Moving Forward in 2008 Hoops

07-08 Basketball General NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe89

Ever since I decided to write off the 2007-08 season as a learning experience for Sid and staff, things have continued in their perilous course. Clemson and UNC each went on huge scoring runs to finish off the Pack at home, leaving us at 4-8 and on the outside of the NIT bubble. I don’t feel any worse about the status of the program because it’s exactly what I expected – otherwise, I never would have published the “writing off” post.

So, where do we go from here? It’s certainly possible that NC State loses out and ends its season on ACCT Thursday (with a losing record overall). It’s probably equally likely that the Pack ekes out 2 more wins, and maybe gets to ACCT Friday, setting up a certain NIT invite. Although the former sounds awful (and the thought of enduring such a stretch makes me cringe), there could be a silver lining.

A “disaster season” would make certain that no staff member or player takes any shred of validation or ego into the offseason. It will be absolutely clear that their attitude, offseason conditioning, and overall approach need a serious overhaul. No consecutive post-season bids to hang one’s hat on. No sliver of respectability. No hiding from the cold, hard truth. No delusions about being “that close” or “we were just unlucky.”

One needs only to look back to the disaster that was his 5th season. Although most of us hated the Princeton system, at least it was unavoidable that something major had to change – and it did. NOTE: This is not free license to turn this into a Sendek thread – just illustrating how disaster can be the impetus for change.

We have to accept that this team is not going to come together. 2 more weeks of practice won’t help much. The awful chemistry apparent through the entire season won’t be fixed at this late date. Players won’t magically get into shape, either physically or mentally. Yes, I’d like to watch another NIT run – I’m a junkie, and I want to see more (and better) Pack hoops. But I don’t think it would do anything positive for the program.

Please don’t create strawman arguments – this is a way to find a silver lining only. I don’t want NC State to lose out. I certainly hate the thought of Gavin Grant’s season ending like that. I will watch every game, and I will cheer for unexpected victories. if we get an NIT bid, we certainly should accept it.

Just some food for thought as the week comes to a close.

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 General NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe

89 Responses to Moving Forward in 2008 Hoops

  1. 66pack 02/22/2008 at 5:21 PM #

    costner is talented? you got to be kidding.he needs for someone to get him the ball and then he needs a uncontested shot.he can’t get a shot on his on,can’t rebound ,can’t play defense,can’t handle the ball or pass.where is the talent?

  2. westwolf 02/22/2008 at 5:50 PM #

    This is a plea…to the fine moderators of this blog, or anyone who reads or posts here who can help:

    We need someone, or even a number of people to act as surrogate journalists for those of us interested, no, not just interested, but who absolutely love the Wolfpack.

    When a program is floundering as ours is now, we who invest our time, money, and emotional energy deserve to know what the coaching staff is thinking, what the members of that staff identify as problems, what solutions they are pursuing.

    The local journalists are a) too disinterested to ever do any real research or digging, interviewing etc, and b) they are simply too lazy to find any answers. It’s much easier to simply theorize and anyalyze from the comforts of the the keyboard than to do any leg work, making calls, do the type of work that dedicated journalists do.

    But maybe someone in our community could find out the general perception of our coaches. Some of you have clout, I know it, connections, have ways of finding out the answers to the questions that we all have.

    I’m not suggesting a witch hunt. I would never expect or even want a coach quoted, even off the record saying something negative about or current players. I would neither expect or want anything so detailed that it could be damaging in any way…to recruiting, anything.

    But perhaps someone could find out, and report in a careful manner, if the staff:

    1) believes that our players are poory conditioned
    2) has identified poor defense and rebounding as a concern, and if so, do they believe it’s purely personell related or if they will look at their manner of teaching/coaching.
    3) plans to stick with the slower paced, NBA style offense as our basic approach into the future
    4) believes that the lack of passion/energy on the part of this year’s team is soley personell related, or if they are willing to look at their coaching style or approach as a contributing factor.

    I’m sure there are other, better questions. But hopefully someone gets my point. Facing months and months of endless theorizing and speculation, endless back and forth both on the boards and in the community can have a negative effect on the health of the program.

    I’m sure that this will elicit a few sarcastic responses, feeble, but expected. But perhaps someone is willing to do some work, and get together with those in charge of this site and offer some carefully worded insight into the thoughts and plans of our staff?

  3. Greywolf 02/22/2008 at 6:08 PM #

    BJD, Thanks for setting the tone and for a place to get go to talk NCSU basketball. RAWFS and others excellent comments.

    Just as there is no license to discuss a former coach, I wonder if this thread is going to be enhanced by more recanting of the short comings of individual players. Hasn’t enough been said already?

    I like the way RAWFS focused on what needed to be done. All but Grant and perhaps Hickson are who we have to count on. We have good recruits but no Fab 5 of Michigan fame.

