N&O: Lowe gets scare, vows to change

Lowe, 47, was treated for dehydration, kept overnight and released Thursday morning. He said he left the hospital determined to take better care of himself — and to heed the words of UNC coach Roy Williams, who visited him in his hospital room soon after the Tar Heels’ 83-64 victory.

“He sat down and talked to me a little bit, just about the [ACC] and coaching in this league, at this level,” Lowe said. “You really have to take time out and get rest, or work out, or get away from it.

“He asked me, ‘What did you do for lunch today?’ I said I was working. He said, ‘Exactly. Take an hour and go work out, get away from it.’ He said it will wear you down. He said, ‘I know you as a player and I know you as a coach, and you’re going to work all the time.’ He was great.”

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

General NCS Basketball

61 Responses to N&O: Lowe gets scare, vows to change

  1. branjawn 02/26/2007 at 11:57 AM #

    Has anyone checked the new Bracketology on ESPN? Has the ACC with six teams, no surprise. But the cool thing is, the lowest team is seeded 6. So half the league (as of now) is a top 6 seed NCAAT team. That has to speak highly of the tough schedule each ACC team faces (exception UVa). It will do well to remind recruits that the ACC is still the Mecca of college hoops.

  2. beowolf 02/26/2007 at 12:18 PM #

    The best part… I truly believe it to be sincere concern. As if say… another Tobacco Road coach did it I would likely be skeptical of his intention.

    GA, this is rather unfair if you’re talking about Coach K.

    K visited Jim Valvano in the hospital almost daily. They’d be seen laughing and joking together, and then K would be seen somewhere else in the hospital weeping. He was a great friend and a boon to V in his final years.

  3. waxhaw 02/26/2007 at 12:20 PM #

    IMO, Coach K is a lot classier than Prosser. I can’t imagine that Prosser has a good relationship with any other coach in the ACC.

  4. LRM 02/26/2007 at 12:50 PM #

    It is widely known that both K and Vtiale, who we all love to hate, were both very close friends with Valvano. The fact is, the only side of these guys the average fans ever sees is the guy on the court — the business side.

  5. gopack968 02/26/2007 at 1:00 PM #

    Anybody else watch Herb’s team fail to win a close game against Arizona last night? Down a bucket and at the line for one more shot with 1.7 seconds remaining, his player sunk the shot he was trying to miss.

    Painful to watch. And very, very familiar.

  6. RedTerror29 02/26/2007 at 1:03 PM #

    ^Not as down on Herb as a lot of people…but you couldn’t pay me to watch one of his teams again.

  7. westwolf 02/26/2007 at 1:04 PM #

    ^Yeah, end of game situations generally come down to coaching and preparation. Ol Herbie has a consistent history of failing in those situations.

    As you said, very, very familiar.

  8. ShootingGuard 02/26/2007 at 1:08 PM #

    I hate to admit it, but I have found it very hard not to respect Roy on a variety of levels ever since he got there…From making the thugs show up at his presser in nice clothes to this situation with Sid…

    Roy scares the hell out of me because with UNC recruiting power, he has already and will continue to make his unreal results at Kansas look sad. Plus, he is a blazing fire competitor unlike Dean who was a whiny conniving competitor. I hate Dean Smith and all of his hypocrisy, but Roy makes it tough on you because he is the kind of coach you would like to see coaching your team—and he seems real and out there with it unlike his instructor who was so fake. I actually like Roy’s seeming hatred of and desire to beat State—it reminds me of when the rivalry was great.

    I don’t like Coach K much, although I give him somewhat of a pass due to his dealings with V and the V Foundation as well as the fact that I think he gets a bit of a rap in the south because he “ain’t from around here” with that Chicago “yankee” demeanor (V had the comedic personality to overcome everything in a way K and others simply don’t have the charisma to do).

    If some of the things on the AAU circuit and within NC high school basketball circles I have heard about Prosser and his recruiting “techniques” vs State are indeed true, then I have to give Skippy a big A for a-hole. If true, the smarmy jerk deserves his recent “success,” and I want a complete sweep over Wake on Wednesday as justified for Skippy and his Wakey fans who, with a little bit of success Duncan thru Paul, were quick to become Carolina-esque obnoxious…

  9. Cardiff Giant 02/26/2007 at 1:17 PM #

    “The Big Four coaches have had pretty good off-the-court relationships, from what I understand, going back to the Case-McGuire-Mckinney era. Glad to see this is continuing.”

    Norm Sloan hated Dean Smith and vice versa. Most of the other ACC coaches of the time, with the exception of Cremins who liked everyone, also disliked Dean with greater or lesser degrees of acrimony. Dean Smith and Coach K have never liked each other.

    So I can’t agree it was “continuing.” It is true that K and V became deathbed (in V’s case) friends. But the other animosities were very real.

  10. Cardiff Giant 02/26/2007 at 1:17 PM #

    I should have added, way classy move on Roy’s part. Hard to hate Huckleberry Hound when he does stuff like that, I agree.

  11. PapaJohn 02/26/2007 at 1:20 PM #

    “Then ASU went through one of the scoring slumps that have plagued it all season, scoring only one basket in a 7-minute stretch late in the half. ”
    Excerpted from CNN SI’s review of the AZ / ASU game.

    I hope we never have that as our defining characteristic again.

    Got agree w/ the “Roy’s hard to hate” commentary. I really hated Dean. Guthridge was never much of a character at all. Matt D was a jerk. It’s disorienting to like the Carolina coach.

    I like K. He’s a great coach. Good for the ACC. Seems like a good person although off-the-charts intense. He took the unpopular stance of publicly supporting Sendek. I can’t remember seeing any other coach on television saying that.

