Lowe Era Begins with Tough Win Over Wofford

06-07 Basketball General85

NC State 92
Wofford 88

Boxscore | N&O Recap | Season Beginning Entry

Quite a few things happened to night to further signal the transition from the Herb Sendek era to the Sidney Lowe era:

(1) State scored 92 points for the game and is averaging 86 points per game in our three outings thusfar this season (2 exhibition)

(2) State scored 52 points in the paint for the game! (Compare that to Arizona State’s 56 total points for an entire game in a 5 point win over University of Victoria the other other night)

(3) State shot less than 20 three pointers in a game.

(4) State is not a good defensive team.

(5) State had no offensive droughts where the Pack failed to score for a prolonged time period.

(6) State actually came from behind to win…

(7) …to win a close game!

GoPack said:

Engin Atsur‘s go-ahead layup with 43.2 seconds remaining gave NC State the lead and his free throws with 2.9 seconds left sealed the victory as the Wolfpack made new coach Sidney Lowe’s debut a success in a 92-88 win over Wofford Friday night at the RBC Center.

* Engin Atsur scored 24 points and provided the Wolfpack its only source of scoring in the first few minutes of the game.

* Ben McCauley is becoming a beast. He scored 26 points, pulled in 5 rebounds and handed out 4 assists while shooting 10 of 13 from the floor.

* Bryan Nieman and Dennis Horner combined for the only 27 minutes of play provided by the bench as the starters carried the load. Of the starters, only Brandon Costner played less than 34 minutes (with 26 minutes).

* State shot 55% from the field for the game and held Wofford to 35% shooting in the second half after surrendering a blistering 65% in the first half to the visitors.

I thought that these comments were some of the best I have seen on the web:

We gave up 34 points in the second half . . . that isn’t exactly giving it away. 68 points a game from our oppenents is something I would welcome.

For a team that has no depth, a new coach, a new system, and a frontcourt that has basically no experience before this year, I’ll take it.

A game where they had to fight to come back, make some in-game adjustments, and learn to listen to and trust their new coach will ultimately be MUCH better for the team than a 30 point blowout.

Nice job hanging in there and getting Sidney his first win, guys. And for those people who are already posting “I can’t wait for Sidney to get his recruits in here”, consider supporting and enjoying the guys we have this year. Ben, Brandon, Courtney, Engin, Gavin, Dennis, and Trevor aren’t exactly scrubs.

By the way, we shot 62% from 2-point range and only took 18 3 pointers for the game. We scored consistently across the whole game and got to the foul line regularly. Nice.

Just win, baby

Additionally, the following comments were provided by some of our readers in a less relevant entry and we have moved them here:

1-0. Defense needs a lot of work. Great game by McCauley, but he can’t do that consistantly against the teams we have to play. Atsur had a great offensive game. We are going to need that every night

Looking for a bright spot, we won the second half 47-34. The theme for the year needs to be, “Any Win is a Good Win.�

For at least a week, Sid is the only undefeated N C State coach in recent history. Tracy Smith, Tracy Smith, Tracy Smith

We dodged a bullet. What a relief. We have a week to work on defense so we won’t get such a scare from Delaware State.

Our offense certainly did well. McCauley had a stud game. (Good thing we never got to see him play last year.) Atsur must be feeling okay, because he was awesome tonight. Everyone chipped in offensively. But we have A LOT of work to do to get to .500.

I think that you guys are missing the point about tonight. It has been a long time since a Wolfpack Squad has come from behind in that fashion.They did not quit.I am not crowning them, by any means, but I am viewing this as a positive attitude change..500 is reasonable I think, although it is still too early to tell what the competition will look like.

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06-07 Basketball General

85 Responses to Lowe Era Begins with Tough Win Over Wofford

  1. packbackr04 11/13/2006 at 3:29 PM #

    hey SFN^ i have asked for this before, but can yall work your magic and show us an updated roster for our 07-08 guys. we should be pretty good with farnold running pt. GG if he hasnt been kicked out of the country. jj hickson, johnny thomas, and tracy smith!!!!!!
    way to go SID!!!!!!!! go wolfpack!

