Quoting Wednesday

General NCS Basketball Quotes of Note44

The N&O’s ACC Blog continues to impress me.

I thought that I would just hit some quotable highlights from what’s over there right now for the archive:

===> Dave Braine is retiring as Athletics Director at Georgia Tech.
I’ve always respected what Braine was able to do in Atlanta. Consider this…just in the 2004-2005 Athletics Season, Georgia Tech…

…fielded teams in 17 varsity sports

…14 of 17 programs made postseason play

…had 8 programs ranked in the final Top 25 of their sports

…had 4 programs achieve Top 10 finishes

…had 2 programs (golf & baseball) reached a #1 ranking in their sport

…had 4 programs reach a Top 5 ranking in their sport

…won 3 ACC Tournament Titles

…won 4 ACC Regular season Titles

===> Wolfpack’s Win Last Night
Fewer, more accurate words have ever been spoken:

The bottom line for the Wolfs in any sport, is they win games you don’t think they will and they lose ones you don’t think they will. That doesn’t always please their fans, but they should be used to it by now.

===> Duke’s Number

Since March 14, 2004, when Maryland earned a 95-87 overtime victory against Duke in the ACC tournament final, the Terps have won just six of 17 games against ACC teams other than the Blue Devils. Conversely, since that ACC tournament loss, Duke is 16-3 against ACC teams other than Maryland but winless against the Terps.

So much for the myth that Duke is invincible. Did you know that the Blue Devils had lost three straight games in Winston-Salem until this year’s victory. Wow. Three wins in Skip Prosser’s tenure, already? Heck…it takes some coaches a decade to achieve that kind of performance against Coach K.

===> Old Roy Can Coach

There’s a lot of hockey left, but Roy Williams sure looks like the coach of the year, and not just because of the old “they’re better than the stupid media thought they’d be” reasoning.

Williams has become Dean Smith. With less than 5 minutes left, in a tight game last night, Williams had Wes Miller, Quentin Thomas and Byron Sanders on the floor. That’s not quite the old “Blue” team but pretty close.

You might argue, “What choice does he have?” Well, compare that to what Coach K did last year with a similiarly short-handed roster. Duke ran its best four players into the ground. Sure they won the ACC title but they were gassed by the NCAA Tournament.

And Williams isn’t just throwing these backups out there. He got 22 minutes out of Sanders, and relative production with six rebounds.

…Every rational reason pointed to UNC losing last night — experience, location, letdown, mismatches — and still the Heels found a way to win.

…and you fell for the bullshit that coaching is only about recruiting and gathering talent?

General NCS Basketball Quotes of Note

44 Responses to Quoting Wednesday

  1. class of '74 01/12/2006 at 4:26 PM #

    I’ve been highly critical of Herb in the past and I remain somewhat skeptical due to the past but If I am to be honest I must admit I see him improving. So I have to agree with you Mr. O. Just as winning begets winning, Herb’s increasing recruit success begets further successes.

  2. TVP 01/12/2006 at 5:05 PM #

    Very good points Mr. O.

  3. Mr. O 01/12/2006 at 5:44 PM #

    Note that my current optimism about the program doesn’t mean that I am predicting Herb to be next Hall of Fame coach. But, I do think there are a lot of reasons to feel positive about our current position and future outlook.

  4. scott 01/12/2006 at 5:46 PM #

    As for Prosser v. Herb, Skip has had 2 seasons of 13-3 in the league, while Herb’s best in 10 years has been 11-5. During those years (2002-05) Mr. O referred to, Skip did not have a single losing season in the ACC while Herb had one (last year). So, I don’t think their performances will necessarily be equal if State has a better ACC record this year- depends on how good (13-3 versus another 10-6 or 11-5). This is a perfect example of the need to look at things with Herb’s “day-tight compartment” mentality in order to make him look good.

  5. TVP 01/12/2006 at 6:22 PM #

    ^Um, I think the point was 1) Prosser stepped into a great situation at Wake for a number of reasons 2) Despite that, and despite his regular season success (which was acknowledged) Wake bombed in the postseason for the most part and 3) Things look tough for them in the near future. I must have missed where someone said Skip and Herb had “equal” performances.

  6. JeremyHyatt 01/13/2006 at 4:43 AM #

    who doesn’t remember CC Harrison? ya heard:
    http://www.court-side.com/news/news2/F0AB1B869C094B37C12570C700393E34?open&tp=2

  7. Jeff 01/13/2006 at 8:27 AM #

    This is a great conversation….and lots of good points. I completely disagree with cfpack03’s view of the level of difficulty of recruiting…but that is a debate for another day.

    If Prosser stepped into such a “great” situation at Wake, then why did Wake push Dave Odom out to begin with? If the situation was so good at Wake, then I think they deserve even MORE credit for managing their program in a manner that they proactively can exchange coaches in “great situations” in such an efficient manner.

