A Fine/Acceptable Effort

06-07 Basketball General77

I don’t think that you will get too many complaints from most NC State fans about Wednesday night’s loss in Chapel Hill to the Tarheels.

After playing a great first half (to trail 41-40), the game ultimately took on the exact same complexion as most of the Wolfpack’s losses this season. You can’t get too mad or frustrated when the team largely plays to their potential for most of the game only to have the obvious deficiencies and gaps in talent ultimately play out as expected.

A few quick comments:

* It is so interesting for NC State to have played 25 games this season and have only encountered foul trouble to key player(s) in three games – two of them vs Carolina.

* Don’t take that ^previous comment as too much criticism for the officiating. I actually think that the game in Raleigh and tonight’s game have been two of the better officiated games of our season. (Not to mention past State-Carolina games). The stretch in the second half when the refs swallowed their whistle only added to our unraveling.

* Carolina’s ability to apply defensive pressure for 40 minutes without fear of foul trouble is exhausting to watch. I can’t imagine having to play with Ty Lawson and Wes Miller’s hand up my shirt for 40 minutes.

* Something that is going to go unnoticed because of the way in which the second half developed was how wonderful of a job that State did on the glass in the first 15 minutes of the game. Because of the efficiency with which the Wolfpack’s offense operates when we don’t turn the ball over, you cannot underestimate the importance of good rebounding for this team. Rebounding is what kept us in the game the first 5 minutes when our offense wasn’t rolling yet.

* One of my favorite posters on Pack Pride asked if the refs had fouled out Coach Lowe by halftime? Too funny. Link to info on Coach Lowe’s physical condition.

* I am surprised that Sidney wore the red jacket again tonight. Nice.

* The lack of coordination exhibited in Gavin Grant’s 4 or 5 unforced turnovers each game is just bewildering. How can someone so talented simply drop the ball, miss-time catches of easy passes, etc?

* It was really interesting to see the impact of absence of Coach Lowe from the bench in the second half. It really makes a statement about his importance to this team.

* BJD’s comments:

When Sid left for the hospital, you had to think our chance was over. We have too narrow a margin of error as it is – we can’t lose our coach at halftime. Dennis Horner makes a nice shot (take that one more, kid!) at the end to cancel Wes Miller’s dick move and keep the final margin under 20. In essence, it was like the GT game against a much better opponent – the Pack just couldn’t withstand 40 minutes of ball pressure with such a shallow bench. Down the stretch, we couldn’t shot, pass crisply, defend, or rebound. No legs. It was borderline criminal for Towe to leave Atsur in the game for that many minutes with the outcome decided. We need him at full strength on Saturday. Your final score – UNC 83, NC State 64.

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

06-07 Basketball General

77 Responses to A Fine/Acceptable Effort

  1. wolfonthehill 02/21/2007 at 11:13 PM #

    Hope Sid’s OK. I went to the unc hospital with dehydration 14 months ago. A week later, I had pneumonia that I picked up while I was there. Hope he has a better experience.

    Agree that this isn’t a bad loss… I’m fine with it. We’re going to be OK.

  2. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:14 PM #

    Here’s my last update from the in-game thread:

    Final Thoughts: When Sid left for the hospital, you had to think our chance was over. We have too narrow a margin of error as it is – we can’t lose our coach at halftime. Dennis Horner makes a nice shot (take that one more, kid!) at the end to cancel Wes Miller’s dick move and keep the final margin under 20. In essence, it was like the GT game against a much better opponent – the Pack just couldn’t withstand 40 minutes of ball pressure with such a shallow bench. Down the stretch, we couldn’t shot, pass crisply, defend, or rebound. No legs. It was borderline criminal for Towe to leave Atsur in the game for that many minutes with the outcome decided. We need him at full strength on Saturday. Your final score – UNC 83, NC State 64.

  3. jwrenn29 02/21/2007 at 11:16 PM #

    I agree. Good effort. I think interestingly enough, Sid having to go to the hospital took the wind (and leadership) out of the team. I’m not sure talent made the biggest difference. The guys seemed a little more out of it without Sid.