    Costner is one of the ones we have to work with. Every coach in the country would like to see us start jerking scholarships and if we do we may as well jerk them all and play club basketball.

    Costner had a very bad year. God only knows, and He ain’t saying, why. I credit our severe disappointment for the IMO cruel, extreme and excessive comments about Costner. Costner LOOKS slow and LOOKS lazy and LOOKS all that is said about him. Costner is not lazy and with his body type he will never have the ‘chiseled’ look. Costner is not a brother. BTW Hansbro doesn’t have the chiseled look, either.

    Ben, Costner, Fells, Gavin all played passive defense last year by design. They failed to make the transition to playing full-tilt-boogie.

    It may be that Costner cannot learn to play aggressive D. If he cannot then I assert that NCSU and Lowe owe it to Costner and others like him who were woed by NCSU to come to school here and play basketball, to find a way for them to contribute.

    That contribution may be at practice or in bit roles. I would be embarrassed and ashamed if any coach deliberately ran a player off. Work the within the bounds of acceptable training, but never treat a student with anything resembling inhumane treatment.

    Now, 2008, LET’S ROCK!!

  4. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 6:12 PM #

    ^There are alot of great comments above.

    Here is my philsophical take on the situtation.

    I knew coming into this season that there would be many fans expecting X amount of wins, and blah, blah, blah. But really, all I wanted to see was that new spirit of late last season carried over and sustained. I guess the thing that bothers the most and absolutely confuses the hell of me, is that I expected an alum and coach like National Champion point guard Sidney Lowe to recreate and reinstate enthusiam and a love for the program, first and foremost, and from the inside, out. I figured to hell with the X’s and O’s and the W’s and L’s in the start, that would come later, what we need is a new outlook on just who we once WERE, and who NC State still IS. That would start internally, with his players first, no matter how bad, or how good the talent he had inherited, and no matter how many (hard fought) losses it took to rebuild in the beginning of his NC State coaching tenure. It seems I was badly mistaken there though, and that fact is the very hardest pill to swallow thus far.

    At the end of last season I felt better overall but I didn’t think we were really ready to seriously challenge anyone for any kind of titles after just a run in the NIT. But, then I started reading the preseason press clippings, and I fell prey like most everyone else did around here.

    But back to now, I am admitting right now that Sidney Lowe has not shown to be the coach/person that I thought was returning to his alma mater. He is not the spirited kid that I once saw in an NC State uniform, but seems more like a veteran businessman who has made a living coaching BB.

    I hope I’m wrong, I hope he remembers like I do, I hope he knows regardless of the record what we want to see first and foremost in a Wolfpack uniform, whether NC State ever wins another BB game with him as coach or not. If he, of all people, can’t remember those things, then my world just turned a shade dimmer.

  5. Greywolf 02/22/2008 at 6:20 PM #

    66pack
    Feb 22nd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
    costner is talented? you got to be kidding.he needs for someone to get him the ball and then he needs a uncontested shot.he can’t get a shot on his on,can’t rebound ,can’t play defense,can’t handle the ball or pass.where is the talent?

    You must be a new State fan or have a very short memory. Somebody who has it, please post the video of Costner last season grabbing a rebound, dribbling the length of the court, including a behind the back dribble to avoid a defender and dunking over somebody at the other end. He made somebody’s defense look sick. Something we are privileged to is going on with Costner.

  6. Greywolf 02/22/2008 at 6:22 PM #

    ^
    Something we are NOT privileged to is going on with Costner.

  7. westwolf 02/22/2008 at 6:35 PM #

    ^Speculation or based on a source?

  8. Wulfpack 02/22/2008 at 6:38 PM #

    Costner does not play defense and he does not battle for rebounding position. Therefore, he is a tremendous liability.

    In regards to the state of the program, I have been most disappointed with the lack of any sort of strategy. I mean, do we even have an identity? Carolina is run and gone. Duke is spread you out and tremendous ball pressure. We are…well…I honestly don’t know what we are. Grant, Fells, and Hickson, the core of our team, are not bad players. In fact, they are each extremely talented in their own ways. However, they have yet to fully click on the same night, and we are getting very little from Costner and Ben Mac. Add to that that our point guard is consistently being beaten by dribble penetration and has limited offensive ability, and there you see the problem.

    Our competitors are flying right past us right before our very eyes. How many people thought Wake would have the better year than us? I’d take Wake’s team over ours any day and twice on Sunday, and they have loads of talent coming in.

    This is on Sidney’s watch. And that watch is ticking.

  9. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 6:44 PM #

    Greywolf, I think you are exactly right. Beyond the supposed injury(?) scenario with Costner, and now the rumblings involving an injury to McCauley, I think Lowe made a promise to a promising young HS kid, and told him that he would be the new focus, irregardless. That promise, along with it’s attached inability to change strategies during season, me thinks, has possibly caused more strife than it was worth. Rspecially if we’re on the “one and done” trail.

