ACC Operation Basketball: Pack picked last (by a mile), Dennis Hopper added to staff?

09-10 Basketball College Basketball115

Operation Basketball has been going on this afternoon and it has been very interesting to follow the event via various internet outlets.

For example, NC State bloggers like ourselves have been able to interact with some members of the media via Twitter during the event. It is truly a new world!! You can follow our Twitter feed by clicking here. Also, many Tweeters took advantage of tagging from the event, so you can see all the Tweets that had the #accopbk tag by clicking here.

Early in the day Commissioner Swofford announced that the 2012 ACC Tournament slated for Atlanta will be played in Phillips Arena as opposed to the Georgia Dome. We had it early and added it to a related thread on our message board so that you could get the highest impact of information for your time. Click here.

You can watch the coaches’ interviews for free by clicking here.

It was not a surprise that NC State was selected last in the preseason poll…the big surprise was just how few points the Wolfpack garnered. Hell, I’m surprised they didn’t leave the 12th spot open and rank us 13th.

1, tie, Duke (25) 545
1, tie, UNC (20) 545
3, Clemson 409
4, Georgia Tech (2) 387
5, Maryland 378
6, Wake Forest (1) 315
7, Florida State 314
8, Virginia Tech 273
9, Boston College 251
10, Miami 135
11, Virginia 116
12, N.C. State 76

Again, this isn’t a surprise. The Wolfpack was recently selected #119th in the country by CollegeHoopsNet.com

Additionally, CollegeHoopsnet.com has taken an interesting approach to projecting the season – you can click here to see their “High / Low” for the entire conference. Their view of the Wolfpack is clearly consistent with today’s media poll.

NCSt High-Low

But, in spite of the struggles that the Wolfpack Basketball team projects to have this season, all is not lost. As you can see from the Twitter feed of the ACC office from today’s events, NC State has added the one and only Dennis Hopper to our staff. As ACCSportsJournal.com Tweeted — nobody can wait to see the Wolfpack run the picket fence this year!

Hopper

More from the day:
* Lowe gives lip service to being identified by up tempo and defense. (Link) Defense? Really? Defense? Would love nothing more. Will hold our breath.

* Lowe says State is heading in the right direction. (Link)

* Horner & Degand talk about preseason and uptempo. (Link)

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09-10 Basketball College Basketball

115 Responses to ACC Operation Basketball: Pack picked last (by a mile), Dennis Hopper added to staff?

  1. nycfan 10/27/2009 at 4:26 PM #

    ^ Sorry I missed it! No plagiarism intended! ;>)

  2. Wulfpack 10/27/2009 at 4:27 PM #

    Sidney Lowe GETS NO PASS. Period.

    He’s already gotten his pass.

  3. bradleyb123 10/27/2009 at 6:33 PM #

    ^^^ “^ Sorry I missed it! No plagiarism intended! ;>)”

    I didn’t mean to accuse you of plagiarism. 🙂

    I could tell what you wrote was your original thought. We just had the same thoughts on the benefits of keeping Sid two more years. I guess great minds think alike!

    Wulfpack, I’m not trying to convince you Sid is great or even good. I’m not even convinced of that, myself. When I say Sid gets a pass, I mean we keep him until we get those 2010 guys in here. Not for Sid’s benefit, but for NC State’s benefit. If Sid fails, and he very well might, so be it. It will have been worth it just to get those recruits in here and suited up. It will benefit the next coach. It will make it easier to bring in a good coach, because we will NOT be a total rebuilding project.

    If we drop Sidney after this season, we risk losing all those 2010 recruits. And then we WILL have a rebuilding project for the next coach. To me, that is worse than keeping Sid one extra year.

    And then there’s always the possibility that Sid does a good job with them.

    The potential benefits of keeping Sidney two years FAR outweigh the cons, IMO.

    And I’m not even convinced we’ll bring in a great coach to replace Sid. We may end up with Sid #2, only without the great recruits. When have we ever brought in a big-name basketball coach that was already proven when he arrived here? I don’t trust State to do that. There’s just so much downside to dropping Sidney too soon. There is plenty of upside, though, even if Sidney is not a great coach.

  4. ryebread 10/27/2009 at 8:18 PM #

    If Harrow, Brown and Cothron sign LOIs early, the SL should get two more years (and a cool seat this season). Personally I think that he should get 5, particularly if he brings this type of class to campus.

  5. wolfpack4evermore 10/27/2009 at 9:48 PM #

    I have not posted comments for several months now. However, I have continued to frequently visit the site and read the postings. Perhaps the last post that I made was that I did not want another coaching search handled by Lee Fowler. I am still of this opinion. Lee “I know basketball” publicly humiliated our great university after HWSNBN left for the basketball equivalent of the Sahara desert.

    I have not made a decision on Sidney Lowe’s coaching abilities and maybe I am not even qualified to do so. However, I have lived through the Les Robinson era and the HWSNBN era. I am in agreement with Classof89,tvp1, WolftownVA81, nycfan and bradleyb123. Sidney Lowe gets a pass from me for this year and the next year. My pass is simply because Lee Fowler is still employed as the “Athletic Director”. I used quotation marks simply because I do not know if he fulfills or meets enough criteria to deserve the title.

    If my stance is for the wrong reason, a poor reason, etc., so be it. Please provide the logic to support giving him the reigns of another coaching search. He can not be given credit for the TOB or Kellie Harper hirings. It is a general consensus that Lee had little to do with the hiring of Tom O’Brien and no one can determine if either was a great or successful hire at this point although we (true Wolfpack fans) should all hope so. I can not help but feel that some want our current coaches to fail in order to validate their support of the previous ones.

