Deploy the Panic Button (Clemson 70, NC State 54)

07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe176

Press it, pound it, or beat the ever-loving piss out of it (my choice). But it’s time, my friends. It’s time.

UPDATE: Oh, and Ben gets hurt in garbage time. Like I’ve said before – the motto of every NC State fan should be “It can always get worse – and it usually does.”

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

07-08 Basketball NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe

176 Responses to Deploy the Panic Button (Clemson 70, NC State 54)

  1. highonlowe 01/16/2008 at 9:57 AM #

    Anyone with an affinity for reality knew the team would lose to UNC and Clemson and will probably lose to a very solid Miami team (although being at home, it may be close). I’m not going to officially panic until we lose to GT and FSU.

  2. BillyVest 01/16/2008 at 10:04 AM #

    I’m split on how much to blast Sid for taking chances with scholarships. Every team, even great teams, have a guy who doesn’t do diddly squat, i.e. Serge Zwikker pops to mind. I don’t know what Sid should’ve done: hold the scholarships for ’09, hoping to land a top 5 recruiting class and really struggle this year and maybe next year or try and get some depth and hope the guys he gave scholarships to can compete.

    Part of me wishes we had more open scholarships, but with the injuries that have hit this team, we would be in worse shape than last year without the bodies Sid brought in.

    On the bright side Julius Mays is a top five candidate for Mr. Basketball in Indiana, so he might be better than his ranking.

  3. BoKnowsNCS71 01/16/2008 at 10:10 AM #

    There is a lot of talent looking forward to coming to state in the next few years to play for Coach Lowe. All this premature talk of changing coaches does not help us. And if he leaves, just like HWSNBN — his recruits are gonna pass on us also. Time for everyone to take their Ritalin and be patient.

  4. LRM 01/16/2008 at 10:12 AM #

    When you have to resort to hiring the only guy that wouldn’t say no, this is what you get.

  5. BillyVest 01/16/2008 at 10:19 AM #

    Why are people so worked up over the Clemson game? I don’t get FSNS, so I listened to the radio broadcast. Maybe not seeing it has calmed me down a bit.

    I just don’t know how many teams, without a PG, are going to beat Clemson and their full court pressure. When Johnson was playing the point, weren’t out of it.

    It’s been a long time, since an NCSU team didn’t have a bad loss. Someone pointed out to me we put up 10 pts. against St. John’s at some small invitational tournament at Madison square Garden a few years ago. I think we went on to the Sweet 16 that year.</br.

    Tracy Smith is a bright spot and the fact we have bodies to replace guys, who screw up, is a big improvement over last year.

    For whatever stupid reason, I don’t feel the need to panic after the Clemson game.

  6. packbackr04 01/16/2008 at 10:22 AM #

    i hope someone transfers.. not out of ill will but we really need a PG NEXT YR! not in 09 or 10. but NEXT YEAR! i saw Javi pouting… maybe he will realize he stinks and go elsewhere… maybe Costner will go pro (ha) and we can use his scholly. byut the roster needs a shake up. Sid has obviously made some mistakes in building this roster and he needs a do-over. 1 or 2 players transferring should help him rectify his mistakes.

  7. Zomby Woof 01/16/2008 at 10:29 AM #

    I think all of the talk about Sid not being the right man for the job, etc is getting a little tired. Give the man his due shot and if he proves to be a poor head coach then so be it, we start over. How good did any of you think that we were going to be? Patience is a virtue.

    I do agree that Costner is a wash. There is no excuse for his poor play this year other than he appears to lack any drive and determination. He is out of shape (How often do you see a fat basketball player?) and not up to the level of competition as a result. I sincerely hope Sid benches him and only let’s him up to hand water to the guys that came to play.

