CBSSports.com: Here in Carter-Finley, the fan base has really embraced you in this program. You were 5-1 at home in 2010, with 7 games on the schedule in 2011. How important has this stadium become as a home field advantage?
TOB: No I think it’s huge, we have tremendous fans. They love their football, they love their team. They show up as soon as the tailgate lots open, some of them before the tailgate lots open You know we had third largest crowd in history last year and set a single-season attendance record. I think it speaks volumes to their passion for the Wolfpack football team and I think our kids feed off that.
How is this possible with several national talking heads saying one of the problems at NC State is our fans?
If you haven’t noticed on the radio, then the national guys are back at it trashing NC State’s basketball program. Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports even had the audacity to say that the perception of the NC State job is that you have to cheat to win. I asked him if you have to cheat at VCU to win and got no response.
This hire is really important to their credibility. They want to be proven right about the NC State job, so they are doing everything they can to promote their point of view. It is a shame our local talk radio guys give them a stage to take shots at NC State.
As I pointed out yesterday, NC State basketball coaches Herb Sendek and Sidney Lowe have ranked in the top 15 in the nation in signing top 100 players, top 50 players, and top 10 players since 1998. At the same time, neither coach had the program performing at top 15 levels or even top 25 levels during these years.
The recruiting numbers linked above prove it is definitely possible to build a top 15 program at State with the right coach in place. Our program had performed at that level up until 1990 and it has attracted recruits at that level for the last decade+. Those recruits came to State under two different coaches: Sendek with moderate success and Lowe with absolutely zero success.
Additionally, Sendek’s experience at Arizona St. has given us five years of data that prove just how great he had it in Raleigh with those bad NC State fans. Clearly, those recruits weren’t just choosing NC State because of Sendek because his recruiting has deteriorated since leaving one of the best areas to live in the entire country:
The last 4.5 years show exactly how the NC State head coaching position is actually an outstanding opportunity. The records of Sendek and Lowe show that a large part of Sendek’s success was actually the resources, fan support, financial support, facilities, location, school, conference affiliation, etc…that were at Sendek’s disposal during his 10 years in Raleigh. Sendek is the same coach today that he was 5 years ago at NC State. In fact, he is likely a better coach today because he has more experience and his reputation has grown. So what changed when he went to Arizona St. especially when you consider he is no longer facing Duke and UNC and coaching in the same area code as Coach K and Roy?
He is at Arizona St. He is working from a different platform with fewer resources. That is all that has changed.
If you don’t believe me, then go ask the mean ASU fans here. Don’t they know they have a coaching genius leading their program?
Why is it that these national guys ignore Sendek’s plight in the desert and statistics like the top 15 recruiting haul for NC State basketball coaches? We have real data to measure the opportunity at NC State yet all these guys can say is we have bad fans(Goodman called us worse than that) and that proximity to Duke and UNC is a problem even though Sendek is thousands of miles away doing worse now.
