Senior Night – Wake Entry

06-07 Basketball General140

It is Senior Night at NC State and the RBC should be filled to capacity for Engin Atsur’s final home game in Wolfpack white.

Section Six has their typical great preview up. Their advice is the take a very close look at the Deacons.

The long and the short of it is simple – the Deacons’ offense isn’t that good, and their defense is even worse. Because of the mismatch between State’s good offense and Wake’s bad defense – this game will be won or lost by the Wolfpack’s defensive efforts when the Demon Deacons have the ball. IF NC State brings the Dr. Jekyll squad who plays defense and blocks out on the boards – as opposed to the Mr. Hyde squad who looks like a Les Robinson team – the Wolfpack should be in a good position.

The Deacons have the least efficient offense in the ACC, and by a comfortable margin, which you can see illustrated in Big Ten Wonk’s handy visual aid. What makes them so bad? In addition to being the most turnover prone team in the conference, the Deacs are also 11th in eFG% and 10th in offensive rebounding percentage. Can’t shoot, can’t grab your misses–this is a problem better known as Chronic Brick Fatigue Syndrome.

In seven conference road games, the offense has been nothing short of terrible: 0.89 points/possession, including a delightful 0.62 pts/poss effort in Durham.

What I’m not going to tell you for fear of the consequences is that Wake Forest hasn’t managed to score better than a point per possession in any road conference game this season. I’m definitely not pointing that out.

The primary unknown tonight is the potential impact of Wake’s press. It didn’t work for them in Winston-Salem, but they have effectively pressed some teams at different points during the year. State should be able to handle the press as long as the officials don’t swallow their whistle and think that tackling is a part of pressing ala the Wolfpack’s visit to Atlanta earlier in the year. As this awesome analysis crystallizes

…every time the Wolfpack turns the ball over, it costs us 1.3 points. Every time Gavin dribbles the ball off his foot and out of bounds, 1.3 points go down the tubes. Every time Gavin has a lazy pass intercepted, that’s 1.3 points we can never get back. Every time– Okay, okay.

Turnovers have made what is an otherwise decent (Wolfpack) offense into one of the worst in the league. And this is only tangentially related, but you want to know how much we suck at the secondary offensive factors–how much they drag us down? We’re #1 in effective field goal percentage in conference play…and 10th in offensive efficiency. Thanks to turnovers and anemic offensive rebounding, the best shooting team in the ACC has one of the three worst offenses in the ACC.

Despite the erratic play of the Wolfpack this season, isn’t it a wonderful feeling to be going into tonight’s game with a little general happiness? Think about it. There is no potential controversy regarding who gets to start and who doesn’t get to start on Senior Night; and there is no controversy of a squad that has significantly under-performed expectations all season.

Go back and look at the pre-season expectations for Wolfpack Basketball this season — that included the presumption that Engin Atsur would be healthy all year! Under that backdrop, tonight is as “big” of a game as it gets for NC State in 2007. A win over Wake would insure a winning regular season record for Sidney Lowe’s first season and position the Pack to try to impress the NIT selection committee during the rest of our games. This was considered a “STRETCH” goal before the season began.

Additionally, Sidney Lowe’s win in Winston-Salem earlier in the year obviously improved upon the Wolfpack’s recent performance in our rivalry with Wake Forest. (Link)

State has a chance to sweep the Deacons tonight and take a huge step to re-establishing the ‘rightful order’ of things on Tobacco Road. Take a look at this link to some hard work that we put into analysis regarding sweeps in the Wolfpack – Demon Deacon series.

Since Everett Case began coaching NC State in 1946, NC State has swept the regular season series from Wake Forest on 20 occassions. Herb Sendek swept the regular season from Wake Forest once.

Sidney Lowe has a chance to equal that record tonight!!!

GO STATE!

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06-07 Basketball General

140 Responses to Senior Night – Wake Entry

  1. BJD95 03/01/2007 at 12:09 AM #

    A&M could be a real handful in the Big Dance. I loved the “quick shot” missed FT – no reason to let the guys with position get set. Chaos is your friend.

  2. JimValvano 03/01/2007 at 12:12 AM #

    sorry nsj…but to be honest with you. I was there. I saw it in person. I witnessed Childress’s run through the ACC tournament. I think Law is a tremendous player. His basketball’s hang to the floor, but so did Randolf Childress’s. To be honest with you…outside of someone saying that a player reminds them of David Thompson or Michael Jordan…in ACC country…Randolf Childress is almost as high as you can get (and it is mostly due to his ACC tournament performance). Law will not be a star in the NBA…he’ll be another Randolf Childress. A legend in college. Just not athletic enough.

  3. JimValvano 03/01/2007 at 12:14 AM #

    A&M, Georgetown, Air Force, and Arizona State all have the same chance in the dance. The Princeton has never gotten a team past the Sweet 16. I’ll believe it when I see it.

  4. nsj 03/01/2007 at 12:27 AM #

    …except that A&M doesn’t run the Princeton offense. Arguably, they ran a few Princeton-style sets in Gillispie’s first year, but don’t mistake their usual tough man-to-man defensive style for a Sendekian coaching philosophy.

    They can score from inside (Kavalauskas, Jones) or outside (Law, Carter, occasionally Kirk); they have three guys who can penetrate to the basket to create plays (Law, Carter, Sloan), and their transition game is at least average if not a bit better than average.

