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. Stoner 11/29/2007 at 11:16 AM #

    I’m stretching here folks, but I need to try and be a bit optimistic: Michigan State lost to Div. II Grand Valley State in exhibition. They seem much improved, since that loss.

    Hopefull we can also improve from these early losses, as well.

  2. packgrad93 11/29/2007 at 11:47 AM #

    embarrassing.

  3. packbackr04 11/29/2007 at 1:12 PM #

    i saw nothing last night. nothing. i still dont understand how we could have the best halfcourt offense in the ACC last year to now, Sid doesnt even call set plays any more. or if he does, we cant run them…its just one on one NBA bull$hit! clean that crap up sidney! everyone is standing around watching JJ. i feel bead for JJ. he came here to get a good look from NBA scouts and to display his skills for a yr on the college level on a good team, but we dont even give him the chance to do it. there is no movement off the ball. I saw Ben camp out for 20 sec’s of ONE offensive possesion. he wasnt even in a good position to get the ball where he was camped out. it was pathetic. and if sid is still trying to proove a point to the players. bad timing. nothing like prooving a point on ESPN primetime to MSU, at the start of Jimmy V week. just embarassing. i thought we would loose, but respectably. we showed no heart. no effort, and NO skill.

  4. packbackr04 11/29/2007 at 1:14 PM #

    and all this crap about having Depth.. please. Depth is overrated (unless someone gets hurt) all you need is 7 or 8 players. I move Grant back to PG and add JJ to the starting lineup with all 4 returning starters from last yr and let them all play 34 min’s a game again. with horner and Degand coming off the bench

  5. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 11/29/2007 at 1:28 PM #

    I didn’t see this game but remember State played 3 games in 4 days in Florida. Two days off then travel to Michigan. This doesn’t seem to be the best scheduling this early in the season.

  6. packgrad93 11/29/2007 at 1:31 PM #

    “I move Grant back to PG and add JJ to the starting lineup with all 4 returning starters from last yr and let them all play 34 min’s a game again. with horner and Degand coming off the bench”

    Degand played well last night. Ben & Fells stunk.

  7. packbackr04 11/29/2007 at 1:55 PM #

    93^ i agree Degand did play well last night. far from perfect though, but i almost feel like we just need to play our 5 best players. those 5, to me, are our best players at this point. and HOrner and Degand can get their minutes off the bench. i also feel like Degand would be a good change of pace coming off the bench. when the team is a little slow, bring him in to up the tempo. could cause trouble for the other team to try and adjust to his pace.

  8. redfred2 11/29/2007 at 2:30 PM #

    I hate to agree with Stoner’s comment about “walking the ball up the court”, because that was #1 gripe with our last coach’s approach, but he’s right. I also hate to say this, but it seems that someone has sold their soul to the devil with the commitment and arrival a single, much heralded freshman, this coaching staff has lost it’s entire focus on reality.

  9. redfred2 11/29/2007 at 2:33 PM #

    ^correction^…but it seems this coaching has lost it’s entire focus on reality because of one player.

  10. PamlicoPack 11/29/2007 at 2:49 PM #

    Izzo’s been there 13 years building a solid program…the only people pitching a hissy fit about this game are the ones who somehow thought that “rousing finish to last year” + one solid recruiting class = one of best teams in ACC.

    Folks, it just doesn’t work like that. Not in a league as good as the ACC. 8-8 in the League will be a fine accomplishment for this team this season. Coach K, arguably one of the finest coaches in ACC history took six years to get his first Final Four team.

    And who knew that when Gavin Grant said we’d lose no more than four games, he meant in November and December? You cannot win against good competition without solid point guard play. Most of the national media looked at this glaring shortcoming, waved their arms and said “Lowe and Towe were point guards….they’ll figure it out.” Well, obviously, so far, they haven’t. I’m guessing if you did a study, references to M. Johnson on the Idiot Boards are up about 75% since last night. The grass is always greener…

  11. nycfan 11/29/2007 at 3:41 PM #

    I’ve said it before, but what I find baffling about the coaching strategy for this team is the offense. The single-minded focus on Hickson (or whoever might have a hot hand) in a clear-out or 4 around 1 sets fails to take advantage of what I thought would be the real strength for NCSU this year — having 4-5 excellent scorers on the court at one time. Instead of stretching defenses out with a motion offense in which anyone could get a shot, State is calling obvious set plays to a particular guy and everyone else is setting up the play or just getting out of the way. That makes it MUCH easier on opposing defenses to defend State, IMO

    I dunno. Even great coaches cannot always overcome chemistry problems (see UNC in ’94) and teams with chemistry problems tend to be widly erratic and look lazy at times b/c the seething resentment that can build when each play called or shot taken becomes a personal insult to another player. And I think State pretty clearly has some of that going on right now in the front court.

