Your “Carolina Sucks” Game Thread.

[gso packbacker]

That the quality of our practices is a point of discussion, much less debate, is proof that we’re truly grasping at straws to explain the total shellacking we took on Sunday.

Bottom line, it is Gott’s responsibility to get them fully physically and mentally prepared to to perform once they cross the “white line”. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he fell short against Carolina.

I may have missed it, but I’m curious what more knowledgeable basketball minds saw in the 2nd half that said we made the significant, much less, the appropriate adjustments (x’s and o’s) to effectively compete with Carolina.

[StateRed44]

If we play like we did Sunday we will take a 20 point beatdown @ BC.

[Tau837]

ryebread wrote:

Comparing their conference records compares the programs against peers. Some peers have more, and some peers have less.

IMO to say that Dayton relative to the A10 = State relative to the ACC is still apples and oranges. We can agree to disagree on that.

ryebread wrote:

In every one of those games we’re talking about, Arch was clearly against an opponent with superior resources. We should compare Gott’s records in those sorts of match ups. By my mark that would be games against Duke, UNC, Louisville and Syracuse in conference as well as Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan State, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Michigan non-conference. I’m sure Gott can match Arch’s record there.

It doesn’t work linearly like that. You are forced to look at Gott’s record against the elite teams in college basketball. Suggesting that is a fair comparison of the disparity in resources is off base. More apples to oranges.

ryebread wrote:

V won league and national titles, in a time when the ACC’s non-conference record was far superior to what it is now and when the high majors had great teams that stayed together multiple years. Get back to me when Gott wins that first conference or national title and we can start comparing them.

I must have missed whatever practice BS you are talking about. To be clear, V >>>> Gott. It’s not close.

That being said, I don’t think V (nor any other State coaches before possibly HWSNBN) is relevant to this discussion. This is 2017. College basketball is much different now, and it is unlikely State will ever again have a coach as good as V, if only because he is one of the best coaches in college basketball history, and those coaches are hard to find.

Look, you are obviously very down on Gott. IMO it is clearly influencing your perspective on all of this, which leads you to overstate his cons and understate his pros. I’m not saying he I think he is the long term answer, but I think he obviously deserves to coach this season out and see where the chips fall. So talking about firing him now is premature IMO, as is talking about who should replace him.

[Rick]

Tau837 wrote:

Look, you are obviously very down on Gott. IMO it is clearly influencing your perspective on all of this, which leads you to overstate his cons and understate his pros. I’m not saying he I think he is the long term answer,

If he is not the long term answer then we should find someone who could be. Gott has proven he cannot build a program. Short bursts of moderate tournament success with not title is all he has achieved and there is no reason to believe he will do anything else.

[ryebread]

Tau837 wrote:

It doesn’t work linearly like that. You are forced to look at Gott’s record against the elite teams in college basketball.

That’s exactly the point. People seem to ignore what Gott has to work with. This isn’t NC State football. We have a massive stadium, top attendance, are a basketball team in a basketball conference, all games televised or streamed, Gott is paid a huge salary, his assistants paid more than most head coaches, we have a huge recruiting budget, a big sneaker company with AAU circuit funneling players his way, nationally televised games in prime time even as an unranked team, one of the top S&C guys in the business being focused on basketball first (most places are football first), a great practice facility, a museum of our program’s past accomplishments (SIC), an army of suits in the sidelines and seemingly 100% support by the AD. There are very, very, very few jobs in college basketball that offer this package, and only a handful of elite programs that can offer something more.

So, when the excuse mongers roll out the “we can’t hope to compete” argument, what teams are they really talking about? There are maybe a handful of elite programs that offer more than we do. I’d argue that the average Power 5 team has a bigger delta between what they offer and what Arch has to work with at Dayton than the “we can’t hope to compete” delta that Gott faces.

Those elite programs own Gott like they own everyone else. He can’t punch up a weight. He can’t even punch consistently at his own weight — which is where that conference record DOES matter (and is consistently mediocre .500 at NC State and Alabama). We’ve seen what we can do. UNC laid out a 51 point whipping on us that should have made it clear, if the beatings by Miami, Illinois and Creighton didn’t already this year, the losing record last year, or the other disappointing seasons didn’t.

