McCauley Receiving Deserved Accolades

06-07 Basketball General43

Andy Katz was at the RBC Center for NC State’s win over Michigan a two weeks ago. We talked about some of his comments at the time in this key entry.

Katz followed-up his visit with more praise for the Wolfpack. In this piece at ESPN.com Katz deservedly praises NC State’s biggest surprise this season, Ben McCauley.

Ben McCauley, NC State: The sophomore forward was the toughest player on the court against Michigan on Nov. 27. He gutted out 19 points and grabbed eight boards against more athletic big men. His effort will go a long way toward keeping the Wolfpack in games this season.

McCauley has been nothing short of spectacular this year. I can’t imagine where State would be if he had chosen to transfer in the spring as rumored when Coach Lowe took the job. His presence and the fact that we can project him in a Wolfpack uniform for two more seasons produces a huge impact on the projected future success of the program; I expect him to be a growing versatile force for the Pack.

McCauley has turned in consistently strong performances ALL SEASON, none more exciting and surprising than his play against Michigan’s athletic big men two weeks ago. (Anybody see his line for Saturday’s game against Savannah State? Your CENTER led the team in STEALS with five for the evening.)

Speaking of Michigan, we are very sorry that we did not link to this entry before now. These are the types of archives that we feel makes the blog a special place.

06-07 Basketball General

43 Responses to McCauley Receiving Deserved Accolades

  1. Rochester 12/12/2006 at 8:49 AM #

    I always found it frustrating that he couldn’t find time to work young players into meaningful situations. Without combing through box scores, it seems to my recollection that McCauley would play a couple of minutes at the end of the first half to keep someone from picking up a third foul, and often we wouldn’t see him after that. Fells didn’t even get that much most of the time. You can’t just play a guy in garbage time and expect him to develop.

    I recognize there were more experienced and better players ahead of these guys, but you can’t tell me that working them in for a few minutes here and there, especially early in the game, would cause us to lose. We’re playing Bryan Nieman for 30+ a game now and it’s not like the other team is scoring every time down because they’re exploiting him.

    We had so many good players that rarely got off the bench their first year or two. It’s a wonder we didn’t have more transfers than we did, and we had a lot.

  2. Mr O 12/12/2006 at 8:51 AM #

    Herb loves guys like McCauley. He recruited him. McCauley was Herb’s guy. Herb played Evtimov as a freshman, so why wouldn’t he play McCauley?

    Bethel Sr.
    Atsur Jr
    Bennerman Sr.
    Evtimov 5th year Sr.
    Simmons NBA lottery pick

    Grant (NBA potential)
    Brackman (NBA potential)
    McCauley
    Fells

    Why wouldn’t Herb like to develop depth? Coaches like anything that will help them win the most games.

    Some guys just aren’t ready to make major contributions as freshman though McCauley did play last year and played well. Depth isn’t just developed in games. There is a reason that all athletic teams have practices every week. I just have issues with arguments that guys should have played more based on their play as sophmores. Do we really think we know more than the coaches who see these guys every single day of the year??? If you think it is so obvious now, then I guarantee you that if it was so obvious last season that somebody on Herb’s staff if not Herb himself would have figured out that McCauley should play more.

    Herb played Evtimov, Powell, Hodge, Inge, Thornton, Kelley, Grundy, Harrington, M. Willliams, D. Wilkins, C Simmons, etc….all as freshman. There is no evidence to suggest that Herb doesn’t like to play freshman.

    Gopack used to be great with stats from previous seasons, but unfortunately they don’t have them anymore. McCauley did play last season and when Brackman got hurt he played even more. People are acting he did nothing but sit on the bench. For a guy that was a top 100 recruit, he played quite a bit considering our team was so experienced, deep and talented to begin with. We spent most of last season ranked in the top 20 IIRC, so it isn’t like we were lacking in talent.

    This is similar to someone mentioning above that we are now an “up-tempo” offense. I wish I could post the statistics, but I find it hard to believe that we are scoring as many points as we did last year through the cupcake portion of the schedule. I don’t expect us to score as much as last year because of the makeup of this year’s team. In fact, playing “up-tempo” basketball would be suicide for this year’s team.