    I’m sure that everyone has a completely different perspective of the Prosser vs Herb discussion. Personally, I don’t think that it is going to matter because I am convinced that he is leaving this year.

    BUT, I get the feeling that some people are truly “puzzled” by why Prosser is perceived to have done a better job than Sendek. So, please let me share with you the answer. The answer is in the PEAK of the performance.

    As MrO pointed out:

    But since 2001-02 — the year Skip arrived and the year Herb got his program on track, it’s been a little more balanced:

    2002 — Wake 9-7; State 9-7
    2003 — Wake 13-3; State 9-7
    2004 — State 11-5; Wake 9-7
    2005 — Wake 13-3; State 7-9

    True, Wake has finished ahead of State in two of four years, but I’m willing to bet State finishes ahead of Wake this year. When (and if that happens), that means the two programs will be 2-2-1 head-to-head over the five years that Prosser has been there.”

    Yes…but what that standardization of results fails to do is account for the variability in the numbers and fail to account for Wake’s PEAK performance.

    = Prosser finished FIRST in the ACC Regular season a couple of years. Sendek has never finsished better than 2nd.

    = Prosser has TWO 13 win seasons. Sendek has had ONE season better than nine wins (with only 11 wins)

    = Wake’s LOW point has been 9-7…whereas State’s median has been 9-7.

    = Prosser spent ALL of last season and parts of other seasons in the national spotlight and consistently in the Top 5 and Top 10. Sendek has squeezed into the Top 10 for a week or two in a decade at State.

    I am NOT looking to have a huge discussion comparing the two — especially since the ‘new’ old-thing is to proclaim things about the future to be true that nobody really knows if it will be.

    My ONLY point of sharing those numbers was to explain to anyone that thinks it is unfair that Prosser has been considered to have succeeded more than Herb. It is because HE HAS…especially on the TOP END.

    THIS very discussion is why I think this season is so important for Sendek. He has NO PEAK that is remotely comparable to five ACC programs in the last five years. (Note that I acquiesced to the ridiculousness of ignoring a half of a decade of results). Carolina, Duke, Maryland, Wake, and Georgia tech all have at least one PEAK better than State.

    Sendek MUST deliver a PEAK this season that is of national significance. If he doesn’t, only an absolute moron would still believe that he can at some point in the future. What would there be to look forward to for Wolfpackers?

  8. Jim 01/13/2006 at 12:28 PM #

    As I’ve said before, all the planets have lined up for this to be a (to mix metaphores) “high water mark” year for Herb. Weaker than normal ACC, veteran guard depth, dynamic inside game. If he doesn’t have some kind of “accomplishment” this year I have to wonder when/if it will happen. And I consider myself pro-Sendek.

  9. Mr. O 01/13/2006 at 1:58 PM #

    Prosser succeeded with players he didn’t recruit, players he didn’t start recruiting and an NBA lottery pick in his hometown. The players he didn’t recruit are gone. The players he didn’t start recruiting will be gone after this year. And the NBA lottery pick left last season and now Wake is going to struggle to make the tournament.

    It really isn’t that complicated to understand why Prosser was successful his first 4 seasons at Wake and to see why there are definitely questions about his future success at Wake Forest. He has no longevity of winning in the ACC with the players he has to recruit.

  10. class of '74 01/13/2006 at 2:51 PM #

    I don’t know what Skip has coming in for next year but didn’t he get Jamie Skeen out of the Charlotte area? If so I think he is the top rated guy in the state this year.

  11. Mr. O 01/13/2006 at 3:15 PM #

    He has 5 guys coming in next season. Three are in Brick Oettinger’s top 60. The other two are top 150 guys.

    Not the AA types he is going to need to replace Justin Gray, E. Williams, Trent Strickland and Chris Paul from last year right away. Kyle Visser is a pretty nice player, but I can’t think of another guy he has signed other than three mentioned above that is an impact player.

    Wake could really struggle next year and he needs Skeen and Prosser can’t afford for the three top 50 guys to be definite impact players to turn it around the following year.

    Wake also was recruiting Chris Wright. That was a big loss for them.

  12. Mr. O 01/13/2006 at 3:16 PM #

    Take out “and he needs Skeen” from the 3rd paragraph for that to read correctly. I really need an edit button.

  13. Jeff 01/13/2006 at 5:09 PM #

    MrO, as I tried to state, I definitely was NOT trying to support a perspective that Skip Prosser is a better coach than Herb Sendek? Your comments regarding HOW Prosser succeeded (with Odom’s players) seemed to want to continue to belabor the point. (Although I don’t agree with the point in light of Prosser’s 13-3 season last year with HIS recruits of Chris Paul & Eric Williams).

    My point was to explain WHY Prosser’s results are viewed as better than Sendek’s to this point – pretty much because they ARE BETTER results (especially on the high end).

