Saturday Basketball Briefing

11-12 Basketball20

=====> NC State basketball recruit and McDonald’s All-American Rodney Purvis scored 53 points last night in his final home basketball game as a high schooler.

 

=====> The N&O’s Joe Giglio has reported through his twitter account (@jpgiglio) that the ACC has moved Karl ‘Rabbit Ears’ Hess off of this scheduled appearance in the RBC Center for this week’s home tilt with Miami. He adds, “Ayers, Hull and Big Game Bernie set for Pack-The U on Wed. .. Hess was moved off the game.”

 

=====> Rush The Court had some relevant ACC Basketball articles in this entry.

 

=====> Brett Friedlander has 5 Questions for ACC fans to ponder today, including “Can N.C. State regroup from its wasted opportunities to finish strong?”

The Wolfpack could have ensured a spot in the NCAA bracket by finishing off Duke when it had the chance or beating nationally ranked Florida State or UNC in subsequent games last week. But it wasn’t to be. Now coach Mark Gottfried’s team must win its final three regular-season games just to stay on the bubble. It’s a stretch that begins today on the road against an improving Clemson team that seems to be coming into its own with three wins in the last four games. Not only will State be hard-pressed to bounce back mentally from its recent disappointments, but its legs are also a question with one-time sharpshooter Scott Wood mired in a 3 for 22 slump over his last three games. Today’s game against the Tigers won’t stir the passion of fans the way Tuesday’s showdown with UNC did, but given the circumstances, it’s the Wolfpack’s most important game to date. It will be interesting to see how it responds.

 

=====> Detailed game notes for the Wolfpack’s big game at Clemson today are included here.

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11-12 Basketball

20 Responses to Saturday Basketball Briefing

  1. TheCOWDOG 02/25/2012 at 9:00 AM #

    Joe must be reading the forums.

  2. wolfonthehill 02/25/2012 at 9:01 AM #

    Jeebus – in exchange for Hess, we get Ayers? I’d consider that yet another slap in the face, given Ayers’s well-documented history with the Pack.

  3. eas 02/25/2012 at 9:04 AM #

    I think our performance (win/loss) is directly related to Wood’s performance. Apparently he is going to continue to play most of the game regardless if he can hit the broad side of the barn.
    We can just hope he can find his touch again soon.

    We don’t have much of a choice due to our limited
    line up.

  4. GoldenChain 02/25/2012 at 9:09 AM #

    Don’t look now but we’re a 5pt dawg according to the line in the Observer.

    All I can hope is that Wood get some open looks and can knock a couple down to get his mo back.

  5. logarithm 02/25/2012 at 9:15 AM #

    That’s a high school career high for Purvis, by the way. Way to finish strong.

    I think various accounts have us as 3 to 5 point underdogs to Clemson while we sit at 62 in RPI and they sit at 147. They’re projecting a serious spoiler here. Losing to Clemson would be a back-breaker.

  6. mak4dpak 02/25/2012 at 9:24 AM #

    Scott Wood does need to find his shot again from the arc, but it would certainly help if CJW, AJ could do the same to take off some of the heat Wood has been getting lately by opposing defenses. But he and the team have also got to find a way to get him open. We need them all to be successful.

  7. 61Packer 02/25/2012 at 9:48 AM #

    Thanks again to expansion and nitwit league administrators, here we are entering the final calendar week of the season with road games against two league foes we haven’t even faced yet.

    The more ACC basketball I see, the more it sucks.

  8. BJD95 02/25/2012 at 10:46 AM #

    At 5 points, I would definitely bet the Pack. This game (as are all of the last three) is a coin flip.

    But Clemson is definitely rounding into shape at the right time. They also will be well-motivated, as they try to salvage a .500 league record and get into the NIT conversation.

  9. wufpup76 02/25/2012 at 10:53 AM #

    Break them.

  10. redcanine 02/25/2012 at 11:14 AM #

    I’m a little nervous with this one. IIRC, B. Narcisse is a very athletic player and he took it to us last year. We may need more than a couple of threes to win this one. We have better talent, no doubt, but we need to use it today.

  11. JSRy2k 02/25/2012 at 11:46 AM #

    BJD, you’re spot on about our last three contests, which is why it is unrealistic to EXPECT to win all three. That said, we can certainly hope for the best. It’s strange, but I see a better Pack team on the road than at home, so 2 of 3 away from the RBC may actually play to our favor.

  12. BJD95 02/25/2012 at 11:55 AM #

    That’s why winning 2 of 3 is the reasonable goal, and 3 of 3 is the aspirational (but by no means impossible) goal.

    If each game is independently a 50/50 shot, then the odds odf sweeping all 3 is .5 to the 3rd power, or 12.5 percent.

  13. MP 02/25/2012 at 1:21 PM #

    Nice math!

  14. Texpack 02/25/2012 at 1:58 PM #

    I think 9-7 is where we finish. This is the game that concerns me the most. We might tend to overlook Clemson and they have played better of late.

    I’m curious as to whether people think it would be better for our NCAA chances for Miami to win of lose vs. FSU tomorrow.

  15. graywolf 02/25/2012 at 2:04 PM #

    Clemson does match up well against us and we do not play well in Littlejohn…..hope I am wrong.

  16. stillapackfan 02/25/2012 at 2:15 PM #

    Not sure how you can call the UNC game a coin flip nor the FL State. The outcome of both was never in doubt.

  17. Rochester 02/25/2012 at 2:20 PM #

    I don’t think we overlook anyone, having lost three straight. I like that we had 4 days to recover from the last game. Feel good about this one, but who’s to say. If we play like we did for the first 30 minutes against Duke or most of the game against the Holes we’ll win. If we don’t, we can lose to anyone.

    I think it’s more correlation than cause on us losing when Wood doesn’t score. We lost to teams that were athletic and/or defensive-minded enough to hound him for 40 minutes. Other teams weren’t quite as smothering or didn’t get back on the breaks, which left him more open looks on the wing.

  18. BJD95 02/25/2012 at 2:42 PM #

    Uh, it’s the last three that are coin flips. At Clemson, vs Miami, at VPI.

  19. Wulfpack 02/25/2012 at 2:54 PM #

    Wood never plays well against Clemson. If Clemson beats us, we’ve got identical conference records. The Tigers have the momentum.

    Saw Duke escape with a win over VT. Hokies played very hard, as they normally do. That is by no means a gimme.

  20. old13 02/25/2012 at 3:04 PM #

    Personally I think that Wood is just in a shooting slump, which all shooters have. I would like for him to be able to play no more than 25 minutes a game, however, because any more and fatigue becomes a factor in his shooting, i.e., he loses his legs.

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