Why do we bother caring?

13-14 Basketball ACC Headscratchers180

After all of the calls for ‘illegal breathing’against anyone in red & whate that dared played defense near James Michael McAdoo tonight…the video below shows…of course, no foul on McAdoo and out of bounds off State. Without the bad call, there is probably no way that Carolina wins with State up two with 35 seconds to go and TJ Warren shooting two free throws. Of course, without a lot of the strange calls – like three of TJ Warren’s four fouls – there is no way that Carolina wins. But, we all know that. We know it going in. We’ve known it for the entirety of our lives. At what point do we all have to look ourselves in the mirror and tell ourselves that we are INSANE for expecting anything else? Watching re-runs of WWE’s Raw on Hulu Plus provides you a better chance of witnessing fairness and an unexpected result.

Goodnight.

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13-14 Basketball ACC Headscratchers

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  • 02/27/2014 at 10:09 AM #43013
    Rick
    Keymaster
    maverick_ncsu wrote:

    I know that many on this site love Gott and think he’s the best we’ve had in a long time, but his in-game management has been questionable to me at several important times this year. I know Lewis shouldn’t have called the last one at the end of the game, but I’m more concerned with the fact that we left the game with one from overtime. 3 opportunities I expected a coach with a timeout at the end of overtime to use his timeout:
    1 – before they inbound the ball to Warren before he was mugged and the ball went out of bounds (granted, you would rather have the timeout for the opportunities 2 or 3 following).
    2 – once he saw Warrent get trapped in the corner (which we should have learned from Cuse to not throw the ball into a corner with a team that wants to trap at the end of the game). Coaches can yell for timeouts from the bench. Gotta be ready for that.
    3 – after TJ makes the second free throw at the end of overtime before Paige’s last drive. I don’t know how many coaches I’ve watched (Roy and K do it all of the time) take a timeout after a made basket at a crucial time to set up the defense. I don’t know how you don’t call it here at the very least having watched Carolina go down the court in a heartbeat and score after a made basket several times this game already.

    I agree that some calls really hurt us and it feels like we were playing 5 on 7-8. But win or lose, I would like to see some higher BBIQ like
    – not throwing the ball into the corner again,
    – seeing at least ONE person run to a guy who has picked up his dribble and is in trouble (Lewis at the end of the game when he called the TO and Warren at the end…isn’t this something you learn when you are first playing basketball, make yourself available to a guy in trouble),
    – and the timeout being used more appropriately at the end of the game (didn’t have one at the end of Cuse and had one here and didn’t use it)
    – running an inbounds play. Really I’ll take any movement at this point.

    Overall, pleased at the intensity we played with and the fact that the team didn’t look intimidated and really took it to them at the beginning of both halves. Would have like to see Lewis and Barber in together some as Lewis was running the offense better and actually doing okay on defense. But Turner could not keep up with Paige and a quick guard like Barber would have been perfect for that role.

    Still hurts, but provided some much needed entertainment last night.

    IMO this is a good post.
    We blew it at the end but, again, we should not have been in that situation to begin with.

    02/27/2014 at 10:10 AM #43014
    CincyPack
    Participant

    http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=collegebasketballnation&id=94728

    Let’s just be happy for UNC! They are so cool and awesome! 😉

    02/27/2014 at 10:15 AM #43015
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    Ok, so some say it balances out. Ok, fair enough.

    Let’s count how many times NC State has benefited this century from such a pivotal call in the closing seconds of a game. I understand memory is selective, so help me out.

    1. ???

    On the other hand, calls that probably cost NC State the game. I come up with these instantly, with no thought

    1. ACC tourney vs u*nc. The no call on the Marshall charge.
    2. Syracuse this year
    3. Last night.
    4. The Duke debacle at few years ago after having a 30 or so point lead.

    I know there’s more, but I wanted to only list the ones that came INSTANTLY to mind.

    02/27/2014 at 10:18 AM #43016
    tjfoose1
    Participant

    To make yourselves feel a little better, the below is blowing up across the interwebs. For those who have yet to see it.

    BusinessWeek

    The below is not a mock up (I actually thought it was when I first saw it). It is the actual cover.

    02/27/2014 at 10:20 AM #43017
    Rick
    Keymaster

    Foose,
    That does bring a smile to my face.

