ECU Game Entry

08-09 Basketball General68

Pregame Comments
We have already explained that tonight’s game vs ECU is not a cupcake game as most people would presume.

If you want to research the Pirates a little more then ‘Yet Another’ has more on the Pirates here and Section Six has his preview here.

Hopefully the fact that we have already faced Stephon Curry will benefit us against Sam Hinnant. Of course, it doesn’t help that our best athlete and occassionally best defender, Courtney Fells, is questionable tonight with the same injury that neutralized him against Davidson.

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08-09 Basketball General

68 Responses to ECU Game Entry

  1. gopack1975 12/17/2008 at 9:52 PM #

    “They double / triple teamed every time someone caught the ball in the post. Made going inside hard.”

    Gene, BC should not be outside shooting the three’s. He is shooting .258 for the season. HE should be the one getting double/triple teamed and passing the ball out. Not the other way around. When you are 6’9″ you need to be inside posting up or getting ready to rebound, not throwing up 3’s. My point was he is a terrible 3 point shooter…if someone is being double/triple teamed he should not be the one shooting, he should be kicking it out to a better shooter.
    BTW he is not a guard, why does he insist on playing on the perimeter?

  2. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 10:05 PM #

    First – good win … seriously … laugh at ECU all you want, but they’re going to win a few games in C-USA and that will only help us down the road if we can be close to the bubble later on … And we did it w/out Fells – good job

    I thought the worst decesion of the night was when Sidney stuck w/ Farnold for WAY TOO LONG after we had built up a 16 point lead … Young SINGLEHANDEDLY got them back into the game … Poor Farnold has lost all of his defense and will have to work hard to recover … I mean it was no contest between Young and Farnold … At least Farnold hit some free throws in the last minute plus after Javi had to be pulled b/c of blood

    We shot over 50% for the game and it could’ve been 60% as we missed some wide open looks in the first half … The Pirates are not a good defensive team … It was encouraging to see that we made them more or less completely abandon their zone looks in the second half

    Brandon Costner finished w/ 24 and 17, respectively, and you wouldn’t believe the things I STILL heard yelled about him up in the crowd tonight … Yeah, he had a couple of bad plays and a few turnovers – but seriously – you’re going to complain about 17 rebounds??? Some people can’t get their head out of their ass long enough to see what’s actually going on

    The Trevor technical happened after great hustle plays by both he and Simon Harris … Harris came from behind to block a fast break dunk attempt and Ferguson blocked a second attempt … The ball came loose and Fergie dived on the floor after the ball … I have no idea what prompted the technical call but I’ll take effort like that all night every night … No complaints here

    For whatever reason, Hinnant really zones in against us … Yeah, he got 18, but it could’ve been much worse … Harris, Thomas, and Fergeson all deserve a special tip of the cap for their respective efforts against Hinnant … Thomas especially deserves a hat tip for his efforts against Hinnant in the first half, and Ferguson basically shut down Legan … Very pleased with the efforts here and very encouraged

    Speaking of Thomas, though, he took some wide open shots – and missed all of them … I love the kid’s heart and hustle, but he’s either got to start knocking down some shots or making one more pass

    Good games out of McCauley and Smith as well … The rotations are starting to settle in some, which is good

    Hopefully we’ll have Fells back on Saturday and we can see another good effort

    Go Pack!

  3. wallacepark 12/17/2008 at 10:07 PM #

    Good win for the pack, especially without Fells.

    Despite what some have said about giving up offensive rebounds, we are actually showing good improvement in that area (we are actually ranked 4th in the ACC in rebounds per game). Also, you would expect other teams to get more offensive rebounds when you are holding them to 38% shooting. Our players are not quick athletes, so we have to rely on conservative defenses instead of the riskier defenses that rely on getting into passing lanes and going for steals. This team would get blown by if they tried that.

    ECU missed 45 shots while State only missed 25 shots, so of course ECU will get more offensive rebounds than us, because there are more missed shots to go after. And of those 45 shots ECU missed, state rebounded 29 of them, 64%.

  4. Sw0rdf1sh 12/17/2008 at 10:08 PM #

    Costner has been pretty darn good in the past from the 3, or at least 2 years ago he was really good at the long ball.

    It seems a lot of his shots are just hitting of the back of the rim, he had a couple tonight and at the end of the Davidson game it hit the same spot.

    If he can pull back into the same shot he had 2 years ago, he can hang out there all he wants, but until he “feels it” again…I agree….he needs to be in the box banging.

