Tysiac Thumped

10-11 Basketball NCS Basketball36

For some reason, this week has seen a number of writers lining up to kick sand on State fans. For reasons that I can’t fathom, PackPride decided to feature Gary Parrish’s diatribe that basically boils down to: State fans need to learn their place. I thought about dissecting that article to show that is nothing more than pile of trash, but our message boards have already done that.

So today, Ken Tysiac decided to add his two cents…which are over priced even if they were free:

I have no idea who N.C. State would or could get to replace Sidney Lowe. I don’t think Sean Miller is coming after the way N.C. State’s fans treated Herb Sendek. I do think the N.C. State job is a difficult one. There is tremendous pressure from the fans to succeed because N.C. State has two NCAA titles. But the reality is, UNC and Duke really have it going right now, and the RBC Center stinks as a homecourt basketball facility (it’s great for hockey, thought). As for Nate McMillan, after the Sidney Lowe experiment, I think you’re going to see N.C. State get somebody who’s not an NBA coach right now. Tubby Smith is a guy I would go after.

Many kudos to FuquayWolf for taking this particular piece of tripe and knocking it out of the park:

There’s Tysiac, buying into the media portrayal of State again. Yeah, UNC-CH sure has it going – going so well they had the same ACC record as us last year. Sure, when Roy gets the right mix of players on the team, he wins BIG. But when he gets it wrong, well, they tend to struggle. Even UNC-CH’s spoiled fans are griping about Roy. So they can be had. I’ll give him Duke though – K has really got it going there right now, and his recruiting is going great. But that doesn’t mean they still can’t be beat from time to time.

And when did the RBC Center become a bad homecourt basketball facility??? Was Tysiac there when we beat UNC-CH in 2007? Or how about Duke last year? The only thing holding back the RBC Center from being a great homecourt advantage is the team that plays on the court. Again, that’s Tysiac picking up on the yearly “I wish we still played in Reynolds” thread on PP.

On Sean Miller, I’ll just point out that Miller left Sendek’s program to go be an assistant for Matta at Xavier. Yep, Miller left an ACC job for an A-10 job working for another one of Sendek’s assistants. His relationship with Sendek might be consideration, but I think it’s much more accurate to say that being the HC at one of the top programs in a weak conference and in the NCAA over the last 20-30 years is the reason why Miller likely won’t come to State. Basically, State is a lateral move at best.

But I’m sure glad to see that the N&O/Clt Obs State beat writer sure thinks highly of the school he’s covering. I expect comments like this from an uninformed national media who fails to investigate what the real situation is in West Raleigh. But I expect much better from the local media. Shame on you Tysiac. Instead of parroting the national perception, why don’t you write an article that explains the true feelings of the fanbase. You know, be a reporter and report how State fans actually feel, which I contend is different from how the national media portrays us. Ask Joe Ovies for some tips…

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

10-11 Basketball NCS Basketball

36 Responses to Tysiac Thumped

  1. wolfpack15 02/10/2011 at 12:54 AM #

    mak4dpak, I have to say i see your post a lot and you are right on with what you post.

  2. eas 02/10/2011 at 7:50 AM #

    Randy Bennett is obviously a good coach BUT my gosh he is HWSNBN’s twin. Looks and talks just like him. I am sorry but he will rekindle the media love affair with HWSNBN.

    I can hear the media comparing the 2 coaches right now in my head. I can’t take it, the similarities are there unfortunately for Bennett. Let’s look at other options please

  3. mak4dpak 02/10/2011 at 9:28 AM #

    So we pass over a potentially great coach in Randy Bennett, because he looks, and sounds like Sendek. You can’t be serious! His record in 10 years in outstanding, with 9 sesasons of 20 or more wins, and his coaching style is not at all like Herb, with his teams being tops in the nation in offense. Don’t we hire coaches for their abilties? So you couldn’t get used to the kind of success Bennett brings, at State, because of similarities. Is success what you want? Or somebody that could be a loser, but don’t look like past coaches. I too didn’t care for Sendek and his style, but it never crossed my mind in watching St. Marys, and I certainly wouldn’t spend a game with him as our coach dwelling on Herb.

  4. mak4dpak 02/10/2011 at 9:33 AM #

    Eas, as for what the media has too say, as long as we are winning, I could care less!

  5. kcmoto 02/10/2011 at 2:52 PM #

    I gotta agree about the RBC Center. For college basketball it’s awful. For frame of reference, I’m about to turn 44, so I’ve experienced both Reynolds and RBC. The ONLY decision Jimmy V made (that I’m aware of) that I 100% disagree with, was leaving Reynolds. NCSU men’s basketball should’ve called Reynolds home forever. How ridiculous does it sound to talk about Duke leaving Cameron? State leaving Reynolds should’ve sounded just as ridiculous. We should’ve spent the money to upgrade and improve certain aspects (restrooms, concessions, etc.), but we gave away a huge home-court advantage. Even after witnessing the Stanley Cup environment, I still cannot imagine the Wolfpack will ever have the type of home-court advantage we had in Reynolds. I hope I’m wrong, because Lord knows there’s no undoing this thing.