  8. Bynum State Fan 01/16/2008 at 10:32 AM #

    I think it all goes back to the Czar of Inside ACC blog that reported-long before start of NC State ACC season-that they expected (based on last year’s tournament performance, and the first few games of the season) a Lowe amount of wins for this year’s squad. It has really come to fruition. Nevertheless, we need to show some physical toughness (the kind that Chris Washburn exuded while here at NC State). I do not get the feel that we are not cohesive however. I really dislike the media saying that about us. Every one of these teammates love each other and battle together through these games. It will take some time for this team to figure out where they are supposed to be. As good as Hickson is, it has tampered with team chemistry a whole lot. Last year, Costner was beasting in the paint. Now, he is relegated to shooting 3’s. I remember when UNC a few years back (2003-2004 I think) had learned how to play decent without Sean May when he went down. He all of a sudden came back in the ACC tournament and UNC lost, big time. Remember when coach K went down and Duke had a sorry season. That all relates to chemistry. One molecule is missing in the compound now. Chemistry plays an important role, and we are having to learn new compounds that will allow our chemistry to make sense in the long haul. We all know that Duke is king of the hill this year in the ACC, followed by Clemson and UNC. We still can get to just under where they are. Remember, we have already played part of our toughest ACC schedule with UNC and Clemson already out of the way. We should be fine going forward. We need to get Shackleford & Washburn over here to teach us how to make other people be afraid and intimidated over us. Washburn had street-smarts and you knew not to mess with him cause he was coming to getcha if you did. And Shackleford was ’bout it, bout it’ if you know what I mean. He was keepin’it real. Once the recruiting machine gets going over the Lowe era, you will see some shades of that toughness start to manifest itself in how we play on the court.

  9. Pack92 01/16/2008 at 10:34 AM #

    We’re going to lose Hickson after this year? Really? To Who? An NBA-Europe farm team? That kid has a LONG way to go to be NBA material.

    As far as Lowe’s coaching, what happened at the end of last year was no fluke. We beat some good teams and in reality were about 1 minute away from an ACC Championship playing with 4 guys. The man is in a tough spot but knew that coming in and he took the job anyway. It took time and lots of heartache to find the chemistry last year and it will this year as well. We may not reach the end-of-year level as we did last year because of the deficiencies that have been pointed out. Blasting Sid before we even get to February is just plain stupid. If you can tell the future so well how about start posting your economic predictions for the rest of this year. I am sure we can all use the head’s up.

  10. wallacepark 01/16/2008 at 10:36 AM #

    Despite what some people have said, all but one player gave great effort, probably the best of the season. We out rebounded clemson 38 to 30, and that was huge for us. If this team can keep that up we have a chance to turn this season around. We also forced Clemson to call timeout on an inbounds play and actually forced a turnover while full court pressing them in the second half.

    The effort is there for the most part. But the lack of confidence in our PG’s and shooting ability is causing the team not to trust eachother. Guys are trying to create too much on their own and aren’t swinging the ball around to their teamates. Grant, McCauley, and Hickson in particular are forcing things and trying to go 1 on 3 to the basket and trying to dribble their way out of a full court press and that just doesn’t work.

    Our point guards are struggling right now, but people act like this is a permanent thing and they’re going to stay this bad forever. They may never be great, but they will be good in time. Don’t forget this is their first season playing, let alone starting. They will develope as the season progresses and there is no better staff to help them than our national championship PG’s. The sky isn’t falling. As long as nothing happens to Fells, we will continue to get better. And we’ll be even better next season whether or not Hickson leaves simply due to our PG’s having more experience. Heck, we could get over 10 extra shots a game simply by them taking better care of the ball.

  11. ChuckAllYall 01/16/2008 at 10:37 AM #

    A few random observations on this team:

    1) Next time you watch a Pack game, keep a close eye on all of the tips, deflections, and loose balls during the course of the game on both ends. We recover fewer than any team I’ve ever seen. Rebounds bounce off our hands, we rarely hustle or dive after loose balls, and we apparently refuse to box out to gain position. This is effort and concentration.

    2) Courtney Fells is the best shooter I’ve ever seen when his team trails by 20 points or more. Seriously, he’s like 75%.

    3) I like Sidney, he seems like a good guy. Good guys don’t always make good coaches. Sometimes it’s o.k. to have your team FEAR you, and anything is worth a shot at this point.

    4) I previously predicted 5-11 in Conference, we may be lucky to win 2.

    5) If anyone says that this team really cares, has heart, or puts forth maximum effort, then they are clueless. It’s one thing to get beat if you’re working your ass off, and you are overmatched. We have lost two/three games this year I feel on lack of effort alone. This is absolutely unnacceptable, and is a direct reflection on the coaching staff. The most frustrating thing is…..it does not seem to change from game to game. When will the light bulb go off. Is the bulb broken? Where is the disconnect, and why has it been allowed to linger this long?

    6) Arrrghhhh, Nevermind.

  12. haze 01/16/2008 at 10:45 AM #

    I agree that Lowe’s early recruiting has real elements of desperation (or coaching hubris) but there are also some real jewels. It’s a mixed bag so far.

