Get It Back

General NCS Basketball Tradition114

SFN Note: We wanted to thank ‘Spin Wolf’ for submitting this fantastic entry to our email at [email protected]. This entry perfectly crystallizes what Wolfpackers over the age of 35 who grew up in the area have been trying to convey to younger generations for years and the feeling that we all share about the future of NC State Basketball now that Sidney Lowe has come home.

“This is what N.C. State does. Throughout history, we’re a basketball school that pulls off big upsets.”

– Brandon Costner, Saturday, February 3, 2007

To many, Saturday, February 3rd 2007 will signify the Wolfpack’s first win over the hated Tarholes in many, many tries. It will be the date that Coach Sidney Lowe bested Coach Roy Williams in their first match-up. It will simply be the date we beat Carolina.

To me, this day is much more. It is the day when I got my beloved Wolfpack basketball team back. Fans whose memories may not go back as far as mine may be puzzled by this comment. Let me explain.

I grew up in the 1970’s and 80’s. In those days, State-Carolina was THE rivalry and Duke was merely an afterthought. We’d watch the ACC Tournament in school on Friday and then almost get into fistfights over whose team was better. Dean Smith was well on his way to earning his status as a legend of college basketball, but there was certainly no great divide between the two programs.

And most true Carolina fans knew that. It was accepted that when State and Carolina faced off, you’d better bring your best game, no matter who was favored, because it was going to be a war. While Dean Smith kept Carolina in perennial Top 10 status and went to numerous Final Fours, NC State was able to keep the pace with both ACC and NCAA championships.

Younger State fans and current students should chew on this: As of 1990, State and Carolina were TIED in the number of national championships won at two each. In ACC championships, Carolina had a whopping one title more than State for virtual parity.

How did State coaches Sloan and Valvano manage to keep Dean Smith feeling the wolves’ breath on his back? Save for the legendary teams of 1972-1975, State never had as many blue chip players. But both coaches had the ability to coach Wolfpack hoopsters into playing beyond themselves. This ability to accomplish more with less (as opposed to less with more..cough..cough..) is the legacy of NC State basketball. At the time of Coach Valvano’s resignation, NC State HAD TO be included in any discussion of great college basketball programs.

And yet for most of the last 17 years, NC State had let that legacy crumble. We had a program that played to the level of talent we had, sometimes less than that, but rarely more. And as a lifelong Wolfpacker, I felt like the program I grew up cheering, loving, and yes – fighting for, had died. We didn’t have the ability to get hot and pull off a run in the tournament. If we beat Carolina, it was because CC Harrison turned into Kobe Bryant for two hours or because Matt Doherty couldn’t coach.

Saturday, Coach Sidney Lowe changed all that.

Lowe coached our extremely thin team to give 110 percent for 40 minutes and match a bench full of McDonald’s All-Americans shot for shot. Coach Lowe knows the legacy of NC State basketball and is instilling it into our players daily. The red jacket, bringing back prominent players of the past, switching up non-conventional defenses are all signs that Coach Lowe knows how to emulate his predecessors and accomplish more with less.

Carolina is still an odds-on favorite to go to another Final Four this year. I’ve still got State penciled into the NIT. But on February 3, 2007, I saw a program that played with tenacity and emotion to overcome tremendous odds and beat our arch-rival. I saw a program ready to embrace our storied history. This day will always be the day that I got my Wolfpack basketball team back.

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General NCS Basketball Tradition

114 Responses to Get It Back

  1. TampaPack 02/05/2007 at 10:50 AM #

    Unfortunately I fall just outside of the previous glory years for wolfpack fans. I just turned 30, but moved to North Carolina in 1987. My first memories of the pack in person were “Fire and Ice” although I do have some memories of the earlier great teams. Other than a Gugs here or a Jules there, my personal experience doesn’t include many good times. That is what has me (and the rest of you all) so excited about the future. A majority of my years have been formed by Les Robinson and Herb – both of which were lacking any real overall accomplishments. I attended state from 95-99 – not exactly great years for any major sports, with the exception of beating FSU a time or two. I know the history of the pack well and am so happy we are finally on the way back to staking our claim to our place. There will so indeed be 3 points to Triangle basketball – if Duke and UNC can keep pace….