To look for a successor that might have a chance against them, you have to look for someone who is good at playing up a weight class. Tony Bennett did that VERY successfully at Washington State, and now has done so at Virginia. They made a great hire and I was vocal about it at the time. They passed us why we messed around with Sid and Gott. Mark Few, Randy Bennet, Greg Marshall, Shaka Smart, Andy Enfield and a handful of others have as well, but we’ve either missed on them or they are not leaving their current gigs.

Arch is doing it very well, and could POSSIBLY do it here but more importantly is someone who we might actually be able to get to come here. Why I’m vocal is because we’re fixing to miss on him in the same way we’ve missed on Marshall, Smart and others because we’re holding out some crazy hope that patience with Gott will finally be rewarded. That’s the definition of insanity.

Tau837 wrote:

Look, you are obviously very down on Gott. IMO it is clearly influencing your perspective on all of this, which leads you to overstate his cons and understate his pros. I’m not saying he I think he is the long term answer, but I think he obviously deserves to coach this season out and see where the chips fall. So talking about firing him now is premature IMO, as is talking about who should replace him.

I admittedly have been down on Gott since the day we hired him. That’s because I watched his program at Alabama and had a pretty good idea of what we were going to get. I thought he was HWSNBNv2 in that he was good enough to significantly improve, meet the necessarily minimums to keep his job, but never really win anything. I figured he’d have player attrition, poor defense, poor fundamentals, and he personally would have off the court issues. So far that is EXACTLY what we have seen. So yes, my patience level for him is much lower, because I’m looking at his total track record, and the fact that the same issues he had at Alabama are happening here.

I don’t think he should be fired today, mid-season. I would understand if the real decision makers had seen enough and did do it, and felt like they had their interim insurance plan in Schroyer (which were the rumors when we hired him). I do think he should have gotten a wake up call with very clear expectations about what this year needs to bring or he should be. A 51 point beat down after the other bad losses thus far this year should have been cause for a “come to Jesus” meeting.

I also think that Yow needs to step aside before this thing will really get fixed. She’s got a poor track record with the revenue sports, with men’s basketball in particular, and has been quoted by those in the room with her as thinking that “Gott is the perfect coach for NC State.” If I lack objectivity, then I’d suggest that she might as well given her long personal relationship with him and her proximity to retirement. I want what is best for NC State. She might be clouded by a long friendship and wanting to maintain that after her working days are over.

[gso packbacker]

I think at the end of the season I (personal statement here) will have sufficient information to make a well-informed decision on his ability to achieve longer-term success. I said early on that a 6th place finish in the ACC would be solid. I wouldn’t bet on that currently. 🙂

So if it were me running the show, I would be getting things in order now to put ourselves in the best position to make a solid hire in the no too distant future (something I don’t think we’ve done previously).

[ryebread]

gso packbacker wrote:

I said early on that a 6th place finish in the ACC would be solid. I wouldn’t bet on that currently.

I feel like the target this year should have been (and still should be) a top 4 conference finish. The way the ACC tournament is set up now, there’s almost no way to win it without securing that double bye. If Gott can’t bring home any hardware with this roster, then it’s not going to happen.

To me, regular season finishes speak more about a program’s health, direction and whether we’re actually building anything. They speak way more than squeaking into the dance and then putting together a 2 game winning streak against teams with top 50 RPIs. An ACC team ought to be able to do that, and we punched a record number of Sweet 16 tickets as a conference last year. That metric isn’t nearly as impressive as the apologists suggest.

gso packbacker wrote:

So if it were me running the show, I would be getting things in order now to put ourselves in the best position to make a solid hire in the no too distant future (something I don’t think we’ve done previously).

Exactly. It is fine to “make a decision” at the end of the year, but I think we should have seen enough by now to know what it will be. We need to start lining things up.

[gso packbacker]

Conference finish may be more skewed than normal with such a talented group of teams this year. Either way, there is enough here to have this team as a solid top-25 squad. Given so many new pieces, I do think there would be a greater likelihood of that happening next year rather than this year, but at some point you have to part ways and stop saying wait til next year.

