More From Lee

General NCS Basketball17

Here’s another beauty from Lee:

“I think [the program] is moving in the upward direction.”

Let’s summarize the accomplishments of the basketball program over the only five years that Lee can remember.

Would someone do me the favor of pointing out the “upward direction”? I just can’t seem to find it.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

General NCS Basketball

17 Responses to More From Lee

  1. Jeff 03/13/2006 at 7:56 PM #

    Since he was on the radio and not within sight, you couldn’t see him tap his ruby red slippers or hear him mumbling, ‘There’s no place like home’

  2. NCSU'79 03/13/2006 at 8:08 PM #

    I take it that Fowler was not a math major and doesn’t understand percentages.

  3. Dana'81 03/13/2006 at 9:48 PM #

    Lee Fowler sorta reminds me of the spin doctors working for Dubya. They ignore what the people want and continue to pursue bad policy.

    Notice how fast Matt Dougherty was ousted. Of course, his being a jerk sped things along. But it sure didn’t take the Tarheels a decade to set things right.

  4. TNPackFan 03/14/2006 at 1:40 AM #

    ^ Then every school with a coaching vacancy should be banging on Herb’s door, begging him to take their job. That isn’t happening.

    I’m not a local fan either, nor have I been a Herb-hater. But I have seen what a crummy job he’s done this year, and I am convinced he must go.

  5. Dana'81 03/14/2006 at 4:38 AM #

    It ain’t just the losses to UNC that stick in our craw. Add in the losses to Duke, Wake Forest, Ga. Tech, BC, Seton Hall, etc. and the big picture begins to emerge. The bottom line is coaches who do not get good results, get fired. Why should it be different at NCSU?

    The rest of the country thinks Herb is a nice guy and brilliant tactician. I agree with this assessment. Oh how lofty to have a class act as a coach. Well, you can’t figure out a game plan in advance that’ll always work because some opponents are so adaptive, they’ll find a way to shut down your game. Then, you must improvise another strategy and motivate the players to implement it on the fly. To do that requires charisma, a quality Herb lacks. So the adjustment is not made and NCSU’s opponent wins. A couple losses like this and the players lose their confidence. Such is the nature of NCSU’s collapse this year.

    If only Herb could go Bobby Knight once in a while and do something dramatic. I’ve never seen him “work” the officials, let alone get a technical. This is something coach K excels at. NCSU stomped Duke in the 1st half of the 2003 ACC championship game. Coach K punked out the refs at halftime. They called fouls with a hair trigger in the 2nd half, resulting in foul trouble for NCSU and ultimately another ACC tournament title for Duke. THIS IS A CRUCIAL ASPECT OF COACHING AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL AND HERB CAN’T DO IT! Does the rest of the country understand that?

  6. class of '74 03/14/2006 at 6:36 AM #

    It’s kind of like you go to the gas station and all the years, you pull-up to the high test pump and fill’er up. And doggone it every spring you have this spark knock. After five years you decide to have a mechanic look at the problem and he tells you it’s your gas, it is 87 octane. But you say this can’t be I’ve pumped nothing but 91 octane according to the pump. Your mechanic says the station’s pump may say 91 octane sir but this gas you’re buying is regular. If you don’t believe me test it and look at the numbers.

    Well Wolfpack bretheren, here we are in another spring with a team that has spark knock. Our AD is once again selling us on the idea we have a high octane coach and basketball program. We sit in the stands or at home by our tv’s and see very clearly the problem. We don’t need a tune-up, we don’t need anymore of the same old gas either. We need to drain our tank and go get some real high octane somewhere else!

  7. VaWolf82 03/14/2006 at 7:48 AM #

    Guys, just ignore obvious trolls. I can only edit messages on those entries that I prepare. Sometimes it will take me a little while to see them….but when I see them I will delete them.

  8. Rick 03/14/2006 at 9:40 AM #

    Great compilation.
    I am so tired of the “we are improving mantra”. It is simply not true.

  9. jwrenn 03/14/2006 at 9:51 AM #

    Nice data. Maybe you should hold a press conference and invite Lee Fowler to a debate.

  10. jesse 03/14/2006 at 10:16 PM #

    is a “troll” someone who disagrees with you?

  11. TPack 03/14/2006 at 10:48 PM #

    I wish Fowler was actually right, because then I could shut up all the stupid Tarheel fans around Charlotte that seem to believe Hansbrough is a god… Wait till Michgan State beats UNC and Hansbrough is owned by Paul Davis.

    Just think of where we would be if a real coach was here, and actually developed Ced.

  12. VaWolf82 03/14/2006 at 11:14 PM #

    is a “troll� someone who disagrees with you?

    No. A troll is someone who makes inflammatory statements in an attempt to elicit a response. I can’t ban them, but I can throw away the trash they leave behind.

    Around here, we want people to address the issues raised on a particular entry. We want intelligent discussion among adults. Children and others not capable of intelligent discussion should move along and find somewhere else to play. We don’t suffer fools around here.

