I plan to check the tape later unless somebody has it handy and feels like checking it now.

  5. Mr. O 01/11/2006 at 1:06 PM #

    Jeff: I respect that this is your blog and you can do and say what you want. However, if the forum is interactive, then I don’t see a problem with asking you a question about your thoughts.

    Cardiac95: Alabama just lost Chuck Smith for the year.

  6. Jeff 01/11/2006 at 2:16 PM #

    ^ I don’t mind you questioning my thoughts as much as I mind someone else providing the answer.

    As much as you don’t understand “why” I would bring up certain things at certain times, I stuggle to understand “why” certain facts and discussions are so off-limits to so many people.

    Zeke, I think that we have some miscommuication. I took the first comment as a barb. I hadn’t even seen the 2nd comment. I was frustrated by your comment about “having to ask that question here” and was perplexed at why you felt comfortable enough to make the comment in light of the fact that you had spent no here in the past.

    Personally, I wish you’d stick around and make the interaction better since I used to value your perspective so much. That isn’t to say that I don’t still value your perspective…I just don’t know what your perspective is since all I ever get here or on Pack Pride are snide barbs out of left field as opposed to any kind of comments.

  7. db321 01/11/2006 at 3:05 PM #

    Jeff, 8 for 20 is 40%, which is a good 3 point percentage. I’d bet that almost any coach in the ACC would take that average for the rest of the year in every game. Matter of fact, a team would have to shoot over 61% or better from the 2 point field to score as many points.

    Suggesting that as the reason for our loss in Chapel Hill is ridiculous. Poor defense, foul trouble of big Ced, and turnovers were the main reasons for the loss to UNC. You may not like the offense and this offense may shoot more 3 pointers than you want, or me for that matter, but you are barking up the wrong tree this time.

  8. choppack 01/11/2006 at 3:37 PM #

    DB – I agree – the reason we lost to UNC-Ch was because of poor defense and TOs.

  9. Mr. O 01/11/2006 at 3:40 PM #

    UNC also shot 92.8% from the FT line when they came into the game shooting 66%.

  10. Jeff 01/11/2006 at 3:54 PM #

    “You may not like the offense and this offense may shoot more 3 pointers than you want, or me for that matter, but you are barking up the wrong tree this time.”

    I’m just curious if you would do me the favor of quoting a single moment in time that I have ever said that I didn’t like the offense? If you are going to attach such a belief to me, I would great appreciate some support for the conclusion. (Hint: You’re going to be hard pressed since no evidence of such an opinion exists.)

    You are very right that 40% from the 3-point line is a very good number. Very good.

    That doesn’t necessarily change my point that if we had some of the bad shots back that we would have been in a better position, does it?

    Cameron Bennermen had 3 lay up opportunities under the basket and chose to throw the ball out for 3-pointers. I don’t care if we hit all three attempts (which we didn’t), that is poor shot selection.

    To be most accurate….the three point attempts weren’t really the root of the bad shot selection on Satruday. That doesn’t mean that we had good shot selection for the day.

  11. Class of '74 01/11/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Last night what really made our performance look so good other than the awful effort from BC was our balance. We moved the ball very well and got a lot of good looks inside for Ced. But when we make somebody look slow that’s when I look skeptically at the quality of the opponent because we are not that quick!

  12. db321 01/11/2006 at 4:46 PM #

    Jeff,

    Don’t try to act like you aren’t VCC. 😉

  13. db321 01/11/2006 at 4:58 PM #

    And, notice I used the word “may” 😉

  14. Jeff 01/11/2006 at 5:27 PM #

    I like it!!! Thanks 🙂

  15. BJD95 01/11/2006 at 7:16 PM #

    You’ll be hearing from us about football, don’t worry. To give you a preview, things don’t look good. Most of the naysayers are far closer to reality than the “reload” crowd.

  16. class of '74 01/12/2006 at 6:59 AM #

    ^to BJD95: you must wonder what is going on over there with one year the coaches leaving then the next year it’s a player mass exodus. There is something not quite kosher involved. I guess time will reveal but while that plays out West Raleigh, football wise, is burning.

  17. Mr. O 01/12/2006 at 1:25 PM #

    Football does appear to be a mess. No disagreements here.

  18. class of '74 01/13/2006 at 7:31 AM #

    ^Re: The football mess does anyone know what is happening? I look at the latest news on recruiting and that doesn’t look very good compared to recent past. I’m sure someone here knows or hears something out there.

1 2

Leave a Reply