HUGE Weekend for NC State Basketball

07-08 Basketball77

Make NO MISTAKE about it — NC State’s tournament-like schedule (Friday/Sunday) of home games against Davidson (7pm tonight on Fox Sports South) and Cincinnati (7:30pm Sunday on all Fox Sports networks) represent pivotal and highly important games for the Wolfpack’s 2007-2008 post season dreams.

Beacuse of State’s two unacceptable losses to New Orleans and East Carolina the Wolfpack enter the weekend with a record of just 5-3 with six out of conference games remaining and sixteen ACC games on the schedule. (Don’t forget that NC State played one of the tougher ACC schedules last season, and this season the Wolfpack plays Top 10 Duke twice instead of just once.)

Davidson
Curry Tonight, State hosts highly respected Davidson and sophomore phenom Stephen Curry. The fact that the Wolfpack doesn’t have a sharpshooter on our entire roster and Curry wasn’t recruited by the Pack is a painful pill to swallow for many. The contrast is made more clear by the fact that Curry has made more three pointers this season while competing against a tough schedule than the entire NC State roster has hit en route toa 29.4% three-point shooting percentage.

For our own sanity we won’t play the “what if” game here. Just know that State MUST guard Curry unlike we have guarded anyone all season. If some nobody from ECU can put thirty on us then the sky is the limit for Curry if he gets hot.

Davidson sets up to be a potentially miserable scenario for the Wolfpack. A lot has been made that Davidson has been ‘close’ many times but needs to breakthrough against a name to earn some respect. The Wildcats seem to expect that “name” to be NC State. Although they sport only a 4-5 record, the Wildcats have been nationally ranked this season and have suffered close losses to Top 10 UCLA, UNC-CH and Duke. (Compare that to State’s trip to Top 10 Michigan State). In their early season losses,

Davidson led North Carolina with six minutes left and gave up an 18-point first-half lead against UCLA before losing. Those losses, and losses to Western Michigan and Charlotte, had a similar theme.

Davidson as been competitive in the paint against some of the best post players in the country, but they poorly defend what NC State doesn’t do very well – the three point shot. The Wildcats allow 44% shooting from outside of the arc; but the Wolfpack only shoots 29.4% from behind the arc. Obviously, the Pack MUST capitalize on open looks from behind the line.

Another problem for the Wolfpack is that Davidson does well what we defend poorly – the three pointer. State’s defensive field goal percentage may look good on paper, but we all know that the Wolfpack plays horrendous perimeter defense. (See the kid from ECU). The Wildcats have the 20th highest ratio of 3-point field goal attempts to total field goal attempts in the country as 44% of their attempts from the field have been from behind the three point arc.

Section Six takes the preview of the Wildcats to a deeper level in this entry. You need to read the preview because he really hits the macro-keys of this match-up (and NC State’s problems).

The Wolfpack defense relies entirely on unforced errors, and that’s no way to make a living when you rebound as poorly as we do.

Marques Johnson
The Pack will have the services of Marques Johnson for the first time tonight since he announced his transfer from Tennessee last year. Unless Johnson has a better shot than has been advertised and is a more aggressive defender than the rest of our squad then I’m not sure how much of an impact that he will have.

The Charlotte Observer has some related nuggets that will be of interest to you. One set of comments baffled me:

At 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds, Johnson is bigger than Degand and freshman Javier Gonzalez, the other backup point guard.

When Johnson does get in the game, the Wolfpack might switch to a more deliberate pace.

“He’ll get you into your offense, defend, hustle, nothing fancy,” Lowe said

A more deliberate pace? Is that a joke? What does that mean? Will we be playing in the 40s and 50s? How could we play a more deliberate pace than we do today?

Take note, no matter which players are on the floor NC State will continue to play close games and deliberate paces until we assert ourselves on defense and start rebounding – both of which will allow us to create some easy points in transition and take some pressure off of our half court offense.

