Pack vs PC: State Ugly Again, Advances to 10-3

“It is like going to the dentist without any novocaine.” – Gary Hahn describing NC State Basketball

State shot 1 of 11 from the three point line in the first half and 5 of 7 in the second half

PC

NC State takes the court today against a Presbyterian College team with a horrible record but who have been playing well of late. The “Hose” were tied at Wake Forest mid-way through the second half and lost at Georgia by only ten points. A full preview can be found here.

Despite a lot of speculation that Marques Johnson has supplanted Javi Gonzalez as the Wolfpack’s starting point guard, Coach Lowe says that Gonzalez will start today. Of course, it doesn’t matter who starts; it matters who plays the most and who is on the court when the game is on the line.

Gonzalez had 17 minutes of playing time in each of the last two games. He has hit 4 of 22 shots from the field this season (18.2 percent) and has nine assists and 14 turnovers.

Additionally, the N&O has featured Marques Johnson in an article today.

“My first game, I was extremely nervous,” Johnson said this week. “I hadn’t been in a competitive atmosphere like that in a year. Once the second half came along I started to feel better, and [against] Western Carolina I definitely felt a lot more comfortable.

“I think I bring a lot, with my size, at point guard. I know what type of team we have, so I don’t necessarily have to … score all the buckets. Whatever we need at the time, I’ll bring.”

Elsewhere, it is a big day for ACC Basketball as some of our mid-tier and lower tier teams have the opportunities to do well for themselves and the conference. For example, BC hosts Kansas and Maryland travels to UNC-Charlotte.

(Dear BC fans…in the ACC we pull FOR each other in these types of games.)

For open thread-like comments please use Friday’s Open Thread

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07-08 Basketball

148 Responses to Pack vs PC: State Ugly Again, Advances to 10-3

  1. werncstate 01/05/2008 at 8:42 PM #

    I guess the saddest thing is while at the game I find myself wishing half time would get here quickly in hopes there would be a scrimmage between teams from the Raleigh youth league, or in todays case, teams from the special olympics. The sad fact is these halftime scrimmages are more entertaining than the real game. I loved the chucker for the white team today, was glad to see him finally hit a three, and gave my loudest cheer when he finally passed the ball near the end of the scrimmage. Too bad the white team was so overmatched by the green team. No doubt it would have been a nail biter if State had to suit up against that green team. In fact I wish the Pack had played the green team today. With the green team’s running style it would have made for quite an exciting game I think.

  2. redfred2 01/05/2008 at 8:53 PM #

    “You’d think that out of one of those 6, they’d look for a good shooter AND good ballhandler.”

    “…the lack of a 2G to backup Fells and loosen up D’s is sorely evident.”

    I agree with those entire statements except for the “to backup Fells” part.

    Is Fells a good ballhandler? Or a consistent shooter? The answer is NO, to both of those questions. I will not ever understand how a player who definitely can, but will not, gets the nod from the coach, but also receives a lovefest from the fans.

  3. choppack1 01/05/2008 at 8:53 PM #

    werncstate – Your statement brings back scary memories. I remember watching a halftime show during the Les Robinson era when dogs were jumping through hoops and making shots w/ their nose. Their execution was much more impressive than what took place before and after halftime.

  4. wufpup76 01/05/2008 at 9:02 PM #

    ^werncstate –

    that was AWESOME when that guy FINALLY passed the ball !!!

    every time he touched it the ball was getting launched from 3 … too funny!!!

  5. werncstate 01/05/2008 at 9:24 PM #

    choppack1,
    Do any of those dogs have any college elligability left?

  6. Trip 01/05/2008 at 9:38 PM #

    “Is Fells a good ballhandler? Or a consistent shooter? The answer is NO, to both of those questions. I will not ever understand how a player who definitely can, but will not, gets the nod from the coach, but also receives a lovefest from the fans.”

    He gets the nod from the coach to play because he has no backup. (Fergy?) He gets the lovefest from the fans because he always makes one or 2 crazy dunks that make you wonder where that athletic ability was 2 minutes ago.

    Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ichp7LX4mfA

    If I was blessed with the ability to glide in the air for more than half a second, I’d damn well do that every time I could.

    Personally I accept the fact that he’s either hit or miss on offense, but on defense, he’s generally always good chasing a player and running through screens. He’s one of our best defenders, which means he’ll get his time. If he’s missing assignments or not hustling on defense, by all means sit him down on the bench.