    Make no mistake: Childress was superhuman at Wake, but I don’t consider him (or Law, for that matter) in the same class as DT or MJ, nor do I think history considers him in that same class. Childress was great, but he’s remembered primarily for his ACCT performances. DT and MJ are remembered for the greats they were.

  5. CaptainCraptacular 03/01/2007 at 8:07 AM #

    *Childress was great, but he’s remembered primarily for his ACCT performances.*

    Can’t speak for anyone else, but I remember Childress as THE greatest clutch player in the ACC since I started watching ACC basketball and remembering it (’75-ish). This includes Laettner. If Childress had played in the XFL, his jersey might have read: Give me the rock, and watch me win with it.

    When I compare Law to Childress, its the highest compliment I know how to give Law.

  6. Rick 03/01/2007 at 8:36 AM #

    “It’s criminal that Duke is ranked 14th and MD not at all”

    Not to mention they had Duke/Md on ESPN instead of the Tx/A&M game on ESPN instead of ESPN2.
    I do not get the love for Duke this year. They are simply not that good. No offense and they are sllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww.
    The Tx game was incredible. I had to stay up until 11:30 watching it. That was good basketball.

  7. noah 03/01/2007 at 9:18 AM #

    Childress was not as good as Rodney Monroe.

    Childress was great…but Monroe bringing us back from 20 down against UVa and outscoring Tech in the second half, his game against UNC at home in 1991, and Iowa in the tourney…I never saw Childress do that. And yes, I’m including that tournament run for Wake.

  8. BJD95 03/01/2007 at 9:25 AM #

    Monroe and Childress were very similar players, IMHO. Both were just a joy to watch. I agree that Monroe’s numbers were better, but to be fair – Childress didn’t have anybody like Corchiani joined at the hip.

  9. noah 03/01/2007 at 9:46 AM #

    Monroe didn’t play alongside Rodney Rogers and Tim Duncan and Trelonie Owens and Scooter Banks either.

    And Childress had a damn good point guard in Charlie Harrison.

    Those Wake teams were outstanding clubs.

  10. ncsubch2000 03/01/2007 at 10:40 AM #

    I watched the game at a bar, because I like most don’t have the U. It was a really weird game, and I remember thinking 5-10 minutes into the game that we had it in the bag (which I never do). Justin Clark was amazing, and honestly, Costner reminded me of Sean May at the end of the 2005 season–we just kept feeding him and he scored and/or shot free throws. It was sad watching Engin play in possibly his last home game at State. I hate to say what if, but would we have won 4ish more games if he had not missed all those games? One point that I have not seen made is that everyone kind of assumed Atsur was a “Sendek” or “Princeton” type of player, when in reality he has thrived (when healthy) this season under Sid. This season has been a lot of fun overall, and I have such a better feeling than I did at the end of last season, when we got blown out by Wake. I can’t wait for the horses to arrive next season (although I will continue to enjoy this season).

  11. highstick 03/01/2007 at 10:41 AM #

    I didn’t think the officiating was that bad either. We didn’t play good, at all, in the second half(which is most of what I saw). The announcers were much worse than the officials!

  12. Rick 03/01/2007 at 10:54 AM #

    “One point that I have not seen made is that everyone kind of assumed Atsur was a “Sendek” or “Princeton” type of player, when in reality he has thrived (when healthy) this season under Sid. ”

    IMO it is because Sid knows how best to use his players. He fits his offense to his players as opposed to fitting the players to his offense (like ” “). Which is a much more effective way of doign things.

  13. Dan 03/01/2007 at 11:11 AM #

    What has to happen next year is that our big men have to be coached to rebound better. I love Larry Harris, and Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley have had great seasons in regards to scoring this year. However, its been a long time since we were a solid rebounding team. We aren’t getting into the top 10 or winning this conference until we rebound better in addition to taking care of the ball.

  14. nsj 03/01/2007 at 5:23 PM #

    When I compare Law to Childress, its the highest compliment I know how to give Law.

    Amen.

  15. schitzonation84 03/01/2007 at 6:01 PM #

    I was at the game, and because we had a comfortable lead for the most part, I was able to concentrate on just watching Costner. Costner is very talented and a good player but he could be a great player if he gave 100% the whole time he is in the game. After watching Costner for awhile I told my friend to do the same. After a couple of minutes my friend asked me if Costner was playing a one man zone because it appeared he was guarding anyone, which he wasn’t. He was just standing straight up in the middle of the lane with arms hanging to his side. When Wake players drove toward him he didn’t move his feet or hands until the Wake player had the ball almost on the rim. Costner would appear to be asleep for 3,4, or 5 possessions on both ends of the court and then all of a sudden it was like he would wake up and play with good energy for 2 or 3 possessions and look like a beast. He’s been like this all season. If you looked at a graph of his scoring per minutes played it would look like a EKG heart attack victem about to happen. Huge spikes followed by long flat lines. Maybe subconciously he thinks he needs to rest while out there because he knows they need him to play so many minutes. In the second half Clark came in for Costner. Costner had been in his rest mode standing under the basket letting the Wake players do whatever they wanted. Clark came in and Wake obviously wanted to attack him. They tried to post the guy Clark was guarding. Clark fought for position and actually drew a foul from the Wake player. Hopefully Costner sees that piece of tape.

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