    Speaking of the “one and doners”, did anyone else hear Coach K give his thoughts on that? About how the media is promoting the individual or the latest individual/BB phenom, over the college BB programs themselves, and making this more like the NBA than what it used to be, and was intended to be?

    K is absolutely RIGHT!!!

  10. Howler 02/22/2008 at 7:17 PM #

    I think most successful teams have that one certain guy who is a sparkplug and can light a fire under his teammates. The Pack obviously doesn’t have that guy on this team. “This guy” is the main addition that we need for next season, but who will fill that role? I hope we find him, because I have discovered that although it can be fun to pull for an underdog, it is absolutely no fun to pull for an underdog who doesn’t appear to be trying very hard.

  11. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 7:27 PM #

    Lowe has made mistakes, and many, from my viewpoint anyway. So here we are, once again and after a decade, with another “coach in training”. We aren’t going to pull the plug on this anytime soon, and we shouldn’t anyway. It’s like the people who are trying to say that a certain college kid/BB player needs to pack up and leave a program the he was INVITED to join. Like that one kid is somehow the answer to all of our problems. That’s like a car dealership, that can‘t sell any cars to begin with, thinking that firing a mechanic will make them successful.

    Sorry but that is an upside down evaluation. NC State didn’t have any real expectations for it’s BB program for almost two entire decades. Then, and mainly for that exact same reason, it had no takers in hiring a new coach when it became necessary to do so. So back to the upside down part, the apathy that runs rampant through the program doesn’t start with, but rather it actually ENDS with, the players.

  12. wufpup76 02/22/2008 at 7:37 PM #

    i think nyc fan made a lot of good points, and redfred, i think you really captured how a lot of fans feel about how the team has carried itself this year … that really is the hardest pill to swallow and it’s simply maddening!

    if we lose out, or hell, even if we only win 1 or 2 more games we will more than likely be picked 11th or 12th along w/ virginia heading into next season … that’s EVEN IF HICKSON RETURNS

    what’s my point? a lot of the players really seemed to take that prediction to heart and use it as a little motivation during the season … some public humiliation via the media instead of free kool-aid may be helpful as a motivating tool going into next season …

    yes, you shouldn’t need that as motivation – but as we’ve seen this season, motivation doesn’t come very easy for some team members(that can include staff, team, managers, who the hell ever you want it to include)

    the pack was a hell of a lot more fun to watch and played w/ much more spirit (simply none at times this year) last season … albeit, having a brand new head coach and being picked dead last let fans watch w/ minimal expectations … that said, i think what a lot of fans want to see is some fire and flow – most of all pride in your uniform, teammates, and yourself … don’t think those things have always been there this season like redfred pointed out above

    regardless of what happens at the end of this season, whether the team can make a tournament or if hickson leaves, whatever – i just want to start seeing a desire to win and an effort that suggests you have the will to do so

    it would be really sad to have a bad season next season, but that doesn’t meant i’ll stop supporting the coach or the team … i just want all out effort … bogged down nba sets or isolation plays or even princeton offenses are fine w/ they’re working or you’re winning … not really worried about the X’s and O’s, the overwhelming concern for me, and perhaps others, seems to be effort and pride, let’s just get back to that PLEASE!!!!!

    go pack

  13. werncstate 02/22/2008 at 9:01 PM #

    I listened to David Glenn on 850 the buzz today and he pointed out that he can not see what Lowe’s “blueprint” is for building a program. I agree with Glenn, unless the blueprint is to struggle to get the ball across the timeline and once over the timeline dribble from side to side from 35 feet out while JJ gets shoved from one side of the lane to the other.

    The biggest disappointment for me this year is the lack of adjustments made by Lowe. I really thought Lowe would bring some of Valvano’s blueprint to State. Valvano was the master of adjusting what his team did based on who his competition was. For example, on offense against Duke he concentrated on dribble penetration. On defense, we all remember how he would play a triangle and 2 or box and one to shut down the other teams key players. Lowe has basically played the same offense and defense all season regardless of the opponent or how well the strategy was working. Obviously it hasn’t worked out too good.

    Someone on one of the previous threads brought up the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Lowe are you insane, or crazy like a fox?

  14. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 9:15 PM #

    “(Insert past/present NC State BB coach here) has basically played the same offense and defense all season regardless of the opponent or how well the strategy was working.”

    I don’t believe that’s a new concept in Raleigh.

  15. packof81 02/22/2008 at 9:18 PM #

    This nightmarish season needs to be put out of it’s misery.

  16. VaWolf82 02/22/2008 at 9:24 PM #

    I will cheer for unexpected victories.

