=======> Congratulations to Sean Miller and Xavier! In just 4 years he has already taken Xavier to a place in the NCAA Tournament where his former boss at NC State couldn’t achieve in a decade. It’s kind of hard to blame the strength of Duke and Carolina for our failure to succeed in anything outside of playing Duke and Carolina as we have never lost to the Tar Heels or Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament. So, it must be Xavier’s facilities!
=======> If we’ve got to find something good about NC State’s basketball season how about the fact that we defeated two different teams in this year’s Sweet 16. This unique statistic should really impress the odd set of fans who earlier in the decade were impressed by the fact that the Wolfpack played and beat teams who had won the previous year’s National Championships (Maryland, Michigan State, UConn). Just think…we actually beat these teams in the year that they were good!! Anyone have any research as to the last time we defeated two different Sweet 16 teams in a regular season?
=======> We do a great job of criticizing officials while we try to hold them accountable on this blog. So, it is only fair to provide them apporpriate praise when it is deserved. So, allow me to praise some of the officiating that I have seen in this year’s NCAA Tournament – particularly the games involving Carolina. The Tar Heels have received fairly called games, which serves to support just how well they are playing. On the other hand, I felt Clemson could have gotten a little better treatment in their first round loss to Villanova.
More importantly, I wanted to say that this years Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament was FANTASTICALLY OFFICIATED. The conference and the crews deserve credit for how well the weekend’s games in Charlotte were managed.
So, why the hell can’t the conference provide us that kind of officiating throughout the season? Why are the touch fouls that get Duke and Carolina to the line so often during the regular season suddenly not fouls in the post season? and, why is their behavior suddenly called more accurately in the post season?
If the ACC provided that kind of officiating during the regular season perhaps the league standings wouldn’t be so skewed and the league could get more teams in the NCAA Tournament! Every year we point out a couple of games that were robbed from league teams that would have made a huge difference in their seasons and in the league’s representation in the big dance.
Isn’t it interesting that in a Tournament where the officiating was generally given credit and praised that the Duke Blue Devils didn’t even make the Championship game after easily cruising through the league over 16 games of poor officiating and competing for the conference’s #1 seed?
=======> Speaking of Duke, have you seen this great entry from Dave Glenn? The dude really delivers.
Consider this: Eight times in Krzyzewski’s 28 seasons at Duke, he has led teams without a (college) All-American on the roster.
First, there was a three-year stretch (1982-84) near the beginning of his tenure, before he got the recruiting ball rolling. Second, there was a three-year stretch (1995-97) that surrounded the season in which he left the team because of a back injury and exhaustion. Finally, there have been the last two seasons (2007-08).
Duke’s production during those eight seasons without a college All-American on hand? 0 ACC titles, 0 Sweet 16s, 0 Final Fours, 0 NCAA titles.
Duke’s production during those other 20 seasons under Coach K? 10 ACC titles, 17 Sweet 16s, 10 Final Fours, 3 NCAA titles.
When Duke won NCAA titles (1991, 1992, 2001) under Coach K, its best players were All-Americans such as Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Grant Hill, Shane Battier and Jason Williams. All five made the ACC’s 50-man 50th anniversary team, selected in 2002
=======> Color me confused.
NC State has just signed an agreement to play both Florida and Arizona in home and home basketball series in the coming years. We have a conversation about it here.
A little birdie close to the UF Athletics Deparment told me that the Gators are really excited about this series as they have been trying to schedule a non-FSU-ACC game for years.
Really? Looks like another of the absurd HSSS-contrived myths takes another public hit. I’m sure remember the bunk that the HSSS crowd and Lee Fowler constantly spun in response to fans’ frustrations with NC State’s embarassing out of conference records. Remember how we tried so hard and nobody would play us? Remember how Herb’s great connections to Pitino, Tubby, Donovan and others were supposed to be a big benefit for us, yet we somehow never saw any positive by-product of those relationships?
Speaking of close relationships, Roy Williams and Coach K speak longer to each other during a post-game handshake than Herb and Donovan did this week after the Gators knocked the Sun Devils out of the NIT in Phoenix. So much for a claim of deserving to be in the NCAA.
=======> Click here for BIG NEWS!! I mean BIG NEWS!!! You can’t miss it!!! And I guaran-damn-tee you that NC State’s Athletics department paid for it.
=======> I’m not having any problem with Davidson’s run to success in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Not only are the Wildcats generally very likeable, they lost to NC State, Duke, and UNC-Ch THIS YEAR. That keeps all of their fans in their place when it comes to obscene stretches of reality…unlike the mighty midgets of Appalachian State whose fans have become so insufferable that nobody in the region can pull for them anymore.
For example, in 2006 App State won their second National Championship in a row. Congratulations. In the first game of that season, one of the worst NC State football teams of the last 20 years absolutely dominated the mighty midgets in Raleigh. The Wolfpack were obviously physically superior and shut down the midgets while only scoring 24 points as our TIGHT END played quarterback.
Last season, Wofford defeated App State just a few of weeks after being demolished by arguably our WORST team in 20 years. Later in the 2007, the Mountaineers needed a miracle to defeat James Madison who had been manhandled by Carolina earlier in the year. Yet, none of this is enough to keep the mighty midgets fans mouths shut. They can’t just be happy that they are the best of the midgets. Invariably, almost all ASU fans bridge their boasting of their national championships into stretches of how they are the best team in North Carolina and how they can compete in the ACC.
Puhlease. I leave you the following 16 second video from the last time the Wolfpack and the Mountaineers played to highlight the physical difference between playing with the midgets and playing with the big boys.
