The following is some biting criticism from one of the more prominent national college basketball blogs:
Let’s run through the challengers for Duke in the state of North Carolina (NC State left out for
Sidney Loweobvious reasons).
Ouch! It is very painful to continue to be ridiculed for our complete irrelevance as a competitive college basketball program. No matter how much our neighbors lose to graduation and the NBA, NC State isn’t good enough to even be in the conversation with most basketball junkies. Great job, “Coach” Fowler. Mens’ basketball is fitting in great with your growing stable of sub-mediocrities.
In other news, Andy Katz shows that despite the Wolfpack’s competitive struggles the program isn’t totally irrelevant with this long article on the Wolfpack and Coach Sidney Lowe that highlights a few interesting items:
“I know I’m going to get the phone call,” Lowe said. “But this is where I am. [Saunders] is not the only one who is going to call. One has already called. But there’s so much here. I love working with young men, teaching them and preparing them for the world.”
[snip]
Lowe is trying to upgrade the schedule. The Wolfpack host Florida in a return of a home-and-home series and do return a game at rebuilding Marquette and start a series at Arizona, which is going through a makeover project. Even though two of these three schools likely aren’t headed for the NCAA tournament, the Pack need confidence early before ACC play begins. Lowe said he is also committing to the inaugural Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu in December with headline teams USC and UNLV.
It is weird how ESPN would have such a more thorough piece than local media providers.