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‘roo I can’t argue with your assessment. There is a big upside but a lot of work to be done (players and coaches). Of the new guys so my personal favorites are Johnson and Hicks. DSJ has amazing talents but needs a bit of seasoning. Kapita has a high revving motor but the downside is he get into situations where he will foul. I’m hoping Maverick can return and be productive but goal one there should be to protect his health.
I also see flashes of brilliance in the midst of boneheaded plays – what you would expect for a roster of very talented but young players. The upperclassmen are simply not carrying their weight right now.
^I have to agree with Tex on the Johnson and Smith assessments. It’s clear with Smith’s size and athleticism and shotmaking ability why scouts drool over him. But his defense leaves something to be desired and decision making and turnovers are problems > But let’s face it, are we really surprised? A Freshman who didn’t play in a year coached by Gottfried. I expected the turnovers and decision making, and lack of defense. No shocker there.
But Johnson is Cat like with his defense, and he’s been less turnover prone, granted with a few less minutes, than Smith.
I expect we’ll improve but I already have bad feelings about this year. The defense is the worst we’ve seen under Gottfried, and that’s saying a lot. I’m trying to reserve judgment until the full complement of players arrive, but I don’t see a strategy that plays to the team’s strengths, and hides its weaknesses.
The Dennis, Johnson, Dorn, Yurt, Kapita lineup, when available, needs an extended evaluation period with split time between Dennis and Johnson being the true point guard.
I guess Henderson wasn’t the difference between making the tournament or not last year. He is RTO2.0.
^Henderson 39 minutes, 2/8 fg, 7pts, 0 rebounds, 5A, 3Steals, 2 TO Would like to match this up with who he was supposed to be defending. Anybody?
Wow, that game last night was concerning. If something doesn’t get straightened out soon, things could go south big time in a hurry. I hope he has something up his sleeve because with the talent on this team his coaching is being EXPOSED!
Disappointing loss yesterday. We were definitely the more talented team, but didn’t have the skills, experience, whatever you want to call it to win that kind of game on the road, yet. Hopefully “yet”. Kapita is still very raw. Dennis needs to learn when to pull it out and not try to score against a triple team. I don’t think Mav & 7 footer are going to make much of an impact once they’re back (just my own personal opinion). I think we’ll see Mav coming off the bench at some point this season to be honest.
That said, I’m still confident we’ll get better. I know these kind of games are frustrating, but Gottfried didn’t just make two sweet 16’s by accident. He’s got more talent than he’s had before so he needs to AT LEAST get back there with this group.
If not, we’ll all come together and throw him beard first under the bus.
I have seen Yurt play a few times and think he’s good. Is he NBA first round good? I don’t know, but the NBA surprises me every year with how they draft. He’s an immediate ACC starter good, moves well without the ball, passes well and seems to have a soft touch. I think he, Abu and Kapita make an effective front line with BJ playing spot (but hopefully high impact) minutes.
With Mav, I expect he goes back into the starting line up with Dorn and Smith. Dorn has played consistently the best of anyone all season. DSJ is going to start. Henderson and MJ coming off the bench with major minutes give us a pretty solid array of guards and wings.
The talent is there. It is not currently all playing. Those that are playing are either young or haven’t played much together. We will improve, get to the tournament and likely make a Sweet 16.
I doubt we’ll win anything of significance. I doubt we’ll maximize the potential of this roster.
The question is what’s good enough for NC State. It’s clear that Yow loves Gott and won’t make a move there. It’s clear we have a subset of the fanbase that is just thankful not to suck (like Lowe/Les). I’ve felt since the day we hired him that Gott would end up being HWSNBN v2.
The best thing for State in my opinion is for Yow to retire after this year so that we can get a new AD in place for next year. Both revenue sports seem to be treading water and in a holding pattern until Yow is gone.
I hope that Archie’s extension at Dayton keeps him off the market for a couple of more years. If he gets hired by a high major (and he’s a “name” on high major’s boards including Louisville, Illinois and Kentucky), and we’re piddling around with Gott, then I might be done with NC State basketball.
TaT – this is true.
His team’s typically hit their stride later in the season.
If you are just wanting to reach the tournament, this is fine. However, if you want banners, you need a better conference record (at least.)
In the old days of the 8/9 team ACC – you could 1-7 and still play same games as elite in advancing. Now, if you arent top 4, you don’t have that luxury – so you probably aren’t going to be conference champs.