    But still, someone believes this year’s team is up-tempo.

  3. Rick 12/12/2006 at 10:07 AM #

    “Why wouldn’t Herb like to develop depth? Coaches like anything that will help them win the most games. ”

    Then we will just have to agree to disagree because Herb did not develop depth. If he did then why did one injury at the end of the year always seem to be the “one reason” we never got past where we did?

    I saw a Fla game this year that had four freshment in at one time. Are you telling me with all of the talent they have returning those four freshmen were the best four players? No. by your line of thinking, their coach is not trying to win the game becasue he is not playing the “most talented” players all the time. He was doing it because he knew it would help in the future. Herb had a “win this game” attitude that kept him from seeing why it made sense to play guys that might not be the “best talent” at that time.

  4. Woof Wolf 12/12/2006 at 10:52 AM #

    The former basketball coach has been gone for over seven months. He resigned. He’s gone. Let it go. I for one am tired of reading this recycled crap. Just go to the archives and reread all this stuff you keep rehashing.

    This was supposed to be a feel good thread about talent on this years team.

  5. Mr O 12/12/2006 at 1:49 PM #

    Here are the stats for Fla so far this year.

    Werner – 14.5 minutes
    Mitchell – 11.7 minutes
    Speights – 8.5 minunets
    Powell – 8.5 minutes

    Average margin of victory – 31 pts per game
    Average margin of victory in their eight wins – 40.3 pts per game

    So these minutes are only thru 10 games with winning margins including 33, 36, 39, 44, 49, 54 and 61 points. The rest of this season, the averages for all of these freshman will go down as the teams Fla will play improves.

    In the two games they lost, the freshman averages were:
    Werner – 6.5 minutes
    Mitchell – 7.5 minutes
    Speights – 4 minunets
    Powell – .5 minutes

    Here were the averages for our freshman last year(with games played):
    Costner(5) – 13.8
    McCauley(27) – 6.9
    Fells(17) – 7.7

    Costner’s minutes are very comparable to the freshman who have played the most minutes at Fla this year and like those guys, his averages are built primarily through playing in blowout wins.

    As far McCaultey and Fells, their averages aren’t far behind the other Fla freshman and it includes more games where playing time was harder to come by because it was in conference play.

    The year prior, here is how much our freshman played:

    Brackman(35) – 18.7 MPG
    Simmons(31) – 10 MPG
    Gavin Grant(33) – 13.1 MPG

    Wow, maybe Donovan is the one that doesn’t play freshman???

    The year before that:
    Atsur – 29.4 MPG

    The year before that:
    Bennerman(28) – 10.4 MPG

    If you saw Fla play four freshman, then you saw it for a very, very short time of play and it most likely wasn’t in either of the games they lost.

    These are the facts no matter what people want to believe is true.

  6. Rick 12/12/2006 at 2:51 PM #

    Fla returned all 5 starters, 93% of its scoring, 90% of its rebounding and 95% of its three point shotoing and yet Donnovan can find time to get 4 freshmen minutes (43 minutes a game which is over 20% of the available minutes).

    McCauley’s freshmen year we had lost Hodge, Collins and Watkins (all front court players) and yet McCauley does not get significant playing time.
    And I love how you include Costner in there for his entire 5 game career. Of players that played more than 5 games last year our freshmen got 14 min a game (7% of the entire minutes available). Your “facts” are misleading at best.

  7. Mr O 12/12/2006 at 3:37 PM #

    Do you not understand the difference between minutes played by freshman in forty point blowouts and minutes played during tight games in conference play?

    Fla’s freshman will play decreasing minutes the rest of the year because they will be playing tougher opponents. That is why it isn’t fair to compare McCauley’s minutes over 27 games to Werner’s minutes over the first 10 games of the season.

    It is fair to compare Costner’s minutes to Fla’s freshman because those minutes were logged against similar competition.(i.e. cupcake game blowouts).

