Four Tiers in ACC Hoops

08-09 Basketball131

After today’s action, all ACC teams have played 5 or 6 league games. It seems to me that some symmetry is starting to emerge. You can categorize these teams in the following groups of three:

Tier I (Excellent) – Duke, UNC, Wake Forest. All of these teams are legitimate Final Four contenders. Once the polls come out, Duke will ascend to #1 nationally, meaning that 3 Tobacco Road programs will have held down the top spot this season. So much for the “but there’s no room at the top with UNC and Duke down the road!” theory. If the small private school in Winston-Salem can do it, there’s no excuse for the large state university in Raleigh to accept second-class status.

Tier II (Good) – Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami. All of these teams should make the NCAA tourney, and I could see each of them reaching the Sweet Sixteen. As I predicted before ACC play started, Virginia Tech has indeed shaken off its typical December struggles, landing impressive road wins against Miami and then #1 Wake Forest. It’s not a talented enough group to compete for the league title, but as usual, Basketball Grobe is getting the most out of what he’s got. Miami’s loss to the Hokies assures they will come into Raleigh hungry on Tuesday night – lucky us.

Tier III (Mediocre) – Florida State, Maryland, Boston College. Meet your NIT and CBI participants. These teams are all fundamentally flawed and, especially in BC’s case, very inconsistent. These teams are very glad for the heavily populated league cellar. This tier also contains two fairly hot seats (those belonging to Leonard Hamilton and Gary Williams). It’s not comforting that NC State has suffered two double digit losses to Tier III opponents.

Tier IV (Shitty) NC State, Virginia, Georgia Tech. The largest dropoff in quality is between Tiers III and IV. These teams have beaten nobody but each other. No team has a realistic path to any post-season whatsoever. Epic meltdowns and uninspired play are hallmarks of Tier IV. Paul Hewitt saved his job (barring a league first 0-16 season) by signing Derrick Favors, and Sidney Lowe works for Lee Fowler. Dave Leitao has no such life raft available.

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.

08-09 Basketball

131 Responses to Four Tiers in ACC Hoops

  1. old13 01/26/2009 at 10:02 AM #

    You got that right, Alpha Wolf.

    Rochester, I like the idea. But Foulup is just another symptom of the root cause of our situation – see Alpha Wolf’s post above.

  2. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 10:11 AM #

    This thread is special, in that it’s the first time I’ve seen reference to the tried and true phrase “death spiral.” I don’t think it’s premature at all.

    On the plus side, we probably have about 5-7 years left before Tom O’Brien retires and NC State is irrelevant for the rest of our natural lives.

  3. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 01/26/2009 at 10:11 AM #

    “3) LF knows basketball – Uh no. He hired a person who was not ready to coach at this level.”

    Sidney has been uninspiring so far but remember he did step up to save the program from further national media abuse. Lowe agreed to take the job only after a series of media blunders by the AD that had made the job almost toxic. There may have been a better option than Lowe but by the time he took the job, no telling what was still available.

  4. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 10:15 AM #

    I’m reminded of the one time I thought the UNC fanbase was clever. The phrase they apparently used on their blogs to describe our coaching search:

    “Aim High, Hire Lowe”

    I suppose we could have done worse and given Monte Towe the head job.

  5. SEAT.5.F.2 01/26/2009 at 10:21 AM #

    “So keep those dollars coming, shut up and know that we are a top 5 program nationally in terms of money-raising. That’s the only top 5 that “management” cares about.”

    So it commonly goes “It’s all about the bottom line” , but is that really what counts the most when it comes to influence at NC State? We are Top 5 but it takes a nation of 20,000 plus to get up to that level (a huge achievement in itself), but who are the faces that represent this group? A really rich food processor and a construction behomouth in Charlotte (who seem very attracted to the grid iron).

    I’m not saying anything here that people don’t already sense is true IMO-please help me on a few of these observations to see if they are way off base.

    1. It took Tom Burelson and an enranged mob behind the bench at the RBC on Sr. Nite to scare the living crap out of Sendek. Effectively the pine had been laid out to build the coffin but all the noise from work of building it transpired there.

    2. “Where there is smoke there is fire”. We have Fowlers relunctance to hire someone like Neinas to thank for the fun and frolic that was the hiring of a HC of MBB. It would have been professional and tite lipped-this site would not have been bombarded by viewers, including myself, if this had not been the sloppiest version of transperancy in the history of all that is called administration.

    Since then we have heard of three behind the scenes “in the know” type info. Someone on a Golf Course sickened by member of the MBB Staff hitting up folks for more money (maybe a “caddy”). A long time facilities employee saying that his eyes popped out as he saw the players return after summer break as out of shape as anything he’d seen. Oh a the night club goosip of one former Director of MBB operations.

    Hardly the stuff of influential individuals turning up the heat to get this ship rited before all is lost. Our 20,000 strong is like Venenzuela, lots of influence that democracy has on the stas quo.