  6. eas 02/10/2011 at 3:56 PM #

    If he is the best option we have willing to take the job then YES I would take a winner any day. I am just saying if there is another option with similar success than lets consider them. Bennett is a top notch coach and there are a few other mid majors that may consider the challenge as well. The Sendek media love just makes me sick and it would be nice to have a break from it. However, you are correct that he is certainly NOT a bad hire.

    There is one thing you said that made me laugh though. The comment about us hiring on abilities to coach as a priority. Funny thing is that hasn’t really been the case at NCSU for a long time. Seems we hire more experiments than abilities in BB.

    But yes you are correct in Bennett’s coaching abilities.

  7. TomCat 02/10/2011 at 4:00 PM #

    I hate the RBC. It’s generic and I hate that it is off campus. Playing 5 or 6 Satudays at CF is one thing— playing 20 games on Monday’s Tuesday’s etc. is different and the place looks like a empty cavern with no HOME ADVANTAGE feel except for 2 or 3 games a year. How much revenue do we “REALLY” make by playing home games at RBC? Wouldn’t a newly renovated Reynolds ON CAMPUS create a HELLUVA a home court advantage? Isn’t that we are trying to do– WIN GAMES?

    Another thing: We looked like a crazy fan base the way we were perceived to have handled Sendek’s ouster, who to the outside world and outside measurements was running a “successful” progam and was ousted (and he “was” ousted by fan base). Regardless of the dozen’s of excuses we can make — to the outside world in 2006 we were perceived to epitomize a spoiled fan base with a winning coach who could never be satisfied— who would want to coach here?” That was the perception. All true? No. Perceived as such around the country? ABSOLUTELY. Including in coaching circles- which is a very small group.
    Sidney Lowe (God bless him) has provided us the time to distance outselves from that period. It unfortunately has resulted in returning to the bottom of the league and doing “less with more.” Now— we must do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to handle Lowe’s exit with ABSOLUTE CLASS to create a situation which will be attractive once again for a top rising coach. It can absolutely be done at NC State. We need to get over ourselves – start looking at this thing from the outside/in and look at ourselves as a fan base and support structure to make ourselves a ASSET with rabid suppport — instead of the 2006 route. This is a GREAT job. We need to do our part and handle this transition with absolute class.

    My choice for next coach? Tubby Smith or any young coaching doing it with less to create more.

  8. highstick 02/10/2011 at 5:36 PM #

    Just curious if the majority of the folks who think Reynolds is the place to be are students? That would be understandable since it would be more convenient.

    However, Reynolds had some very crappy seats.

    My feeling about Duke is that if they want to be a major basketball team, they should be kicked out of Cameron for obvious reasons. How many games have they won because they bring the visitor into a “hotbox” to play. They use Cameron significantly to their advantage and not just because of the Cameroon Idiots.

  9. wolfpack15 02/10/2011 at 10:30 PM #

    The RBC Center is as nice as they come. We should be greatful. The last time I checked we weren’t really in the best of economic times. Spending a few million to upfit Reynolds to a first class facility doesn’t make much sense when we already have a first class facility to play. It makes more sense to spend that money on other things that will bring more profit to the athletic program. Just a few ideas would be to spend that money on an indoor multi sport facility that football and other sports could use. That could benifit several of our sports programs and recruiting. Second we could use that money to expand Carter-Finley. We did have a 99% occupancy rate this year. To me that shows it’s time to start looking into that. After all football does drive the economic balance sheet for ALL the sports. The goal each year is to make enough money on football to cover the overhead of ALL the other sports. Obviously adding a few more seats to Carter-Finley would only bring in more revenue for all the sports to benefit from. I just think there are better ways for NC State to spend that money than to just dump it into Reynolds when its not a necessity.

    Hell spend that money on paying a high profile basketball coach!

  10. ncsslim 02/10/2011 at 11:19 PM #

    What % of our 35,000 or so students reside on campus? Given our product, would they bother to even walk to the games regardless? Put a product on the floor and they, like everyone else, will come. Do people not recall that there was a decade of bad ball in Reynolds before we moved to the RBC? It ain’t the arena, boys, not by a long shot. Put our teams in suits with Duke on the front, have them play in Cameron, and they will still lose and look bad doing so.

    Makes me think that those pining for the not incorrectly named “Old Barn” didn’t attend the literally 100’s of games I did. Unless you were one of the very few absolute fortunate (hell Wendell will buy half of those seats now and they’ll still be empty), the site lines were horrific, and the seats, aisles, bathrooms, and HV”AC” were absolute disasters. And renovations would be a total economically infeasible 8th engineering wonder of the world.

    I have to believe with the right situation, the RBC would be nothing but a plus against the two neighbors and all other comers. It’s a national class arena and basically fell into our laps when we didn’t have a lot of options. It is neither too large, nor too remote; it’s just that our product sucks. Period. Be competitive and they will come, and they will come quickly. And they will be loud, and we’ll once again have the great home court (albeit, different) atmosphere we had in the 70’s and 80’s. Just win.

  11. mak4dpak 02/10/2011 at 11:23 PM #

    eas, when I was posting the comment about hiring a coach on his abilties, I had the same thoughts. We certainly haven’t done that in a long time. As our record over the last 20 years speaks for itself, and agree with ncsslim that it is not the venue, but the performer. UNX has no problem with rowdy fans in the dome, and I am crazy enough to believe we can have the same, and make it intimidating to opposing teams. Just gotta find the right coach, and the RBC will rock!

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