Quick Cincy
Despite Cincinnati’s name recognition, the Bearcats are currently 4-6 with a miserable RPI of #249. They lost to Belmont by 11 points, beat Western Carolina by only 2 points at home and have struggled in other games that you would expect them to have won more impressively. State must avenge last year’s embarassment at Cincy – no Engin Atsur; Gavin Grant tryign to play the point; turned the ball over THIRTY times. No matter how bad Cincinnati looks on paper, if State can win as we should, the Bearcats are a ‘name program’ in a major conference that won’t help our RPI but won’t optically hurt us as people review our resume.

Full Season Perspective
Whether Coach Lowe and the team have chosen to hit the panic button or not, everyone needs to have their eyes open to where things currently stand if the Wolfpack truly wants to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. Beacuse of State’s two unacceptable losses to New Orleans and East Carolina, the Wolfpack enter the weekend with a record of just 5-3 with six out of conference games remaining and sixteen ACC games on the schedule. So, one cannot under-state the importance of this next phase of the Wolfpack’s schedule that is being called a “tough stretch” by the media.

I’m going to reverse-engineer some numbers and some assumptions to highlight the importance of the next two games for State:

* An 8-8 record in ACC play used to guarantee an NCAA Tournament berth; that tenant has been challenged recently and is not as much of ‘rule’ given the ACC’s imbalanced schedule.

* With losses to bad teams like UNO and ECU conventional wisdom already posits that State needs to finish the out of conference portion of our schedule strong and may have to go 9-7 to earn an NCAA Tournament appearance.

* I’m not sold on that^ yet. State’s 16 ACC games are tough, and include EIGHT games against teams currently in the RPI’s Top 53. With this said, our conference schedule will serve to strongly support our RPI and give us plenty of opportunities to have a strong resume with an 8-8 record.

* The key to the debate of ‘how many conference games do we need to win?’ actually lies in the Wolfpack’s final record in out of conference games. State is currently 5-3 with six more OOC games. In addition to this ‘tough stretch of Davidson, Cincy and Seton Hall (currently #51 RPI) the Wolfpack should be able to win against Western Carolina, Presbyterian and NC Central

* If the Pack wins all six remaning OOC games and starts conference play at 11-3, then I think we will be fine with an 8-8 ACC record. That would mean that State would have wins over one sure NCAA Tournament team (Villanova) and three other potential teams (Davidson, Rider and Seton Hall).

* If State falls once (Davidson? Seton Hall?) and starts conference play at 10-4, then I think we CAN make the tourney at 8-8 as long as we have the proper “mix” of wins and losses. A 9-7 record in this scenario would definitely get us a berth in light of the strength of the conference.

* If State loses two more times and starts conference play at 9-5, then the Pack most definitely will need at least a 9-7 ACC record for an NCAA Tournament berth.

Parting Shot
Earlier in the year we ran an analysis of how the Pack performed when Trevor Furguson was on the floor compared to how we performed when he was not on the floor. The numbers were striking. Section Six has an updated view of the comparison of the impact of State’s two most utilized lineups this season and the numbers are equally striking.

The summary of the analysis is that the line-up of Degand/Fells/Grant/Costner/Hickson have coutscored opponents by 39 points while the line-up of Degand/Fells/Grant/Costner/McCauley have been outscored by opponents by 12 points. A 51 point differential in just 8 games averages to be just under 6.5 points per game. That is a HUGE number.

As you can tell from that information, JJ Hickson is a key component of what State does well on BOTH sides of the floor. Relatedly, this is a super article about JJ Hickson and the Wolfpack’s need to adjust.

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07-08 Basketball

77 Responses to HUGE Weekend for NC State Basketball

  1. gopack968 12/22/2007 at 9:10 AM #

    We got a good win last night against a very strong team that will go to the NCAA’s. Davidson also nearly beat UNC, Duke, and UCLA. Yes, there were lapses and mistakes. Yes, the halfcourt offense is tentative at best. Yes, the point guard situation still seems weak. Yes, attendance was not great (students are off and that always hurts).

    But everybody lighten up! We won a hard, close game against a good opponent. There has got to be a positive in there somewhere…

    SFN: OF COURSE there is a lot of positive in there. Just because a poster doesn’t have the time or energy to discuss every single item of a game doesn’t mean that they don’t recognize that some good things exist. It is just normal to carve away the good and discuss/analyze the things that need improvement.

