Monday Musings

12-13 Basketball Baseball College Basketball Non-Revenue41

NC STATE BASKETBALL
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Joe Giglio (N&O)
NC State grinds out 70-57 win over Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory, whose teams are noted for their defensive intensity, noticed a difference between the Wolfpack’s defense from this game and the Jan.9 win in Raleigh.

“When they are dialed in, they are pretty good,” Gregory said. “They have all the ingredients to be a good defensive team.”

Being dialed in on a consistent basis has been an issue for the Wolfpack this season and there was a lapse in the first half, which allowed the Jackets to make a 16-4 run to cut a 14-point lead to 32-30.”

“We’re a great defensive team when we want to be,” Brown said.

Five times in the second half, Georgia Tech made it a two-point game but the Wolfpack never relinquished the lead, in large part because of its defense.

“Everybody played good defense,” Leslie said. “We were moving, we were over here and over there and all over the court when we needed to be.”

[snip]

With Virginia’s loss earlier Sunday, the Wolfpack moved into a fourth-place tie with the Cavaliers. N.C. State would lose any tiebreaker involving the Cavaliers because of its Jan. 29 loss at Charlottesville, Va.

Gottfried is only worried about his team with another win down and two ACC games to go.

“The bottom line is that we’ve got to take care of what we can take care of,” Gottfried said. “So, it really doesn’t matter what anybody else does.”

Akula Wolf (BackingthePack.com)
NC State Overcomes Poor Shooting Performance To Beat Georgia Tech, 70-57

It wasn’t exactly the epitome of sexiness, but it was NC State’s most decisive road win in conference play, and victory is all the pretty I need anyway. Georgia Tech managed to stay within a possession or two for most of the second half, but there would be no late fade for the Wolfpack this time. Beginning around the seven-minute mark, NC State went on a 10-2 run that pushed its lead to 10 points with two minutes and some change remaining. A win was far from a given at that point, but the Yellow Jackets continued to struggle from the field and couldn’t mount a serious challenge. Tyler Lewis and Lorenzo Brown combined to knock down nine free throws in the final minute, and we were left mercifully with nothing to stress about.

Richard Howell was huge in the first half, and his timing could not have been better, what with Brown, Calvin Leslie, Scott Wood shooting a combined 1-10 from the field. The Pack didn’t make a single three-pointer in the half, so it’s a bit amazing that we had the halftime lead.

Georgia Tech was able to keep close on the strength of some outstanding offensive rebounding, and one reason why State was eventually able to take control of the game was its improvement on the glass over the final 20 minutes. Tech grabbed more than half their misses in the first half, but it was limited to 29.2% in the second. Tech definitely could have used a few more opportunities–the Jackets made just nine of 28 two-pointers in the second half. That is rather not good.

Associated Press
NC State Stays Hot, Beats Georgia Tech 70-57

Richard Howell scored 18 points – all in the first half – and North Carolina State continued its late-season surge in the ACC by beating Georgia Tech 70-57 on Sunday.

With Howell contained in the second half, C.J. Leslie scored 11 of his 13 points in the final 20 minutes as N.C. State (21-8, 10-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) took its fifth win in its last six games. T.J. Warren had 14 points.

With the win, N.C. State moved into a tie with fourth-place Virginia in the race for one of four first-round byes in the ACC tournament. Boston College beat Virginia 53-52 on Sunday.

N.C. State led by 14 in the first half. Georgia Tech (15-13, 5-11) fought back to cut the deficit to one point late in the first half and again early in the second half, but the Yellow Jackets couldn’t complete the comeback.

NC STATE BASEBALL

GoPack.com
Pack Wins Another Nail-Biter on Turner’s RBI Single

No. 10 NC State knocked off Coastal Carolina 5-4 to win its second extra-inning game in as many days and to extend its winning streak to 10 straight.

The Wolfpack (10-1) scored in the first, but Coastal Carolina (4-6) evened the score in the bottom half. Another exchange saw the Pack score three in the fifth before the Chanticleers chipped away with one in the bottom fifth and two in the seventh to knot it up at 4-4. State finally emerged victorious with a run in the 10th to win 5-4.

Trea Turner had the game-winning hit in a 4-for-6 performance with two runs and one RBI. Turner scored in the first to improve to 15-for-15 on scoring when reaching with less than two outs, but saw his streak snapped on his single in the 10th. Sam Morgan came through as well with a 2-for-4 game including two runs scored.

Ryan Wilkins (2-0) captured the victory with a commanding 3 2/3 innings of hitless ball to finish the game. Grant Sasser stabilized the Pack after a rocky first inning, coming in as relief and shutting out Coastal for 3 2/3 innings.

[snip]

NC State returns to action on Tuesday, March 5 with a 6 p.m. road test at Elon. Fans can follow along on Twitter via @NCStateBaseball, with live stats on GoPack.com, or over the airwaves on 88.1 WKNC.