  7. choppack1 01/05/2008 at 10:15 PM #

    Trip – I’m w/ you. Fells has taken his role of defensive stopper to heart and I think it’s probably taken a toll on his offense. It doesn’t help that he’s a good “finisher” – and we rarely get the ball out on the break.

    Redfred – For the most part, I don’t want to attack players – after all, they are not professionals. OTOH, the coach can take out the player.

    I recall last year when you were ecstatic – as was I – about the way that we finished. However, I didn’t think that year qualified as an unmitigated success. The main reason was that all too often, it looked to me like the effort was lacking in some key games that could have made our ACC tournament run really mean something. I thought that the team and staff learned how hard you had to play during those last 2 tourneys…And to a certain extent – they have – we’ve beaten the type of non-conference team last year who gave us problems. However, our efforts against the stinkers of the world has really stunk.

  8. Sweet jumper 01/05/2008 at 10:16 PM #

    It does not take a 5 star point guard to thrash Presbyterian, WCU, ECU, UNO, NCCU and other bottom of the barrel D1 teams. It takes heart, determination and a killer instinct on the part of the players and the coaches. I have said this before–this team does not have the killer instinct. It plays to the level of the competition and is unable to rout opponents with much lesser talent. I played on a talented team like this many years ago, and it is frustrating for the players, the coaches and the fans. We snapped out of it and started challenging ourselves when the coach started over and opened up every position during Christmas break and benched several starters until they started giving everything they had to give for the good of the team on both ends of the court. The season turned around and we are all thankful for that coach. He taught us a life lesson that translates into all aspects of our lives today. This is exactly what TOB did during our off-week and it worked up to the Maryland disaster. I love Sid and I love State and I will always love State, but this group of guys is not going to excel and reach their potential until their world is rocked. Those are the harsh facts. They need a team leader to call a players-only meeting and question their committment, and they need the coaching staff to get in their grills and read them the riot act. The good news is that the hardest working players were recruited by Sid(JJ and Javi), and he should never settle for any recruit with a poor work ethic and a lazy attitude in the future. Roy and K rarely have problems with attitude and work ethic because the rare underachievers at these programs “decide” to transfer after one year of hell.

  9. redfred2 01/05/2008 at 10:57 PM #

    Whoa Chop, I’m not attacking any players, you do not hear me bad mouthing players. What I said is that there are players with less natural ability than Fells, who play harder than Fells does throughout entire game, and those players DO get “attacked”, and that seems to be fine around here. But Fells, if he misses his first shot, well then, he’s not expected to do anything and he gets a free pass for the night. He can run to the corner and hide and nobody says a word. But you let Grant turn it over, or watch Costner miss one time too many from the other corner, and they get blasted.
    But never Fells, he’s teflon.

    I’m down on Fells because he will not take the responsibility or work hard enough to make himself available on the offensive end when the team needs him the most. Sure, he’ll jump out and take just enough wide open shots to get the team depending on him, then he fades away. He doesn’t drive and he never forces the action more than an ocassional once, or maybe twice, in any game.

    Then there’s a guy a named Giles, the 6’5″ guard from WCU, who lit us up for 25, and there’s Drew Neitzel from MSU, he had a pretty fair game against us too, I think. So where’s this big “defensive stopper”?

  10. choppack1 01/05/2008 at 11:45 PM #

    redfred – thanks for the clarification – I see where your coming from. (And it bothers me when folks slam Grant, Costner, Ferguson, etc…)

    As far as defense – I do think our team is guilty of poor technique in both individual and team D. Fells is susceptible to screens – as much as anything else because his teammates aren’t helping out like they should often times. He does try on D.

    I can’t speak to his work ethic. I’ve been out of school for over 15 years – so I can’t see how he practices, works out or even if he goes to class every day. It does seem like he should be able to do more offensively – but ballhandling for him could be like a good jumper for Julius Hodge – God’s way of making things fair for the rest of folks.

  11. burnbarn 01/05/2008 at 11:58 PM #

    “It’s clear this team will play to the level of its opponent, no matter who it is. ”

    Not quite up to our toughest opponent Mich St!!

    Might be a very bad conference start. We can only hope the guys decide they need to play against Carolina.

  12. redfred2 01/06/2008 at 12:10 AM #

    chop, I don’t know Fells’ personal habits either, I’m speaking about DURING the ballgames. I get aggitated about Fells because, in my humble opinion, he could do so much more and he’s letting slip away.