    Sid’s arrival was greeted by the loss of a PG, a WG and a WF from the incoming recruiting class, along with the loss of his returning C (Ced). He held onto Horner. Sid responded by going after Degand, which was completely reasonable (1 Sr PG at the time). Then there was an athletic project in Thomas, which was also reasonable if somewhat higher risk. Last was the Bartoz move, an out and out mistake (desperation about Ced?).

    After Bartoz, the next 3 recruits were solid, IMO. We got very early commits from CJ and Mays for ’08. CJ makes a lot of sense as he has offensive skills, athleticism and good size for a wing. I have NO PROBLEMS with this move. Mays is a PG/SG who also seems like a decent risk/reward. Neither kid has jumped into the top-100 for ’08 but both seem rock solid (on & off court) and I don’t see any reason to complain about either. Strategically, you can argue that we jumped early on both (always a risk). We also picked up Hickson and Smith and nobody is likely to argue about those being bad moves.

    Late last fall is where things started getting a little weird. First, we took MJ, who had already been shown to be borderline capable of running a high-D1 team @ UT. Now, MJ has some skill and size and was not an entirely unreasonable choice but it seemed to signal that Mays was seen more as SG than PG AND/OR that we were extremely concerned about PG depth this year (i.e. short-term decision). Now, the depth concern has proved real, so I can live with MJ. However, things got REALLY weird when we took Javy late in the Spring. The only possible explanation for getting a 3rd unproven PG was that Degand and MJ (both in the program for at least a semester) were now known actors with dubious skills. This signals a talent evaluation problem. Keep in mind that Mays was already on the docket for ’08, potentially giving us 4 PG’s even before the rise of Wall or Lorenzo Brown on the recruiting horizon.

    This year we’ve gotten a commitment from Leslie and, like Hickson, no one is complaining. However, with Costner looking like a 4yr guy, we clearly have the potential for a scholarship crunch in the crucial ’09 class unless some bodies start fleeing the program.

    In sum, Sid’s recruiting has given us…
    – 2 HS studs: Hickson ’07, Leslie ’10
    – 3 HS solids: Smith ’07, CJ ’08, Mays ’08
    – 2 PG xfers: Degand ’07, MJ ’07
    – 1 athlete/project: Thomas ’07
    – 2 WTF’s: Bartoz, Javy* ’07

    * Technically, I see Javy as a project but the decision to bring him in was a pure WTF.

  13. Norm's Loan 01/16/2008 at 10:53 AM #

    ^ He is out of shape (How often do you see a fat basketball player?)

    Remember “Jelly Roll” from FSU? 🙂

  14. Mike 01/16/2008 at 10:55 AM #

    I have been away from the post the last few days for several reasons. After 2 poor games, I see a lot of panic. I have said all year we have played to the level of competition, MSU being the exception. I did not see last night’s game so I cant comment first hand, but after reading the recap, I am terribly disappointed.

    There are plenty of positives here, Villanova, Seton Hall, and while they are not final 4 teams, they are quality wins. UNX in their place was a fluke. I hate the NBA offense, but we tried to isolate our guys in mismatches, taking away their excellent TEAM defense. When it is 1 on 4 in the post, the guy is supposed to kick it out to one of the open guys. I continued to see us go up (weakly at that) agaisnt 3 and 4 defenders. And since we never passed out, the D could continue to sag down and help.

    I was watching the first 5 minutes of the game, noticing the EFFORT and INTENSITY. Very pleased, and then when they went on a little run, it completely deflated us. From that point we were done. We thought we were getting good shots that just did not seem to fall. Make a few and the story is different. Granted, I left at halftime and went to the golf course so I missed the 2nd half. Sad part is my golf game that day was about as bad as the 1st half.

    DONT GIVE UP, DONT EVER GIVE UP are the immortal words of some coach somewhere. There is still time to turn this around, and the worst thing we as fans can do is drop our support. Fill the RBC, support the team, and watch what happens. Self fulfulling prophecy goes a long way. If we give up, the players will too. Let’s surprise them with our support and run Miami out of the gym with our noise, our fervor, and our PACK PRIDE.

  15. Sweet jumper 01/16/2008 at 10:57 AM #

    Haze, Thanks for the excellent evaluation of recruiting in the Sid era. I agree with your comments.

  16. PAPacker 01/16/2008 at 11:01 AM #

    The talk about Lowe’s coaching being at the root of this problem is idiocy to me. He has what he has. As noted above, he has done a great job in recruiting so far. His teams will be much better. The pre-season hype about State being so great this year was just that, hype. Anybody who saw how State played last year without Atsur in there could see that this team would not be strong due to being so weak at the PG. To misquote Al McGuire, “if the head sucks, so does to the body.” I would play

    Hickson
    McCauley (if he recovers)
    Tracy Smith
    Grant
    Fells
    bring in MJ to spell Fells/Grant, use Horner heavily and let Costner spell McCauley, (unless his ass does not improve).

