I See Dead People. They Are Wearing Red. Michigan State 81, NC State 58

07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball108

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07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball

108 Responses to I See Dead People. They Are Wearing Red. Michigan State 81, NC State 58

  1. McLovin 11/29/2007 at 1:29 AM #

    ^^^^^
    I guess Sid really is prepping him for the nba. Everyone does it there.

  2. McLovin 11/29/2007 at 1:33 AM #

    *Too many press clippings being read…not enough blood, sweat, and tears being shed.*

    Jigawatts – that is one of the best comments I’ve ever read.

    O well, think I’ve been negative enough. GO PACK!

  3. wbnation 11/29/2007 at 1:39 AM #

    Just a horrible performance. To much reading their own press at the beginning of the season. This goes for both the coaches and the players. Going into last year Lowe new he had player difficiences and that his team had to scrap for everything they got. Players had to play soft on defense last year because of the depth and not being able to get into foul trouble. This bred bad defensive fundamentals that haven’t changed now with the emergence of a bench. Don’t know if after a year of playing soft, those players can somehow change that now.

    This years bench I think has also changed the coaches philosophies from last year. I don’t know that this change is beneficial either. Playing a deep bench while it allows you to press and keep the defensive pressure up doesn’t usually help offensive cohesiveness. This is especially troubling for this team which doesn’t have the speed nor defensive prowess to pressure other teams. So a deep bench with no pressure exerted defensively, and no cohesion on offense only invites nights like this.

    Unlike others on here who think this team is just fine and is anywhere near the top of the conference are smoking something. This team without a major overhaul defensively and a shortening of the bench will be lucking to finish .500 and in the top 4 of the ACC.

  4. tppack12 11/29/2007 at 2:21 AM #

    Spot on wbnation. There were plenty of excuses for our half ass defense early last season. However, I’m at a loss for the reasons behind our like of hustle and on the ball pressure. Maybe some bad habits were developed last year. However, bad habits can be broken, I just hope Coach sees it like we do. Right now I don’t see us at .500 in the league, but that’s right now, things can and always do change.

  5. tppack12 11/29/2007 at 2:22 AM #

    That would be a lack of hustle not “like”, sorry.

  6. JeremyH 11/29/2007 at 2:44 AM #

    it sounds like you guys think our rebounding woes are “fixable”. well then, that is a good thing. i noticed the defensive rebounding issue in the last pre-season game, iirc, and it has been a problem in every game since. in neon lights tonight showed us this is still a problem. And remember, good defense ignites offense (fast breaks, etc.) So allowing them to score at will caused a avalanche effect. Of course there were other things like our insistence to settle on the jumper in the first 5 minutes, which I don’t know how Lowe allowed to happen.

  7. old_pcorone 11/29/2007 at 4:48 AM #

    Enough self-pity already!
    I have not yet watched the game since it started at 1AM here, but it is in my DVR.
    We lost once again, but it is not yet the end of the season, things need to be fixed but is there still hope?

  8. graywolf 11/29/2007 at 8:31 AM #

    Embarrasing effort, embarrasing loss, NO LEADERSHIP…we miss Atsur, and Jovi hurt. What a night.

  9. WolftownVA81 11/29/2007 at 8:58 AM #

    Well, after last night, no player should be complaining about playing time. We have reached the bottom in terms of effort. No where to go but up now. I sincerely hope that playing time decisions will be based on effort from here on out. This is where success has to start. Can’t win if you aint trying.

  10. Wulfpack 11/29/2007 at 9:00 AM #

    I wonder how much it costs to send the entire team to East Lansing to play the game? Lee ought to ask for a refund…

    With all due respect Adventuroo, we won’t be close to another ACC Championship game with performances like this one and UNO. It must be fixed, and it must be fixed today. It has nothing to do with X’s and O’s, it’s all about attitude. All about pride in putting on a Wolfpack uniform. We had that pride for many games last year. But this is not something that should be allowed to be turned on, then off, then on again. It should be a way of life for this group of young men that are oh so fortunate to be playing college basketball for the Wolfpack. You can bet Sid will be delivering that message if it hasn’t already been delivered since the horn sounded last night.

