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On the same day that UNC-CHeats loses to Butler, NC State steps up and pulls away from a solid Richmond team in PNC Arena. Trevor Lacey was THE MAN…
[See the full post at: Gottfried’s Wolfpack start 5-0]Thoughts:
– His box score isn’t super impressive, but Caleb Martin played a terrific second half. He made a really tough floater in the lane, and played extremely solid defense. He did a great job anticipating passes and darting between guys on the perimeter of the zone to deter/contest shots.
– I genuinely think Anya is the second most important player on this team (behind Lacey). His presence on the defensive end changes everything. Offensively, we need to make better use of him. Good things happen when he touches the ball in the post.
– On that note, we’re terrible at making post entry passes. Cat in particular has trouble with it because guys sag so far off him. It’s been a problem for the whole team though in all our games.
– I’m worried about the offense. They really struggled to create good looks against a good defense (and Richmond is a good defense). They did a better job with it in the second half, but heroball from Lacey is only going to take us so far. The team doesn’t pass well, and if our first option on a play is stopped, we really quickly get bogged down. That’s what you get with a young team though.
– The first half was the worst half of defense we’ve played, easily. Way too much falling asleep off the ball and poor/late close-outs. The second half was better, and the zone was surprisingly effective, though the triangle and two we tried was pretty disastrous.
Two reasonable bright sides: it seems like guys are collectively picking up the slack from TJW’s departure, and 10-10 free throws to close out the game. I’ll be curious to see how things shake out when the conference schedule kicks in.
I know Turner had a great shooting night and actually scored off the dribble at one point but he would benefit the team much more by coming off the bench. I think Caleb Martin should start because of the offense he brings and he plays much better defense than Turner. I read on here on how bad we are on passing the ball and this is true. We could have taken some pointers from Richmond tonight on ball movement. This is a old song and dance tune but way too much dribbling. It’s an old drill but at practice the ball never touches the court until a certain number of passes have been made. My old high school coach drilled us on that and the many reasons for the drill. Involvement by everyone on the court was his number one reason and how open looks came from this. Also, if the trap is put on us we have 2 options. First of course would be to pass but, you would have the dribble to fall back on. Now if you have been dribbling and the trap comes you might of just got yourself into trouble. If I remember anything I will always remenber how important ball movement was to our coach. I am sure coach Gott uses this drill at practice but I just have not seen it during a game yet.
5-0 and that I will take with the schedule getting tuff from here on out for the pack.
I agree with the comments above about too much dribbling and the ball needing to go into the post more.
The dribbling increase may be coming from having two PGs on the floor so much, but I will say the Gott’s previous teams have been much better at pass and cut which cuts down on the dribbling a lot.
I’d also like to ask Gott what it is about the UCLA offense that makes us a consistently strong offensive rebounding team. That is one thing his teams have consistently done well and I just don’t believe it’s coincidence.
I see this team growing with each game. The competition has gotten progressively tougher but the team has managed to find a way to win. It is not without issues of course. One easily seen issue is free throw shooting. Some of the end of game play has been ragged as well. Offensively still developing for life after Warren. Defensively significantly better than previous Gott led teams.
All that said the thing I see being the biggest improvement is team chemistry. Still early season and no conference games yet so there are questions remaining but I do like watching this team.
RE: too much dribbling…
Well.. it could be worse ( and was ) and it will get better…
Last season.. we watched ANTHONY on 3,4 & 5 and ANTHONY Versus The World (1-13 in the Dean Dome)… all season, except when Coach finally sat ANTHONY on the Bench for being ANTHONY…
After six months of hard work (no sarcasm intended ), GOTT & Company appear to be half finished on that reclamation project…
Now we are watching “Too Much Dribbling”… which is exactly the same thing as Dribbing and not shooting in Anthony’s case and dribbling and not passing in everybody else’s case…
I thinking this is the necessary intermediary phase between ANTHONY on 3,4 & 5 and Mr.Cat The Future NBA Point Guard… as both Anthony and GOTT & Company appear committed to continuing the hard work.
The wildcard here is Lacy, who appears to playing point guard at least 50% of the time, regardless of what the starting lineup says…
There’s little question that the better Lacy plays, the better Anthony will play…. although not necessarily in the same game…
It will take two thirds of the season to see any noticeable improvement… so hopefully we’ll be much better at dribbling , passing and shooting by February.
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RE: Free Throw Shooting…Lacy on the postgame radio fluffer last night when asked about free throw shooting said everybody had to hit 17-20 at the end of every practice or run since practice started.