  2. whitefang 02/05/2007 at 10:55 AM #

    Great post. Sums it up for this old State fan who was there from 75-80.
    This was especially true:
    “Save for the legendary teams of 1972-1975, State never had as many blue chip players”
    I used to point that out to all the “UNC/Smith is god” people – that they SHOULD have accomplished what they did and more when every freaking player on the bench is a “McDonald’s All American.” I said a “dog with a note” could coach those teams. That really used to piss them off. We had what I consider the right mix. Sure we all WANT 14 studs, but 14 studs don’t always make a team. We had players with heart who didn’t back down to anybody. Saw a lot of that Saturday. Expect to see a lot more of that and even better when Sidney get some more players next year.

  3. legacyman 02/05/2007 at 11:05 AM #

    Tampa,

    I absolutely love your last sentence…that is the attitude, man.

  4. gopack968 02/05/2007 at 11:09 AM #

    I have been thinking about the definition of what constitutes a “great” college basketball program and I have come to this conclusion:

    To be called a “Great College Basketball Program” a team has to have won national championships under more than one coach.

    This would include Kansas, UNC, Kentucky, UCLA, Indiana, NC State and perhaps one or two others I have forgotten. These programs have experienced success at the highest level over the tenure of multiple coaches. It is the program that is great, not any one individual coach. This does not demean the success of any coach, merely qualifies that success in light of the larger program.

    As you may have noticed, this list of great program does not currently include Duke. Duke has a great coach, but whether or not it is a great program will be determined by the team’s success in the post-K era.

    SFN: Michigan State immediately comes to mind.

  5. noah 02/05/2007 at 11:10 AM #

    Mr. O – I think we’ll get two more out of Costner and two out of Hickson.

  6. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 11:10 AM #

    tmb81

    We were going through some tough times back then for sure. The fans, the media, all the other ACC programs, everyone, were just waiting for us snap out of our funk and come back. NCSU’s own administration was the biggest anchor dragging in the water back then. But, back in the nineties we were still connected to being a legitimate ACC/national power and the coach still had all of NC State’s rich basketball history in his hip pocket to grab onto at any time. The decisions made, and what happened after that, is where it all went awry

    That is the difference between then and now. Caution is more than justified, but feeling giddy about regaining something that had been carelessly discarded and left for dead, is not.

  7. Mr O 02/05/2007 at 11:15 AM #

    Noah: I think the same thing.

  8. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 11:18 AM #

    ^Correction “…but the fear of feeling giddy…”

    Hell, you know what I’m trying to say.

  9. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 11:35 AM #

    Noah, Mr. O,

    This is a new problem, one that we haven’t really ever had to deal with. It wasn’t happening that much way back when NC State BB players were actually able to play the game and show off all of their skills. It appears the NBA seems to shy away from one dimensional, 6’10”, spot up shooters. Luckily for us up until now, the offense just wouldn’t allow it.

    Sorry, I digress.

  10. RickJ 02/05/2007 at 11:43 AM #

    Mr. O – Agree on Bartosz but I think we had to take Degand. He and Johnson were the best choices we had in a difficult situation. Chris Wright would have been better but I just don’t see where we had any other choices better than Degand. We would need Degand or Johnson even if we had gotten Wright.

    The good thing about Degand & Johnson is that they are here and playing. Lowe should have a good idea if they can do the job. These two players will really determine how good we are next year.

  11. noah 02/05/2007 at 11:52 AM #

    Degand and Johnson just need to be competent. They need to play some defense, run the offense, handle the ball and limit turnovers. They don’t need to be stars. They just have to be adequate, we’ll have other people who can be stars.

    Johnson’s rap, apparently, is a lack of athleticism. He’s big and the word is that he couldn’t break people down off the dribble. Unless we’re running a 1-4 offense, that won’t be a huge deal. Atsur has the same problem.

  12. Gene 02/05/2007 at 11:59 AM #

    I went to State from ’92 to ’96, and grew up in Raleigh, in the 1980’s. I remember when UNC-NCSU was a big deal, and kids in middle school were divided and really talked up about who’d win. I also remember the feeling that NCSU was “selling out” to keep players like Washburn and Shackelford on the roster, when everyone knew they had no business being in college. This was before Golenbach’s book came out.

    When little seemed to be done about off-the-court infractions, by NCSU players, I always felt State’s basketball program only cared about winning.

    I don’t go overboard in blaming the Administration about the restrictions in the early 1990’s, because we did have a PR problem and some of the those problems were self-inflicted.

    Jeff: I don’t disagree. I’ve always been curious about this — how did our self-imposed de facto death penalty improve our PR problem? The two are/were mutually exclusive of each other.

