On the Thursday that it became known that Sidney Lowe was going to be announced as NC State’s Head Basketball Coach, we ran this piece highlighting and discussing the news and updates.
In that piece we criticized the decision to introduce Coach Lowe at a Saturday evening press conference because of the lack of impact that a Saturday press event would have; especially a press event that coincided with the Carolina Hurricanes playoff game and the running of the Kentucky Derby.
After some more legwork, we have learned of a few items that were beyond NC State’s control and that dictated the time of the press conference. The time of the press conference couldn’t just be scheduled based on the timeliness of the hiring/news value. Before Lowe could officially be announced, a meeting/call and approval from the Board of Trustees had to be completed. Under UNC system guidelines (or state law not sure which) any meeting of the Trustees has to be publicly announced at least 48 hours in advance. Once the Trustees were officially informed (on Thursday AM) that put the 48-hour window on Saturday.
So, at that point, the only choices were to wait until a better news day (Monday) or do it on Saturday after the official approval. Monday wasn’t a good option either b/c it would have given the media 3-4 additional days to pick apart Lowe without getting any official comment from anyone. Additionally, Sidney had playoff responsibilities with the Pistons during that time and ultimately had a very small window of time he could be in town (b/c of their game on Sunday). His plane wasn’t scheduled to arrive into Raleigh until mid afternoon on Saturday and he flew back out that evening (or very early the next AM).
Contrary to what some “haters” want to believe — we would much rather be accurate about something than negative about it. We also choose to base our conclusions on facts (when we know them) rather than try to force facts to fit our preconceived notions. After learning more about the parts moving behind the scene related to the announcement of Coach Lowe, we obviously were off-base with the intensity of our criticism.