Now I know GOTT & Company are breathing easier this morning…
Coach GOTT said on the post game radio fluffer a couple games back… that he wasn’t going to talk about free throw shooting anymore, the kids had been busting their butts in that area and it was, at this point, mostly a mental thing and that talking about it could make it worse not better. Basically, the kids just needed to go out and make some free throws in the game.
Well … Coach…. last night they did.
And now they all know what that feels like, and you can quitting talking to them about doing something they’ve yet to do and talk to them about doing something they have already done… which we both know is a hellofalot easier…
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RE: those loyal and faithful who don’t like GOTT & Company…Take Parts One and Two above and consider the obvious…
Just because our kids as a Team and as an individual don’t meet your standards in some statistical category… doesn’t NOT mean that Coaches and Kids both ain’t busting their collective a$$es to fix what you think will never change.
‘Nuff said about ‘dat.
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Great win. No asterisks at all, they played well against a tough team. Nice to see them continue to improve. I would think this win will help our NCAAT resume.
As noted earlier, we still need to work on getting the ball in the hands of the bigs. I think Cat is afraid to throw it in, and that is probably because our bigs don’t consistently seal off their defender and put themselves in position to take the pass. I think it is a timing thing. The bigs are doing the right thing, but not able to hold the position long, and the guards aren’t reacting quickly enough to take advantage of the small window of opportunity.
* BeeJay needs to learn how to play defense, not just try to block every shot, and continue to work on his post moves.
* Kyle needs to learn to rebound and play defense.
* Nard’s got it all going for him – we saw the mid-range jumper last night – he just needs to demand the ball more often. I think he can do it all, he just needs to get a little more aggressive.
* Abu still needs to learn how to do everything. But his size and energy are great on the court.Totally agree with the poster that said start Caleb and bring Ralston off the bench. Had thought the same thing many times. However, not sure how Ralston would react to that emotionally. Would he go into a slump, and we lose the scoring? Caleb definitely needs more time on the court.
Great progress! There’s real potential out there. Can we live up to it this year?
bill.onthebeach- Lacey is playing point at least 50% of the time and if you notice he is also looking to dish off when he goes to the basket at times. That is a very good thing but our big men really need to look for the pass especially when Trevor Lacey is attacking the rim. The other four on the court have to help just as much.
PapaJohn-As far as how Ralston would react coming off the bench emotionally. Would he go into a slump, and we lose the scoring?
He goes into slumps from time to time anyway as he is a streak shooter. Anyone who has a one dimensional game is handicapped to begin with. But when he is on he is a big help to the team.
This is why Coach Gott makes the big bucks. Yes, he is a coach and he must teach but he also must be a salesman and sell it to the player as to how it benefits the team. There are some great salesmen out there. Some of the best are in Durham, Chapel Hill, and two other great one’s in the state of Kentucky. These guys have to sell the idea of having enough playing time for 5 star recruits so I think if you really look at it Gott should not have a problem with getting an understanding whether it is Turner or whomever the player may be.
^ thanks for the confirmation on Lacy at the point..
The ‘competition’ is the key to improvement…
And as we discussed ad nauseum for four months before, during and after last season’s musical chairs at the point… the idea of Anthony being our “only” point guard while satisfying to his twitter family… was way too scary for some of the rest of us…
There was a comment somewhere that suggested ‘everybody’ on the inside knew what Lacy could do … last season when he was running the scout team… and they were told by GOTT & Company to keep their mouths shut and and not let our friends in Durham and Orange know what we had in the backroom…
Turns out that in quiet way, Lacy may had more to do with player transfers than Anthony… who knows…
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Posted last night…first one, but the cyber gobblers gobbled it up…so here goes again.
FIRST, if you have not read the November Issue of the Wolfpacker, I highly recommend it. I got up early with the DW and then had a little time to kill. It has a LOT of good articles on the players and their backgrounds. It also filled in some stuff for me. In addition, GoPack.com has a pretty complete overview or summary of the upcoming games. Very informative.
Last night, I watched from our seats in the Champions Club and saw the team see-saw during the first half….then settle down during the second. It was a very strong and good win. NOW, who knows how good or bad Richmond was playing. Their three guys did score a bunch of points. The crowd was small, but really into the game. It was a great game, from a fan’s viewpoint.
NOT BEING paid the big $$’s as a talking head or a coach or even a novice, I will offer some observations. Many have commented and hope this is not redundant.
Gott talked about the game and, in particular, Lacey. Last night, Cat was off. In the previous home games, it was a “friendly” (hopefully) competition between the two. There was barely a 2 point difference when both were on the floor. Last night, Lacey ran away with 19 points (memory) during the first half. Cat only had 2. During the second half, Turner took over and went from maybe 6 or so to 23. Cat finally got 2 FT’s and a FG for a total of 6. Their combined 55 points sort of evened out the scoring.
