NC State vs Georgia Tech Open Post

09-10 Basketball ACC College Basketball295

Will NC State start a bigger lineup against the inside oriented Jackets? Can the Wolfpack take down its third ranked oppoenent of the season?

Today’s game is huge for both State and Ga. Tech. Both needs win badly.

Post thoughts here and check Twitter during the game for a few updates/thoughts.

09-10 Basketball ACC College Basketball

295 Responses to NC State vs Georgia Tech Open Post

  1. Rochester 02/07/2010 at 9:51 AM #

    It’s overly simplistic to say a coach is good because his team went to the NCAAT. The question is, did his team reach its ceiling? Did he get the most out of them? If a coach consistently goes home the first weekend of the NCAAT with teams that should make it to the Elite 8, he’s not doing a good job. If he’s squeaking in as a 10-seed when he has the talent to be a 4-seed, he’s not doing a good job.

    And if he doesn’t have the talent to make it to the NCAAT because he blew a recruiting class on Julius Mays and CJ Williams, he has no one to blame but himself.

  2. MA Wolfpack 02/07/2010 at 10:18 AM #

    Rochester, you are correct that the Mays/CJW recruiting class is killing us right now. Unfortunately, that is a sunk cost. Anyone making decisions based on sunk costs is an idiot. Harrrow/Brown are the key to the future of NCSU basketball.

  3. rtpack24 02/07/2010 at 10:24 AM #

    Hewitt does not start his best overall player-Peacock. Lowe does not play his best point guard at the point-Degand. Lack of talent at this point is directly on Sid and his staff. The same staff that signs Josh Davis who is a great kid that loves State. Too bad he is no where near an ACC caliber player.

  4. inhoc... 02/07/2010 at 10:55 AM #

    “I mean, who is out there that wants the NCSU job? It’s not that great of a job right now and hasn’t been for 20 years.”

    -ask david cutcliffe of jim grobe. i`d say comparitvely the job would still be better today than the duke or wake job when they took over.

  5. NJpack 02/07/2010 at 11:01 AM #

    Ask Tony Bennett at UVA if he needs five years to build a program.

  6. Sweet jumper 02/07/2010 at 11:02 AM #

    Ed89, great post, excellent points

  7. Pack Mentality 02/07/2010 at 11:20 AM #

    “My question for the guys calling for Sids head: what is the alternative? I mean, who is out there that wants the NCSU job?”

    My question for you is: Are you really telling me that nobody in the world that we could hire would improve us from being a consistent last place contender? Is that really what you think? So maybe we’re not a powerhouse, but I think that saying the best we can do is last place every year is kind of setting pretty low expectations. Am I really that crazy to expect to not be last every year…think about it, nobody can do better than that?

  8. JeremyH 02/07/2010 at 11:33 AM #

    i guess we look pretty silly for running HWSNBN off. in hindsight we should have run off the AD

  9. StateFans 02/07/2010 at 12:25 PM #

    You needed hindsight to tell you that?

    We didn’t run anybody off. Herb CHOOSE to leave. If Herb wasn’t in total control of when he was staying or leaving then why in the world did he just ‘happen’ to leave during the season he had lost four starters and had nothing coming back along with a pretty weak recruiting class?

    What a coincidence that he wasn’t ‘run off’ after year five or year six or year seven or year eight or year nine…just happened to be year ten when the program was clearly valleying in talent.

  10. packfan03 02/07/2010 at 12:31 PM #

    “Am I really that crazy to expect to not be last every year…think about it, nobody can do better than that?”

    Yes, with the talent we currently have, you are crazy. That’s why some of us believe it is imperative to wait until after year 5 to make a change. It will be more of the same if we get rid of Lowe. If we keep him, our talent is upgraded for next season.

  11. VaWolf82 02/07/2010 at 12:46 PM #

    It’s overly simplistic to say a coach is good because his team went to the NCAAT.

    But the converse is simple and accurate….an ACC coach that can’t make the NCAAT is bad.

  12. whope90 02/07/2010 at 1:25 PM #

    We are all passionate about our school and the current failures of the men’s basketball team! Can or could Sidney Lowe coach,recruit and turn things around or would he drive the program into the ground?

    Well, it is pretty obvious that the program that once went to the NCAA”S five years in a row is in a freefall. And in this day and time, results are immediate with no waiting plan or honeymoon period! There was and should not be any honeymoon period for any collegiate coach at any level anymore,those days are long gone! When you are the coach, you are essentially the CEO of the team and program due to the money potential and recognition the school receives based on your performance. It is obvious that after four years, Sidney Lowe as failed and failed badly.