    I remember Les’ making statements about how there was little academic support for players to keep up with classes, when he got there. He made a point to emphasize that graduation rates were more about having the support for players, who have to reschedule exams or make-up classes, due to conflicts with travel, than it was just about a coach chasing after kids. The athletics department, as a whole, wasn’t on sound footing, in 1990. Les was hired to do a few things: make sure we had good graduation rates for our basketball players, make sure players avoid off-the-court problems, and try to win as many games as possible, given our restrictions.

    I know people are mad about “settling” for mediocrity, but as a program, I don’t think we could hope to enjoy sustained success without having the off-the-court side of our athletics program in order.

    Jeff: I’ve never understood how/why it took us 15 years to get our house in order while other schools seem to be able to do it in much shorter times – Kentucky, Maryland, etc, etc. The “sustained success” part reminds me of the HSSS battle cry that “once Herb gets us there, we will be there for a long time!”. It sounds good; but it doesn’t make an ounce of sense.

    I give Herb credit for keeping up graduation rates and avoiding off-the-court trouble with players, as well as winning more than he lost.

    Jeff: “credit” for “winning more than he lost”? Really? Amazing. You know, he didn’t win more than he lost in ACC play.

    The opinion of NCSU Basketball, by the powers that be, seems to be generally positive, about a program being able to win and have quality players (which is why they seemed so surprised when us fans wouldn’t settle for mediocrity and being fourth best in our own state), because we’ve kept the off-the-court side of basketball in order, during the last 17 years.

    I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to go after highly regarded recruits, like Simmons, Hodge, Sherril, Costner, etc. without the good PR we have as a quality program off-the-court.

    As painful and frustrating as the entire 15 years of my being a Wolfpack fan have been, something wasn’t entirely right with the way the basketball program was being run in 1990. We went overboard in trying to correct it, but we couldn’t keep doing things like we had been doing.

    Hopefully we’ve fixed things up, so we do not have to go through any problems with off-the-court issues again and can do better in the future than any NCSU program has ever done.

    I honestly don’t want just the occassional powerhouse team, but I want to be where Duke has gotten to, under K, in the basketball hierarchy, as one of THE TEAMS to beat and not one of those schools that occassionaly has a very good team or makes a spirited run in March.

    To do that we have to keep the off-the-court side of basketball in order and hopefully we’ve built a solid structure to keep it in order, given all the frustration the last 17 years have held for fans.

  13. noah 02/05/2007 at 12:03 PM #

    One of the best things Robinson did…probably THE best thing…was giving the shoe money we got to a scholarship fund for former players to get their degrees.

    The guy was a mensch. Horrible coach, but that was first class.

  14. Mr O 02/05/2007 at 12:05 PM #

    Redfred: I wouldn’t knock Herb’s recruiting of versatile players who can shoot the ball. Lately, I have been thinking how much better these players look in our current offense and I am hoping that Sidney recruits similar types of players. At some point though, I would love to see a quick, fast PG in the 6 foot range who is rock solid with the basketball.

  15. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 12:10 PM #

    Gene, I agree that it went slightly askew there and adjustments were definitely needed. Not seventeen years worth though.

    All I have to do, is to think of R McCants playing in powder blue on a national championship squad, and my prespectives of what goes on in college basketball stay pretty well in order.

  16. Gene 02/05/2007 at 12:11 PM #

    Yeah, Noah, Robinson was a lousy coach, but a good guy, who really wanted what was best for his alma matter.

  17. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 12:21 PM #

    Mr. O

    Sorry about that. I noticed your comment the other day something to the affect of “What was “” thinking?” It really does make you wonder about some of the kids who came through over the years. My fault though, it’s years of bottled up (or maybe not so bottled up) frustration coming out. My apologies.

  18. Gene 02/05/2007 at 12:29 PM #

    Not seventeen years worth though.

    Don’t disagree. But you have some unanswerable what-if’s surrounding this program. Robinson’s era could’ve been better. With Gugs and K. Thompson, who both played in the NBA, and Todd Fuller, who became a very good college player, there was no reason to run off five losing seasons in a row. The 1992-1993 season would’ve been bad, but there was no reason to have 5 years worth of bad seasons and last place conference finishes. Maybe we’d have not gotten back to the NCAA’s, but we should’ve won more than we lost.

    With Herb, it’s a tough call, for me. He improved the program and brought some much needed stability, in terms of having quality players and winning enough to get people to notice us again. His in ability to win big games was frustrating and I’m glad he left. I just don’t know if going through 2-3 coaches, post-Les would’ve been better than sticking it out with Herb for 10 years. There are a lot of coaches, who could not have done as well as Herb, but than there are others who’d do better.

    The 17 years worth of frustration is simply because we’ve not landed the right coach. I hope Lowe’s that coach.

