On Monday we asked why should we put ourselves through the pain of typing it when Andrew Jones’ article says it all?
On Tuesday, the News & Observer chimed in with their heavy hitters.
First, Chip Alexander asked, “What is going on with the Wolfpack” and then Caulton Tudor calmly opined that “The Wolfpack isn’t hitting the panic button yet”.
As much as I appreciate the ‘faith’ that things will get better this year exhibited by both the team and Tudor I exercise my right to remain worried because of the nature of the Wolfpack’s problems. [See (1) many previous entries; (2) Jones’ article; (3) Alexander’s article]
I PRAY to God that I am wrong…but, I don’t see a switch to be flipped here for the Wolfpack to get things fixed.
If we were ‘one shooter away’ or just needed to fix our broken 3-2 zone issues then things would feel different to me. But, NC State’s problems are significantly more systemic and fundamental than items that can be fixed with some tweaks in practice or a player becoming eligible or a player finding his shooting touch.
NC State doesn’t exert much effort on the court, period. This manifests itself in literally NO defensive or rebounding effort. (And, it will manifest itself into weak home crowds as fans do not respect or invest in teams that don’t seem to care).
You can’t just flip a switch and suddenly learn how to play defense and box out. As you will see here the offense is so bad it can only improve as the team finds its groove and Ben McCauley and Porkchop Costner (hopefully) find their heads and get out of their slump.
But, what good is scoring ten more points a game if you can’t stop the least talented opponents in America from scoring?
Worse yet…if Coach Lowe can find that magical switch and get these guys on a roll…is anyone convinced that our players are in the physical condition to even execute tough defense?
Have you seen the ‘physiques’ on these guys?
A friend of mine who has been very close to the NC State – and other ACC – program(s) for the last 15 years told me that he has never seen an NC State team – and rarely seen an ACC team – with the out-of-shape bodies of this team. Did Brandon Costner live at the Golden Corral in the off-season?
Seriously…what did these guys do in the offseason? They obviously didn’t work out…and they obviously didn’t work on defense and rebounding.
Don’t misunderstand me – as Coach Lowe and Caulton Tudor believe I recognize that there is a lot of basketball to be played this year. But, I also seem to be the only one who recognizes that the season is actually 25% completed. You don’t get to play that much basketball in March when you have two horrible losses on your resume with 75% of the season ahead of you to potentially lose more.
Don’t look now…but Friday night’s home game against a Davidson team who is significantly better than their record looms as one of the biggest games in Coach Lowe’s young career. With a loss, you can legitimately put a fork in the Wolfpack until they boys find a miracle run of upsets in ACC play to at least get us back to a fighting chance. With a win, some cupcake games sprinkled with Cincy and Seton Hall provide State an opportunity to get back on track for an NCAA Tournament bid with a 9-7 ACC record (and maybe an 8-8 record with the right mix of wins and losses).
