W&M Post-Game

07-08 Basketball General82
Name FG 3Pt FT PF Pts
Brandon Costner 3-12 3/9 4-4 2 13
Farnold Degand 1-5 0-2 0-0 3 2
Courtney Fells 4-8 1-4 1-2 3 10
Trevor Ferguson 1-5 1-3 1-0 1 3
Javier Gonzalez 0-1 0-1 1-2 2 1
Gavin Grant 2-10 0-3 0-0 1 4
J.J. Hickson 12-12 0-0 7-10 1 31
Dennis Horner 0-2 0-1 0-0 2 0
Ben McCauley 1-1 0-0 0-0 2 2
Totals 24-54 5-24 13-18 17 66

.444 .208 .722    

Yahoo Recap

Now Hickson is in the mix, giving the Wolfpack another weapon on an already stacked front line. The former McDonald’s All-American finished with the second-best scoring day for a freshman in school history, while his 31 points marked the best outing for an N.C. State freshman in a season opener.

gopack.com article

Hickson’s only misses on the night were at the free throw line, where he was seven of 10 for the night before leaving with less than a minute to play. It was the most points by a Wolfpack freshman in his first game since Ivan Wagner scored 29 against Virginia Military institute to open the 1996-96 season. It was also the second-most points ever scored by a Wolfpack fresh. Ernie Myers set that mark in 1983 with 35 points against Duke.

Complete Box Score

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

07-08 Basketball General

82 Responses to W&M Post-Game

  1. Trip 11/16/2007 at 1:18 AM #

    ^^^ Fast… not far 😛 Costner tried to bull himself inside a few times too but it wasn’t working too effectively.

  2. PurplePeopleEaters 11/16/2007 at 1:52 AM #

    Hickson’s a beast.. nothing more to be said there.

    Costner was really disappointing IMO. With Hickson taking the double, triple, and quadruple teams down there he needs to step up. Same with McCauley.

    Degand was decent.. Hopefully he improves as the season goes on. He has the insane speed but he needs to harness that and get to the basket. It’s the first game though so he gets a break there.

    Gonzalez was OK off of the bench. He made some stupid passes but that one steal was nice. First ever collegiate game so he gets a break there too.

    Fells is going to be really important to our success this year IMO. I want to see him step up come ACC schedule.

    What was up with Tracy Smith only playing in garbage time? Looks like he’s going to be behind Grant and Horner on the depth chart.. Kind of glad Thomas got the redshirt even though the injury was unfortunate.. he would have been buried at the 2/3 this year.

  3. BJD95 11/16/2007 at 9:08 AM #

    Remember how most of you gave me a hard time when I said that Costner and Hickson were our 2 best players, and there’s no way not to get your 2 best players into your starting lineup?

    Apologies accepted!

  4. Rochester 11/16/2007 at 9:30 AM #

    I will take a “disappointment” of a double-double any game. It wasn’t Costner’s best game ever, but 13 points and 12 rebounds is nothing to sneeze at.

    As for some of the general comments of the team looking disjointed, etc., I highly doubt the lineup combinations we saw last night are going to be the same ones used in the meat of the season. As Lowe said in this morning’s paper, he knows what Ben McCauley can do. He needs to learn what everyone else is capable of so he knows how best to use them in ACC play.

    William & Mary aren’t chumps, either. They played Georgetown a lot tougher than Michigan did.

  5. lsutton5144 11/16/2007 at 9:43 AM #

    Everybody has been so excited about the coming of basketball season – first game of the season arrives – AND THE BUILDING IS LESS THAN TWO THIRDS FULL! ! ! ! Ever heard of the team feeding off of the crowd – or lack of? Lot’s of empty seats in the lower level. Not very energizing or inspiring to a young team. Pack Fans – if you’re gonna buy the ticket, then use it, or give it to someone who will. It’s embarassing to see all those empty seats, I don’t care who we are playing.

  6. JimValvano 11/16/2007 at 9:48 AM #

    Just so everyone knows…UNCG–picked to finish 1st in their division and second in their conference to…Davidson. So while the Georgia Tech loss to them does suck…please note that the Tarholes nearly lost to a team from their conference.

