Myths and Final Stats

di•lem•ma (n.)

– state of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavorable options
– a problem offering two solutions, neither of which is acceptable
– an usually undesirable or unpleasant choice

Synonyms: quandary, predicament, catch-22, impasse, sticky situation, jam, fix, difficulty

So which should I do:

– Keep my word and post the season ending records/stats?

– Or let sleeping dogs lie and hope the Great Herb Debates fade into the past?

There are certain “myths” closely attached to Sendek which continue to be repeated, even after his unexpected departure from Raleigh. I am afraid that unless the next coach is the second coming of Jimmy V, that these myths will continue to be repeated and possibly even grow over time. In the end, I’ve decided to post the stuff that I’ve been sitting on for several weeks during what should be a slow weekend for news.

MYTH #1
State was (slowly or steadily) improving under Sendek.

Not that I could tell after 2002:

MYTH #2
Sendek’s recruiting was improving.

Not based on recruiting rankings.

MYTH #3
State usually played much better in late Feb/March under Sendek.

I just wish that the improvement had been enough to consistently show up in the win/loss record:

Thanks to Jerry Palm at collegerpi.com, we can also look at graphs of State’s RPI vs time for the last five years:
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006

FINAL STATS

As promised in Part 1 (RPI and the ACC), here are the compilations (with very little commentary) of the Sagarin rankings and records for the seven ACC teams who have made the NCAA tournament over the last five years:

Sendek won bunches of C-level games and a good many B-level ones, but you could count the A-plus wins he had on one hand.

Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer

FIVE CONSECUTIVE NCAA TOURNAMENTS

Here are a few tables that go well with a previous entry:

SUMMARY OF MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

Even though I’ve concentrated on the last five years, I felt that the major accomplishments by two ACC schools in 2001 deserved to be included:

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mostly covered by BJD

On a personal level, I first started compiling statistics not because of any ill feelings towards Sendek, but because of a number of irritating posters at Pack Pride. It always seemed to me that the best way to address someone that I didn’t agree with was with cold, hard facts…and that’s what I have tried to do. I never intended or tried to downplay any of the positive accomplishments of the teams that Sendek had while he was at NC State. I just tried to put them into a broader perspective than just drawing comparisons to the Les years.

Against my better judgment, I am going to leave comments turned on for now. If you have any questions, dissenting views with a rational line of argument, find any mistakes here, or have thoughts about something that I didn’t include, then feel free to use the comments.

There is one thing that will absolutely not happen…this entry will not be another chapter in the long list of Herb Debates.