  5. Sw0rdf1sh 12/17/2008 at 10:11 PM #

    “Brandon Costner finished w/ 24 and 17, respectively, and you wouldn’t believe the things I STILL heard yelled about him up in the crowd tonight … Yeah, he had a couple of bad plays and a few turnovers – but seriously – you’re going to complain about 17 rebounds??? Some people can’t get their head out of their ass long enough to see what’s actually going on”

    Man, I’m with you. Sometimes it is hard to remember how some of our fans are, and what short term memory’s they have of a guy who took it to the ACC tourney a few years back. I thought he played a fine game, he just kind of fell into obscurity the last 10 minutes. Hate to hear people in the stands giving him hell.

  6. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 10:12 PM #

    ^Very good point wallacepark

  7. redfred2 12/17/2008 at 10:13 PM #

    My daughter was in a Christmas play and I just got back home, not that I’m complaining about that at all, but I did miss hearing the whole thing. The reviews seem to be somewhat mixed around here so I can’t really get a feel for what the game was like just yet.

    Anyway, you are so right there vtpackfan, I do love hearing that Harris finally got some substantial minutes, and I do love the score. By that, I mean OUR scoring total anyway. I would have of course preferred that ECU had only about 34 points, but hey, can’t have everything.

    And vt, I think you know this already but I’ll say it anyway, I would have also preferred to have Courtney Fells’ IN (as in head in the game) for his regular minutes, and then later heard about the added bonus of him penetrating like I know he is very capable of doing and scoring at will OVER the Pirates of ECU. But, since that isn’t happening, IT IS GREAT to hear that others are more than capable of filling that void and that they are at least stepping it up somewhat on the offensive end anyway.

    I’ll take it!

  8. Lunatic Fringe 12/17/2008 at 10:18 PM #

    The guys, in particular Costner, got some big rebounds in the clutch at the end of this game. The Davidson game was completely opposite where we kept giving them too many second chance points in the final minutes of the game. I see that as major improvement for this team.

  9. BJD95 12/17/2008 at 10:22 PM #

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record – good gameplan and solid effort. Thus, we beat a team that we should have, even without playing our best. These are positive steps.

    Brock Young is Kenny Drummond. I was at the game, and his numbers looked better than he actually played.

    It was complete bizarro world at PG – Degand looked good running the offense (much better than Javi), but he just can’t cut on that knee defensively. Whereas Javi had one of his best defensive games ever. Degand did a great job down the stretch with FT shooting, and finished 7-8 from the stripe. If he can keep doing that, we won’t blow any last-minute leads.

  10. redfred2 12/17/2008 at 10:27 PM #

    I agree with chop, that is a nice breakdown wallacepark.

    It may have happened tonight, I haven’t checked the stats so I don’t know yet, but when listening and looking at the stats from the previous games, I’ve been more concerned about our ability to rebound on our own offensive boards. Somebody tell me if I’m off base by thinking that way???

  11. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 10:27 PM #

    “At the risk of sounding like a broken record – good gameplan and solid effort”

    ^I agree. The gameplan was to make Young beat us – not Hinnant and/or Legan … And it worked, save for a 5-10 minute stretch of the 2nd half … Farnold can not be that much of a defensive liability and stay on the floor … I just hope he can keep improving … First time Mays hasn’t played this season

  12. redfred2 12/17/2008 at 10:33 PM #

    How was the PT split at PG tonight, how much for Degand vs how much Javi?

  13. redfred2 12/17/2008 at 10:45 PM #

    It should be very interesting to see if this win, and the impressive output that occurred offensively, has any affect on the way a certain player might approach his role from here on out.

  14. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 10:50 PM #

    ^Box score shows Javi w/ 29 min. and Farnold w/ 11 min.

    Javi played the majority of the first half, w/ Farnold seeing about 4 min. in the first half

    We jumped out to a 16 pt. lead over the first 10 min. of the second half, w/ Farnold in for a couple of those 10 min. … Then Farnold started getting torched by Young and didn’t get pulled until under the 8 min. mark … Javi played the rest of the way until he apparently got a cut or some blood on his arm w/ about 1:45 to play

  15. Clarksa 12/17/2008 at 10:52 PM #

    I missed the first 9 min b/c of traffic, but I was pleased with the effort. I don feel that Coach Lowe left the “2nd team” in a bit long which resulted in the ECU second half run…

  16. gopack1975 12/17/2008 at 10:54 PM #

    I guess sometimes I may be hard on Brandon Costner. I guess I had higher expectations after that ACC Tournament run he had. It just seems like whenever he does something positive, he turns around and makes a bonehead play. I heard Tony Haynes say too many times tonight that Brandon gets a huge rebound, and in the next breath he says Brandon has the ball stripped from him. But we are a much better team with him in the game, and I would hate to lose him. Let’s hope that he keeps up the great rebounding like he did tonight. I was impressed with his and Big Ben’s effort tonight.