    But again, we were playing really well. I do think we need to not have 4 guys run back for defense after every shot. At least twice I saw UNC’s point get the rebound after it bounced over our one guy in the paint and UNC’s 4. All I could see was our other 4 back-pedaling as the ONE UNC guard went for the ball. No way that should happen.

  4. beowolf 02/21/2007 at 11:18 PM #

    If anyone remembers the night and day difference Duke was the Season Without K, they can understand the difference here.

    BJD, on the game thread I just finished saying something very close to your first lines.

  5. pakfanistan 02/21/2007 at 11:20 PM #

    I wish we had seen more subbing in the second half. Maybe give Fergie a few minutes, of course, outside of that, I don’t know who else we could have put in.

  6. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:24 PM #

    I actually feel pretty good after this loss. We hung very tough in the first half despite so-so FG shooting, and the second half was really out of our hands sans Lowe. We can beat reeling FSU on Saturday, and maybe creep up to the 9 seed. But I want VT in the quarterfinals, not UNC!

  7. PurplePeopleEaters 02/21/2007 at 11:24 PM #

    I called the game over when Sid didn’t come out of the locker room in the 2nd. It just wasn’t going to happen tonight, especially without our coach. I’ll take 1/2 against a team projected #2 in the nation while we were projected to finish LAST in the acc.

  8. Dan 02/21/2007 at 11:28 PM #

    Rebounding.

    When we rebounded we competed. Then we stopped. Its hard enough to play D for one possession. Its ridiculous to have to play it twice every time down the floor.

  9. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:29 PM #

    Can we say that Sid is now 1-0.5 against UNC as a head coach? I saw determination in our players eyes, even at the end. I like our chances Saturday.

    UNC played us today like they should (constant ball pressure, getting Wright lots of offensive touches). When that happens, they should win 95+ times out of 100.

    I hope they enjoyed it, b/c we’ll have enough bullets in our gun starting next season. And I expect it will stay that way.

  10. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:31 PM #

    Ben sounds pissed talking to the media. I like that.

  11. beowolf 02/21/2007 at 11:34 PM #

    I want to underscore SFN’s point about Sid wearing the red jacket again. That’s just ballsy. It was ballsy enough at home.

    Remember all the critics last spring saying it’d be hard to find a guy who wanted to coach against the likes of K and Roy Williams, and we said, The guy who does — that’s exactly the kind of coach we want. Here Coach Lowe goes into Chapel Hill, with the frigging FLU, dons the red jacket again, and really gives everything he had. I doubt any of his guys will question him if he wants them to leave it all on the court.

    (Neat historical fact: Jimmy V was racked with the flu during the ’83 national championship game.)

  12. PurplePeopleEaters 02/21/2007 at 11:35 PM #

    When we’re 10 deep next year it will definitely be a different story. Hickson, McCauley, and Costner all harassing Hansbrough (if he even stays).. should be a nice sight to see. Let’s just hope that we have a backcourt to go along with it and our football team can take it to them in the meantime.

  13. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:36 PM #

    I think Lowe’s attempt to gut it out will be a great motivator on Saturday. I just wish we had an extra day to rest.

    In retrospect, maybe a heavy sportjacket wasn’t the best choice today. A nice, loose fitting T-shirt might have kept more water in Sid’s body!

  14. choppack1 02/21/2007 at 11:40 PM #

    Well, he should be. Things were so bad out there that Wright started hand-checking. Wright is a very smart, relatively clean player. He realized the refs weren’t gonna stop so he started hand checking…It’s games like these where if I was coach I’d pull my team off the floor the last minute of the game. Make no mistake about it, there was a consceince effort on the part of the officials tonight to look the other way on most fouls…

    Now, you say, calling it tight favors the Pack. That’s true, but in one case, you are calling fouls that are fouls, in the other case, you are letting teams foul. This is especially unfair when you have the depth disparity we have. I don’t know if this is the work of Swofford or what – but it was pathetic. I said it another thread, I really think of ACC basketball as boxing – if you leave it up to the judges, and you’re not the title holder, you’ll lose every time.