NC STATE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

GoPack.com
NC State Shoots Down Clemson, 63-47, in Regular Season Finale

The NC State women’s basketball team shot 60.9 percent in the second half to bring home a 63-47 victory at Clemson on Sunday in the final game of the regular season.

NC State (15-15, 7-11 ACC) will face Clemson for a third time this season when the two meet in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday, Mar. 7, at 2 p.m., in Greensboro, N.C., at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Len’Nique Brown, Markeisha Gatling and Myisha Goodwin-Coleman each scored 14 points to pace another balanced attack for the Wolfpack. Lakeesa Daniel hauled in a career-high 11 rebounds, while Brown once again led in assists with six.

NCAA

NCAA Logo

Jay Coleman, Mike DuMond, & Allen Lynch
NCAA Tournament “Dance Card

Below are rankings of all NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams through the games of Thursday, February 28, 2013, according to the “Dance Card” formula developed by Jay Coleman of the University of North Florida, Mike DuMond of Charles River Associates, and Allen Lynch of Mercer University.

The Dance Card is a formula designed to predict which teams will receive at-large tournament bids from the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. To get the rankings shown below, we have removed the historical conference-related biases found in the past committee decisions on which the Dance Card was based. In other words, if the current committee is free of the same biases, its decisions should closely match the predictions below.

Last season the “biased” Dance Card correctly predicted 35 of 37 at-large bids (95%). The “unbiased” version correctly predicted 36 of 37 bids (97%), suggesting that last year’s committee closely followed the performance-related patterns of past committees, without also showing similar historical biases.

In addition to the Dance Card value and ranking, also shown is the probability that a team with the same profile would have gotten an at-large bid in past years, if today was Selection Sunday. (Although the bubble line reflects this year’s 68-team (37 at-large bid) field, the probability shown reflects a 65-team (34 at-large bid) Tournament.) The RPI ranks are from the old RPI formula, in which wins on the road and losses at home are weighted equally. This is the version of the RPI used in the Dance Card’s development, and the version used to generate the predictions in all past years.

Rank..Team…….Dance Card…..Chance of Bid….RPI Rank

2…….. Duke……. 10.4994… 100.00%… 1
8…….. Michigan… 8.7029… 100.00%… 14
9…….. Miami FL… 8.6950… 100.00%… 3
17……. Oklahoma St……. 5.1568… 100.00%… 26
29……. North Carolina St… 3.4191… 99.97%… 27
32……. North Carolina… 3.2911… 99.95%… 23
37……. Virginia…. 2.1406… 98.38%… 61
45……. Kentucky…. 0.9004… 81.60%… 48

THE BUBBLE BURST HERE

52…… Belmont… -0.3998… 34.47%… 38
61…… Arizona St…. -2.0477… 2.03%… 68
63…… Massachusetts… -2.8544… 0.22%… 56
66…… Maryland… -3.2157… 0.07%… 65
71…… Stanford… -3.8688… 0.01%… 64
75…… Florida St…. -4.8124… 0.00%… 71
103….. St. Bonaventure… -8.8364… 0.00%… 111
111….. Georgia Tech… -10.3503… 0.00%… 104
120….. Western Michigan… -11.6616… 0.00%… 132
127….. Clemson… -12.4678… 0.00%… 135
133….. Wake Forest… -12.9366… 0.00%… 128
152….. Boston College… -15.0635… 0.00%… 112
170….. Virginia Tech… -17.8923… 0.00%… 133

Jerry Palm (CBSSports.com)
2013 NCAA Basketball Tournament Prediction

Bracket updated on: Fri Mar 1 07:41:32 2013

Projected Champion: Miami (FL) (2)
At-large bids: Duke (2), North Carolina (9), North Carolina State (8)

Joe Lunardi (ESPN.com)
Bracketology

Updated: March 1st, 2013

Miami (1), Duke (2), UNC (7), NCSU (8), UVA (10)

About 1.21 Jigawatts

Class of '98, Mechanical Engineer, State fan since arriving on campus and it's been a painful ride ever since. I live by the Law of NC State Fandom, "For every Elation there is an equal and opposite Frustration."

12-13 Basketball Baseball College Basketball Non-Revenue

41 Responses to Monday Musings

  1. Tau837 03/04/2013 at 12:33 PM #

    The only comparison made so far in this thread that seems reasonable to me is comparing Howell to Oakley.

    In particular, Howell is not close to Barkley’s talent or even his style of play.

    Love the win numbers discussion!