    Around the internets, many are confused about what constitutes a “real fan”. They mistakenly think that objective criticism shows that you are not a real fan. If you predict a loss (based on poor performance), you are not a real fan.

    They are horribly wrong. Their definition of being a real fan requires one to disconnect themselves from reality. A real fan makes objective judgements….and still pulls for a win even though it is not expected.

  17. RAWFS 02/22/2008 at 9:28 PM #

    I heard Glenn’s take today and I thought that it was a tad silly to expect to clearly see a “blueprint” when Sidney Lowe has brought in exactly one class of players. And that class was formed late, and didn’t achieve every one of the objectives, despite signing very good players in Hickson and Smith and workable players in Gonzalez.

    Right now, State is a hybrid team of two systems. The Lowe system was easier to see last year because he had a reliable point guard that could put on the court what the coaches had planned. Gonzalez was not ready, and he struggled but he’s improved. He’s still improving but he is not where Atsur was, plain and simple.

    Judge Sidney in the 2009 season, when he not only has all of his players but the old system players are no longer here.

    K and Dean struggled out of the gate. To expect Lowe to build a solid program after one recruiting year is quite frankly ridiculous and Dave Glenn should know better, and if he didn’t should have known that knowledgeable fans would know better.

    A quick note: when I said that ‘if NCSU is invited, they should just say no’ I was speaking in reference to the new third tournament, the CBI Classic. Really now, do we want to hear all next year how our team was not good enough for the NIT?

  18. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 9:39 PM #

    I don’t watch the NBA much anymore, but when did it become the “slow” and “deliberate” league. The shot clock is still there, and it’s of the shorter variety.

    I was S I C K and T I R E D of watching players walk the ball across the timeline, disrupting their own momentum and flow as much, or more, than their opponents, back when ” ” was here. It’s fine when you’re changing an overall strategy or you see a mismatch, but I am about at about at wits end with Lowe’s over controlling and over directing EVERY single time down the court. It’s different from ” “, but it’s essentially the same, and it kills any momentum and makes an already inactive group even more lethargic.

    Lowe is over compensating and trying to prove something. He seems to be trying to be the PG from the coaches box, and his team is losing all of their BB instints. Again, not quite like, but not unlike, and with similar results as ” “.

  19. RedDog74 02/22/2008 at 9:43 PM #

    RAWFS, if we don’t get invited to the NIT, I don’t think we’ll be fooling anyone by turning down an invitation to another tournament. My feeling is show up when you’re told, play as hard as you can.

  20. howlie 02/22/2008 at 9:44 PM #

    PLAIN & SIMPLY:
    The NIT is the preseason for next year’s team. If JJ is gone, he should be REQUIRED to make a statement BEFORE the NIT begins. IF he’s gone, he doesn’t play. It doesn’t help us for next year.

    That is the ONLY information required before the NIT bid.

  21. smile102 02/22/2008 at 9:53 PM #

    “K and Dean struggled out of the gate.”
    This argument is just a non-starter. A thousand coaches struggle early….. and never become great coaches. The odds of Lowe becoming a great coach are, statistically, not good.

  22. RAWFS 02/22/2008 at 10:08 PM #

    ^ The point was and is that you don’t know whether Lowe is another K or Dean Smith, or one of the ones who don’t make it because it is just too soon to tell.

    Great programs are not built overnight. I am as disappointed as anyone by this year’s team, but I also know that without solid guards it should have been expected.

  23. redfred2 02/22/2008 at 10:16 PM #

    “The odds of Lowe becoming a great coach are, statistically, not good.”

    Are you speaking in general, and the overall, or what? Those people are saying that not every great coach has an easy start of it. Also, a good start doesn’t mean a “great” coach either. I think we’ve seen that in Raleigh also.

    I mean, we haven’t had a “great” BB coach in two decades, so I guess you’re using those numbers as part of the statistical data to back up your claim.

  24. RAWFS 02/22/2008 at 10:29 PM #

    Off topic, you guys who spend time here, or on PP or TWP might enjoy this:

    How To Behave In Internet Forums

    Funny stuff.

  25. RegularExpression 02/22/2008 at 10:33 PM #

    RALEIGH – North Carolina had more talent. On that, nearly everyone agreed.
    But N.C. State had more heart. On that, nearly everyone had to agree.

    “It was a great day,” State’s Brandon Costner said, “to be a part of N.C. State basketball.”

    “I think we’ll look back and say it was the beginning of what this group, what Coach Lowe, is all about,” McCauley said.

    Those are all quotes from the N&O article after the UNC win last year. It is interesting that Costner and McCauley, in those quotes and others, really seemed to get it, to buy into the history and potential of NC State basketball. Now those two are disappointments 1 and 1A, but why? I hope Sid has some answers to that because I don’t.

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