  6. Noah 01/26/2009 at 10:22 AM #

    I’ve never hired anyone in my life for anything. Seriously, I’ve never hired someone to cut my grass.

    Give me the financial package that we were preparing to offer Calipari and Barnes and in a week, I’ll bring you back a real coach.

    I can’t promise you that he’ll win 30 games a year and ACC titles. But I can promise you that I’ll bring you back someone infinitely better than some scrub career-assistant.

  7. inhoc... 01/26/2009 at 10:46 AM #

    It would be nice to see a blog entry on here actually focusing on our problems and how they do/do not reflect on our coach. The last several basketball entries have been very good and informative but i`m very curious to see how some of the Wolfpack nation really feels about Sid.

    I`m not necessarily looking for a “fire Sid now” type of witch hunt, but i do feel at this point that Sids seat should be warming up from week to week. I have made many of my own observations on him by listening/watching his locker room reports and other statements to the media that i believe have some underlying meanings. It would really be nice just to see some other analysis….

    I think now its time we Dare to enter that dangerous territory of putting our coach under scrutiny as its only fair. i`m aware that those of you who still say “just give him time and everything will be fine” will not take kindly to such an entry, but its “that” time now…cheers

  8. Noah 01/26/2009 at 10:52 AM #

    I think Lowe should be fired. Today. Right now. I do not think he is a good coach. I think he has failed to make any strides as a head coach. I think he’s substantially damaged the post that he took over. I think we’re a worse team in every way, shape and form since he got here. I do not believe next year will get any better.

    The longer we wait to fire him, the more inevitable it becomes and the worse the bargaining position we operate from.

    I do not care that some people think Lowe was not given enough time. That doesn’t mean squat to me.

    That’s my position.

  9. SEAT.5.F.2 01/26/2009 at 10:54 AM #

    “The last several basketball entries have been very good and informative”

    I kind of think you answered the “putting the coach under scrutiny” lithmus test. Thats what is differn’t from this blog and any other comparable.

  10. YANCSSB 01/26/2009 at 11:20 AM #

    I don’t think firing a coach after just two and a half seasons sends the right message. It says, “Please take us to national respectability within three years — primarily with a previous coach’s players — or get the hell out.”

    If you think the position is toxic NOW, trying hiring anyone worth a damn after Sidney when they know the administration has an itchy trigger finger.

    Sid gets five years, minimum, with no more extensions on his contract until he’s proven himself capable as a COACH, not just a recruiter. After five FULL seasons, if things have not progressed significantly, you thank Sid for his service and show him the door, ALONG WITH FOWLER, and start the process of FIRST hiring a competent AD and THEN a young, up-and-coming coach at a lower level with PROVEN head coaching experience.

  11. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 01/26/2009 at 11:24 AM #

    As upset as I get at this team I have to remember what a great job that Lowe did with the talent that was left to him during his first year.

  12. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 11:25 AM #

    How long did it take Houston to fire Clyde Drexler?

  13. Rochester 01/26/2009 at 11:29 AM #

    I don’t think firing a coach after just two and a half seasons sends the right message. It says, “Please take us to national respectability within three years — primarily with a previous coach’s players — or get the hell out.”

    I will be stunned if Tom Crean doesn’t have Indiana in significantly better shape in his third season than we are in Sid’s, and that cupboard was way more bare than ours thanks to Kelvin “Hand in the Cookie Jar” Sampson.

    I’m resigned to the fact that we have to wait for things to improve under Sid, but with every game we lose I become less optimistic that anything will change. We’re paying the guy to learn on the job, and unfortunately that’s just not happening fast enough.

  14. Wulfpack 01/26/2009 at 11:39 AM #

    If we don’t make some noise next year, it may be time. 4 years is plenty of time. Just look around the country. there’s example after example.

  15. Alpha Wolf 01/26/2009 at 11:47 AM #

    How long did it take Houston to fire Clyde Drexler?

    I am guessing that this is a rhetorical question, but the Drexler era lasted two years

    1998-99 10-17 (5-11)
    1999-00 9-22 (2-14)

  16. highstick 01/26/2009 at 12:17 PM #

    Things don’t improve until we fire, shed, eliminate, or whatever you want to call it the AD, the faculty who are calling the shots, the fat cats(who apparently don’t care). They are our problem! Until there’s a change of the “tone at the top”, what happens at the next level probably want change.

    I say “probably” because of the oddities of a Tom O’Brien, but we’re only 2 years into that fluke of nature. We’ll lose him too if it doesn’t change at the top!