  17. Noah 01/16/2008 at 11:10 AM #

    “I understand your frustration, but who should coach had brought in? It’s not like we passed on a bunch of guys that we had established relationships with. Lowe went full court to salvage Wright but it did not work out. After that, who was left…it is the spring signing period. Who do you get?”

    I reject the notion that there wasn’t a single, capable point guard out there and we were forced to tie up scholarships with people like Johnson, Degand and Gonzalez.

    Johnson and Degand weren’t going to help us last year, so there wasn’t any reason NOT to wait to see if you couldn’t get find and get involved with a reasonable prospect in the junior class.

    IMO, Lowe had no idea what he was doing, so he grasped at whatever straws he could find. This is not the place for on-the-job training.

  18. Noah 01/16/2008 at 11:20 AM #

    “As noted above, he has done a great job in recruiting so far.”

    Really? Why? Becuase he signed JJ Hickson?

    Scholarships are pretty precious things, you think a guy who filled up 1/3 of his team with Degand, Johnson, Gonzalez and Bartosz Lewandowski has done a good job??

    Add in Mays and Williams and Johnny Thomas and you’ve got more than half of your team filled up with D1 rejects, Southern conference recruits and guys ranked somewhere between 100 and 150 on the national scene.

    When Sendek left, it was this great thing because we didn’t just want to MAKE the NCAAs, we wanted to WIN the tournament. It wasn’t enough to beat BC and Miami and FSU. We wanted to beat UNC and Dook.

    And THESE are the guys that are going to put us over the top?

  19. haze 01/16/2008 at 11:25 AM #

    I see reason for concern Noah but we did have a serious hole at PG that needed to be filled. For a new college coach with no proven “system” and no real time or reputation on the recruiting trail, I don’t think it was nearly an easy thing to reel in a highly-rated PG in year one. However, Sid HAD to get someone b/c Atsur was a Sr and there was NOBODY behind him. Enter Degand and MJ. It’s unrealistic to depict those moves as bad decisions, IMO. Javy? Yeah, despite some promise, I’ve got that move as a Hail Mary.

  20. burnbarn 01/16/2008 at 11:33 AM #

    Noah, lets say we do not sign Degand, Javi, and Johnson. Who would he have gotten to be here in their place? I think Lowe felt they were the best he could get at the time. I have no problem with these guys being on scholarship. There are lots of guys at UNC on scholarship that do not see the floor. The problem is we must count on these guys to produce. It’s not like there were 3 top 100s waiting to jump on an offer from State. Even if there were some top 100 guys left, we had NO relationship with these players. At least 2 of the 3 he brought in were top 100 talents at one time.

    Let’s say you are a top 75 pg and you have been dealing with 2-3 schools for 2-3 years trying to make your decision on where to go to college. All of a sudden, NCState jumps in and says we need you. Do you throw out the established long term relationships to jump here? Most likely no. Especially with all the uncertainty that surrounded the program at the time of his hire.

    Kinda like TOB… why didn’t he sign 5 LBs, 5 OLs and a top QB in his first class that were all top recruits? It’s b/c they were not out there. Look what he has done in year 2…. he has started to fill our immediate needs. I suspect year 3 will be the big class for him. It takes time….you know that.

  21. redfred2 01/16/2008 at 11:38 AM #

    “And I dont have the numbers on how many fouls we committed total tonight but it wasnt enough.”

    I’ve been saying that all year long!!!! This is one thing that totally baffles me. We have more depth than Lowe is playing and we have a sufficient number fouls to give. I do not understand what game the coach is watching when people are shooting uncontested threes, getting uncontested lay ups, and out rebounding us, and we aren’t even commiting a normal amount of fouls while TRYING to stop them. I think I posted almost the exact words last season after the Clemson game. If you have fouls to give, you use them, ESPECIALLY against a poor FT shooting team like Clemson. To me, that is just common sense and good coaching.

    “That lob pass to Hickson is NOT a hard pass…”

    You mean they actually tried a lob, against the #24 Clemson Tigers? I was at the WCU game, against a much smaller lineup and I don’t think I saw one lob attempted all game long. ???