    I listened to the game last night and my thoughts go something like this:
    Hickson sounds like an absolute beast and it is nice to know that when we are in a scoring drought that we’ve now got a player who can help us break outta the slump by scoring down low instead of heaving a three or trying to drive outta control to the basket. He’s gonna work out well. The point guards didn’t score a lot of points, but the stat line above only lists points…it doesn’t tell us about rebounds, turnovers, and assists. The last two are the key statistics, if you want to use statistics, in deciding how the point guards played last night. Costner’s performance as a power forward instead of as a small forward makes it difficult to start McCauley and to find playing time for Smith. It was frustrating for me, because McCauley is my favorite player…he busts his ass on every play…he does the effort things and is unselfish, but if Costner wants to grab 13 rebounds per game…it’ll be tough to move him outta the paint due to us not being able to put him in position to grab rebounds. Overall…it was the first game of the season. Let’s not be too judgmental. There is gonna be some sloppiness and some adjusting to each others games. Guys are different in a game than in practice…so it’ll take the guys a while to learn what type of player each of the new guys truly are. It was a win and by 19 points it wasn’t bad…there is room for improvement, but I think that is a good thing. I don’t want us to peak too soon (like the traditional tarhole teams). You don’t need to be the best team in the nation all year…just in March and April.

  7. packgrad02 11/16/2007 at 9:48 AM #

    The comments are all ove the place.
    Some say good defense some say bad.

    I expect some growing pains as we integrate all of the new players. I am guessing Ben is sick (I think they said he was in the last exhibition) and maybe Horner and Smith too. Weird mix of minutes.

    Good to know JJ is that impressive.

  8. PackGirl 11/16/2007 at 9:54 AM #

    I know Hickson is a beast, and a monster, and “sick”. But he needs to learn some humility and team spirit. I was not at all impressed with his post game interview – never saw someone pat themselves on the back quite that much or give less credit to his teammates. He needs to take some lessons from Ben in that arena.

  9. JimValvano 11/16/2007 at 9:57 AM #

    Just so you know…in regards to seats…we’ve had the same seats since the E.S.A. opened all the way into this year as the R.B.C. and that genius everyone is so pumped up about that runs the wolfpack club…hasn’t gotten us our tickets yet. So, lets think about it…a family donates over $100,000 a year for more than 50 years and I am gonna not send them their tickets on time to get them to the home opener. Why? Because I wanted to see if Buzzy Correll could weasel an 82 year old woman outta the seats that we promised her for a lifetime by acting like seats in another place are better than the ones she picked out before seats were put into the arena, or a floor was laid, or even guardrails were put up.

    Tough to get to the game when your tickets are supposedly in the mail. This happens every year. The Wolfpack club deflates enthusiasm by treating people this way.

  10. jbpackfan 11/16/2007 at 9:59 AM #

    Some of ya’ll are being too negative. The only problems I had were that we shot too many threes and didn’t pressure the ball on defense enough. W&M were giving us threes, but when we forced it inside, we scored. When we pressured the ball on defense, W&M had no answer.

    Smith is not going to see a lot of PT, b/c the minutes arent there- there are only 80 minutes at the 4-5, and Hickson, McCauley and Costner are going to use them all. (That’s only around 27 minutes each for those 3).

    Lowe will make sure McCauley gets his minutes, he’s too good of a player to not be out there, but Hickson was just dominating tonight. McCauley was not as active on offense as Hickson was for some reason.

  11. JimValvano 11/16/2007 at 10:04 AM #

    I guess they planned on selling my grandma’s seats by now to Bojangles or Pepsi or Wachovia or whatever corporation wanted to write a check out of a corporate account to buy tickets to be handed out to people who are tarholes and dookies and people that don’t give a shit about the ACC in general. People that go to the game just to say…i went to the game. It really is a joy seeing the wolfpack club bend over and grab their ankles for people that don’t send them personal checks as a donation and then watch as the wolfpack club continues to bend over for these people when they give out ACC tournament tickets to Tarhole fans to sit in the Wolfpack section. I’m sure all the corporate tickets were delivered at least two weeks ago…except for the one who requested my family’s seats.