    02/27/2014 at 10:33 AM #43018
    redcanine
    Participant

    My Thursday already sucks. You see what this mess does to me?

    02/27/2014 at 10:33 AM #43019
    Prowling Woofie
    Participant

    I was hoping the guys could keep the final margin below 20 last night. Boy, did they ! Great effort, and great crowd support. Very little blue seen in the PNC last night. Warren is the best since Googs, no doubt.

    Disappointing to come so close (again) and fall short, but until this team/program learns to do the little things that separate good from mediocre, we’ll stay mediocre.

    This one’s on the coaching. The players played well enough to earn a 5-8 point cushion most of the way. The coaches should be able to come up with a game plan to maintain that, including switching defenders on a hot player when your guy is getting lit up like a damned Christmas tree ! Teach two or three in-bounds plays that DON’T involve throwing the ball into the corner. Geez….

    02/27/2014 at 10:34 AM #43020
    PapaWolf
    Participant

    WOW!
    I am impressed!! I came to the site to say something about ‘not blaming the refs on our inadequacy’ and a bunch of you already did. Excellent! Carolina got more fouls called on them and they had the only guy foul out. And amazingly, there was exactly the same number of fouls called as last game (23 on UNC, 21 on State), and exactly the same number fouled out.

    We had a chance and didn’t step up and get it done. I was at the game, and watched Paige have WAY too many good looks at the basket. Everyone is comparing Paige’s performance to TJ. There is no comparison. TJ hit one three point shot. He had to fight for every other shot. Every shot was contested. He was incredible.

    This was a great, great basketball game. We were the better team offensively, because they were really tough defensively. We had to work hard for every point we got. But we got it done on the offensive end. We just couldn’t keep up with Paige on the other end.

    We seem to have only three responses to a loss on this site.
    1) Kill the refs
    2) Kill the coach
    3) Kill both

    I think any of those takes away from a great performance by our team. The coaches had them really well prepared and UNC really struggled with our defense at times. We got 10 blocked shots! TJ scored the most points since I watched Googs also score 36 on Carolina at Reynolds. Vandy didn’t foul out!

    Sadly that great team performance was too little, too late.

    02/27/2014 at 10:57 AM #43023
    Wulfpack
    Participant

    Speaking of dominant programs, Kansas just won its 10th straight Big 12 title. To better put it in perspective, the next closest competitors have only three straight conference titles.

    I don’t care who you are, in this day and age that is remarkable.

    Can we please just get one? Heck, Miami got one last year. UVA is in position to get one this year. Just one.

    02/27/2014 at 11:03 AM #43024
    Whiteshoes67
    Participant

    I said yesterday the only certainties were that we wouldn’t hold UNC under 75, and we’d get outrebounded. I didn’t even think it would be close unless few things happened, most of which did. I was pleasantly surprised at how well we played, how hard we played, but also recognize UNC stunk it up in the first half, looked like a really rattled, fragile, young team playing away. Unforced errors, missed free throws, you name it. We played hard but didn’t capitalize in the first half. We struggled on nearly every offensive possession. There were few easy looks all night for us.

    In the second half, our defense on Paige was awful. Gottfried put in a nice wrinkle with the 3-2 zone, something we’ve not seen all year to my knowledge. But he stayed in it way too long. We needed Turner’s shot in the game, but he and Lewis on the perimeter, whether it’s man or zone, is just a recipe for disaster, and it was very much that. Everybody contributed last night, but Anya was huge for us, and he literally sat on the bench the last 5-10, except for possibly a short stint. We gave up many second and third chance opportunities in that stretch. Can cherry pick all sorts of things, but in my mind, the lineup and game management really hindered us from separating ourselves, taking advantage of UNC early, and then responding to Paige.

    But I do agree with Foose, lots of moving screens out there all night. Not peculiar to this game or UNC, see it all the time, but it’s inconsistently called.

    02/27/2014 at 11:06 AM #43025
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    KH not going back in the game was a mistake. Cat playing so little in OT when we had a lead to protect was a mistake.

    I can’t help thinking it didn’t matter. Nothing matters. It’s like Paige was pre-ordained to beat us, and I can’t remember being this depressed about a sporting event since the Denver Super Bowls of the 1980s.