    I’m frustrated right now and the plodding, over calculated and reactive, not proactive, attitudes of the players and apparently coaches as well, are just too much like the NC State that I thought we were finally ridding ourselves of.

    A record of 10-3 or playing hard with a record of 7-6 at this point, it wouldn’t matter to me, but this is not at all what I expected.

  13. werncstate 01/06/2008 at 12:24 AM #

    Let them play coach!

  14. werncstate 01/06/2008 at 12:44 AM #

    For those who were fortunate enough to have not attended today’s game, this sums it up quite well.
    http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap;_ylt=Ap4MK.7SB.BFvaclKrggRRqc07YF?gid=200801050411&prov=ap

  15. Trip 01/06/2008 at 5:12 AM #

    Can we please atleast score 70 points against NC Central? Please? We’ve taken a 3 point bombardment from Western and Eastern north carolina… heres hoping Central North Carolina lays down and takes the beating.

  16. tvopack 01/06/2008 at 7:42 AM #

    Anybody realize that we’re lowest scoring team against Blue Hose of their 19 games so far.

  17. PackGirl 01/06/2008 at 10:08 AM #

    Grant made a ridiculous comment to the N&O in today’s paper:
    “They were all over J.J.,” Grant said. “I guess they heard about the last game and came prepared.” Wow, now we’re relying on other teams not knowing about JJ?

    Then Courtney Fells explained that they played poorly because they didn’t have energy. How could they not have energy? I don’t get that as an explanation – they had much more energy last year when most guys were playing nearly 40 minutes a game. If you read the article, it’s a little scary because they seem to be complacent with what is going on and Grant is even a little miffed that anyone would complain about yesterday’s game.

    http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/story/862984.html

  18. PapaJohn 01/06/2008 at 10:11 AM #

    I really wish we had someone besides UNC for our ‘wake up and play like you’re in the ACC’ game. I’m afraid they’ll kill us and we’ll say, ‘oh yea, we need to play harder now.’
    The only good news is Sid understands the importance of the UNC game. Hope he can do something about it.

  19. MattN 01/06/2008 at 10:13 AM #

    UNC is going to beat the ever lovin’ sh!t out of us with this kind of effort. Might rival the 50-point thrashfest they put on us in ’93.

  20. wufpup76 01/06/2008 at 10:54 AM #

    no, it doesn’t take a 5-star point guard to beat these teams, but it does take either in-game or halftime adjustments to the way the game is being played … this starts with the coaching staff AND the point guards

    for an entire half, we played EXACTLY the game they wanted us to play … they stalled on offense, and we DID NOT attack or apply pressure at all … end result was us trailing 20-17 @ half … i’m not sure if this goes on the staff or the guards running the show or both … my money’s on both

    i have my thoughts that coach lowe wanted to see if we could do ANYTHING AT ALL against that zone before turning up the pressure – but that’s just a thought … i really wish we would have started forcing the break and applying full-court man-to-man around the 10:00 minute mark of the first half … but whatever

    at any rate, the main thing is that this team can not or will not execute effectively against a well played zone … MUST BE FIXED NOW

  21. redfred2 01/06/2008 at 11:10 AM #

    Does anybody remember coming right out of the gate, up emotionally, prepared and executing with precision, looking like a machine, going up ten or fifteen while the other team looks like they’ve never played the game before? Then, once the other team settled in, started to adjust and match our intensity, having no other answers or in-game strategy to switch over to? Winding up looking as lost and incompetent as our opponent did at the start of the game, and eventually losing the ballgame.

    Well, compare that to a time where no matter the caliber of the opponent, or having far superior athletic ability and size, there doesn’t ever seem to be much precision or urgency involved at all. We can sort of reverse that scenario I talked about above, but just sort of. Somehow we are not doing much of anything right during the ballgames, but eventually we’re barely squeaking by at the very end. We just do not ever look good over any extended periods of time, certainly almost never until our backs are pressed against the wall, and this is against inferior, even 1-19 type, competition.

    I’m not going to say which one, but I’m afraid one of those above scenarios, might be a little more easily remedied than the other.

    I say put Johnson/Javi at PG, if the opposition has a true scoring threat at one of the guard spots, let 6’5″ Johnson try his hand at being the stopper. If Johnson gets picked, then they run into a taller GG. Put Grant at the 2 spot so that there is a constant inside/outside threat, then rotate the frontline in and out while making sure everyone is playing hard. Substitute the front line and decide early who’s getting PT according to the effort shown at the very start of the game.