[ryebread]

gso packbacker wrote:

Given so many new pieces, I do think there would be a greater likelihood of that happening next year rather than this year, but at some point you have to part ways and stop saying wait til next year.

DSJ will be gone next year. So will Abu, Anya and possibly Henderson. Chances are we have 1-2 transfers. Only the doctors and Freeman know if he’ll ever play baskeball again. This is the year.

To your point, you need to leave the next coach with something to work with. It can’t be that we let the ship totally run into the ground. It makes it that much tougher, and it makes it a tougher sell for the next candidate.

People laud the brilliant move Yow made by canning TOB before the ship ran aground and before all doubt we needed a change was removed. We got a “better” candidate as a result of doing so. Let’s use the same strategy in basketball.

[gso packbacker]

I was a fan of Yow canning O’Brien because (as I heard it) they both expected different results, but he wasn’t going to change anything (definition of insanity). Otherwise, we do have a habit of keeping coaches too long.

My math says Gottfried, Yow, and Woodson have been together for 6 years (Debbie and Randy came a year prior). The last trio we had together like that for 6 years was Les Robinson, Todd Turner and Larry Monteith.

[Khan]

If we don’t finish top 4 or 5 in the conference this year with this group of talented players, then it should be fairly obvious that Gottfried needs to go, unless our goal is to be a perpetual middle of the pack team.

Maybe you could argue that the league is stacked this year. But if that’s the argument and the reason we can’t finish near the top, I guess our only viable strategy then is to hope that the league isn’t stacked in future years.

I guess we should also hope that Gottfried somehow recruits great classes year in and year out.

I guess we should also hope that he someday learns how to coach defense, composure, attention to detail, fundamentals, free throw shooting, etc., etc., etc., etc….

Unfortunately, in my experience, hope and optimism don’t win basketball games.

[ryebread]

Khan wrote:

Unfortunately, in my experience, hope and optimism don’t win basketball games.

I loved V as our coach and as Tau said, another V isn’t walking through that door. His message to cancer patients is inspirational and still relevant 20+ years later.

In a way though, the “hope” speech is one of the worst things for NC State athletics and basketball. We have “hope” built into our DNA as opposed to looking at the cold hard reality. It’s particularly bad in men’s basketball where it has morphed into the WTNY culture.

I hope we meet our team’s potential this season — ACC top 4 regular season finish, Elite 8 or beyond in the dance. I would like nothing more than for that to happen. There’s a mountain of prior data that suggests it won’t and we’re starting to formulate a picture of this season that suggests we may not reach that potential.

We’ll probably shell BC and then we’ll have hope that “Gott gets it,” “we’ve turned a corner,” “UNC was only one game,” etc.. Unless it is paired with fixing the actual issues at hand, it will be nothing more than Fool’s Gold. And, well, we’ll have hope.

[Tau837]

Rick wrote:

If he is not the long term answer then we should find someone who could be. Gott has proven he cannot build a program. Short bursts of moderate tournament success with not title is all he has achieved and there is no reason to believe he will do anything else.

All I’m saying is that at this point, it is appropriate to let him coach out the season before making a decision. It is still possible this team will achieve things that Gott’s previous teams did not.

[Rick]

Tau837 wrote:

Rick wrote:

If he is not the long term answer then we should find someone who could be. Gott has proven he cannot build a program. Short bursts of moderate tournament success with not title is all he has achieved and there is no reason to believe he will do anything else.

All I’m saying is that at this point, it is appropriate to let him coach out the season before making a decision. It is still possible this team will achieve things that Gott’s previous teams did not.

True. Anything is possible however unlikely.

[Tau837]

ryebread wrote:

People seem to ignore what Gott has to work with. This isn’t NC State football. We have a massive stadium, top attendance, are a basketball team in a basketball conference, all games televised or streamed, Gott is paid a huge salary, his assistants paid more than most head coaches, we have a huge recruiting budget, a big sneaker company with AAU circuit funneling players his way, nationally televised games in prime time even as an unranked team, one of the top S&C guys in the business being focused on basketball first (most places are football first), a great practice facility, a museum of our program’s past accomplishments (SIC), an army of suits in the sidelines and seemingly 100% support by the AD. There are very, very, very few jobs in college basketball that offer this package, and only a handful of elite programs that can offer something more.