    Sidney Lowe, Tom O’Brien and Kellie Harper get free passes from me as long as the one and only Lee Fowler is making the decisions.

  6. packplantpath 10/28/2009 at 8:47 AM #

    If this recruiting class is as good as everybody says, and I have no reason to doubt that, what makes everybody think they will stay more than one year? If they turn pro after one year, what do we have? The new coach would be in just as bad shape this year, next year, or the next.

  7. bradleyb123 10/28/2009 at 11:48 AM #

    ^^^ “If this recruiting class is as good as everybody says, and I have no reason to doubt that, what makes everybody think they will stay more than one year?”

    The consensus thinking here seems to be that Harrow does not have an NBA-type body yet, and will not be ready to go pro for a while. I think our biggest problem has been a lack of a quality PG. If Harrow turns out to be that, I think we’ll be OK for a while. The way recruiting is going, there’s no reason to think Sid won’t keep bringing in replacements. Especially if we taste some success in the next year or two.

    If our best players (other than our point guards) go pro early, I think we’ll recover with future recruiting. Assuming Sid continues to reel them in like this.

  8. frankiepack 10/28/2009 at 12:45 PM #

    ^Why? “there’s no reason to think Sid won’t keep bringing in replacements.” What do you base this on ,Sid’s on his 4th year he knew JJ was one and done for example who or what was his replacement.

  9. bradleyb123 10/28/2009 at 5:53 PM #

    I base it on this year’s recruiting and the 2010 class. Sid is pretty much getting the players that he wants now.

    And I also base it on my thoughts that as long as we have a great PG (like I think Harrow will be for a few years for us) that whoever else we have out there will be good enough to at least get the job done. Our biggest problem has been a lack of a great PG, and we have one coming in.

    Of course, my assumption is that Harrow will be a great PG. He could always flop, who knows.

  10. nycfan 10/29/2009 at 7:47 AM #

    I’m not sure I buy that Lowe is “getting the players he wants” … I think his recruiting is still relatively circumscribed, although with next year’s class he is accomplishing a tremendous amount regardless of boundaries.

    Outside of the well-greased skids in the ATL and Towe’s connections in Marion Indiana, I don’t think Lowe is yet a credible figure in the national recruiting scene, which is where you have to be to be in the (relatively mythical) get who you want zone.

    Which is not to say that you can’t be successful with a regional recruiting strategy; to the contrary, usually you have to succeed locally to develop a more national profile.

  11. bradleyb123 10/29/2009 at 5:52 PM #

    nycfan, I don’t know about all that you just said. But it’s kinda hard to make a case that Sid isn’t doing a FINE job of recruiting. I believe we have a top-25 caliber class this year (it was higher until Lo Brown failed to qualify). And next year, we have two 5-star recruits and a 4-star recruit that have verbally committed. At least one is expected to sign his LOI in early November. And the 4-star guy may just be a 5-star recruit by the time he gets here.

    Maybe it’s rash to say Sid is getting the players he wants. But he’s getting some of the best players out there. And when you consider the bad reputation State has in basketball, all the bad seasons, it’s downright PHENOMENAL the kind of recruits Sidney is getting.

    And most of these recruits respond with “Sidney Lowe” when asked why they chose NC State.

    I think we should keep Sidney through the end of the 2010-11 season JUST BECAUSE of the 2010 recruiting class we have coming in. And I’m not going to say that about the 2011 recruiting class. For me, Sid’s pass ends in April, 2011. If he didn’t produce some tangible results, and some wins in the postseason, I’ll join the people that want him gone.

    Some say you shouldn’t keep a bad coach JUST for the good recruits. I’m not saying Sidney is a bad coach, but if he is, then in this case, I think we should. That’s a fundamental difference of opinion. I just think his recruiting will make the NC State job that much more appealing to anyone we’re pursuing. (Plus, it gives us a couple of years to dump Lee Fowler before the coaching search begins!)

  12. dwm77 10/29/2009 at 9:50 PM #

    As for recruiting, I believe we have a real gem now in Coach Lowe. Besides the frosh this season and the incoming for next season, the near misses last year were BIG TIME players. Favors, Wall, and Cousins all were seriously considering the Pack (granted, looks like a good thing we wiffed on Wall) and who here can say that with even one of those guys our outlook for this year wouldn’t be much higher.

    I know, we didn’t land them, but going up against Kentucky in recruiting battles sounds to me like that dog will hunt. He will snare his share of rabbits. How ironic that Callipari (yes, yes, no thanks) is our main competition. Deny it all you want but he has an advantage over most schools because of the program he is at. However if we should land C.J. Leslie, it would signal a leveling of the playing field that would be hard to dispute.

    As for nycfan, there is nothing wrong with regionalized recruiting, there is plenty of talent on the eastern seaboard. But if you prefer chasing big white guys off the west coast (ala Duke, Unc), Jordan Vandenberg says “G’day”.

  13. VaWolf82 10/29/2009 at 10:04 PM #

    I know, we didn’t land them

    Amato came in second in many recruiting battles. How did that work out for him?

  14. dwm77 10/29/2009 at 11:28 PM #

    Did Chuck narrowly miss out on Adrian Peterson, Carson Palmer,or Calvin Johnson? Or did he miss on Marvin Austin and Riley Skinner? That’s talking apples to oranges.

    The point being that 2nd place is 1st loser is well taken, but it beats not being in the game at all. If you don’t shoot for the stars you will always end up with a handful of crap. I would rather catch a star or 2 along the way than to have to carry toilet paper in my back pocket.

    Lowe is getting full up on stars and no longer needs the hand wash.

  15. Wulfpack 10/30/2009 at 1:00 PM #

    I think Sid is a fine recruiter. I also think he is a horrendous coach. We’ll see how it pans out.

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