    The difference in the Cuse game was twofold. First, I believe the missed call was WAYYYYYY more obvious. I don’t even think it was debatable. Second, I have ZERO doubt that we lose that game if Buckets goes to the line for his and-1. We had it, and weren’t going to let go. Nobody in orange was capable of taking it from us.

    Last night, I feel like no matter what else happened, Paige was going to shiv us at the end, somehow, someway.

    This morning feels even worse than last night. I stand by my assessment – everything f-cking sucks.

    I have no idea how this week could get any worse. I fully believe that if I went to the doctor tomorrow, she’d tell me I have cancer and like 3 weeks to live.

    02/27/2014 at 11:06 AM #43026
    Mike
    Participant

    Sorry, I still don’t buy it that the stripes did not hurt us last night. Man up and score more points, put yourself in a position to win the game and dont rely on the whistles.

    We DID, we had a 2 point lead and 30 seconds left with the ball in the hands of our most clutch player, potential ACC POY, and he gets absolutely mugged with no call.

    I am NOT saying there is an edict from Swoffy but here we are at 7-8 in conference and we could/should be 10-5. How much different does the season look from 10-5 versus 7-8? We put ourselves in a position to win last night, We put ourselves in a position to win against the Cuse where the home run ball seals the game, and we put ourselves in a position to win at Wake, where 4 steps is legal. There is no official anti-State memo but we sure have our share of bad luck with regards to the zebras.

    02/27/2014 at 11:10 AM #43027
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Somebody made a good point about Buckets’ greatness. It’s going to feel like the opportunities we wasted with 9 years of NFL-caliber QBing (Rivers, Wilson, and Glennon). Not to mention that in one of the rare years without an NFL QB, our defense boasted three first round picks and a 4th guy that was a long-term NFL starter (Tulloch) How we managed to do f-ck-all EVEN ONCE just boggles the mind. But it’s what we are. NC State, yo.

    02/27/2014 at 11:11 AM #43028
    Whiteshoes67
    Participant

    The defense on the last possession is typical for us. Gott actually made some substitutions. Lee was on Paige, Barber on the other little guy. But instead of making Paige go right, or forcing him to give up the ball, or shoot a contested 3, we actually allowed him to go left, right down the lane. Warren provided a little resistance but there’s no way that good of look by Paige should’ve ever happened. Vandy out at the three point line playing the screener. THat is not how you defend that with 7 seconds on the clock. IT’s awful.

    02/27/2014 at 11:13 AM #43029
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I don’t understand how we didn’t have BOTH Cat and Des on Paige the last possession. Nobody else was gonna shoot, I promnise you that. Much less their other little guy. KH’s 8-foot wingspan in the lane would have been nice, too.

    02/27/2014 at 11:19 AM #43030
    pakfanistan
    Participant
    Whiteshoes67 wrote:

    The defense on the last possession is typical for us. Gott actually made some substitutions. Lee was on Paige, Barber on the other little guy. But instead of making Paige go right, or forcing him to give up the ball, or shoot a contested 3, we actually allowed him to go left, right down the lane. Warren provided a little resistance but there’s no way that good of look by Paige should’ve ever happened. Vandy out at the three point line playing the screener. THat is not how you defend that with 7 seconds on the clock. IT’s awful.

    That’s the thing that some people are missing when spouting the, “I guess we just have to be perfect,” straw man mantra.

    We don’t have to be perfect, because we make a lot of mistakes. There are a ton of things that could happen differently offensively, defensively etc. that mean we win the game instead of losing it. And we don’t need ALL of them, just one of them.

    We can’t control the refs, we can only control how we play, so if we want to have any success, our best bet is to get better as a team.

    02/27/2014 at 11:20 AM #43031
    Wulfpack
    Participant

    Vandy got caught in no man’s land on the screen in the last play. Easy lane. Nobody even tried to foul him. It is outrageously bad basketball. Everyone in the world knew it was coming and all we do is stand and watch it happen. No resistance whatsoever. But that’s just what we do in those situations time after time.

    02/27/2014 at 11:24 AM #43032
    DrWuffette1day
    Participant

    Rick,

    My hypothesis on why you are getting some fan flack when statistics and the outright obvious slaps every fan in the head during games which are important to us. Football.