  2. Sweet jumper 12/22/2007 at 9:22 AM #

    After all is said and done, this was a good win against a well-coached, quality team. This should help us regain the confidence lost to UNO and ECU. Hopefully, we will look back on this as the start of a run of victories that carry over into the ACC season. Go Pack!

  3. Lunatic Fringe 12/22/2007 at 9:36 AM #

    The problem with offense and press break is the hesitance (or poor decision-making) of the PG position. I am not saying that the other 4 positions are not also responsible for the offense issues, but Sydney’s system starts and ends with the PG…a confident PG who is a good decision-maker.

    We were most successful last night when we were attacking the press and I saw 5-6 times where the PG pulled the ball back instead of making the extra pass to someone in the open floor.

    One particular play comes to mind after GG had an incredible defensive sequence blocking the shot twice than sprinting out in the break where the numbers were 3 on 2 if the PG had pursued it, but instead he pulled it back and let Davidson set up their defense.

    Once we get into the half court, we than start the offense too late in the shot clock with an excessive amount of dribbling by the PG. The PGs rarely dish off of the pick and roll, which was our bread & butter play from last season with Ben and when PGs are presented with open shots they rarely take them.

    I am not saying the PGs we have cannot develop into that role we need, but we are dealing with the growing pains at this point.

  4. redfred2 12/22/2007 at 11:09 AM #

    Once we get into the half court, we than start the offense too late in the shot clock with an excessive amount of dribbling by the PG.”

    I’ll agree with that, and I’ll also readily admit that that was one of the things that I had most (((HOPED!!!))) we were done with when the coaching change took place. I’ve really had no expectations as far as W’s and L’s thus far, but I truly expected a Sidney Lowe coached team to be proactive and take it to people when the opportunity remotely presented itself. That is not what I’m seeing. I hate to sound negative, but this is the latest version of reactionary, 60-70 ppg basketball, and I can’t quite understand that.

  5. EverettBeez 12/22/2007 at 11:36 AM #

    as always StateFans, an impressive job at both running things down and prose. I am always impressed by the job you and everyone else does here. thanks again for the education I get each time I read here.

    Glad we won last night though it sounds from the N&O & here that really won by the skin of our teeth. But a win is a win is a win.

    Ole Miss is undefeated going into the Clemson game today – watch out for the Rebels.

    Carnot – where are you in North Alabama? Huntsville? I am in Jacksonville We should try and met up and watch the pack, especially tourny week.

    SFN: Thanks, Everett! Your comments are much appreciated

  6. StateFans 12/22/2007 at 12:38 PM #

    Links to N&O coverage of the Davidson game –

    Noting State-Davidson

    State Escapes with Win (lots of audio links)

  7. redfred2 12/22/2007 at 12:41 PM #

    I’m not down on Degand, or even Gonzales, but I do expect Fells to contribute and help those guys out on the offensive end. Plus, what’s the difference between pushing the ball, ultimately missing the shot, but trying to wear the competition down, versus being so deliberate, allowing them time to set their defense and basically rest for 10 or 15 seconds? Which just permits their best players to reload and stay fresh on both ends of the court?

    Ten players entered the game yesterday and they committed an average of one foul apiece, or ten total fouls for the entire game. Fells, who guarded Curry, was high with 3 personal fouls. JJ and Grant did not commit any fouls??? I don’t know how you play defense if you’re not pushing the envelope enough to get called for a foul at least every once in awhile.

    I’m just confused, we have depth, and fouls to give, why are we not forcing the issue more often than not?

  8. StateFans 12/22/2007 at 12:49 PM #

    NOTE TO EVERYONE:

    FACTS ARE FACTS.

    MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY DO NOT HAVE TO APOLOGIZE AT SFN FOR APPROPRIATELY HIGHLIGHTING, DISCUSSING AND ANALYZING GAMES AND PLAYERS AND FACTS. IF SOME OF OUR READERS ARE TOO IMMATURE OR LIMITED IN THEIR CAPABILITY TO HAVE NORMAL ‘FAN CONVERSATIONS’ THEN THEY WILL HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEIR PROBLEMS ON THEIR OWN AND WE SUGGEST THAT THEY FIND ANOTHER FORUM TO TROLL.

    WE WILL BE DELETING USELESS POSTS THAT CRITICIZE OUR COMMUNITY FOR FAIRLY AND ACCURATELY DISCUSSING WHAT THEY SEE ON THE COURT. SO, SAVE YOURSELF THE HASSLE OF TYPING STUFF THAT IS GOING TO BE DELETED.

  9. redfred2 12/22/2007 at 12:50 PM #

    Georgetown down by 13 to Memphis with 5:34 left.

    I really hate that. 🙂

  10. Stoner 12/22/2007 at 1:21 PM #

    “We need to get some of those easy baskets. I’m not going to allow us to keep running if we’re not running the right way.”

    A quote from Sid, from one of the links above. I guess our two point guards don’t have the ball handling skills to run and have the offense get lots of possessions, without committing turnovers.

    Even at the slow pace we play, we commit too many turnovers.

    Hopefully we can keep rebounding like we did and Costner can get his groove back.

    If Costner can play, like he did at the end of last year, I think there might be hope for this team.

    As it stands, we don’t have reliable scoring options. I don’t want to include Hickson as reliable, because once he’s double teamed I really don’t know what’s going to happen – he seems as likely to turn it over, as to score or draw a foul. In ACC play Hickson will get double teamed and probable won’t get as many easy looks.

    Part of the reason Degand / Gonzalez’s play is so glaring is the lack of consistency from our returning starters, with the exception of Grant. McCauley, Costner and Fells are all in a slump compared to last year.

    Hope they can break out of it.

  11. Lunatic Fringe 12/22/2007 at 1:31 PM #

    I am not sure fouls against Davidson is a great gage of aggressiveness on D. Davidson is a team built around the jump shot so they historically do not get a lot of fouls against them.

    When exactly was JJ supposed to “foul” someone? Meno, who JJ was guarding a great deal of the game, spent most of his time at the top of the key throwing up bricks from three point land. JJ did EXACTLY what he was supposed to do…fall back to lane, discourage drives to basket, and collect one of Meno’s many misses. (Special thanks to Meno for going 0-5)

  12. RAWFS 12/22/2007 at 1:46 PM #

    Hear, hear, SFN mods. I read the comment here because a lot of the guys who post nuance things that I have seen, or maybe others that I haven’t noticed at all.

    Back to the point, I think that Davidson was a good team to gauge our defensive effort against, because Davidson moves very well in transition and is (of course) deadly from the perimeter. We would have lost that game by half a dozen or more had Courtney Fells and the rest of the team done a good job against Stephen Curry. That and the fact that the Wolfpack enjoyed a solid rebound margin (40-25, 8-4 on the offensive end) really made the difference last night. Those things came from the good D by the veteran players.

    The thing that concerns me along with everyone else is the way that our offensive is not forcing the issue — no cutters through the Davidson D, not enough penetrations with kickouts (though I did like some of the mid-rangers that JJ threw in) and certainly not enough movement throughout the entire clock. They played as though they were trying to shorten the game. Another thing that really concerns me is the lack of point production from the point — two points all night made the game an effective 4 on 5. The PGs definitely need to break down the defense with penetration and make the D pay for it. Having any kind of outside game from that position would help accomplish that, obviously.

    Ben McCauley came to play and it was good to see the big guy get himself in gear. For State to have a good year, McCauley needs to be a more reliable threat on both ends of the floor.

  13. Trip 12/22/2007 at 1:53 PM #

    Everytime Meno threw up the ball I cheered, that guy should have been passing it to Curry everytime.

  14. westwolf 12/22/2007 at 2:10 PM #

    1. Degand and Gonzales are simply way, way too small to compete at this level of play. And I’m not talking about height, but rather weight. I bet that they’re the lightest guards in the entire Acc. That’s one of the reasons that both are innefective on D and can’t create on O.