    All I can say is that I hope to God that when and if Lee Fowler moves on…we don’t put Bobby Purcell in his place.

  12. RickJ 11/16/2007 at 10:11 AM #

    “Remember how most of you gave me a hard time when I said that Costner and Hickson were our 2 best players, and there’s no way not to get your 2 best players into your starting lineup?”

    I’ll apologize. I really didn’t see Hickson being this good that fast. This is also a good illustration that recruiting rankings DO matter. Costner & Hickson are easily the 2 highest ranked high school players on our team.

    BJD95 – When I see Horner at the 2 guard position for even one possession, I’ll happily apologize again.

  13. Rochester 11/16/2007 at 10:20 AM #

    Hickson might be a one-and-done, but just pretend he’s a senior and it won’t hurt so much if he goes to the NBA next spring.

  14. tmb81 11/16/2007 at 10:29 AM #

    I had a similar situation occur with someone I know that has STs. The WPC called her a week before the deadline and asked why she hadn’t renewed.
    She misunderstood and thought she was going to lose the seats. A person also in her 80s BTW…

  15. GoldenChain 11/16/2007 at 11:04 AM #

    I thought I was a pretty good Wolfpacker but who the heck is Ivan Wagner that scored 29 in 1999?!
    Anyway, I think there was some 1st game rust as outside of Hicks the regulars didn’t have very productive nights.
    If you take Hicks shooting numbers out, the rest of the team shot .286 from the field (12/42). Not mid-season form by any means.
    And as far as those who are predicting a flat season because of a rusty first game….chill! On Feb 1st were you predicting 20 wins?….. That’s what I thought.
    Perspective, PLEASE. New point guard will get better. Shooting will get better. Defense will get better.

  16. newt 11/16/2007 at 11:12 AM #

    I was at the game. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth:

    Hickson – Yes, really good, but this was not ACC play. I love that his shot of preference is two hands strong to the hoop. He takes the high percentage shot. Near the end of the game, he made a great move to score that will cause problems for anybody.

    Defense – Our defense was inconsistent. We let them run their offense a lot of the time with only minimal ball pressure. Now that we have a bench, we need to turn up the heat all the time. When we turned up the pressure, good things happened. I think defensive intensity is the key to our success. for one, it helps mitigate our complete lack of a consistent perimeter threat.

    The crowd – I actually thought the crowd was pretty good. 12,000 is more than the current capacity of Reynolds. I thought the crowd cheered fairly well. Of course it can always be better. One factor is that we have a football team.

    The students – I think they deserve their own entry. That was the best student attendence I’ve seen at an early game. There was not an empty seat around the student bowl and all the way up the lower level in the endzones. The students wore red, stood the whole game, and cheered well. Great job! (Still didn’t say “Go State!” during the super fast fight song cheer.)

    Offense – Other than letting JJ take over, we do not seem to have an objective or sense of purpose on offense. Our boys look uncertain about what to do and where to pass. Our point guards are not driving nor feeding the post. They pass to our wings who feed the post (Grant).

    Point Guards – Right now, Degand is better than Javi at running the show on offense. I was impressed however with Javi’s intensity on defense when he initially came into the game. The next time Degand came in, he had much more intensity on defense and good things happened. Degand cannot shoot and that’s a big problem.

    Big Ben – I never thought I say it, but he seemed a little flat footed. I hope he’s not demoralized. I was in the upper level so take it for what it’s worth, but he seemed a little frustrated with how the offense was running. I saw him begging for the ball one time and he seemed frustrated not to get it. When he’s in the game with JJ, he seems to be playing a sort of high post and looks to me like he hasn’t quite figured out what he’s supposed to be doing yet. When we start playing the big boys, we are going to need Big Ben, so I hope Sid figures it out and gets some chemistry going.

    Other contributors – Costner hit a huge three when W&M were threatening to make it a game. Fells had a solid game. He has a lot of freedom to sneak around and look for opportunities on offense while the other guys play hi-low. Gavin has a great attitude, plays hard, and has a purpose on offense, which is to score. Note he led the team in assists.

