NC State succeeded to erase most of the goodwill the Wolfpack had built in the early part of the season with an embarrassing 70-62 home loss to fellow projected cellar-dwellar, Virginia.
State was up ten points in the middle of the second half when Mike Wood called an ‘interesting’ charge on Dennis Horner that took 2 points off the board for us that would have extended our lead to 12.
UVa followed that possession with a three pointer and the mentally-weak Wolfpack’s collapse was just beginning . I would love to know what the scoring was in the game after the foul called on Horner.
The Wolfpack then missed free throw after free throw after free throw and couldn’t score to offset our bad defense as Virginia pulled away. For the game, the Wolfpack was a miserable 16-25 from the free throw line (61.5%) while Virginia shot a blistering 19-20 from the charity stripe.
The first 30 seconds of the game was literally a mirror into the foundational deficiencies that plague the NC State program: (1) Javi Gonzalez committed an unforced turnover in the first eight seconds of the basketball game. How is that even possible?, (2) Virginia grabbed an offensive rebound on their shot attempt just 27 seconds into the game. You couldn’t have even scripted behavior more telling than that.
I wish I could comment on Coach Lowe’s substitution pattern, but I don’t quite understand it any more than he does.
A good friend of mine emailed me the following after the game —
I don’t get emotional about NC State Basketball anymore. This is literally the first time all year I’ve wasted more than 30 mins (of my time) on a game, and I realize now why I do not dedicate any time watching this.
Why do I send you this? Because I think I probably feel the same way a lot of fans do, and it is sad. There was nobody in RBC for an ACC game on a Saturday.
Looking at our ACC schedule, there is no team we are clearly better than on the list. We’ll have a small margin for error in all our games. It could get really bad this year; I hope I am wrong.
Once again we have “hope”, with Harrow and a few others coming, which is horrible becuase “hope” is not a plan. I HATE the excuse that you have to get players, though I know it is importanct. We both know you are not a good program if you have to rely on a a great recruit to be competitive. Good coaches can overcome a certain level of talent gap by focusing on fundamentals and sound basketball. And I really don’t think our talent gap is too large in ACC competition.
So . . . if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. If the team gets 4 wins or less in the ACC, a real possibility, it would be appalling not to make a change. And once again, I really hope I’m wrong and get a surprise to the upside!!!
I totally understand his thoughts and his feelings. I just don’t understand why any NC State would remotely entertain any coaching move while Lee F*ing Fowler would be the AD responsible for making the hire. What coach in America do you think would want to work for that bozo? I know quite a few personally – including one in Texas – who has told his friends and inner circle there would be no way in hell they ‘would ever work for that idiot’.
As we’ve been trying to tell you for YEARS — there is NO REASON to focus or worry about any of the individual programs before you fix the biggest problem that inherently impacts every program — LEE FOWLER.
SUNDAY UPDATE (11 a.m.)
The fallout from Saturday’s loss has spilled over into Sunday now and I just can’t tell you how happy it makes me that I get the pleasure of talking about the game more.
Luke DeCock addressed State’s sloppy play in his column today in the N&O.
Also, Denny Kuiper, from the ACC Journal, touched on State/Virginia in his 3-pointer.
I don’t really have anymore to say about the game. State should have won by 8-10 points and ended up losing by eight. The one thing that really scares me about it, the more I think about it, is that this debacle came against Virginia. This wasn’t Carolina or Duke or some top tier team, it was Virginia. The next three weeks sure look like they could be loads of fun.
