The one where NC State beats a ranked team and Scott Wood becomes my hero

09-10 Basketball87

Did that really happen?

So it definitely wasn’t a perfect performance by any stretch of the imagination, but I must say watching NC State beat FSU Tuesday night was just what I needed. Tuesday’s performance by the Wolfpack proves what I’ve thought all season, NC State does in fact have the ability to compete with pretty much anybody in the ACC if it plays well. Combine that with the fact that the ACC is down, and you have the opportunity for NC State to win some games (even on the road) that some people think it shouldn’t.

That being said, here’s some highlights from the game.

  • Scott Wood poured in a career-high 31 points while going 7 of 11 from behind the arc. He also pulled down seven big rebounds during his 37 minutes (wow!). If Wood can keep his shot going and start to score more consistently, it could be huge for the overall success of the offense. As teams continue to try and shut Tracy Smith down, Wood and others on the outside are going to have to continue to shoot well.
  • NC State shot nearly 83% from the free throw line. Didn’t think I would ever see that this season, but once again this proves that the ability is there. Not a ton of excuses moving forward.
  • Jordan Vandenberg and Richard Howell combined for 11 rebounds off the bench and Howell scored seven points.

Although most of what you can say about Tuesday’s win is positive, there are some points where NC State can improve. The most important one is turnovers. The Pack had 18 TOs Tuesday and Javi Gonzalez had six. This has to stop, soon.

One other thing I’d like to see is the ability to get the ball to Tracy Smith in different ways because teams are going to continue to double and hope other guys don’t make shots. Smith went 1 of 8 from the field and only scored seven points. Eventually there will come a time when Smith is being doubled and Soctt Wood or someone else is clanging shots off the backboard. Versatility is always good.

For those interested, here’s the box.

Also, thanks to those of you who joined the LiveBlog chat we did via Cover It Live. We had nearly 300 readers in the chat room and it seemed like there were about 50 guys typing feverishly during NC State’s win. It makes the game fun to watch, IMO. I’m going to keep working at trying to integrate the chat box into the main site rather than having a link that takes you somewhere else. We’ll do it again.

It’s amazing how much better winning feels. Especially compared to this…

Sorry, couldn’t help it.

09-10 Basketball

87 Responses to The one where NC State beats a ranked team and Scott Wood becomes my hero

  1. Sweet jumper 01/13/2010 at 12:04 PM #

    Root for Clemson tonight for 2 reasons. Most obviously, they can give UNX another loss. Secondly, we want them to come to Raleigh cocky and taking us for granted on Saturday. Nice win last night by the Pack. Go Pack!

  2. Rochester 01/13/2010 at 12:09 PM #

    Painter sits because the only skill he’s consistently shown is fouling. Davis plays because he hustles all the time.

  3. Pack05 01/13/2010 at 12:09 PM #

    That was a great win for us last night and although he didn’t score JV did a great job for us on the defensive end and when he didn’t get the rebound he was tipping it to one of his teammates. Howell is really coming around and SCOTT WOOD DROPPED 31 ON DAT AZZ AND PINNED THAT WEAK BREAK AWAY LAYUP to put the exclamation point on it.

  4. Thinkpack17 01/13/2010 at 12:09 PM #

    “Why is Painter not getting any PT, I thought he was highly recruited? Davis is getting more than him and wanted to know if anyone knew why?”

    Well they play 2 different positions. We are getting set in a 10 man rotation (which was Sid’s vision from day 1) and while Painter did have a little noise coming in Howell was listed as the higher prospect. And he is playing like it. So Josh comes at the 3 and Howell comes in at the 4. Looks like Painter has just been beat out.

  5. packof81 01/13/2010 at 12:10 PM #

    I was delighted to see the improvement at the free throw line. That is very encouraging.

  6. Pack05 01/13/2010 at 12:11 PM #

    also, glad we have the extra days to prepare for Clemson… they always play us very physical and expect us to back down and we usually do. Hopefully we will have something for them come Saturday.

  7. Clarksa 01/13/2010 at 12:16 PM #

    With a team like this…young, inexperienced…we are going to have some games like NW/Wake/UVA and then have some great nights like Marquette/FSU…it just really sucks we got beat on a miracle shot by Florida, and a really, really good shot (over three defenders) by AZ. I’d love to have those two back.