  2. packbackr04 11/13/2006 at 3:30 PM #

    SFN^ you guys rock! thanks for keeping wolfpack fans sane or insane depending on how you look at it

  3. Gene 11/13/2006 at 3:32 PM #

    can we take big lews scholly after this year. it certainly seems like sid can do better with it.

    I’d like to see if he can develop. With the players, we have coming in, it looks like we can take that chance.

  4. redfred2 11/13/2006 at 3:51 PM #

    packbackr04

    I went to the unheralded and official start of Sidney Lowe’s NC State coaching career. I was very disappointed turnout and it was treated, as I expected, as basically just another game. If the athletics department is nothing else, it is consistent. Consistently disappointing at every turn.

    As far as Lewandowski, I was looking for a awkward looking kid and I had trouble picking him out at first during warm ups. He was taking mid range jumpers with good shooting form and hitting most of them. I was surprised at how well he moved overall. We’ll have to wait and see if he has the head to bang and play down low though.

  5. cpwolfpackfan 11/13/2006 at 4:15 PM #

    next years team will be loaded down low with hickson, smith, Mccually, costner, the wings will be strong with thomas, grant, fells, and the guards should be ok. but down low we will have some beast

  6. cpwolfpackfan 11/13/2006 at 4:22 PM #

    also the turn out at the wofford game was sad. As much as we have complained over the years about herb, and finaly get a change, when it comes time to show up and support our team we would rather sit at home at wait unitl a “high profile” team comes into town. I am really disapointed at the wolfpack fans for there lack of support for sid in his first game. We can talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk. I hope there are more people out this friday night showing some support. Its not like the game is sold out. Show some respect people

  7. packbackr04 11/13/2006 at 4:48 PM #

    RED^^ what did you expect. I bet Lee didnt even go to the game. he probably had a womens field hockey pep rally or fund raiser that he scheduled at the same time as the bball game. that man is a fool.

    and sid should take SFN’s advice and hire a PR firm to deflect as much of Fowlers negative publicity away from himself and his team as possible. and said PR firms second job should be silencing Lee when he wants to sweep in and grab credit for something sid has done. Everything lee does should be spun away from Sid and vice versa

    Unlike the oreilly factor. sid should make the Valvano Center and Case Court a “total spin zone”

    i love lee’s gem from the usa today last week(highlighted by SFN) where he totally throws sid and co under a bus by saying he heard about Huggins’ inproprieities at K state from NC state staff!!!! please stop Lee, Please. Just shut your mouth.

  8. redfred2 11/13/2006 at 5:17 PM #

    cpwolfpackfan

    Exactly the way I felt! It’s enough that the administration has no class and can’t figure out how to give these guys a decent welcome, but the fans? There should have been a much larger crowd there regardless if it was Wofford or not, this was the beginning.

    I stayed in Chapel Hill and got invited to FB game and really wanted to go to the Heel’s first BB game strictly for comparison purposes. I thought I had better not. I had one of my daughter’s who is already leaning towards powder blue, and you know I can’t encourage that in any way.

  9. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 11/13/2006 at 5:31 PM #

    The Valvano scandle? That would be ACC championships in 83, 85, 87, 89 with one ot those national thingys. It was a scandle to the N&O, UNC fans and a handful of academics types at the university that pressured . I don’t any fans that ever thought that there was scandle under Valvano but I wouldn’t hang out with that type of person so I’m sure there is a few out there.

    He made a few recruiting mistakes no doubt. He gave some kids a chance that wouldn’t of had a chance otherwise. That can come back to burn you when you try and help people that don’t want it. My father would often say it is far easier for a person to bring someone else down than it is to lift a person up and that was true with a couple of V’s players. A couple of guys shopping around for easy professors and selling a few tickets is hardly a ‘Valvano Scandle’

    V big mistake in my view was accepting the AD’s job. It took him out of the world of coaching and into the political world of administration and I’m sure that rubbed a few people in a bad way.

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  1. StateFans Nation » Blog Archive » NC State 38 Wofford 17 - 09/15/2007

    […] In what is surely to be a future trivia question, both Sidney Lowe and Tom O’Brien earned their first victories at NC State against Wofford. (See November 10, 2006) […]

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