    Now with that said, if neither team ever scores a point again in a State game, I will shed nary a tear.

  12. tvopack 02/26/2007 at 1:24 PM #

    Roy is very sweet doesn’t mean we’re soft in beating them. Lets the players compete!

  13. shellnc 02/26/2007 at 1:30 PM #

    Roy seems to be cool as a person. I appreciate him doing that for Sidney. It’s too bad he’s cheater when it comes to running a program and he is coaching for the pansy blue.

  14. RickJ 02/26/2007 at 2:03 PM #

    Agree with many of the sentiments regarding the differences in Smith & Williams. Dean was petty, manipulative (he started firing Doherty the day he was hired) and as phony as they come. Williams is such a genuine guy as well as being a terrific coach.

    There is one area that Williams cannot touch Smith and that is at end-of-game coaching. Williams is fine in this regard but I’ve never seen anybody as good as Smith in any sport in the last five minutes of a game.

  15. ncwolfie2000 02/26/2007 at 2:13 PM #

    One thing I forgot to mention. I don’t know if this was shown on TV, but at the end of the game (NCSU @ UNC), Coach Williams took Engin Atsur aside and had a lengthy talk with him right near the State bench. Seemed like it was a positive conversation meant for encouragement. I was impressed by that.

  16. Dan 02/26/2007 at 2:32 PM #

    At least I still hate K.

    The thing I like about Roy is that there is no sense of entitlement coming from him. When they lose, he says they got beat. He’s a classy guy. As hard as I try I cant hate Roy like I did his three predecessors. I still root for them to lose, but I do like the way Roy coaches ball.

    This whole thing has only cemented Duke as my #1 target. I dont like K for what he’s done to the game. The clutching and grabbing ruins the game. It has set it back 30+ years.

  17. newt 02/26/2007 at 2:57 PM #

    “There is one area that Williams cannot touch Smith and that is at end-of-game coaching. Williams is fine in this regard but I’ve never seen anybody as good as Smith in any sport in the last five minutes of a game.”

    The secret to big-time, late-game comebacks from seemingly insurmountable deficits, such as Dean was famous for, is to score points with the clock stopped.

    Let’s see, how does one score with the clock stopped?

  18. for2n8son 02/26/2007 at 3:12 PM #

    It’s a ruse!!!!! He just doesn’t want us to play with so much intensity against the bleached blue. Next thing you know we’ll be feeling guilty for beating UNX. Come on guys, it’s Carolina. Hate, hate, hate! Kill, kill, kill!
    Oh, OK so it was a super nice thing to do. I’ll hate him for that. Shoot, if we keep this stuff up what’s next? Sportsmanship? Then were the hell will we be!

  19. Champs 02/26/2007 at 3:14 PM #

    You establish your program the first 3 years at a school. Now isn’t the time to take it easy. Roy is sly. Yeah, take it easy and like me at the same time so you don’t kick my butt at least once each year.

  20. BoKnowsNCS71 02/26/2007 at 3:22 PM #

    The relationship thing between the coaches reminds me of “The Godfather Rules of Business.” There is “business” and there is “personal” You never let the personal side interfere with the business. But at times when a coach like Lefty kicks a chair in Reynolds out of frustration or Coach Holland named his dog “Dean” (because the dog whined so much) — the relationships of can get very personal. Ask Coach Barnes.

    These coaches attend meetings, work on projects, sit on rules committees together. They develop business-like relationships and perhaps at times personal ones like Coach K had calling Coach V often and visiting him while he was in the hospital. That to me is where human values transcended the norm.

    The Coaches all want to win because: 1) everyone wants to win — especially for their home school or school of employment and 2) their careers and salaries depend on it. But while its may be hard for a die hard fan to accept — the competitiveness most likely begins and ends when they face each other on the court.

    Someone said recently that so many of the players today grew up playing each other as they grew up and became friends. They don’t see the rivalry for what it is or was. They don’t “hate” each other in that sense. It’s a competive fervor and bragging rights but not like the
    fringe”.

    But nonetheless, taking Noah’s advice, I’m writing Roy today to tell him the former VP Gore needs his help is fighting global warming and that he needs to gather with many others at the pole to run a huge fan to save the ozone layer. But then again — Roy’s probably a Republican.

  21. tractor57 02/26/2007 at 3:37 PM #

    OMG! a REPUBLICAN at the helm of the UNX bb program – very big grin here
    Bo too funny!

  22. cedarblockhead 02/26/2007 at 3:38 PM #

    Everybody likes a nice guy. It is all about relationships

  23. Frank 02/26/2007 at 4:09 PM #

    I just hope Sid really listens to him and takes better care of himself. I bet he will. Roy is probably not the only one to speak up. I imagine a few other people have said something.

  24. burnbarn 02/26/2007 at 4:25 PM #

    Yes, Roy’s chat w/ Engin after the game was on TV. Looked very cordial.

  25. highstick 02/26/2007 at 6:40 PM #

    I don’t hate Roy, it’s the “lunatic jerk fringe” fans that they have! Really, I think Roy’s a much more class act than Dean or K.

    Are you serious about Terry Holland’s dog? I never heard that one. I met him several years ago after he came back to Davidson and he seemed to be very likeable fellow. Also have met Dave Odom 2-3 times due to a family friend’s daughter marrying one of his assistants. He’s also a very nice guy.

    I did watch the Az-Az State game last night and the “brick” that the Az St. player tried to shoot at the foul line at the end. That was hilarious. Guess that shows you that sometimes “you just can’t miss”!

Leave a Reply