    Football is a game of power. Basketball is a game of flow. All players need skill, physical natural ability, game smarts, and a competitive mindset.

    Football guys have been trained to overcome ref adversity by nature of the sport. Infractions are much more obvious in football than basketball. If you’re not reaching in the game of basketball, you are not going to win. When affecting the shot which only requires a pointer finger on the elbow and refs don’t call it, you are not going to win.

    Posters have commented if our team had made more shots, if we had played better defensively, if we had more players with more natural ability, if we had a different coach, etc. THESE THINGS ARE ALL ABSOLUTELY INSANE given the parameters of the discussion and last night’s game. If I had a billion dollars, then I wouldn’t need to work. Rarely, do you have a player or team playing a perfect game. IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

    You can’t “overcome” the refs in the game of basketball as has been demonstrated by NCSU’s record for the last 30 years. Brilliant minds have proven this with statistics.

    Basketball is about “runs” (flow). If a ref calls fouls at key points in the “run”, the team who was doing well will be stymied in most cases. There is a reason why good coaches call timeouts at certain points in the game- nothing to do with personnel. This is where the ref has the most impact. It would be interesting to see statistics on fouls called after certain number of points. Refs CONTROL the flow.

    Then comes the outright cheating at the end with blatantly biased calls. This usually causes the most reactions from fans but refs generally shy away from this part of this scene, except if they work for Swofford and are reffing in a UNC-CHeat or Duke game. Usually, the game is decided before this point. This is good for UNC-CHeat water cooler talk. If Swofford’s refs can justify their work by saying that State didn’t play good defense or they have never been good at anything then the heat is off of them. I really wish our fans wouldn’t buy into this nonsense. A team doesn’t win on their home court 54 times (?) in a row without help at many games. Sorry. Statistically unlikely.

    However, they affected the game by change of style from 1st to 2nd half and not calling certain fouls on teams (Foose rightly brought up all the bumps – which does affect a team physically over the course of the game and the play itself). Democrats do this a lot in politics. Let’s enforce some laws but not these ones that our team doesn’t like.

    Another example of this ref bias that was tremendously blatant was the “Hansborough Hop.” Duke gets blamed for getting “under” guys when taking charges. Believe it or not, coaches who are aware of their influence are smart enough to coach this in practice. Tyler was dumb as a box of rocks (talk about UNC-CHeat academic fraud all you need is one interview with him). He did not think of that himself. Noway…sorry. The rules which they choose to enforce dictates who the “best” teams are.

    My point of view at this stage is that we are stupid and get what we deserve. If we act like battered women, we deserve to be treated like battered women. Staying in the ACC and going through this year after year after year…..we are stupid. I knew the outcome of the game before it even started. Swofford needed UNC to take this one for the NCAA bid. Last night’s game was great for the league. State had a chance. UNC won. Close game. It’s stupid for us.

    With some of the fans that we got, we are in big trouble and it WON’T get better. We are not going to stop the other team on every play. Great coaches, like Gott, will likely move on. They will get heat from our own and then Then we hire a morons like Lowe and Fowler to make us all super insane and to kill all hope.

    Another reason to go to the SEC.

    02/27/2014 at 11:30 AM #43035
    Mike
    Participant
    tjfoose1 wrote:

    Haven’t read any of the above, don’t plan to. I saw it, already know it, and don’t have to stomach to read the comments of those with their @#$! up the rear of the officials.

    To add, perhaps, something different from what has already been posted:

    I was at the game. For perspective of my view, see the picture I took below of the evil cabal. That’s exactly the spot of the Warren “TO”. But what was even worse, in my opinion (though not as blatant, but with a bigger overall impact of the game), was the obvious moving picks, hip checks, elbows, knees and holds that went on off the ball, THE ENTIRE GAME. Almost as if they’re a legal part of the game built into Roy’s tactics and strategy.

    I lost count on how many times I saw an NC State player moving on defense, off the ball, only to be knocked back or off balance, by an elbow/hip/or knee of a moving pick. Not called, not once.

    Absolutely pathetic.

    Agreed that the moving screens and hip checks seemed to be worse than usual. We got called for one on Turner, and it was not even a screen. So for the posters commenting we left Paige open all night, see exhibit A, moving screens, holding, clutching, grabbing etc.