    I have never been a big fan of the athletic rebounding philosophy this team employs; I think that the old fashioned box-out technique is more reliable and effective, both for rebounding purposes and for defensive positioning. State seems to prefer to release their players to dive toward the hole and try to use their athleticism for spectacular rebounds. I think, together with poor perimeter defense that struggles to stop dribble penetration (thus forcing the post players to rotated out of position on defense) and the lack of good judgment on when to go for a shot block, State’s athletes like Hickson, Fells and Grant are too often out of position and give up too many offensive rebounds. Some may attribute this to lazyness, I guess, but I haven’t thought that about the rebounding so much as I’ve thought that State’s big men are actually not athletic enough to overcome superior positioning with athletic ability. Grant and Fells are athletic enough to do that and I have no problem letting them dive to the boards in certain situations …

    In the backcourt, I just think Degand has a low basketball IQ to go along with somewhat limited skills (despite the raw physical talent). I couldn’t decide if he loafs off the ball on defense and offense or just doesn’t know what to do off-the-ball (I kinda suspect the latter). Fells remains the same enigma who can look like an NBA All-Star one night and completely disappear the next. Grant, to me, plays hard whenever he’s in there, though he is more a leader by example than a vocal leader. His handle and distribution thought process are still pretty suspect, but I haven’t found myself questioning his effort.

    What is so tantalizing about this team is seeing all the individual talent … it is not hard to imagine them being a physical, high-scoring team. Which makes it all the more puzzling when they are a low-scoring team that is not so much methodical as mechanical and plodding.

  12. Rick 11/29/2007 at 3:53 PM #

    “I hate to agree with Stoner’s comment about “walking the ball up the court”, because that was #1 gripe with our last coach’s approach, but he’s right.”

    That is not right at all. The complaint was what we would do after walking it up the floor.

  13. PackerInRussia 11/29/2007 at 4:27 PM #

    “This is a Royvian philosophy…”

    Wouldn’t the correct way to say that be ‘Rhoidian?

  14. E-RO 11/29/2007 at 4:36 PM #

    Javi looked bad, Degand looked better.

    I knew we were going to lose within the first minutes of the game, where Fells had missed his first 3 shots, including a wide open three.

    Hopefully, it was just us being tired from all the traveling (as the radio crew put it, 3 games in 4 days, a plane trip back, a day of classes, then a plane trip to MS and the game last night, and now a plane trip back to Raleigh). That can make you pretty tired. We need to overcome this though, because it’s not going to be much easier of a trip to BC.

  15. E-RO 11/29/2007 at 4:41 PM #

    The only people that it seemed came to play last night were Hickson, Degand, and Horner. Fells and McCauley seemed completely out of it, and it showed as they went a combined 0/12.

    The team played much better against Villanova, and it must have been fatigue; most of the stuff they were messing up on wasn’t because MSU is a tough opponent than Nova. They missed too many open shots, didn’t make FTs and played very lackadaisically.

  16. packgrad93 11/29/2007 at 6:07 PM #

    no excuses, we played like crap. period.

  17. redfred2 11/29/2007 at 7:34 PM #

    “That is not right at all. The complaint was what we would do after walking it up the floor.”

    Um, I believe the jist of Stoner’s point was that this group seems to function better at a more up-tempo pace. Now, I myself, believe that getting the ball across the timeline sooner and playing at a faster pace would have also benefitted the players back during the Dark Period, so, what I said, was exactly to the point.

    If you’re pushing on offense, you’re pushing on defense. If you’re walking, you’re just walking.

  18. redfred2 11/29/2007 at 9:12 PM #

    Great post nycfan!!!