  11. WolftownVA81 11/29/2007 at 9:13 AM #

    In military basic training, they don’t let you sew on the service tag until you earn it. Up until that time, you’re a green weenie. These players need to understand what pride in wearing the wolfpack uniform means. They should all be designated red weenies. If I were coach, no one would be wearing anything with NCSU on it in practice until they earned it. Then, one by one, I’d let the ones showing the effort who earned the right to be called a Wolfpack player wear an NCSU jersey in practice. Also, no player would be allowed playing time until they earned that right. They could spend the whole game on the bench in a plain red warm up suit. Fellas, you’ve got a lot to learn here and I think the comparison with how the military first breaks you down might be a good way to go.

  12. Stoner 11/29/2007 at 9:38 AM #

    Regarding Costner, I’m more upset about the coaching staff’s inability to figure out how to use him than I am about his play. He’s frustrated about his lack of usage and good players get frustrated, when they aren’t being effectively. I’m sure he knows what he’s capable of and somehow the coaching staff isn’t running plays for him anymore, to get him a few touches on offense.

    What worries me about this year is the coaching staff. They should’ve made sure there were no bruised egos about playing time, who is starting, who is not, etc. BEFORE the year began. They should make sure everyone knows there rules BEFORE the year began. They have turned a McDonalds High School All-American, Costner, into a role player. They should figure out how to get the most out of everybody.

    The problems with the way we are playing stem from the coaching staff. They had no expectations last year, no pressure from the outside world about whether they won or lost, because after all we were guarding scholarship players with Brian Nieman and Justin Clark. This year it’s different and they haven’t lived up to expectations.

    If the UNO loss wasn’t a wake-up call for this team, I don’t think the coaching staff is up to making this team play hard this year after this loss.

    I hope I eat my words. I hope the Lowe from last year, who tried everything to slow a team down, from 1-3-1 zones to 2-3 zones, to trapping, and did what he could to exploit match ups to get his offensive players a chance to shine somehow comes back.

    So far there’s nothing to make me believe.

  13. zahadum 11/29/2007 at 9:39 AM #

    Boy, I was sure wrong yesterday when I said it’d be a fun game to watch.

    I’m convinced that McCauley must have Julius Peppers’ disease. Don’t know if its physical or mental, but something just isn’t right with him. He got beat down the floor more times last night than practically all of last season.

  14. BoKnowsNCS71 11/29/2007 at 9:46 AM #

    That was a reality pill. A young inexperienced team against a ranked quality team. The team will get better as the year goes by and they play together more. We have been expecting way to much too soon this year.

  15. Great Dane Guy 11/29/2007 at 10:05 AM #

    Not only was I disgusted with last nights game, I actually got pissed off as well. This team has too much talent to get pancaked like that. What the Hell? I mean really what the hell? I hadn’t seen basketball that bad in awhile. Poorly coached, poorly executed, poorly everything. If I hear how they were just tired one more time, I’m gonna scream.

  16. gannon 11/29/2007 at 10:06 AM #

    Stoner, you’re right about Costner not getting his plays called. I don’t believe (of the games I’ve seen) State run the high pick and roll once. This of course, has more to say about the point guard play than anything.

    If Costner does not get his shots, he sulks. It drives me insane.

  17. CarnifeX 11/29/2007 at 10:08 AM #

    I’m curious about how we started the game and the thought process there. Why so many 3’s right out the door. It seemed that for our first 10 possessions we tossed up three’s as soon as we got it into our half of the court? I understand opening up the opponents D, but if they’re not falling we’ve just wasted 5 mins of gametime while they scored EVERY TIME DOWN THE COURT.

    On a side note, props to the MSU fans, they do an excellent job up there.

  18. JimValvano 11/29/2007 at 10:36 AM #

    Brandon Costner looks like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. He’s gained too much weight and doesn’t run up and down the court. He won’t dive for loose balls and he doesn’t block out. Costner needs to be benched.

    Degand is talented. Degand doesn’t hustle. There are times when he moves fast, but there are more times when he gets lazy and doesn’t put enough effort in. Degand is better than our next option…so he stays in the line-up.

    McCauley…I’m not sure what happened to McCauley.

    Grant and Fells both seem to be putting in some effort at this point in the year. Grant did kind of fall off last night, but I think this is due to us walking the ball down court on every possession. I’m not sure if that is Sid’s doing (maybe he’s trying to keep Degand under control…we’ve all heard that he had a tendency to try and go too fast) or maybe Degand just isn’t pushing tempo. Grant and Fells both play better at a quicker tempo.