  17. inhoc... 01/26/2009 at 12:25 PM #

    Seat.5,
    “I kind of think you answered the “putting the coach under scrutiny” litmus test.”
    true indeed. i was hoping to see [what appears to be] the bottom line up front when it comes to the underlying X-factor (sid) for all of the said reasons we have an utterly pathetic team. the buck seems to always stop just short of philosophising on where the source of the sucking comes from…
    granted, we all know how you feel noah…..and i`ll promptly identify with most of your sentiments but SFN, What do YOU think?

    i can kind of see how opening this can of worms may make it open season for a utter crucifixion of sid via this blog, and thats why those who are more informed than me may have avoided this as a topic, but i would like to think that mostly “constructive” dialogue would produced…

  18. choppack1 01/26/2009 at 12:29 PM #

    Rochester – let’s face it, if this head coach was not in fact Sidney Lowe, the ultimate “legacy” hire, then fans would be in full meltdown mode – whether it was justified or not.

    A cold analytical assessment of the program when the coach inherited it, what he’s done since he’s gotten the job, and his potential in the future, comes to the conclusion most of us have reached: We’ll have no idea what Sid can do until 2011…by this time, he’ll have a line up exclusively of his own players, and will have (if all goes well) the program changing PG this program needs.

    After that, and assuming that we have success w/ said line-up, the question becomes, does Sid become a maestro or is he the next Paul Hewitt. A man whose fortune rides and falls based on his talent acquisition and how well they play together – because frankly, his “system” (and while some here hate that word, ALL GOOD COACHES HAVE THEM) is incapable of producing consistent positive results.

  19. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 12:30 PM #

    At this point, the structural problems in university and athetic department leadership are so great that I’ve pretty much given up hope. I think that Sidney Lowe is doing a poor job, but I can’t get excited about firing him (i.e., re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic).

  20. choppack1 01/26/2009 at 12:39 PM #

    BJD – I agree. I just hope we’ve learned our lesson.

    The classic example of this is if TOB goes around .500 the next few years. Do we really want to risk losing a coach w/ mediocre, yet respectable results, w/ the chance that an AD whom we know is borderline incompetent and a Chancellor who doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about athletics leading the hire for a new coach?

    I mean, it’s one thing if you are on the floor – which is clearly where we reside right now in basketball – it’s another if you are “hugging the average”.

  21. redfred2 01/26/2009 at 12:44 PM #

    “I will be stunned if Tom Crean doesn’t have Indiana in significantly better shape in his third season than we are in Sid’s, and that cupboard was way more bare than ours thanks to Kelvin “Hand in the Cookie Jar” Sampson.”

    Um, are you comparing Indiana to NC State?

    You watch how quickly they are forgiven and how quickly THEY (as in their boosters, fans, and administration) start FORGETTING about this whole ordeal.

    IU is not the…scared of it’s own shadow, willing to do anything to placate and put on a clean little happy face for anyone and everyone, type of pansy university that NC State University is.

    Also, Tom Crean has solid ground to stand on, as well as an administration that takes much pride in it’s BB tradition. It’s not at all like the rickety ladder that Sidney Lowe is now perched upon, and provided by, none other than NC State University.

    It’s not just BB, NC State Athletics SUCK OUT LOUD as a whole. And who really cares one way or the other? Apparently no one with any real money.

    Yep, it’s a great idea, bring in another “up and comer”, let him TRY, and then sit back watch as he too wilts, and succumbs to all that is the sidenote known as “Athletics”, at a place called NC State University.

  22. inhoc... 01/26/2009 at 12:46 PM #

    i personally dont see any more scape goats for sid, no more of this, “Wait until we get a PG”, or my favorite from sid himself “we just havnt gotten hot yet, we’re just waiting for our team to get hot and we’ll do better” those types of reasons offer no explanation for the massive problems that are coming out of this program that are getting worse.

    one other issue i wanted to speak about was in regard to sids first year, with that great run at the ACC tourny…etc. i tend to think engan(sp?) atsur coached/led the team 10x more that sid did. he played with his heart on fire and ran that offence, not sid. i really wish Fells has 10% of the leadership presence that atsur had, thats about the only thing i could see that would bring a slight improvement to our floundering team.

    obviously that sets up the rebuttal “Well see, we had a good PG then and we were doing ok” but his b-ball was that of a seasoned senior and his leadership was special, those qualities drove the team more than his talent did. we wont have time to wait on just a talented freshman…

  23. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 12:56 PM #

    I don’t know a soul who doesn’t think NC State was damned lucky that Tom O’Brien wanted our job. If his “average” ACC season is 5-3, we’ll erect statues in his honor when he retires.

    The chances of becoming disenchanted with him are nil. Nobody was ready to run off Dick Sheridan, were they? O’Brien has already demonstrated that he can match that performance (at Boston College).

  24. BSIE80 01/26/2009 at 12:57 PM #

    Just as I suspected.
    The biggest haters have never been in a position to hire/fire, therefore, they have zero experience with conducting performance evaluations.
    Amd yet they judge with no talent to judge…
    Sort of like the UNC fans from Walmart, go figure!

  25. BJD95 01/26/2009 at 1:02 PM #

    All you need to know about Lee Fowler’s ability to judge performance is that he didn’t want to fire Chuck Amato. Think about that one for a moment.

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