    In the two tough games Fla played this year, their freshman barely got on the court. You have to take into account the forty point margin of victory in the eight wins and UNDERSTAND why Fla’s freshman are averaging as many as minutes as they do so far this season.

    McCauley didn’t play Hodge’s position. He played the four and the five. Collins averaged 17.8 minutes per game and Levi Watkins averaged 11 minutes but didn’t play the last 10 games of the season, so he wasn’t really being replaced.

    At the four and the five we returned:
    Simmons – 10 minutes
    Brackman – 18.7 minutes
    Evtimov – 30.4 minutes

    So we returned almost 75% of our minutes played at the four and five positions and that was with a budding NBA lottery pick who was bound to play as much as possible the next season in Simmons.

    If Herb didn’t like to play freshman, then how do you explain all the minutes for Grant, Simmons, and Brackman???

  8. Rick 12/12/2006 at 3:59 PM #

    “If Herb didn’t like to play freshman, then how do you explain all the minutes for Grant, Simmons, and Brackman???”
    Injuries and Josh Powell leaving early, he was forced to play them

    You still haven’t answered how you can consider 7% playing time to be significant playing time for freshmen, especially knowing you were going to lose IE, Ced and probably Brack. He either A) does not like to play freshem or B) knew he would not be back and did not care. Otherwise it makes no sense to not prepare your team for the future.

  9. Dan 12/12/2006 at 4:22 PM #

    I have to side with Rick here. For one reason. Flexibility.

    Ced should have more than 10 minutes per his freshman year, but he didnt fully understand the offense. But there was no compromising the playset in order to get that talent on the floor for some additional minutes. B-Rack, with his guard-like skills, was a better fit and was more comfortable at the high post. And he played more because of it. I mean, if Greg Oden went to Arizona State under Herb does anyone think he’d start if he didnt understand the offense? No way would he change it for Oden.

    The other culprit was the exclusive use of the man-to-man defense. Scooter Sherrill is a great example there. The kid came in as a dynamic scorer, but he was a liability in the man2man. But instead of using a zone a little to help him out, he sat. Yeah, he became a great man defender, but his offensive game regressed.

    I’m not saying that to make Herb look like a dictator. I think the schemes he chose to use dictated to Herb what he could do. You simply cant play a kid who struggles in man if that’s all you play. And you cant play that offense if you have a post player who doesnt get it. It would kill you.

    I really like the playset Herb used…… in certain situations. Its freaking ingenius. And you know. Lowe uses something similiar at times. I just think, especially in the college game, flexibility is going to determine the best coaches. Early entry limits the time you have to use complex systems. Tell you the truth, I think this COULD BE, if anything ever is, the downfall of K. That guy is killing post players that dont conform to the Brand/Boozer/Shelden mold..the low post banger. K has got to find a way to tweak that set to get McRoberts going because Brian Zoubek isnt going to morph into Boozer anytime soon. And K failed to sign a banger-type player for ’07 as well.

    The greatest thing I saw this year was a play where State went from spread set to a pick and roll (with Grant and Costner) play, and when that broke down they team slid directly into a high low game with Costner and McCauley. And it was fluid.

  10. Mr O 12/12/2006 at 4:49 PM #

    Rick: We weren’t blowing out ACC opponents to be able to afford to play kids who weren’t ready to contribute. Check and see the averages for these Fla players at the end of the year. It won’t be substantially different than what our freshman averaged last year and it will be substantially less than what Simmons, Grant and Brackman averaged their freshman years.

    The other issue is McCauley wasn’t necessarily ready to play. Maybe that is the same reason Fla’s freshman hardly played against their only decent opponents so far this year? You haven’t even addressed why the freshman didn’t play these two games.

    McCauley looks fine to me this year, so I am not sure why it is even an issue. He seems to have developed quite well with the weight program and maturing a year being signficant factors.

    I don’t mean to go so hard at you personally, Rick. But the “myths” people create because of disliking a coach is one of my pet peeves. It is like if you say something is true, then it must be true. But in this case, looking at the evidence it is quite obvious why a barely top 100 player averaged about 7 mins per game.