Well then, we should be able to get any coach we want, other than a “very, very, very few” of them. Right? If that is the case, sign me up, since it sounds like we can get whoever we want other than K, Izzo, Calipari, Self, and maybe a few others.

ryebread wrote:

when the excuse mongers roll out the “we can’t hope to compete” argument

Once again, you lost me. Who is saying this in this discussion? When discussing Gott, it seems that you often lapse into strawman arguments.

ryebread wrote:

someone who we might actually be able to get to come here

This seems to directly contradict your opener quoted above. If Gott has what “very, very, very few” other programs have, it stands to reason that all but “very, very, very few” head coaches should want to coach here. Or could it be that you overstated the first part?

ryebread wrote:

I want what is best for NC State. She might be clouded by a long friendship and wanting to maintain that after her working days are over.

Ah, so Yow’s judgment is clouded, but yours is completely unbiased. I understand that’s how you see it. From my perspective, your judgment is just as biased as hers, just in the opposite direction.

[Tau837]

ryebread wrote:

They speak way more than squeaking into the dance and then putting together a 2 game winning streak against teams with top 50 RPIs.

Another excellent example of your bias showing through. In 2014-15, we advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating Villanova (RPI #4). In 2011-12, we advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating Georgetown (RPI #11) and San Diego State (RPI #27).

Again, why do you feel the need to embellish in your rants? If Gott is such a poor head coach for N.C. State, why can’t you just stick to the facts?

[ryebread]

Tau837 wrote:

Ah, so Yow’s judgment is clouded, but yours is completely unbiased. I understand that’s how you see it. From my perspective, your judgment is just as biased as hers, just in the opposite direction.

Respectfully Tau, that’s a great example of selective quotation. I led that section with a statement that says my view of him is jaded and has been poor since the day we hired him. I’m also saying that Yow probably is biased as well, which is a concerning thing if one (like me) does not believe that Gott is good for NC State basketball. I’ve also repeatedly stated that my opinion means nothing, and it is the powers that be’s opinion that matters.

You seem to take issue with my posts, so what’s your opinion?

Tau837 wrote:

This seems to directly contradict your opener quoted above. If Gott has what “very, very, very few” other programs have, it stands to reason that all but “very, very, very few” head coaches should want to coach here. Or could it be that you overstated the first part?

I have no clue first hand as to the inner workings of the discussions of our last basketball hire. I merely highlight the “inputs” to this program. Find me 30-40 coaches that get paid more. Find me 30-40 assistants who are willing to give up head coaching jobs (which they are doing well at) to take assistant positions because they’re paid more money. Find me 30-40 programs that average higher attendance. Find me 30-40 programs that have better facilities. Find me 30-40 programs that combined offer these things, and then you can justify Gott’s overall average performance. Given I’m not objective, you are welcome to go find them.

Tau837 wrote:

Another excellent example of your bias showing through. In 2014-15, we advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating Villanova (RPI #4). In 2011-12, we advanced to the Sweet 16 by beating Georgetown (RPI #11) and San Diego State (RPI #27).

We had to beat those types of teams because we are playing from a weaker seed. That makes it considerably harder to advance and there’s a mountain of statistical data that shows that.

My point is absolutely correct that most at large teams in the NCAA tournament have top 50 RPIs. For a middling power conference team, which we are, to make the Sweet 16, one has to string together 2 straight wins against RPI top 50 teams. Heck, maybe an upset happens, and one of those lower seeds that are conference champions breaks through, and the middling power conference team gets to play a team outside of the top 50 in RPI in the second round. Maybe the power conference team actually (gasp) has a high seed, and gets to play one of those in the first round. You are right though, most teams probably don’t have to beat two RPI top 50 teams to make a Sweet 16. Most Sweet 16 teams probably have an easier path than my original statement.

The point is the same — making a Sweet 16 isn’t a great accomplishment for ACC teams that make the bracket. Last season, 6 of our conference peers did it. If one is hanging one’s hat on Sweet 16 appearances, then that’s not a strong argument.