    02/27/2014 at 11:55 AM #43039
    packof81
    Participant

    It’s unrealistic to expect our team to play well enough to overcome the lopsided officiating. That’s just too much advantage. Oh yeah, they could improve their free throws and make other improvements in execution but I don’t think it would ever be quite enough.

    I’m in agreement with other posters that college basketball is rigged. If you want to call me a whiner or conspiracy theorist, suit yourself. The video posted above speaks for itself. The stats speak for themselves. It’s all made possible by calling touch fouls on one end and allowing muggings on the other.

    02/27/2014 at 12:15 PM #43044
    13OT
    Participant

    I arrived over an hour early last night at the PNC, and noticed how the upper bowl was filling up, much the same way it does when we are infrequently allowed to host Duke. Will we be allowed to host the Blue Devils next season, or will ESPN and Swofford determine that Duke should instead keep on playing Syracuse twice and also Louisville? Stay tuned.

    When I sat down, two guys decked in UNC garb were there, cheering their team. We exchanged predictions; they of course said UNC by 11, and I told them UNC would win by 1 point.

    The game started as expected, with State getting ahead and maintaining the lead until it mattered. The no-call against Warren was a backbreaker; we lost what mental edge we had with that play. Sadly, many if not most of us expected THE PLAY to happen eventually, because it always does.

    I was at the Florida game a few years ago and hollered all the way through the final two minutes for State to QUIT FOULING! Last night, I hollered through the final few minutes for us to PLAY DEFENSE! The results of both those games were the two most gut-wrenching losses I’ve sat through in this building, and I’ve seen most all our games there so far.

    Last night’s game didn’t doom our NCAAT chances because they were already doomed by the horrible losses vs UVA and at Duke, UNC and Clemson. But this game DID add another Paige to the What It Means To Be A State Fan Handbook.

    Simply put, this game was the epitome of Wolfpack basketball.

    02/27/2014 at 12:15 PM #43045
    Rick
    Keymaster
    pakfanistan wrote:

    We can’t control the refs, we can only control how we play, so if we want to have any success, our best bet is to get better as a team.

    You and I cannot control the team so we should not bother about discussing them. That is the logical extension of your absurd argument. If you want to argue the refs called a good game well at least that is a logically consistent argument. If you want to argue “the refs sucked but we can’t do anything about it so I will criticize the coach/team” then you are being intellectually inconsistent.

    02/27/2014 at 12:18 PM #43046
    Rick
    Keymaster

    Drwuffette,
    I agree with what you say but it is virtually impossible to prove.
    I would have thought stats would at least make people willing to discuss it. Even a picture or video.

    But, alas, they seem firmly entrenched in the “anyone who says the refs sucked is a whiner” mind set.
    Of course, they then go on to say the coach or players sucked. But that is deemed proper and acceptable.

    02/27/2014 at 12:30 PM #43049
    pakfanistan
    Participant
    Rick wrote:

    <div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>pakfanistan wrote:</div>
    We can’t control the refs, we can only control how we play, so if we want to have any success, our best bet is to get better as a team.

    You and I cannot control the team so we should not bother about discussing them. That is the logical extension of your absurd argument. If you want to argue the refs called a good game well at least that is a logically consistent argument. If you want to argue “the refs sucked but we can’t do anything about it so I will criticize the coach/team” then you are being intellectually inconsistent.

    Please try not to be so dense. Neither of those things is what I was saying.

    “We” == “the team”

    pakfanistan wrote:

    [The team] can’t control the refs, [the team] can only control how [they] play, so if [the team] want to have any success, [their] best bet is to get better as a team.

    02/27/2014 at 12:31 PM #43050
    chedgeco
    Participant

    Facts are facts…
    FACT 1: TJ Warren was fouled at the end of regulation and the call was missed.

    FACT 2: TJ was fouled by Macadoo in OT when he lost it out of bounds

    both of these changed the complexion of the game and put State in situations that never should have happened. Yes, state squandered it away BUT those situations never should have happened, just like the inbounds turnover at Syracuse.

    Sort of like a cop trying to arrest you for something bogus and then you getting charged with resisting…yes you resisted, but it never should have happened.

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