    Play Davis, Smith, and bring Fells in off of the bench in spots, see if he wants to play and contribute on every possession, if not, place him back down on the bench.

    I do not know what’s happening during practices, but I would really like to see Lowe send a message to this group during a ballgame and not back down. If they come out flat AGAIN, play the subs and sit the starters. Let the players do the dirty work and make them get on each other’s backs until they ALL decide to start playing harder. Let them sit and watch until there is just barely enough time for them to come in and play their asses off long to squeak out a win against NC Central.

  22. snestar 01/06/2008 at 11:26 AM #

    Okay i just got my name today cause i have been reading this blog for a while now and it gets frustrating reading some of this stuff. Yes people are quick to attack Costner and Grant but thats what happens when you assert yourself as one of the elite players on a team with a very active fan base. Now about Fells yes his offense is not always there but before you say anything about him remember the carolina game when he put up 20 and shut down key players for them. He is the best defender we have. I dont care if he doesnt have a great offensive night if he hits one or two threes and gets one dunk a night that is enough get the crowd back into a game. He doesn’t even need to score that much just a play to get the crowd into would be good enough for me. Yes giles put up 25 but fells did not guard him the whole time and when they set up triple screens and you dont get much help from your bigs jumping out they are going to hit some threes.
    Now enough about that back to this game. Yea the Blue Hose are not a good team and yes we should have blown them out but if anyone thought we would you must not watch this team enough. These games are tune up games so you practice the way you want to run you offense in conference play. People are on here saying lets post up with MJ lets use our height that way. Now for this game thats a good idea but what good does that do us for conference play very little cause the only two guards i can think of we could do that against Rice from BC and lawson form UNC. In the ACC that wont work with Grant or Fells controlling the ball at the top trying to run the offense while MJ posts up. Okay run the ball and press we didnt do that last year in ACC play and i dont expect us to start this year. So do that during a tune up game would kinda take away the meaning of a tune up game. Yea Lowe might be guilty of not getting this team up for lesser opponents but everyone saying carolina is going to kick our butts is crazy. These guys didnt have a chance last year right but we beat them at home with in one at half at carolina until lowe had to leave. So i wouldnt be worried about that game its the lower ACC teams that everyone feels we should beat.
    Now something i noticed in this game Javi no longer had a brace on his hand and i was yelling all game let him shoot take as many shots as you want. He started to get his shot back hitting two big threes and you could tell a lot of weight come off his shoulders after those shots went in.

  23. redfred2 01/06/2008 at 11:54 AM #

    snestar,

    You said what I meant to say earlier. That is that people around here get on those players who are willing to put themselves on the line, force the issue and take the big shots, and who are not afraid to challenge or make a mistake. That is what bothers me.

    As far defense goes, I do watch when I can, and I concentrate on positioning mainly. There is alot that a defensive player can do by just standing still in the right position, versus expending unneccessary energy by running around and looking busy as hell, but not ever cutting off any angles. That’s what happens with not only with Fells, but Grant is just as guilty of it to. Just watch closely next game, they may both have their chests pressed tightly to their man, which gives them no time to react to a change of direction, and they are generally playing D at the wrong angle. They’re exerting effort for sure, but it is ineffective and uneccessary effort, and they’re still giving away passing angles and lanes to the basket.

  24. BoKnowsNCS71 01/06/2008 at 12:18 PM #

    I was at the game. It was the classic Princeton Offense. Slow, deliberate, and no shooting at the basket unitl the clock reached 5 seconds. They had some nice threes early on and it was a chess game. There was only 1 foul in the whole first half. The refs realided in the second half that their whistles had peas and called a few more but still not a lot until the deliberate fouling by Presby at the end. I had to keep looking at the Presby bench to make sure that HWSNBN was not guest coaching.

  25. redfred2 01/06/2008 at 12:19 PM #

    As far as getting picked being a reason for other player’s ability to score easily on us, if the defender is in position, at the right angle and allowing himself enough space to react, it’s much easier to get around a pick, or call for help. You can’t do that if you’re only concentrating on being pasted tightly to the other players chest and not watching what’s going on around you. You may think it’s good defense because they’re always close to their man and they look busy as hell, but good defense is actually playing smarter with less wasted effort.

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