[MISTA WOLF]

“Arch is doing it very well, and could POSSIBLY do it here but more importantly is someone who we might actually be able to get to come here. Why I’m vocal is because we’re fixing to miss on him in the same way we’ve missed on Marshall, Smart and others because we’re holding out some crazy hope that patience with Gott will finally be rewarded. That’s the definition of insanity.”

Rye,

Spot on my Wolfpack brethren. I agree with everything you’ve stated.

[gso packbacker]

I poorly communicated my thoughts if anyone took my statement as firing coach mid-season (only appropriate in cases of near complete implosion or inappropriate behavior).

I would however begin working on a plan that could be readily executed if we need to part ways at the end of the year.

Not doing so can only limit our potential options, however many or few actually exist.

[BJD95]

Work on a plan that can be executed at season’s end. EXACTLY.

Problem is…we didn’t hire the next AD yet, so nobody is mapping that contingency out. There is NO WAY Yow is gonna fire her buddy and make another revenue hire with so little time left on her watch unless there’s absolutely no way around it.

And, from my perspective, unless the program is absolutely IN FLAMES, I can’t imagine many scenarios where I would WANT her making the next hire, given the unfortunate derogatory things she said about our program’s attractiveness and her very soon impending retirement.

So…one has to again question why on God’s green earth we would EVER allow DY to paint NC State into a corner like this. Inertia, stupidity, or something even worse?

[bill.onthebeach]

^Naked pictures floating around somewhere ???

#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!

[ryebread]

BjD: Amen brother. One has to also question why she was allowed to sign a coach with certain red flags to the type of contract that she did. Seriously, who is going to buy out Gott?

[Tau837]

ryebread wrote:

You seem to take issue with my posts, so what’s your opinion?

I don’t take issue with them. I enjoy them because they are generally articulate and informed, and you provide a lot of substance for discussion. Not the case with everyone who posts here (perhaps including myself).

My take:

1. I didn’t know much about Gott when he was hired, so I had no real opinion at the time, although I didn’t take the circumstances of his hiring (the letter, etc.) as a strong positive. I was happy Lowe was replaced and was cautiously optimistic about Gott.

2. Looking back over his tenure, IMO it is clear that Gott is better than all of our coaches since V, although that is a low bar. It is equally clear he isn’t as good as V, Sloan, et al. I think he has raised the standing of the program, which could potentially bear on my last point below.

3. I agree that it is appropriate to prepare a plan for the eventuality that it is appropriate to fire Gott at the end of this season. I am not convinced that will be appropriate, I think it remains to be seen. If we do fire him, I would be very happy to hire Archie as his successor.

4. However, I agree with those who say it doesn’t make much sense to have Yow hire a successor to Gott. Given there is no appearance of her going anywhere anytime soon, if Gott does complete a disappointing season, this creates a conundrum that might actually change the calculus on what to do about him. If she is staying, that may give more reason to wait on firing Gott. (If firing him is even appropriate in the first place.)

5. I think you overrate what the program offers to its head coach. During the last two MBB coaching searches, I remember a lot of discussion and debate about how attractive our job is. I believe it was VaWolf who pointed out that the results speak for themselves. The fact that we settled on Lowe followed by Gott seems to show that the perception among head coaching candidates about our program does not match our perception of it. As a result of that, I think it is very possible that if we fire Gott we will end up with a replacement who performs worse. I’m not saying that is a reason not to fire him if warranted, just as I felt ending up with Lowe was not a good reason to think that forcing HWSNBN out was the wrong move. The two things are independent events.

[choppack1]

Tau – one thing about the relative parity and prevalence of $$ in college sports is that a lot of attractive program have had to settle.

In football, LSU, Clemson, UGa, and both USC’s didn’t exactly hire name coaches. Pitt Gott a Gott without the baggage in Stallings, ga tech is hiring a new coach every 6 years and even ucla had to settle for a retread.

I would love for us to end up with a miller or Marshall. Sadly,we probably could have had a Krueger or larannnaga or Belein. Oh well.

What would we do without our faith, family, jobs and booze.

[Tau837]

choppack1 wrote:

What would we do without our faith, family, jobs and booze.

Especially the booze, when it comes to being a Wolfpack fan…

[Author]

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