    All I have to do, is to think of R McCants playing in powder blue on a national championship squad, and my prespectives of what goes on in college basketball stay pretty well in order.

    LOL! So true…

  19. class of 74 02/05/2007 at 12:30 PM #

    Was Robinson that bad as a coach? Maybe it was a case of he had no support from a very weak administration. I do recall his ETSU team coming in here and beating us with V on the bench. Bad coach? I don’t think so, but a less than stellar recruiter and little support from the adminl will make you appear as if you are a bad coach.

  20. tractor57 02/05/2007 at 12:46 PM #

    As I look back Les did EXACTLY what the admin hired him for – “clean” up the program, get the grad rates up and maybe win a game here and there.
    You will notice here there is nothing about producing a top quality program.
    Les “took one” for NCSU and although I didn’t particularly like the results at the time (and still don’t) he did what do accomplish the requirements of the admin.
    Maybe he was a bad coach and maybe he was limited by the admin. Think more of the latter – he did a good service for NSCU and gets hammered time and again for his efforts (which I think is sort of silly).

  21. legacyman 02/05/2007 at 12:48 PM #

    Again, as many have said, Les had terrible restrictions(some by the institution, itself) when he took the job and he knew it. He couldn’t recruit off campus for one or two years and the bad national pub from golenbutt’s hack book killed us along with the 60 Minutes hatchet job on V and his program. Les did the best with what he had…5-7 against ole deano but not enough wins elsewhere to keep the troops happy.

    Les cleaned up the academics and got the program on solid ground for whoever the next coach would be. The next guy didn’t have the academic problems to worry with, only to continue the improvement.

  22. Rick 02/05/2007 at 12:48 PM #

    “We could really use those two scholarships right now. As it stands, we don’t have anymore scholarships to offer the 2008 class unless someone leaves early via a transfer or early departure. ”

    In some ways I disagree. I think every team needs a few players that are not supoer stars. That work hard and are happy to be on the team with a chance to play in the future.

    I agree that versatile players are good but it is stupid to have an entire roster of them. The first thing Sid did was recruit two big men and two point/combo guards. You need both to win.

  23. Gene 02/05/2007 at 12:58 PM #

    Bad coach? I don’t think so

    I remember going to Reynolds, my sophomore year, and watching us lose to Davidson, in a game Davidson basically controlled.

    Les could pull of an amazing win, like beating Valvano or Smith, but he had more head-scratching losses, where we should’ve won, than I care to remember.

    If you look at other North Carolina programs – App. State, UNC-G, etc. – and the wins they’ve had over ACC teams, you’ll find all of them notched a win against NCSU during Robinson’s era.

    Robinson was a good man and really helped this university out, and I don’t want to bash him, but he had his short comings as a coach.

    Regarding Bartosz’s scholarship, sometimes I think it was a mistake to rush and offer him, than I think about guys like Zwicker, for UNC who just took up space, but still played on a championship team and I’m not so flustered. Having Bart on the bench won’t be the end of the world. If he can do for us what Salvadori did for UNC, or Shensher (sp?) did for Ga. Tech, than it’d be a great use of a scholarship.

  24. redfred2 02/05/2007 at 12:59 PM #

    74

    That’s a question that I’ve often thought about. Les inherited a nightmare and the administration was so weak that instead of standing or putting up any resistance like any normal university would do, they just wanted the whole BB thing to go over in the corner and hide for a while. Les always had the look of being totally stressed out during a game, straightening his tie or kind of fumbling with his sleeves. Kinda Rodney Dangerfield-like, in my memories anyway. For me, that coaching box demeanor just didn’t instill much confidence that he was in control of the situation. But, with all of that said, the man was in shackles and the stress he showed was coming at him from all directions, not just on the basketball court.

    His players played hard for the most part, and he developed some NBA talent. In a different setting, who knows?

  25. BoKnowsNCS71 02/05/2007 at 1:06 PM #

    I’m won’t say our last 2 coaches were bad. Just that they weren’t as capable as the competition, were easy to predict and out coach in big games, they oftern were inflexible relying on systems and a style of play that lacks innovation and change.

    It never ceases to amaze that coaching really makes a difference. Most recently my girl friend’s brother moved from coaching high school at Brentwood in Nashville, TN (Note: he was Brandon Wright’s HS coach) to Kings College in Bristol, Va. The team last year won about 4 or 5 games. After he arrived this year, with the same (average) kids, they have won more like 15 or 16 games.

    There is something intrinsic in a coach’s skill set, personality, and style that makes them a winner versus a likable “good” coach like Les or you know who.

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