  15. Clarksa 02/21/2007 at 11:44 PM #

    Monty made a bit of a joke in the post game comments…he said that this was the second time he had to take over a game under those type circumstances…and the result was the same.

  16. choppack1 02/21/2007 at 11:44 PM #

    Oh yes, get well soon Coach Lowe – we need you!

  17. beowolf 02/21/2007 at 11:45 PM #

    Mark my words, this will be a turning point on the season. Which way it turns I can’t say, but I’m optimistic.

    I just hope Lowe will be OK soon. That flu has “benched” a lot of folks in Raleigh.

  18. Clarksa 02/21/2007 at 11:45 PM #

    …and as far as the game, I’m proud of the effort, but as many have said, we just don’t have the horses.

  19. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:48 PM #

    Let’s just hope Sid didn’t cough on any of the players. I’m sure Braxton Albritton is a nice kid, but I don’t want to see him playing 30 minutes on Saturday…

    It sounds like Roy did call Sid’s wife after the game, which was nice.

  20. #44 17 24 02/21/2007 at 11:48 PM #

    God here we go again. I feel like a UNC fan or something which I am NOT…but please can we stop talking about the refs. I saw just as many things we got away with that they did. One possession in the first half, they couldve called an offesive foul on Atsur, then a travel, then they called a foul on UNC for not doin much of anything. We lost because they played better than us for the whole 40 minutes, plain and simple. We can take alot away from this loss. Only down one at the half, and they pressured the WHOLE game. Our coach leaves at the half, and of course we have no bench. It was emotion that got us through in Raleigh, and I think we all know the source of that passion, and we only had it for the first half. I feel dumb for saying this, but just wait for next year.

  21. #44 17 24 02/21/2007 at 11:49 PM #

    Well it seems that in the time I wrote this, that we actually did stop talking about the refs..o well ignore th last comment..GO PACK!

  22. BJD95 02/21/2007 at 11:51 PM #

    They did call Hansbrough for travelling. TWICE. That shocked and amazed me. I think it was easy to swallow the whistles in the second half b/c our legs were gone and we didn’t get into position as aggressively. Especially for a road game against a team with “Most Favored Nation” status, I didn’t think it was bad. After all, this is the ACC – the officiating is usually much, much worse.

  23. tractor57 02/21/2007 at 11:59 PM #

    Apparently the game I saw was vastly different from the one some were watching. I didn’t see the refs really make a big difference in the game’s outcome. Packer can be a jerk but I thought he was a restrained jerk during this game (he rarely tried to ref the game as he usually does).
    Carolina was embarrassed at the RBC and they played a much better game this time around. State hung tough through a lot of adversity (Lowe going down and Carolina’s much deeper bench in particular) but the team was still fighting at the end with all they had.
    This night, this game the better team won – they played to their strengths and State’s weaknesses.

  24. kbstokes09 02/22/2007 at 12:01 AM #

    I hope nobody blames Towe for this loss or for the margin of the loss. As unfortunate as it was that we lost Coach Lowe for the second half, the team really didn’t play too smart (passes) or with enough energy (which was unavoidable with Carolina’s D). I’m glad that Towe was able to do what he can and I’m nothing short of satisfied with the fight that everybody on our team, whether on the court or in the hospital, put up tonight. Go State.

  25. burnbarn 02/22/2007 at 12:16 AM #

    I am very pleased with the outcome. I didn’t thinkthe game was particularly well called, but I think the calls went about evenly. I have been amazed at how we have managed to not have more games with significant foul trouble.

    I hope Engin is okay, it looked like he tweeked his hammy again. Maybe it was just cramps. I was surprised Towe kept him in for those last couple of minutes. Fergy would have been killed with the ball pressure tonight.

    When you think about the talent of our front line last year versus this year you have to give the nod to last year’s squad. Is it the coaching b/c we are getting more out of Ben and Brandon that we did from BRack and Ced no disrespect to them intended.

1 2 3 4

Leave a Reply