    We shouldn’t get too excited after wins…and we shouldn’t get to pissy after a loss…it will be a roller coaster season.

  8. choppack1 01/13/2010 at 12:19 PM #

    “I was delighted to see the improvement at the free throw line. That is very encouraging.”

    Well, these guys CAN shoot well from the line and they have in some games. I’ll need to see it a couple of times in a row before I believe it’s any kind of trend.

    I’m more encouraged that our team came out and fought and withstood the FSU rally.

  9. rtpack24 01/13/2010 at 12:32 PM #

    Great win on the road coming off a tough loss at home shows alot of character for this team. Wood’s shooting ability is always talked about and he ia a great shooter. What impresses me about him is his overall game. He does everything well and as he gets stronger he will be more consistant.

  10. RSP123 01/13/2010 at 12:33 PM #

    “You are only as good as your next game!” I hope the Pack can build upon the win. Overall, we played focused for 40 minutes and had players step up and make plays. Regardless of the coach, you have to have players do that. Positives: 2-2-1 press taking the ball out of point guard’s hand to disrupt offense (need to do that more)and ability to shoot FTs and win rebounding battle. Negatives: still too many unforced turnovers and unnecessary fouls! Good job team and coaching staff. Keep it up!

  11. Wulfpack 01/13/2010 at 12:34 PM #

    Bradley, we are NC State Wolfpack fans, not “anti-Sid” Lowe haters. If Sid can continue to coach these boys up, and put up more performances like last night, I’m all for having him as our coach. However, I tend to be a results oriented individual, and thus far his tenure has been well below average in league play. That can surely change. But please stop with the instigations. It was a great win. Bottom line: most of us would like to see many more of them before we get too giddy.

  12. inhoc... 01/13/2010 at 12:40 PM #

    welp…..cant loose em all.

  13. packattack95 01/13/2010 at 1:06 PM #

    One disturbing trend I noticed throughout this season so far is when Javi, Horner and Tracy get fouled, they tend to protest the calls alot. I haven’t seen this much from the underclassman, just the upper classmen. Javi almost got us a technical when he protested the call that fouled him out. Anyone else notice this trend? It needs to stop!

  14. gcpack 01/13/2010 at 1:28 PM #

    By the way, not to dwell on the Fla game, but since you have the replay of the $1 million Dr.Pepper (more than) half court shot I submit that the Fla player was in the lane before the ball got to the rim. I haven’t heard or seen anyone else mention this but of course if we (State supporters)did we all know the response would be that it is sour grapes to blame the refs.

    And while mentioning the refs two of the them(one being Karl Hess)who officiated the FSU game last night also did the WFU game that ultimately got T. Smith benched for the Az game after he complained that Hess and his henchmen played favorites. Guess what. Smith also gets a lot of fouls(4) last night with the big shot Hess being present.

    Coincidence or not?? I would like to know what the verdict would be from some of you here.

  15. Clarksa 01/13/2010 at 1:39 PM #

    My verdict is that Karl Hess sucks as a ref no matter what game he is doing…he is very much in love with the sound of his whistle.

  16. packfan03 01/13/2010 at 1:42 PM #

    Did you notice the free throw disparity going into the final few minutes of the game? It took almost two minutes of non-stop hacking from FSU to even up the foul shots.

    In fairness, FSU had some NASTY blocks. Playing against a front line as athletic and long as they are, we should lose the free throw battle.

    If I was a ref and a player criticized me in the media, it would be hard for me to be 100% objective in games – especially games away from said players home court. I would strive to be, and I’m sure Hess does, but it only has to sneak out once or twice a game to make an impact.

  17. Rick 01/13/2010 at 1:48 PM #

    Great game and great win.

    Wood was awesome. He will not play like this every game but as he matures it will become more and more often. The key is learning how to be important when he is not that hot.

    I liked the way Woods and Mays kept the ball between them at the end so they had to be fouled. Mays catches a lot of grief (see how I made that point without calling anyone “anti-Mays) and hit a lot of FTs to win it.

    That game took way too long to end.

    BTW
    I said it before and I will say it again. I will be deleted posts that refer to people as anti-sid or sid haters. It does nothing but cause division and frankly, is very childish.