    Don’t care at all about the debate on who has all the excuses and all of the rationalizations as to WHY Prosser’s seasons have been better than Herb’s.

  14. Mr. O 01/13/2006 at 5:19 PM #

    If results were all that mattered, then not many people would be impressed by Rick Barns 43.8% ACC winning percentage and 56% overall winning percentage when he was in the ACC. It certainly doesn’t stack up to many, many other ACC coaches.

    But at Clemson, those were great numbers. So how and why Barnes had this record is definitley important to understanding how good of a job he did at Clemson.

    Numbers by themselves don’t tell the whole story when comparing two different situations.

  15. Sammy Kent 01/13/2006 at 11:45 PM #

    “The statistics of the last 4.5 year don’t support your opinion that he isn’t improving as a coach. ”

    I think the statistics taken in toto support my opinion that Herb has merely gotten a bit deeper in player talent, experience, and attitude…enough to cover his shortcomings. Every coach looks smarter when he has better players or his players perform better. A coach really shows he’s a coach when his boyz play like hell and he still figures out how to motivate and manipulate them to do the things they need to do to win…especially when weathering a scoring drought, a spurt by the opponent, or any close endgame situation. Even Jeff Jones, with the lousy talent he had in his last three seasons, was fabulous at diagramming a play during a timeout that his players would then execute for a fairly easy basket. That’s the kind of thing that builds the confidence the players have in their coach to know what to do when things go wrong on the floor. And it’s the kind of thing that Herb has shown the absolute least capacity to do during the heat of battle. That’s why Cam Bennerman knew the Carolina game was over with two minutes to go.

    Herb hasn’t really adjusted his offense to match his players as much as is claimed either. He has tried to build a system for five “shooting point forwards” and then proceeded to coach as if he really did have a lineup of Nate McMillan, David Thompson, Len Bias, Mike Dunleavy, and Dennis Scott. Until Ced Simmons he has fairly squandered every inside threat he’s had in the last five years, either by frustration (Powell), or by simply playing them out at the arc (Melvin, Collins) and eschewing the role of a center….just as he has eschewed the role of a point guard. I’ve always wondered how he arrived at his logic that it was better to have tall guys play the perimeter and the 6’3″ guys posting up. We remain, in every game but GW, overly dependent on making a high percentage of threes, because we continue to take them nearly half the time despite having Simmons, Evtimov, and Brackman to work down low.

    We shall see, Mr. O. I hope that however it happens, Herb succeeds in taking State back to the nation’s elite and making all this stuff moot. But I don’t believe it will happen unless Herb abandons this positionless offense idea entirely, and recruits players to play traditional roles in traditional positions like center and point guard. I’m distressed that we have no true point guard coming until the 2008 season, and am doubly distressed that we have no true center to follow Ced, unless McCauley can develop himself. I have a real problem with a system when I know that under it and the coach that espouses it players like Monte Towe, Lorenzo Charles, Spud Webb, Cozell McQueen, and Tom Gugliotta would have to fight for playing time.

  16. Jeff 01/14/2006 at 9:44 AM #

    MrO…I couldn’t have made my point more clear that I was simply conveying WHY the perception existed — and I didn’t say it was the overall “results that matter”. So, I don’t have a clue what your point is about Barnes and Clemson and what not. (Talk about a tangent).

    Dude…my point was CLEARLY that in half the time, Prosser’s PEAKS have blown away Herb’s (while Prosser’s bottoms haven’t been as low – until probably this year). Argue WHY, HOW, WHATEVER you want with anyone who doesn’t understand the situation. I’m just explaining WHY anyone not as close to the situation would feel the way that they do, and why Wake has been significantly more prominent on the national radar than NC State in the last 5 years.

    You can argue with someone else on the matter because I don’t have a clue what your point is.

  17. class of '74 01/14/2006 at 10:06 AM #

    ^I think you do have valid points with regard to the “positionless system”. Historically nobody has used this template with any degree of success in the ACC. Herb’s talent pool is increasing and talent is main factor in any coach’s success.

    Again, looking at the history of the ACC and the one recurring theme is recruit greater talent than your competition and reap the results. Examples: Case, Bubas, Smith, Sloan, Drisell, and K won the recruiting battles and reaped the rewards. Chances are if you are good enough to be named as coach of an ACC program it’s a given that you can COACH, but the real test is can you recruit.

  18. PACDADDY 01/29/2006 at 11:14 PM #

    “Dude…my point was CLEARLY that in half the time, Prosser’s PEAKS have blown away Herb’s (while Prosser’s bottoms haven’t been as low – until probably this year).”

    (and the next..and the next…and probably the next)…what was your point again?

  19. ssq 03/20/2006 at 10:38 PM #

    ^
    Sammy Kent….that was sheer poetry. I have tried, in more subtle and more abrasive ways, but I do see one point that anyone could argue in that statement.

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