    I am not on the “throw the bum out” bandwagon, but I think that the UNC and Clemson game last night, were the perfect times to substitute amd play the entire lineup throughout the ballgame. At least experiment for longer and extended periods, make a stand and stick to it, and if the regulars aren’t getting the message, show them that we can be embarrassed and lose ballgames just as easily with or without their help.

    Presonally, I think Lowe royally screwed up and killed the team chemistry by placing so much emphasis on Hickson from the beginning of the season, but we’re past that point now. Simmon Harris and Tracy Smith have both proven that they want to play, and play hard. I don’t see Lowe accomplishing a thing by continuing to stay with the lineup he’s concentrating on. It’s time to weed out and start building a base of kids that play the game like the coach wants to see it played, losses or not. The final margins might be even larger but they wouldn’t half as embarrassing.

  22. highonlowe 01/16/2008 at 11:40 AM #

    Javi can have a seat beside Fergie, but I still reserve hope for MJ. The kid hasn’t seen action in 2 years. I think he has the size and skillset to a ‘suitable’ PG (he made a few moves and drove to the basket a few times early in the game yesterday), but he’ll need a little time to catch up to the speed of an ACC game. Its been a mistake to start Javi and not Johnson since Degand was injured. I want to see significant minutes for MJ against Miami, with Fells or Grant playing point when he’s out. No Javi.

    Also, please remember that Julius Mays is SG, not a PG.

  23. newt 01/16/2008 at 11:56 AM #

    Even if you could name 20-30 good freshmen PGs, the point is that once you get past the McDonald’s AA national-player-of-the-year-types, there are not many successful freshmen point guards. Even those top-of-pile guys only put up decent numbers for the most part their first year. Some listed didn’t even start from day one or get 28-30 mins a game for the season. All of their numbers improved with experience.

    There were no point guards of that caliber available for Sid to even recruit, much less land, but we’re expecting NPOTY-type of play from the 1st-year PGs he was able to get. We’re also acting as if they’ve hit their ceiling already based on this season so far. They’ve played 2 ACC games, and the guy who won out as starter and practiced as starter is now on the bench with a bad knee.

    On paper, none of these guys are world beaters, but it makes sense to expect our PG play to improve dramatically by year’s end and over four years to become solid enough.

  24. wallacepark 01/16/2008 at 12:04 PM #

    I agree that Bartosz was a desperation move, but that is understandable given how desperately thin our roster was at the time. We needed bodies just to facilitate practice and at that time Costner and McCauley were the only two big men on the team. Horner had to play PF instead of SF, his natural position, just so Costner and Ben could get a few minutes rest.

    However, I strongly disagree about Degand and Javi. Degand was solid and I’m glad Lowe got him. Lowe didn’t have any other option but to take a transfer since the 06 class was already wrapped up by that time. Degand could push tempo, averaged 6.9 pts per game, shot 47% from the field and 50% from 3pt land, played good defense, and was beginning to learn how to penetrate and create his own shot. He was a pleasant surprise this season and the loss of him was more devastating that a lot of people realize.

    As for Javi, he was the 30th ranked PG coming out of high school (according to scout). He was averaging 20.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 5 assists as a senior. But he missed most of preseason practice due to his thumb injury. The kid does have decent talent and Lowe wisely sought another PG to back up Degand, vowing never to be without a PG again. Now that Degand is out for the season, I say Lowe is a genius for bringing Javi in. Just imagine if Degand had been injured in the preseason before Johnson was eligible? We would have had to rely on Grant and Fells at PG and that is bad bad news. Marques now has a backup so Grant and Fells can play their natural positions.

    Prior to this season Degand had 2 years experience practicing with college teams, Marques had 1 year, and Javi has had 0 years experience, so it’s makes sense that Marques would struggle more than Degand and Javi would struggle more than Marques. But both Marques and Javi were higher rated recruits than Degand, so I expect that once they gain the experience they will be even better. They will make mistakes, but we need them out there learning and gaining experience for this team to improve.

  25. jnew 01/16/2008 at 12:09 PM #

    I agree with Noah on most points. I was fine with what Herb did getting us to the tourney 5 years in a row. I was also fine with the notion that we were going to get someone else in here that would take us to the next level. Unfortunately it seems like we MAY be taking a step backwards and it will take us another 5 years just to find another coach who can get us back into the tourney. I like Sid, so I hope I am wrong, I just have a bad bad feeling though. Especially when I see our players not trying or giving a shit out there. Instead of patting them on the ass and going through the positives, he needs to start cracking some damn skulls. His method obviously hasn’t worked so far.

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