    First, He was not qualified to begin with merely by not having any college coaching experience and mediocre pro experience as well. Taking over a coaching job in the NBA merely when your head coach gets fired and in turn leads to your termination, is not coaching experience,especially when the players run the show and make more than
    you.

    Second, This hire(Lowe) did not even have a college degree when he was hired and only received it thru correspondence coarses thur another school?(ST Pauls?)

    Third, Coach Lowe did not do enough to establish a foundation when he first arrived by keeping the recruiting class that were signed and releasing those committs. While at the time, it was honorable thing to do,in hindsight,that was a mistake. This lead him to play his starters an incredible amount of minutes that hurt there affectiveness in long stretches and cause injuries to some(Astir). His second season, he did get some talent(hickson)but messed up and damaged his relationships with his previous starters whom gave all they had only to have minutes reduced.
    This was obvious in their performance as they finished with a nine game losing streak and overall bad team morale that lead into his third season.

    But all of that was forgiven as he has brought in some of his talented players(class this year ranked 11 overall)yet the play is not solid nor is there any progress from last year. Even the athletic director stated from time to time,that he needed to see progress, but what kind?

    In year four, from the first game to the current loss,even reviewing his first year, the patterns are the same: no opening ACC win,on cohesion or flow or college system in place. No fundamentals being taught or the basic drills or practices being reflected on the court, dwindling home attendence,less coverage via tv and print media(N/O) and only one post season bid(NIT-2007) and no finish higher than 10th in a 12 team conference.

    But what to do? It is obvious that a coaching change needs to be made.
    To those of you who may say whom would want to come,just take a look at some of these potential candidates for the head coaching job:

    Jeff Capel Okla: Yes, Duke kid and tough to bring from a good job to maybe not as prestigisous but ACC lure can be great and the potential to establish his own name as he has a great coaching pedegree(DAD Jeff SR)
    and ability to recruit and win in a football school makes him a win win if he can be persuaded!!

    Brad Stevens Butler: Another solid coach whom current job maybe equal to this one but turn Butler into a NCAA t team and is tough to play.
    Solid fundamentally and a great molder of mediocre talent.

    Steve Donaghue Cornell: If there is any doubts about this one canidate,
    look at his job this year. Cornell was or still maybe ranked in the top 25 this year. The fact he has done this kind of job at an ivy league school other than princeton is amazing and the ivy league can produce talented coaches(John Thompson III).

    and the ret of my list:
    Ray Mccallum Detriot
    Chris Lowery Southern ILl
    Scott Drew Baylor
    Tavis Ford OSU
    Steven Hawkins Western Michigan
    Gregg Marshall Wichta State

    And there maybe be plenty more.
    I think the state job is a great one and offers great upside to anyone whom desires it. yes sidney lowe did help our univeristy win a ncca titles and forever will be in our hearts for that, but that was nearly 30 years ago and we cannot live on that forever. If UNC can fire Matt D
    after three years, and he won one for Dean and was Dean’s boy, then the bar has been set,win and win soon and often, that is why salaries are so high because the risk is great and our univeristy has taken the cautious route, it is time for the athletic dept to come to the 21st century,
    make a change! Hire a new coach!!!

  13. Rochester 02/07/2010 at 1:27 PM #

    VaWolf82 — you are correct, sir. Not making the NCAAT four years in a row is a sign of incompetence.

    And I strongly disagree with anyone who thinks our talent should equal a last place finish. I’m not saying we should be first, but with a strong coaching staff, this same exact bunch of guys could easily be .500 in conference. You don’t have to have a roster full of burger boys to play solid defense or not throw the ball away like we did yesterday.

  14. packfan03 02/07/2010 at 1:38 PM #

    whope90, I disagree.

    There is a reason why college coaches across the board receive a significant period of time to build their program. It takes time.

    StateFans brought up a great point. Why do you think Herb left? The talent was depleting, and he must have known that he wasn’t going to be able to compete. He couldn’t handle the pressure our university’s fans apply to their coaches (I’m proud of this passion). It’s not easy to compete with Duke/Carolina/Wake right down the road (This seems too obvious to even mention, but clearly it’s not being considered by some of you who are of the mindset that our job is a top 25 coaching position in terms of desirability).