  17. wolfonthehill 11/16/2007 at 11:12 AM #

    By the comments about the soft defense and poor rebounding, you’d think W&M hung 80 on us. Let’s keep it in perspective and not get too greedy, folks – we held them under 50 points.

  18. newt 11/16/2007 at 11:20 AM #

    I’m not so worried about scoring defense as generating opportunities on offense through our defense. At times, the defense was good. If it had been good all the time, we would have scored more than 66 points.

  19. BJD95 11/16/2007 at 11:21 AM #

    RickJ – hey, one out of two isn’t bad! 🙂

  20. choppack1 11/16/2007 at 11:21 AM #

    It’s early. Way too early to panic. What’s important early is that you get your W. I’d love to see us play the way Duke does early – but I just don’t think that’s going to happen.

    I wouldn’t worry about the disparity of the points – yet. Remember, Sid rides the hot hand.

    As for perimeter shooting – Fells and Costner will be our first options. (It’s good to hear that Javy’s form is good, this will help.) If those guys can’t keep the D honest, we’ll need Horner and possibly even Ferguson to help in this area.

  21. gumbydammit 11/16/2007 at 11:36 AM #

    I have to admit, there’s a lot of beotching here for an opening game win against a team no one takes seriously….or would you prefer to be Kentucky fans? Overanalyze the hell out of the game if you want, but at least try to act happy that we won!

    Go Pack!

  22. cooldrip 11/16/2007 at 11:40 AM #

    Sorry some are having trouble with getting their tickets from WPC. There are always a few problems this time of year. I will say we should consider the WPC now compared to what it once was. We now actually have a REAL fund-raising organization, rather than the JOKE it once was. On to the game …

    I have to agree with everyone thinking Sid wanted to experiment with some lineups tonight. I’m sure he knew we’d see a zone most of the night, as well as most of the year. We definitely need some guys to step up and make some jumpshots! This will force teams out of a zone obviously, but it will also play to Big Ben’s strength. To me, the best part of his game is his passing; with shooters on the wing, the offense can just run trough him at the high post. A zone can’t defend the high post, a player posted on the block, and the wing at the same time. Of course, if we can’t shoot a lick …

    As far as Ben not playing much, JJ definitely had the hot hand tonight. It’s in Sid’s nature, because of his NBA experience, to ride the hot hand. And that’s not a bad thing; if you’ve got something that’s working, keep going to it. Make a team completely reconfigure their defense just to stop one player.

    One thing not yet mentioned is that two of their post players fouled out of the game, a trend I would like to see continue. I can think of one big guy in particular I’d like to see in foul trouble on Jan. 12!

  23. Dr. BadgerPack 11/16/2007 at 11:47 AM #

    GC- Ivan Wagner only stuck around for a season before he was run off by a particular coach. He then transferred to Texas (he was part of the Chris Mihm led team in ’00). It was 1996 that he put up his 29

  24. Dr. BadgerPack 11/16/2007 at 11:50 AM #

    On the offesnsive rebounding, one thing to look at is percentages. W&M rebounded 33% of their misses, we pulled down 40% of ours. Those numbers aren’t particularly bad– Pulling down 70% or so of opponents misses seems a reasonable mark (maybe you’d like to see that # in the mid 70s), and 40% on the offensive glass is (seemingly) very effective. I have no idea how skewed these numbers are by “garbage time” but if those percentage are our ballpark for the season, rebounding should be OK.

  25. cooldrip 11/16/2007 at 11:51 AM #

    On the perimeter shooting subject: I wouldn’t want to see us take alot of threes in any game. We just need a few jumpshots to slow the defensive reactions down. Just the THREAT of a jumpshot and the double down is a step slow … with JJ and Big Ben, that means points or a trip to the line! It would be great if GG and Fells could consistently hit the jumpers; especially with GG and his ability to put it on the floor and get into the teeth of the defense. I could just see defenders flying by on a shot fake as Gavin takes it to the rack!

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