  13. jesse 03/14/2006 at 11:31 PM #

    i think you’re in denial dude. my comment that you deleted was in no way inflammatory, or unintelligent….

    That is a matter of opinion. But just like this one, it has nothing to do with this entry. Address the points raised here or in the comments…if you disagree, then support your argument. Don’t waste time trying to shift the argument to State fans in general, this site, or the posters here. If you can’t stick to the topic at hand…find somewhere else to play.
    VaWolf82

  14. jesse 03/14/2006 at 11:40 PM #

    TPack just illustrated my point exactly.

  15. class of '74 03/15/2006 at 6:40 AM #

    ^Recruits at this level don’t select their choice based on the dialogue on the internet sites. Their choice is based on the coaching staff and its ability to develop them as players, schools visibility on TV and finally and to varying degrees proximity to home or family and friends.

  16. VaWolf82 03/25/2006 at 10:20 AM #

    LF’s interview for archive purposes:

    By Pack Pride Staff

    Date: Mar 13, 2006

    NC State AD Lee Fowler was on 850 the Buzz to discuss NCSU’s NCAA bid today. Here is audio and a sampler of what Fowler had to say.

    “It’s about getting into the tournament… if you’re Florida State or Maryland today, they don’t have an opportunity to go for the national championship.”

    “We know that this team is capable of playing well enough to beat the best teams in the country, so we’re excited about being in. Our fifth time in five years and that puts us in a pretty elite group.”

    “Anything can happen after you get in. If you get lightning in a bottle you can go a long way in this tournament and have a chance to win it so we are very excited to have the opportunity.”

    “Well I think the BC loss probably, and maybe a little bit with North Carolina and the margin of victory, but the BC loss, I think they lost their confidence and when kids lose their confidence it is not an easy thing to get back.”

    “We’ve got the greatest kids in the world. There is nobody more upset about it and feel like they have disappointed more people than the kids are. To be in the locker room after the games, it’s rather amazing how good a group of kids we have. Kids that want to win and believe it or not they want to win worse than the fans want them to win and so it’s just a great group of kids to be around. They are a credit to the university and really a class group of guys.”

    “The good news is even in the Wake game we had 52 points in the second half, you just can’t score 20 in a half and have a chance to win.”

    “I think everybody is frustrated. I think as you start seasons you have certain expectations for your team. As your season goes along they either go up or down. I think we had a great run through 21 games and everybody’s expectations and anticipations was of second place in the league… we finished fourth.”

    “I think that sometimes we, I do it, you start looking ahead and start trying to decide what is about to happen and what the future is going to bring and you talk yourself into things that are a lot worse off than they are or a lot better than you think they are. I think that’s something that fans have their perogative to do, and some fans go a lot further in that direction than others do.”

    “I think [the program] is moving in the upward direction. I’d like it to be quicker as some fans would, but i still think there has been progress every year, our recruiting classes get better every year. I think the kids that are coming in here do a better job dealing with the academics at NC State than they did four or five years ago. Like I said, there are only 16 teams that have been in this tournament five years in a row and that is pretty special. I think that says volumes about where the program has come from when Herb got here and the last five years where he has gotten it.”

    “Everybody goes through down streaks. It doesn’t mean to throw the baby out with the bath water, but I can understand everybody’s frustrations.”

    “There is definitely a group out there that is not happy, and I understand with the last four games, even though we saw how good Boston College was. This conversation, some of it wouldn’t be taking place if we’d make a shot against BC and beat them because we all know at this point, if you didn’t know before, how great a team that basketball team is.”

    “I know our fans want to beat North Carolina worse than they want to beat anybody, and that is an issue that we’ve got to come to grips with and win. We understand that and always have, and probably need to voice it better. We’re not idiots sitting over here and not understanding that that is our biggest rivalry and we want to beat them in all sports. Chuck understands that, Kay understands that, and Herb understands that.”

    “[Herb] is a guy that thinks that if you get too high for a game and get disappointed, you may lose three games in a row like we’ve just done. A lot of times the things that Herb says to the public is for his team’s benefit as much as it is for the public benefit. I can assure you Herb Sendek knows how important it is to beat North Carolina and Duke. He also feels like talking to his team about playing at a level all year long, the same level, not getting too high for one game and down for the next game. That’s just kind of about the way he is. That’s just how he tries to show the same face on the sideline, which people don’t like.”

    “You also know that Herb Sendek can be very fiery… He’s got an unbelievable fire in him that he shows to his kids in private, but he doesn’t believe that you embarrass anybody in public and he really doesn’t believe that you get out and rant and rave on the court. That’s just not his philosophy. He tries to have a calm on the sidelines. I know that some people are offended by that, but I think the other people appreciate that.”

  17. redfred2 06/15/2008 at 3:30 PM #

    “…but I think the other people appreciate that.”

    Lee Fowler was certainly correct about that back then. As a matter of fact, I’ve done some extensive research since that time and I have compiled a complete, alphabetical, list of all of those appreciative people, just to back up what Lee Fowler was trying to tell us back then:

    Fowler, Lee

Leave a Reply