    I think your reaction is emotional, having experienced such disappointing results from our athletics in the past 25 years. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but it’s simply not rational to get rid of Sid at this point.

    Again, I want to reiterate that I don’t believe Sid is the answer for sure. We just won’t know the answer until next year. Our talent deserves to be at the bottom of the ACC – and it’s been like that for the extent of Sid’s tenure. It’s difficult for a head coach with no recruiting experience to go out and get the blue chippers (This is Lee’s fault for hiring him in the first place, and why he needs another year). At this point, we’ve gone through the growing pains of Sidney. Let’s see if he can be a functional coach by giving him next season and then pulling the trigger if we’re unhappy with the results.

    But, seeing how this is the reasonable thing to do, I’m sure Fowler will fire him after this season.

  15. packfan03 02/07/2010 at 1:44 PM #

    Rochester,

    You are simply wrong on the talent front. Compare our recruiting talent to any school in the ACC. You’ll find we are at the bottom of the barrel.

    You may think our guys should play better based on your thoughtful analysis, but the people who are paid to evaluate recruits for a living disagree. Not saying these guys are right every time – but certainly they are more credible than the opinion of the most of us. Maybe you are one of these scouts, and simply disagree with your peers?

    If so, I would like to hear why you think our team is on the same level, talent wise, as the Marylands, FSU’s, Wake Forests, and Carolinas (this year).

    I think your argument is a year early. Next year, our overall talent will place us in the middle of the league.

  16. 61Packer 02/07/2010 at 2:00 PM #

    Rochester: “You don’t have to have a roster full of burger boys to play solid defense or not throw the ball away like we did yesterday.”

    AMEN. It ain’t for lack of good guards, for lack of size, for lack of experience, for lack of good refs, or for lack of athletic talent. It’s for lack of ACC caliber coaches on our bench. Period. UVA has little talent beyond a couple of players; they’re essentially a team of role players but with a coaching staff that gets the most out of what they have. Conversely, Lowe, Hewitt and Purnell are classic examples of ACC underachievers. The only thing that separates them so far is that Lowe is the worst recruiter of the three.

    I just got through watching another of the Duke-Carolina games now being show on ESPN Classic. This one was played in January 1996, and UNC won by one point, holding on to first place in the ACC. And the last thing on the screen was the ACC standings, with NC State in sole possession of last place.

    The more things change, the more they remain the same.

  17. JT 02/07/2010 at 2:11 PM #

    How anybody could see this as anything more than a lower tier ACC team in terms of talent is beyond me. Javi tries, but he isn’t top ACC material. Nor is Mays. Nor is Horner. Nor is… etc. Smith is. Howell and Wood may be eventually. Most of the rotation would be good fits on mid-major teams and would probably excel in that situation, but they don’t belong on an apiring regular top 25 team. They try and I like these guys, but they just aren’t super talented. I have no idea how good a floor coach Lowe is because there isn’t a lineup available to stick with. Of course, what makes a coach great? Recruiting. A decent coach can win it all with great talent, but a great coach can’t excel without the talent. If Lowe has one thing he must do NOW it is raise the talent level at State and keep it on an upward curve…maybe he could link it with the deficit somehow.

  18. Noah 02/07/2010 at 2:12 PM #

    So, once Harrow and Brown get here…then what? Are we going to have an offensive system? We haven’t had one in four years. Why are we going to have one next year?

    Is Lowe going to finish, “Coaching For Dummies?” And what happens if Harrow and Brown are good? They’ll leave after one or two years and we’ll be right back where we are now.

  19. Noah 02/07/2010 at 2:17 PM #

    EVERYONE sees this team as being lower-tier in terms of talent. NO ONE thinks we are underachieving.

    THAT is EXACTLY the point!!!

    In four years, Lowe hasn’t done ANYTHING to make the team better!! This is his team. He recruited and signed these guys. He took over a team that was coming off five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. Every year, the team has gotten worse…and worse…and worse.

    You can bitch about that first team all you want, but it was capable of making an ACC tourney run and damn near beating a good UNC team. Lowe decided that since he was short on players, adding guys like Lewandowski and Johnson would be a good move.

    He waited four years to get a decent point guard. He wasn’t taking over Les Robinson’s teams, where he had to rebuild everything from scratch. He wasn’t playing in a dumpy stadium built in the 40s. He had name recognition, a decent program and a GREAT arena….and he flushed it away.

    YES, the talent on this team sucks. THAT IS WHY HE SHOULD BE FIRED!!!