    Like someone said earlier, defensive intensity wasn’t exactly promoted last season. That is history though. And like someone else asked “What are they doing at practice?” I’m kind of wondering that myself. My thoughts on that are that maybe (???) the coaches have been running the right sets, but when any player in this group of players takes over with spectacular, but INDIVIDUAL, show of basketball skill, the coaches then think they’ve got it in the bag. But again, this the gym, in a low pressure, practice situation. I don’t see how they’re practicing what we deperately need more than anything, the fundamentals. If they are, they are failing miserably at their jobs.

    Like I’ve said before, I LOVE Sidney Lowe and love that he is the head coach, I also hate to say anything bad about him or the players, but I think maybe when Lowe said all of that regarding T Ferguson’s surprizing play in PRACTICE, it just may have been an omen of someone not really seeing the forest for the trees.

    I believe the coaches were, and still are, starstruck by athleticism and placing W A Y too much emphasis on one player. But outstanding athleticism and great INDIVIDUAL skills are not going to win at this level without sound fundamentals and desire that is based on something bigger than any single player’s individual aspirations.

  19. Stoner 11/29/2007 at 9:32 PM #

    I’m flattered to be the topic of conversation, but my point is we don’t have the talent to match up with the top teams in the nation and play at their tempo.

    Duke and Carolina want to push tempo this year and I bet they could really light it up, when they play each other.

    We don’t have the talent to play their game. If they want to run, we have to slow it down.

    We have two McDonald’s High School All-Americans, and Courtney Fells, who was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Mississippi (I think). The rest of the team was ranked between 50-100 nationally or higher or not ranked.

    Usually these players take some time to develop and aren’t immediate impact players. McCauley proved he can play at this level last year, but Horner and Degand are still developing. Degand hasn’t played competitive basketball in two years, so he is inexperienced. Javi wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen, and if we had more depth he probably wouldn’t be playing for a power conference team.

    We’ll have to wait and see what Johnson can do.

    To summarize the above rambling a bit: (1) We have some good players, but not enough to really compete with top teams, since they can bring in two guys (at least) at each position as good as our best player, and (2) we have some guys, who would most likely be role players – Degand, Horner and Javi – on the top teams, who have to contribute right away.

    Our starters, just like last year, can’t really have an off night because there still isn’t someone else, who can pick up the slack. Hickson is a great individual talent, but he has somethings to work on in terms of passing on the offensive end. He had a couple of good games, especially against William and Mary, which made up for the poor play of the rest of team, but that really isn’t going to cut it as the season goes on.

    Whether we play slow or fast, isn’t as much the issue as the fact we have to play at our own pace.

  20. Stoner 11/29/2007 at 9:35 PM #

    Another attempt at optimism: Mike Krzyweski took over a program, that had recently won ACC titles and went to the NCAA finals, but the outgoing coach didn’t leave much for him to work with. It took Mikie K 3-4 seasons to really get good.

    Maybe turning us around will be a longer road to go, than we hoped, because of the limited depth we had last year.

  21. WolftownVA81 11/30/2007 at 1:15 AM #

    I was really pumped up after our performance in the ACCT and NIT last year. We got to go to the last three games of the season and I hadn’t been that excited about NCSU basket ball since 1983. The core of this team showed heart and that’s what made them so much fun to watch. I really hope that we can get our act together. Otherwise, besides a long winter for us fans, the players will have one miserable year and some very disappointing memories instead of great ones that they could carry with them for the rest of their lives. There’s more at stake here than just winning. Yes it’s just a game as other have noted but its also much more. I’ll be watching our next match up closely to see if I’ve got anything to look forward to now that our mini four pack of tickets has arrived. I’m a believer in hiring for attitude and training for skill. I sure hope to see an improvement in attitude at the end of this 8 day break. Now, I’m going to forget this sorry episode. It belongs right up there with HWSNBM. If we can just turn things around, I would be happy to never discuss it again.

  22. gumbydammit 11/30/2007 at 3:14 AM #

    Hey – it could have been worse. Just think about how much worse the score would have been if HWSNBN was still here…

  23. packpigskinfan23 11/30/2007 at 3:28 AM #

    ^ok… call me ignorant, but although I know who HWSNBN refers too, I have yet to figure out what it stands for. I havent been here THAT long, so… fill me in.

  24. WolftownVA81 11/30/2007 at 9:47 AM #

    He Who Shall Not Be Named (former BB coach.)

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