  17. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 10:59 PM #

    ^My comments were certainly not aimed at you, gopack1975

    I’ve got no problems w/ fair criticisms, but I heard some things that should just not be said in the crowd tonight even if a guy is playing poor – and Costner did not have a poor game … Stuff like that really gets to me

  18. redfred2 12/17/2008 at 11:03 PM #

    Yep, it looks like the remaining 66.6% of what was formerly touted as “the best front court in the land” in the preseason last year, has decided that they can play BB afterall, and even when there are other NC State players out on the court with them.

  19. TomCat 12/17/2008 at 11:07 PM #

    This game pretty much told us… what we already know. Brock clearly exposed and exploited significant weakness at point guard. NC State bigs exposed and exploited ECU’s lack of size and depth on the frontline- and fouled out the Pirate’s thin post presence.
    In the second half it was the Brock Young show (15 straight points) for ECU vs. Costner/McCauley dominating down low. First one to 80 points wins the game. ECU’s perimeter guys were clearly exhausted at game’s final 5 minute mark- by good Pack defense. Final, NC State by 11.

  20. BJD95 12/17/2008 at 11:26 PM #

    True, our second line did have a bad stretch in the second half – but we had the legs to close out the game, and EZU didn’t. I take that as a lesson learned from the Davidson game.

  21. wufpup76 12/17/2008 at 11:27 PM #

    Interesting post by Tysiac at ACC Now on Sidney’s sub rotations:

    http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/unusual-rotation-working-for-nc-state

    Tracy Smith has been just about automatic on the offensive end when he gets the ball on the low post … He also made one really nice assist pass out of a double team … Smith is an impressive offensive player

    It can’t be underestimated what both McCauley’s and Smith’s passing from the low post and top of the key means to our ball movement … Each of them has shown the ability to get the ball out of double teams, which has resulted in some wide open looks

  22. mjmitche 12/17/2008 at 11:37 PM #

    Sidney now seems to have the ability to play a squad of bench players and rest the starters. This really helped us down the stretch when ECU’s players started getting tired and fouling out. They ended up with 3 players fouled out at the 6:30 mark.

    After our run at the beginning of the second half, ECU’s game plan was Brock Young. Even after ECU had a long timeout, they got him the ball and had him drive the paint (kinda expected a play more complex than that). Young/ECU did everything they could to close the lead, but State’s defensive intensity was solid. During one of ECU’s possessions we blocked 2 shots and Ferg made a nice hustle for the loose ball. Btw, anyone know why there was a technical after all that?

    Overall, I thought Javi still looks timid taking shots and driving the paint, Williams played some great defense, and the team looked way more cohesive than last year.

  23. xphoenix87 12/17/2008 at 11:48 PM #

    as wallacepark pointed out, sheer number of rebounds given up isn’t a real great indicator, you have to look at percentages, and using that measure the Pack have actually performed quite well so far.

    Offensively, we rank 80th in the country in offensive rebounding percentage, pulling in 36.2% of our own misses. That puts us 8th in the ACC, behind Wake Forest, Miami, UNC, Virginia, Clemson, Duke and Boston College. That certainly isn’t great, but it also isn’t terrible.

    Defensively though, we rank a surprising 60th in the country (just one spot behind the Heels) in preventing offensive rebounds, letting opponents board only 29.3% of their misses. That puts us 4th in the ACC in that category, behind only UNC, Duke and Wake Forest.

    In fact, defensively we’ve been one of the best teams in the country so far. Forcing bad shots (opponents only have a 38.6% eFG% against us so far, 3rd best in the nation), rebounding well, and not putting people on the free throw line. Of course, the caveat to all this is that we haven’t actually played anyone of note (save Davidson) yet, and we’re only talking about a 6 game sample size here. Certainly, I’m not getting my hopes up after beating up on a bunch of nobodies, but I’m interested in seeing how our defense holds up against better teams, especially in a few days against a Marquette team that IMO is a bit overrated.

    Stats all courtesy of Kenpom.com, and they of course don’t include tonight’s games.

  24. wufpup76 12/18/2008 at 12:01 AM #

    ^All very good stats to prove a point, x

    Thanks for pulling those from kenpom … And I agree about Marquette (doesn’t necessarily mean I think we win; only Marquette has been a bit overrated as you say)

  25. JeremyH 12/18/2008 at 12:03 AM #

    the production from Costner is a *really* good sign.
    Tracy Smith 11 pts in 12 minutes… more please.

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