    2. Fells doesn’t play hard, period. He doesn’t make aggrssive cuts without the ball, doesn’t come to receive passes with any energy, doesn’t pass with a sense of urgency. He plays like a star athlete in an exhibition game, never wanting to risk playing all out.

    3. We have too many interchangable parts. We have a plethora of small forwards who have slow feet,only shoot well in streaks, and are poor ball handlers.

    4. We have no one on the roster(except maybe Johnson) who is a prototypical shooting guard, someone with with the offensive skills to create his own shot if you pressure him and can hit the three if you lay off.

    In total, we have three solid power forwards, a bunch of small forwards, and the rest of the roster full of guys rightfully unranked coming out of high school.

    Not a recipe for competing at the top of the Acc.

  15. werncstate 12/22/2007 at 2:43 PM #

    WOW! This explains a lot. In the current game program they ask each player if they could bring anything from their hometown to Raleigh, what would it be. Most of the player’s said family, but Brandon Costner’s answer was “White Castle”. Someone must have told him he could find those little gems of a burger in the frozen section of most local supermarkets.

  16. PackGirl 12/22/2007 at 3:21 PM #

    Someone needs to start a White Castle fund for Degand. Or better yet, a Chargrill fund. Is it against NCAA rules to donate food to a player? If we each gave just one cheeseburger…imagine how much better he might play.

  17. Lunatic Fringe 12/22/2007 at 3:23 PM #

    RAWFS – I am not sure if your comment was a rebuttal to mine, but if it was than I am not sure you understood my comment.

    Redfred made a comment about the number of fouls given during the game. I understood his comment to being that the lack of fouls meant we were not being aggressive enough vs. Davidson on D.

    I stated that “I am not sure FOULS against Davidson is a great gauge of aggressiveness on D.” They are not a team that gets a lot of fouls anyway since their game revolves around jump shots.

  18. BJD95 12/22/2007 at 4:01 PM #

    Good Things (I was there, upper level but midcourt on the very front row – good vantage point to view the whole court):

    1) We FOUGHT for rebounds this game. That’s the key, going into it with FIGHT, rather than hoping the ball falls into your hands. I saw alot of that from Hickson tonight, rather than just watching b/c he wasn’t in ideal position b/c he was trolling for a block.

    2) Dennis Horner contributed. We need more of that. However, he passed up an open foul line extended jumper to kick out for a contested three. He must take that shot – he’s money with it.

    3) Ben McCauley made alot of those “little plays” that have made him so valuable in the past.

    4) Brandon Costner gave good effort, especially in the first half.

    5) On a couple of occasions, Degand did a good job with dribble penetration. He needs the confidence to try that more.

    6) Gavin Grant bailed us out AGAIN. He saved us against Villanova and Davidson, and almost did so against New Orleans (made a great play to retake the lead before the Privateers’ last second bucket). He is gaining more confidence at the end of the game.

    Bad Things:

    1) Our transition game SUCKS. That’s why we don’t run. We’d lob passes right to the opponent, or kick the ball around.

    2) Javi was AWFUL. The half-court offense went from pretty bad to hideous when he was running the point. He did nothing at all on the offensive end, and had (IIRC) at least 2 really bad turnovers. I’m not saying Degand isn’t a below-average PG (he is), but he’s night and day better than Javi right now. The game is just too fast for him right now. He needs time to develop.

    3) We went 10 deep, and MJ was not one of the 10. When Fells went to the bench in the first half, undersized power forward Simon Harris played the 2, and guarded Curry. Wow. Later, Grant did so (which seems a little less desperate). Not knowcking Simon – he’s a tough role player. Just not a 2.

    4) Other than Grant, the team completely locked up under pressure. Particularly, Costner bricked a late FT, and committed the worst turnover I may have ever seen with around a minute left. The other guys mostly had their thumbs up their posteriors.

    5) No killer instinct. We’ve seen that in pretty much every game this year, and last night was no different. We’re going to get creamed on the road in conference play, unless that changes.