    Dan: Cedric to Greg Oden??? And you bring up one of the other myths of the Sendek era…the Great Scooter Sherrill. I saw him 15+ times before he ever put a Wolfpack uniform on and I could have told you back then he was overrated. He wasn’t a good ballhandler, he was undersized, and he was a streaky shooter(remember his struggles as a senior???). Scooter was a pretty good college player, but he wasn’t ever going to be the superstar that many NC State fans thought he was going to be.

    I am out for the entire rest of the week, so you guys are welcome to the last word.

  11. Rick 12/12/2006 at 4:51 PM #

    “But the “myths” people create because of disliking a coach is one of my pet peeves. ”

    I say he does not pay freshmen. Freshmen played a total of 14 min a game last year. How is that a myth?

  12. xphoenix87 12/12/2006 at 9:19 PM #

    don’t know if anyone has seen this yet, but SI.com has Sid ranked at #3 on their list of top ten new coaches who have made an impact this year. They do completely disregard his amazing recruiting, but otherwise its nice to see him get recognized.

  13. xphoenix87 12/12/2006 at 9:19 PM #

    whoops, forgot this.

    Here’s the link

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/seth_davis/12/11/hoop.thoughts/2.html

  14. redfred2 12/12/2006 at 11:16 PM #

    Uh um, O, we were not, by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, comparible to the starting five on Florida’s nat’l championship team. What is that all about? We needed fresh legs, more depth, more breathers for starters, and a spark off the bench on occasion. It wasn’t happening, and there wasn’t ever any opportunity for it to happen.

    I wonder how UNC would have looked last season if Roy’s offensive philosophy outweighed the natural freshman talent he had sitting on the bench? Same goes for the freshmen HE IS PLAYING right now. Freshman do play, and freshman do contribute, period. Most coaches welcome them and know how to make the necessary adjustments to fit them in, while a few just can’t allow that to happen at all.

    Please give me your closest example from the past ten years, of an underused player, jumping right off the page from one season to the next and *consistently shocking everyone while still playing in Raleigh. Please do not say Cedric Simmons, and I’m not saying that he couldn’t have dominated, but he wasn’t allowed to and did not play that well in Raleigh. Simmons was drafted into the NBA solely on his UNTAPPED potential.

    When there’s someone like Dan, whom we all know favored the former offensive philosophy when it was executed properly, but he can still look objectively at what is happening with this particular group of players, and be honest about what he is seeing, then there’s not really much any of us blowhards need to add.

    I respect for that, there Danny boy!

  15. redfred2 12/13/2006 at 8:57 AM #

    ^I respect “you” for that,…..

    Last sentences, I screw them up every time.

  16. class of 74 12/14/2006 at 5:02 AM #

    IMHO, I don’t think Herb suspected at the beginning of last year that he would not be coming back. Events occurred and things fell into place for his leaving not some preconceived notion on his part. Maybe I’m wrong on this or just naive but that’s what I think.

    As to who got time and who didn’t under HS, hell I’m just glad he’s gone and the nightmare is over. I didn’t believe in him as a coach, or as a recruiter. Very little of what he did made sense to me based on what I’ve witnessed in the ACC since about 1961.

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Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. StateFans Nation » Blog Archive » Roundball Check-in - 12/13/2006

    […] Related Ben McCauley link […]
  2. StateFans Nation » Blog Archive » Ben McCauley Appreciation Thread - 01/15/2007

    […] We ran an entry in mid-December focused on the accolades that Big Ben was deservedly earning at that time. McCauley has been nothing short of spectacular this year. I can’t imagine where State would be if he had chosen to transfer in the spring as rumored when Coach Lowe took the job. His presence and the fact that we can project him in a Wolfpack uniform for two more seasons produces a huge impact on the projected future success of the program; I expect him to be a growing versatile force for the Pack. McCauley has turned in consistently strong performances ALL SEASON, none more exciting and surprising than his play against Michigan’s athletic big men two weeks ago. (Anybody see his line for Saturday’s game against Savannah State? Your CENTER led the team in STEALS with five for the evening.) […]

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