  18. Thinkpack17 01/13/2010 at 1:54 PM #

    “welp…..cant loose em all.”

    loose?

  19. Pack Leader 01/13/2010 at 2:02 PM #

    “Why is Painter not getting any PT, I thought he was highly recruited? Davis is getting more than him and wanted to know if anyone knew why?”

    Painter has not shown me one thing that makes me want to give him extended mins. Offensivly he cant keep up, and Defensivly he is still learning how to face his man and dominate the boards. He is very very raw, was in HS and still is today. We have a hard enough time scoring the ball, the last thing we need is a big man who cant help at all on the offensive side of the court.

    Sid is running every position 2 deep, and He has tried Painter at both 4 & 5. He got beat out at both positions, Vandenberg’s a much better Center than Deshawn & Howell is far ahead of him at the PF spot.

    Davis is getting more mins because he runs at the 3, and the only other player we have besides Wood is Thomas, and he wont get his ass off the bench at all this year.

  20. coach13 01/13/2010 at 2:03 PM #

    This game gave me a much better feeling about the team’s future. We have all talked about the good lookin recruits we have next year but after the UVA game it was looking like it wouldn’t matter who was coming in. Last night gave me a sense that we have a pretty descent supporting cast albeit young and inconsistent this year. If we can get that leader/go to person with this crew next year we should start to look like a real basketball program. I know, we hate talking about next year(s) but that is what we have. Just keep the pleasant surprises coming like last night and try not to step on your d#!@ against the UVA’s at home.

  21. tvp1 01/13/2010 at 2:08 PM #

    Hate to pull the WTNY card again (then again, that’s our favorite pasttime as State fans, no?) but next year’s lineup looks better all the time:

    Javi/Harrow
    Brown
    Wood
    Howell
    Smith

    with the first guys off the bench being Javi/Harrow, Vandenburg, and the best out of Mays/Williams/Davis backing up the wing spots.

  22. JeremyH 01/13/2010 at 2:08 PM #

    This is why we need to see the whole body of work, and not just “react” after every win and loss. As I think maybe VaWolf said, we get too high and then too low. What I really want to see is consistency, but given the immaturity of this team, if that happens it will be gradual. Every game that passes Lowe should be getting a better idea of what he has, and should be structuring his pre-game and in-game strategies around the strengths and weaknesses of his players. He might be starting to do that, but it needs to be observed over a larger body of work (like maybe halfway through the acc season, and then before the acc tournament). Scott Wood is not going to hit 7 three pointers every night, and we therefore need offensive strategies that simply work when nothing is cooking, and as we have seen just dumping down to Tracy is not going to be enough. Liking the uses of big V and the progression of Howell, and Wood is settling in nicely. Now, let’s be consistent! : )

  23. Class of 2009 01/13/2010 at 2:11 PM #

    To me, it’s not that this was some amazing blow-out and now I think all our troubles are over. Rather, I say there for the last 5 minutes of the game when FSU hit a couple big shots and wasn’t really angry, but just waited for the obligatory NC State meltdown.

    The meltdown never came and our team never let-up against a team expected to be wildly better than us. Therein lies the significance of this W for me.

  24. wbnation 01/13/2010 at 2:15 PM #

    Its funny cause for about 35 minutes all I could do was complain about Mays being on the court. He always picks up his dribble 10 feet behind the 3 point lane. But his biggest problem is in his decision making, he doesn’t do it fast enough. He isn’t confident in what he is seeing and therefor either doesn’t make the pass thats there or gets caught holding the ball 10 feet behind the 3 point line and having to wait for someone to come get it. But damn I was glad he was in there for the last three minutes. If he could just be as confident in our half court sets as he seems to be at the free throw line late, I think he could definitely become a serviceable guard for us. He just needs to trust in what he is seeing. And Javi was a no show last night. WTF? worse game I have seen him play since his freshman year.

  25. Thinkpack17 01/13/2010 at 2:17 PM #

    ^The people at my bar were like “Turn it to the Kentucky game! You’re up 10 points, you won, it’s over!” They were all out of towners so I didn’t even bother to explain to them how crazy their statement was.

    BTW D_Medlin is the title a “Friends” reference?

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