  19. GoldenChain 12/22/2007 at 5:32 PM #

    The silly TO’s is what killed me. You mentioned Costners but there were tons of others.
    We had way to many of those in the closing minutes which made a game close that should have been a 10-15 pt win.

  20. choppack1 12/22/2007 at 7:16 PM #

    One thing I noticed last night about Sid – there was at least one time when he was motioning to the guard to “push the tempo” – when it didn’t happen, he was disappointed.

    I really wonder if right now the team is too dependent to look to our coach at almost every play. Our guys may be thinking too much – that’s a bad thing in basketball. Like RF, I thought that a methodical, deliberate pace would go by the wayside w/ Sid – and it may eventually – but right now, we play a very slow brand of b’ball.

    However, I don’t want to get too negative at this point. We beat a decent team last night – and we rebounded the best we’ve done all year. Simply put, last night is something we can build upon – and we played w/ an effort and intensity that will allow us to improve this year.

  21. Carnot 12/22/2007 at 7:25 PM #

    EverettBeez – Yup I’m in Huntsville, although I’m in NC this week for the holidays (looking forward to going to the WCU game!). I’d be happy to meet up with you some time to watch a game.

  22. Packster 12/22/2007 at 8:30 PM #

    The team last night was far and away better than they have been all season. We got a good win against a good team with a superstar player. What we need to look at here is that our team is not as good as we thought it was going to be but we are getting better. I think we can be competitive. Sid is on the right track. We just have to give him some time. He is probably sticking with offenses that he thinks the players are capable of running before getting too complicated with things. The 10 man rotation seems to be making a difference too. I think we will have a decent team before the season is out.

  23. RickJ 12/22/2007 at 8:32 PM #

    Could anything be more predictable – ECTC loses at home to UNC-W and goes 4 – 15 from the 3 point line with Sam Hinnant finishing up 1 – 7 from the field and 5 points.

  24. TNCSU 12/22/2007 at 9:26 PM #

    ^^^1. Degand and Gonzales are simply way, way too small to compete at this level of play. And I’m not talking about height, but rather weight. I bet that they’re the lightest guards in the entire Acc. That’s one of the reasons that both are innefective on D and can’t create on O.

    4. We have no one on the roster(except maybe Johnson) who is a prototypical shooting guard, someone with with the offensive skills to create his own shot if you pressure him and can hit the three if you lay off.

    Well, I’ll have to disagree with these two statements. While we don’t have a prototypical 2 guard, Fells “could” be great. He does need to learn to create his own shot off the dribble a little better. Please don’t hold out thinking Johnson is a 2 guard. He can guard a 2 on defense, but he’s a PG. His outside shot is not that good – it could improve, but he’s not going to hit 3-4 3 pointers a night. As mentioned before, he has a low release point.

    As far as #1, I’d say I totally disagree. While these guys are not playing that good right now, it is NOT because of their size. Both are as big (or bigger) than Neitzel or DJ Augustine – two of the best in the country. The problem is their confidence. A PG is a leader – neither has shown that yet (although I see more leadership from Javi IMO). He also has to be able to penetrate, and be able to pop the 3 if it’s available. Neither of these two is confident – YET. My prediction is that Javi (although he played bad last night) will be starting by the end of the year. I just don’t think Degand is going to take us anywhere – call it gut instinct, or just his body language on the court – he doesn’t seem like a leader, and PG’s are leaders if nothing else. And again, their size has very little to do with it IMO. Johnson may well be the guy, but don’t expect him to be a big offensive threat. As long as he can distribute the ball, run the offense, and play D, he’s got a chance.

  25. Sweet jumper 12/22/2007 at 10:33 PM #

    Did you notice Sid on Davidson’s last possession? He motioned for Fells to stay behind Curry and push him toward the baseline. Fells misunderstood and fronted Curry. Sid had a fit and finally got him behind Curry before the ball was inbounded. He also had Costner behind his man and ready to trap or redirect Curry. This was critical because if Curry had been fronted, he would have received the ball in the open court and squared up for 20 to 25 foot or closer jumper instead of a running 40 footer. Smart adjustment that probably saved the game.

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