Gott also commented on Lacey being the “Coach” on the floor. Thought it was pure coach glib. Then Tony put on Lacey. They FINALLY had to cut it short. Lacey just took over….not in a domineering, but matter of fact manner and they let him talk. He commented that the team was enjoying the run and gun pace of the first half and at halftime, Coaching staff (Lutz?) settled them down and they concentrated on D. Then he analyzed the 2nd half. Tony commented that some of the junk defenses that they were running were new to him and he had not watched all of them in practice. Lacey said that some of them were things that the “guys on the floor improvised”. YES, the “Coach” on the floor actually was calling the D and running things that they had only “played with”. After the interview, Gary commented that Gott had played down Lacey’s prowess and even chided him for giving out too much info at a WP gathering. He wanted to keep Lacey’s talents hidden as long as possible.
OK…THAT interview and the comments were an eyeopener. I have been listening to the players of the game do interviews since the 70’s on radio or on TV. Sidney Lowe (Jimmy V’s “floor” coach) was good. He was articulate and concise. I honestly believe that Lacey has a better instinct or knack for the game that Lowe did.
He was as professional as many of the coaches of the lower level teams that we have played this year or last. I was IMPRESSED.
Today, reading the background stories on the team, I paid attention to all the articles and the “fluff” stuff. Our “stars” all say that in 20 years, they want to be still playing in the NBA or retired and living the good life in LA. Lacey’s vision is that he will be an assistant NBA coach or perhaps a head NBA coach. Now that is powerful.
I have a whole new respect for the “behind the scenes” stuff that Gott has done to get Turner and Lacey (probably bent some NCAA rules about “trolling and contacting”). BUT, he pulled it off. With the new guys (but HEY….we have had NEW superstars before), we have a bright future….
I think that the press has, as usual, missed on us. We will not finish around 7th or so….it WILL be higher and I think that we will do well when we get to the dance. NOW, will Gott take us to the final dance number? WOW….what Odds…BUT if we continue to improve (Lacey says he is still VERY rusty after his year off and is improving) and if CAT can find his Mo-Jo (he really lost it last night), then we will win a lot. I sure hope that Gott feels the need for a “tribute” to Jimmy V and has a short…”This is how you cut down the nets” drill. THAT emphasized Valvano’s faith or dream in his guys and did a LOT for their personal confidence….
GO PACK….Boise whatever will be here tomorrow night…
I’m expecting us to have a really good season and even win a few games in the NCAAT. However, I’m also preparing for a loss tonight. Boise is the type of team that is going to give us trouble. An experienced, talented backcourt that can shoot lights out with the three ball. We have flirted with a loss the last few games, and while I hope we win tonight, a loss will not surprise me.
^Roo… thanks a bunch!
For me… This is what I really enjoy about basketball season… watching the kids grow up…
and watching the “Coaches” coach…I’ve seen enough games and you have too… to know ‘highlights’ and w-l records don’t change people’s lives … but being on a good TEAM does… everytime… and that’s alot more important for our kids…
I heard Lacy on the radio too… and you’re right… it was Coach Lutz that he ‘mentioned’…
and this season could be a GOOD one…Now… I guess all eyes will be Anthony to see how he responds… hopefully he’s outgrown some of last season’s tempermentality…
when we are all not watching Mr. Lacy…#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Year 1 – what can Gott do with the island of misfit toys, Year 2 – how do you manage expectations and replace Painter, Johnson & Williams, Year 3 – how do you replace Howell, Wood, Lo Brown & Leslie, Year 4 – how do you replace TJ WARREN, Lewis & Vandy
This year’s answer is Trevor Lacey and more production from each player. Ten State players scored Wednesday night. Thank you once again, Gott.
Eventually, the question will change to how do you beat this team. Losses will come but not enough to keep us from dancing.
The Butler did it.
(John, ^, I’ll never pass on any opportunity to hate on the cheating rat bastards of Orange county….NEVER….just saying)
…^F68… I think I see a pattern… something to do with taking a diverse group of guys and trying to quickly build TEAMs… with the key word being “quickly”… while EVERYBODY is watching YOUR’s and EVERYBODY else’s every move…
This is what Head Coaching has become, like it or not… 90% plus people management…
… which also explains why Coach Lutz — VP of X&O’s at GOTT & Company — is invaluable.
Bottom Line here is the X&0’s ain’t really Coach GOTT’s “job” and it wasn’t what he was hired for…
That may come as a “surprise” to some of the loyal and faithful who ain’t GOTT it… yet…#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
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