ACC Mid-Season Review

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  • #72908
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    This past weekend had six games on Sat, one on Sun, and then another one on Monday night…Two overtime games, multiple close games, and only two with t
    [See the full post at: ACC Mid-Season Review]

    #72913
    Trout
    Participant

    Well done. You wont find a better mid season review than this, ANYWHERE.

    Hindsight being 20/20, 2 games from the first half of the ACC still bother me: Clemson, because of the way we played, and ND because let a chance for a 2nd signature win get away. Win both of those, and we are in the discussion for a Thursday night ACCT start and right there to grab a Top 4 seed in the NCAAT.

    #72917
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Thanks Trout. Both of those losses you mentioned were inexcusable:

    – Coming out completely flat at home against Clemson
    – Losing a game when you have the ball, four-point lead, and 1 minute left in the game.

    #72919
    ryebread
    Participant

    For a while we’ve been in a spot where we need to go at least .500 against the other ACC bubble teams (Syracuse, Miami, Pitt), hold serve against the bottom and maybe sneak 1-2 out against the top. The non-conference RPI carries us in otherwise.

    Games against Clemson (not holding serve) and Miami (differentiation) really hurt us. In the back half, we pretty much have to beat WF, Syracuse, BC, VT and Clemson.

    Beat UVA at home (the most likely of the 3 tough games), and we should be dancing. Lose all three of those and we’ll need to win at least 1 in the ACC tournament.

    I don’t think anyone thinks that Gott and the team are horrid. They’re just disappointed that we’re here, at this spot, again — despite what to my eyes looks like better talent than that.

    WF tonight is must win though. The team has to have a sense of urgency starting now.

    #72924
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Lose all three of those and we’ll need to win at least 1 in the ACC tournament.

    It’s unlikely that a win on Wed will mean anything to the Selection Committee. If a bid isn’t sown up by the start of the ACCT, you need to focus on a Thursday win.

    #72927
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    ND is more inexcusable, since that is what led to the Clemson debacle in the first place.

    It was lost in the first 8 minutes of the second half, the last minute was just the cherry on the shit sundae. We never should have been in position for one turnover to f-ck us over like that (and frankly, one missed 1-and-1 would do the same, and was a fairly equally likely event).

    #72928
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    Oh, and VAWolf is a national treasure. Fo sho.

    #72929
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    Like everyone else – those damn ND and Clemson games. Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT.

    #72948
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    I had a graph ready for you wufpup, but I actually forgot about. The darn entry was so long, I wouldn’t have put it in even if I had remembered it.

    http://www.statefansnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2_2_Conference-RPI.jpg

    Your prediction seems to wandering far from reality. 😉

    #72950
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    ^Hahaha good for those teams making it into the Top 200 🙂

    #72961
    choppack1
    Participant

    We have 9 games left. We need to win at least 5 of those. If we do that – worse case is that we would have beaten wf, BC, vatech and one of Clemson, uva, cuse, Louisville and unc I suspect that will leave us right where we are now…and likely win.

    #72970
    ryebread
    Participant

    VaWolf82: You may be right about a Wednesday win not being enough, but I’m not sure whether that is the case. Let’s say we lose the 3 toughest games, but win the rest. That puts us at 10-8 with a solid, but solidly bubble type of RPI. It could go either way, and a lot of that would be based on what happens in other conference tournaments, with other high majors, etc..

    We’d be playing on Wednesday. We’d likely be playing a lower team winner. We simply couldn’t afford to lose that game. It’d become a must win, thus my statement that we have to win at least 1 in the ACC tournament.

    Now, if we lose those big 3 games, and lose one of the WTF games (like tonight), then we’re probably going to need to win 2 in the ACC tournament. If we can only get one truly good win (against Duke), do we really think we’re going to win 2 in the ACC tournament, particularly given that second game is against one of those good teams on more rest?

    #72978
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    We can all agree that losing on Wed is very bad. But winning on Wednesday simply does not improve your resume. All you’ve accomplished is to not make it look any worse.

    A loss on Thursday would mean that you need all/most of the other bubble teams to also lose AND then hope that your miserable resume is the best amongst a bad bunch. Sounds like pretty long odds to me.

    9-9 and a win on Thursday would probably be good enough for an ACC bubble team. Goodness knows that it’s worked for State a number of times.

    #72982
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    I will never be certain again after last year’s miracle bid. I was sure we were “one win short.”

    #72986
    44rules
    Participant

    Don’t know where we’ll wind up. But for all the weeping and gnashing of teeth and wearing of sackcloth and ashes, I was wondering about the applicability of the high-post offense in the modern era of short-term basketball players.

    In days of yore Wooden had players for three years (plus a year of schooling them during their freshman JV year) to teach that offense. With skilled big men it’s beautiful to watch, and I love interior passing by tall people when done right. But is it feasible to teach that offense now?

    I sat under the State basket during the Tech game. Looked like Abu and Kyle had a nice flow and feel for each other. But it didn’t last long. At least a couple of times we tried it later in the game, and they just fumbled everything away. Several times later in the game big guys just fumbled things away, though. And at least twice I remember pick-and-roll plays where it looked like the roll guy was open and the guard just ignored him.