  20. packfan03 02/07/2010 at 2:57 PM #

    I think it’s very clear as to why the talent is sub-par. Fowler hired a coach with no recruiting contacts setup, and we’ve paid the price for that. This explains the lack of talent. It also shows that if you give Lowe the time and resources, he can recruit with the best of them. Our class for next year shows this. Also, don’t forget that we were expecting Zo this year. It certainly is not Coach Lowe’s responsibility to sit at the dinner table with Zo while he did his homework (It’s repetitive and nonsensical to say Lowe “should have known” and been able to combat this problem).

    Lowe has an offense system, and it’s very clear that it’s a flex styled offense oriented around PG play and big men. I know it’s difficult for some of you to endure another season – but it’s just borderline ridiculous to think making a change THIS year is a good idea.

    Your logic is as follows:

    Let’s hire a coach and let him setup his recruiting channels and connections and watch him flounder with sub-par talent for four years (as everyone expects because we all know, talent wins games). Then, as soon as he is going to bring in top talent, we need to pull the rug out from under him. All of our recruits have said they want to come here to play for Lowe. That’s why they are here, and they will likely not stay if he’s gone. Fowler will let them go, I guarantee it. Perhaps they will want to stay, but if they want to go, they will.

    Some of you project a self fulfilling destiny of failure when you use this logic.

  21. Rochester 02/07/2010 at 3:20 PM #

    Many of the posters defending keeping Lowe seem to assume that any coach we bring in will be equally incompetent. This may be the case if Fowler is left to run the search again, but if it is outsourced to a competent search party (i.e. Neinas), there is little reason to believe we couldn’t find a coach who wouldn’t need five years to finish higher than 10th place. If we hire a coach who is already coaching, he will already have some recruiting contacts in place. He won’t be starting from scratch.

    There’s also an assumption that Harrow and Brown would go elsewhere if Lowe were fired. Imagine we bring in a competent coach. Perhaps they still want to play for him. Imagine the coaching search doesn’t take 6 weeks while they wait and wonder about their future. This coaching staff doesn’t HAVE to be done like the last one, and the results SHOULD be better. If we change coaches they might ask out of their LOIs, but that’s not a certainty.

    Of course, we could wait six weeks to find out that Fowler hired Julius Hodge as our new coach. Then the rest of the team would probably transfer and we could just shut down the whole program.

  22. Pack Mentality 02/07/2010 at 3:35 PM #

    Packfan03:

    “Compare our recruiting talent to any school in the ACC. You’ll find we are at the bottom of the barrel.”

    let me say this more clearly so that you understand me.

    Our lack of talent is the reason I think Sid is a bad coach. I never said he should be expected to win with this untalented roster. I expect a coach to have more talent than this in year 4 regardless of any kind of excuse you can possibly think of.

  23. MA Wolfpack 02/07/2010 at 3:36 PM #

    Noah, he will be fired if he does not win next season and that will be justified. The only way Lowe should have been fired this season is if we lost to teams with worse talent that ours which did not happen. If you expected more than 4-12 in the ACC or you wanted Lowe gone, then he should have been fired the day Brown did no qualify. It’s not complicated…we have no chance this season and any objective person will tell you that.

    We could hide our PG issues with a combo of Javi, Degand and Mays, but we needed Brown playing 30+ minutes, scoring in double figures and guarding the other teams best outside player. Without him, everyone gets worse.

    We have nothing to lose by bringing Lowe back next season. NCSU will have the most talent on its roster since Valvano was the coach in my opinion. If we fire Lowe, then it’s another 3 year set back at a minimum.

    Please, stop with the UVA stuff. They are not a top tier ACC team. They have 5 conference wins against the bottom 3 teams in the conference and the worst coached team in the conference (GT). They are not going to the NCAA tournament, and they will be playing on Thursday of the ACC tournament. That is not impressive to me.

  24. MA Wolfpack 02/07/2010 at 3:40 PM #

    Pack Mentality, we have 3 of the 5 positions covered with ACC level talent. We would have 4 of them covered if Brown qualified and we’ll have all 5 of them covered next season.

    If Lowe leaves, then Harrow, Brown, Cothron and CJL are gone. That is not debatable…that’s a fact.

  25. Sweet jumper 02/07/2010 at 3:48 PM #

    Maryland just tatooed the Holes by about 25. Welcome to the basement. We need the company.

1 … 8 9 10 11 12

Leave a Reply