    Horner is putting forth a good effort. He deserves any playing time he gets. He may need to be placed in the starting line-up for a few games while Costner starves himself to lose some weight.

    My main problem is in the effort. I’ve said that since the N.O. game. At this point, however, I’m beginning to look for alternative people to be upset with besides the players. That just leaves Sid. My criticisms?

    This is a Royvian philosophy, but I happen to agree with it. The more possessions there are in a basketball game, the more chances your team has to prove that they are the more gifted team. We need to quicken the tempo of the ballgame. Everyone’s been talking about how talented we are…so let’s do the things that force us to display this talent. How do you quicken the pace of a game? For one…you don’t let your point guard walk the ball down the floor. He should push it down court every time. Another thing you do is put use an aggressive defense…whether its a half court trap, a full-court press, or just a man-to-man defense that instead of playing 4 feet off your man…you can tell the coach what the guy ate for breakfast…on Saturday of last week.

    At the current tempo we are playing…I feel like I’m watching a Sendek team.

    I think things will improve. I still feel positive about the season. I still think we can contend for an Elite 8 or Final 4 appearance, the talent is there, but the basketball is a long way off.

  19. JimValvano 11/29/2007 at 10:44 AM #

    Maybe Lowe is still attempting to prove a point to these guys. Maybe he’s trying to teach them that if they don’t play hard and don’t play hard together and don’t play hard for each other and don’t play hard for the game they are supposed to love…the other team will. Maybe this was part of the learning experience. Maybe this will show them that instead of trying to tell the coaches what to do…they should do what the coaches tell them to do.

    I doubt it.

  20. Stoner 11/29/2007 at 10:51 AM #

    A young inexperienced team against a ranked quality team.

    Two juniors, one senior, and a red-shirt Soph starting isn’t inexperienced. Last year we were pretty green, early in the season. We are young at the PG position. At other positions we have experience.

    The more possessions there are in a basketball game, the more chances your team has to prove that they are the more gifted team.

    We are not more gifted than Michigan State. Degand was a project at Iowa State, which is why he was red-shirted as a freshman (think about how much talent you have, coming out of high school, if you get redshirted at Iowa State).

    We don’t have the talent, across the board, to line up and beat people.

    We need to play smart, to optimize the talent we have, but so far are not doing it this year.

  21. Rick 11/29/2007 at 10:51 AM #

    I missed the first half and could hardly watch any of the second.
    I was disgusted with the lack of effort.
    They must have taken pointers on the football game against Md.

    I honestly do not know what is wrong or how to fix it.

  22. RickJ 11/29/2007 at 10:53 AM #

    “I want us to play a challenging out-of-conference schedule. I am sick of us playing terrible teams and not getting ready for league play.”

    How many times have I heard that from a State fan? Well we are playing a tough early schedule. This was our 4th game in 7 days, none at home against 2 terrific teams and 2 that will not likely ever be in 300 range of the RPI. Michigan State played one game at home prior to the game last night during the same period. This is not an excuse for the pathetic manner in we played last night, but this game had road kill written all over it.

  23. VaWolf82 11/29/2007 at 11:00 AM #

    Well, I guess it’s good to know that, no, the team we saw in the Old Spice wasn’t really very good.

    I’m afraid that this was my opinion even before last night’s debacle. Look at the results to date….a loss to NO, struggle with Rider, and within a basket of SC. Does anyone expect any of these three to be good enough to earn an at-large bid to the NCAAT? I don’t and it’s not obvious to me that Villanova is a NCAAT team either.

    A friend and I were talking about the Old Spice tournament yesterday. We both agreed that State was not playing well enough to be considered an NCAAT team…and unfortuantely we were proven right last night. State has two practice games (ECU, SC ST) before playing Davidson, Cincinatti, and Seton Hall over a six-day stretch around Christmas. We won’t have to wait very long to see if State is actually improving.

  24. beowolf 11/29/2007 at 11:09 AM #

    This game reminded me of the game at GT last year. It’s too soon to say it’s a harbinger of the rest of the season. I would say it suggests we’ll have a few more “where’d they go?” games like this one, however.

    I think Jigawatts is correct; this is a team that’s read it’s press clippings and isn’t mentally prepared to fight for wins. I’m not sure how much more embarrassment it’ll take before they get their heads screwed on right.

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