    Or maybe our big guys just aren’t that good. The thought of Anya and Freeman passing to each other with defensive arms swinging around inside does kind of scare me.

    Somebody smarter than me comment.

    Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. Mao Zedong

    #72992
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    ^44… nothing to add to the “eye-witness” report… and I ain’t smarter than you….
    I think you GOTT it covered….

    The only thing I might add is that one game is the same as snapshot taken from a 3 hour movie…
    It tells you something, but it ain’t the whole story…

    The key word missing perhaps is “Yet”…

    ABU, Anya and Freeman have come together pretty good for only a half a season together…
    They should get better and better….

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #73413
    PapaJohn
    Participant

    Great update, thanks for all the work. Loved every word of it.

    I missed this early in the week … and now we blew the WF game. Eight days off to right the ship. (hopefully)

    But an interesting development, how does Cuse declining post season play (including ACCT) impact this whole scenario? Or does it have any impact at all?

    #73416
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    I don’t see how SYR impacts any team making the NCAAT. On another thread, someone reported that there were only going to be two games on Tues. So that is something anyway.

    #73418
    13OT
    Participant

    The only way that this NC State team is Dancing in March will be AT LEAST 9 or 10 more wins. When you haven’t won 2 in a row in two months, this isn’t likely. I don’t see how we can be ahead of Clemson in anyone’s rankings right now. And Clemson, who looked like a slightly upgraded version of the Wolfpack last night in Tallahassee, isn’t likely going anywhere in March, except maybe on an NIT road game.

    Face the facts, folks. This team should be getting better but simply isn’t. If anything, they’re getting worse. What we have here is mainly a bunch of street-ballers who still don’t function as a cohesive team unit, can’t shoot free throws, hold on to the ball, take sensible shots, or play consistent defense. We just beat the last-place team in the league on a win-or-lose 30-footer at the buzzer. I don’t think this win over GT will matter in the overall picture, and it sure didn’t matter much in Winston Tuesday night.

    I still think that a 6 or 7-man rotation would work better for this team rather than the continual subbing in and out of players, especially when someone on the floor makes a boo-boo. The three players most important to this team right now to me are Barber, Lacey and Washington. Those three, along with Abu and the Martin twins, would be my team most of the game. I like Turner, but he has become a poor man’s version of Scott Wood, who could at least shoot free throws and occasionally play defense.

    I wouldn’t want to have to coach this team, and I’m beginning to wonder if those who have to really want to.

    #73419
    Khan
    Participant

    ^ 13OT: #truestory

    #73422
    PapaJohn
    Participant

    ^^13OT – Love that lineup. I think you get more energy, better defense, and – based on the way RT has played of late – not much, if any, loss of offense. Caleb and Cody sub for each other.

    I think you rotate in RT and Dez for rest breaks at the 2 or 3 and situational substitutions, RT for some instant offense when we are in a slump, Dez for some energy and defense.

    Nard’s got no offense, so he should only be called to give KW and Malik a couple of minutes’ rest.
    BeeJay’s run out of gas. Last guy off the bench. Basically he only plays if KW or Malik is in foul trouble. (which means most games)

    #73423
    choppack1
    Participant

    13ot – I’m assuming you mean 9 or 10 Acc wins not 9 or 10 more wins.

    If that’s the case I agree – we’d need to go @ least 4-3 our next season… Which could happen, after all we went 4-3 with games @ uva, @ Miami, @ FSU, with home games vs Pitt, wake, UNC and duke.

    We have @ ville, @ Clemson, @ BC (or is it @ vatech?) @ unc
    At home we have uva, cuse, vatech(? See above)…

    If we win 4 vs. That schedule we’d have at least 2 quality wins and as I indicated above an RPI similar to what it was before wake… As others have mentioned we’d then have avoid the 1st round loss to avoid the RPI event. Losing to our next opponent probably wouldn’t hurt our RPI and would improve our sos and we’d be on the edge of our seats on selection Sunday.

    But as you indicated – at this point that seems unlikely. Still its sports and crazy stuff happens all the time.

    #73430
    wufpup76
    Keymaster

    I had written a long opinion piece here in this comments section based in part off of 13OT’s observations, but hit backspace and away it went – unable to recover. I’m going to put up an opinion piece on the front page based on what 13OT touched on either tonight or tomorrow. I feel it is worthy of an at-large discussion.

    We’ve had a lot of front page activity the last couple of days, and I don’t want to push all that down even further. Plus, I don’t have the heart to re-create all the work I just did 🙂

    Anyway, some solid observations here and in other threads, and I hope to add to it tonight/tomorrow.

    #73432
    choppack1
    Participant

    Here’s a question – have we had 2 quality wins in a row since our run to the sweet 16?

    This period of time really does harken back to last 5 of hwsbn without the acc championship runs…better scheduling – that’s the biggest off-court difference. But Tue results are el mismo.

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