  2. Blackfish 03/04/2013 at 12:55 PM #

    12/6, fourth in conference!!! carolina will be a 9 seed we will be 6 seed, “the fish has spoken”

  3. VaWolf82 03/04/2013 at 1:02 PM #

    From the CBS link, Palm has UVA in his “probably out” category. But virtually no one on the bubble is truly out until after the conference tourney. Here’s what he says about UVA:

    The Cavs have some nice wins, especially Duke at home and at Wisconsin, but some bigger negatives (six bad losses, 300+ non-conf SOS, 3-7 away from home). Teams with their positives get left out sometimes, but teams with any one of their negatives rarely get in.

  4. Wulfpack 03/04/2013 at 1:35 PM #

    I think UVA is going to be left out.

  5. FergusWolf 03/04/2013 at 2:03 PM #

    DC_Wolf…I notice that there was a desert from 56-72 also (only 16 years that time, not 20)…Maybe DY hired our Moses…

    I love looking at the stats like that. One of my big disappointment in life was that I didn’t move to NC until 1984, and frankly was completely unaware that basketball was played in college until I started at NCSU as a freshman in 1985.

    Fortunately, my roommate insisted that we attend every home game in Reynold’s and corrected my lack of education.

    Lucky me graduated in 1989 and held season tickets during the Robinson, Sendek, Lowe, and now Gottfried eras. So I’ve not only seen the desert, but I lived in it.

  6. FergusWolf 03/04/2013 at 2:05 PM #

    By my calculations…

    If UNC loses to Md and Duke,
    And UVA loses to FSU and Md [corrected from BC],

    we win 3rd place outright. Did I miss something there?

    Go Twerps!

  7. JEOH2 03/04/2013 at 2:55 PM #

    I’ll take ANY scenario with a bye…although I believe we’ll be a 5th seed in the end…

    3rd would be great boost for this team, but looking at match-ups I’d prefer a 4th seed with us winning out and UVA taking one more loss…that’d put us at 4th with a Friday match-up against a UVA team who’s not very good away from home…with a Saturday match-up with a Miami team we almost beat without our starting PG…

    That would leave (most likely) Duke for Sunday where anything can happen…

    Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if UVA loses again and UNC only loses to Duke (and we win out), we’d also win 3rd place right? Wouldn’t we hold the tiebreaker over UNC because of our 1 win against Duke?

  8. JohnGalt78 03/04/2013 at 3:00 PM #

    Forget what UVA does. Aside from us taking care of our own business, I don’t see Duke losing to UNCheat, even at the Smurf dome. The UNCheat game this Wednesday @ Maryland, to me, is the game that could have the greatest impact on us. Twerps win….that would be BIG….IF we take care of the two remaining games we can control.

  9. BJD95 03/04/2013 at 3:21 PM #

    I think Duke is gonna murder the Holes. They have a serious beating coming their way when they finally play a good team again (that doesn’t play like monkey shite like we did the last time).

    Carolina’s schedule set up a bit like ours – most of the hard games came early.

    I think WBS is now doing the full Alex Johnson role, which is what I wanted. 10-15 minutes, with potential for more if and when circumstances dictate. But as long as he gets 10+ I don’t think he’s underutilized.

    Not sure how Amile would have blended, but I 100 percent miss Pringles.

  10. Wulfpack 03/04/2013 at 3:33 PM #

    Lewis is a much better player than AJ. He could be an All ACC guard before it is all said and done. He should be getting more minutes. Kid can play.

    No read on Duke vs UNC. Could go either way.

  11. rtpack24 03/04/2013 at 4:00 PM #

    We miss Pringles a lot because of all the front court options when he was available. One thing I like about Lewis is his free throw shooting especially late when you have to have them. If Brown can get that ankle just a little more healthy we are positioned to make what should be a good run.

  12. JeremyH 03/04/2013 at 4:02 PM #

    I wonder if UNC can frustrate and push Plumlee off the block like UVA did. That will be key. Also Curry has got to step up. Remember also that UNC has three point firepower to match.

  13. Rick 03/04/2013 at 4:55 PM #

    Duke runs on Curry.
    They rarely win against good teams if he plays bad.

  14. NCSU84 03/04/2013 at 5:04 PM #

    FergusWolf stated, “(I) held season tickets during the Robinson, Sendek, Lowe, … eras” Now that is a true fan!!

  15. tractor57 03/04/2013 at 5:39 PM #

    Regarding Howell comparisions – to me his game is much like Wes Unseld. A bit undersized, awesome rebounder, good but not great medium range shot and tons of heart.

  16. PackerInRussia 03/05/2013 at 4:35 AM #

    I like how the team played, except for that little stretch where CJ tried to force it too much (he’s really perfected that spin-and-miss move). When he just concentrated on playing hard, it all worked out. His points came as part of the flow of the game, rather than him forcing it. When it was available, Howell got his points. When it was there for CJ, he scored. Just play hard and do what you’re supposed to do and it will work out in the end.
    (By the way, I also noticed that they played defense with their hands up and not down by their sides as I’d noticed in the past).

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