Your journey in the NCAA is more difficult as that 7-13 seed that we’ll get.
I was hoping we wouldn’t see a “typical” successful Gottfried effort this year where we are sweating it until the first round of the ACC tournament.
To me, that’s what this year is about. Is the reason Gott’s teams not competed for the top 4 spots and landed on the bubble 4 of 5 years talent or is it coaching? Is what we’ve seen these first 5 years Gott’s ceiling?
Likely make the sweet 16?? That’s rich after watching us play so far. Omer would have to be Wilt Chamberlain for us to have a likely sweet 16 team.
Statered44: I’m trying to be positive. 🙂 I think there’s enough talent here to make a Sweet 16 despite Gott.
Seems like my other post got trapped in never never land.
I hear you. It’s just frustrating watching this bad basketball. How does a guy like Gott get to this level being that bad at coaching fundamentals? How did they let BJ get that size? We really miss Freeman and Mav. Hopefully Omer being coached in Europe has better habits. I like Gott and want him to succeed. But if not now then when? Mix Gott and Herb and we’d have a great coach it seems.
The box score shows we played 6 players with the exception of 6 minutes for Anya. Essentially, Anya, Kirk and Hicks didn’t play. Was Hicks out for some reason?
Kirk came in and immediately turned the ball over. Didn’t play the rest of the game.
Anya had 3 fouls in 6 minutes.
But, with the game going the way it was, why didn’t Gott play those guys?
Kirk didn’t play because he is awful. He fouls for no reason and then last night you have the bone headed play of catching the ball out of bounds. Anya doesn’t play be cause he is listed at 330 but looks 400 out there. Not sure on Hicks.
Walton: Gott’s always played 6-8 at NC State. I have/had high hopes that he’d go deeper this year, but I still don’t see him getting to Hicks and Kirk outside of spot duty, massive foul issues, etc.. I think your players are the DJS, MJ, TD, Mav, TH, Kapita, Abu, Yurt with spot minutes going to Anya. That will be as deep as Gott has ever gone.
I imagine Gott’s plan last night was to get the game out in the open court and get some easy baskets that didn’t come against a set defense. My plan would have been to go big and try to force them to beat me from the outside. Given the way we turned it over last night and fouled every time we had a man in sight, either plan was probably about as effective.
We were hoping (expecting?) that Henderson would be RT + defense because of his athleticism. I wonder how much the ankle injury has affected his lateral quickness long term.
“The Dennis, Johnson, Dorn, Yurt, Kapita lineup”
probably the best lineup to minimize our deficiencies, given that Johnson and Kapita are both strong on defense.
I agree also that part of the problem now is that upperclassman are underperforming. I knew about Anya and once we get sorted only expect 5-10 minutes of rim protection from him, but Abu has been MIA the last two games. Kapita can’t do everything.
I think Gott wants to play deeper than his typical 7-8 deep teams, but he doesn’t have the bodies/experience yet to be comfortable doing that. Also the inexperience of Hicks/Kirk can be mitigated if we press, but what I saw last night was a couple of feeble attempts of a full-court press, and didn’t do anything.
In the article about Gott’s health in reference to Lutz, he said that Lutz is strong in X and O’s but not in recruiting. So does that mean Lutz was the only X and O’s guy on the staff, if so this is a bit concerning. And if one of Butch/Schoyer are not specializing in defense, why are they there?
also I think there’s a parallel to be drawn from our poor play and Gott’s style. When the pressure is on, they (Gott) tend to revert back to bad (old) habits, e.g., “AAU ball” (relying on key guys to carry the team). I’m sure they are teaching defense something in practices, but it doesn’t always translate immediately, at least not historically with Gott’s teams.
ok, so moving forward….at least we haven’t lost to a certified cupcake yet. Lots of teams have. Lets try to weather this crap storm and right the ship until we get our full roster back. When that comes back we may need to hang on for dear life, but we know he has it in him to motivate. IF if if he can get them to buy in defensively and there are no further crappy depth issues (fingers crossed) we can still have a good year IMO.
Just because I’m sure you care…here are my thoughts about last night (and the season so far)…
First of all, don’t you think bailing on this team this early is a bit extreme?
Last night was the first time we played a team as big or bigger than we are…
Both last night and against Creighton, we ran a high tempo game even though we knew we didn’t have the depth the other team did. Was that a risk we were willing to take to get the experience?
In both games, we were completely gassed by the time crunch-time rolled around.
While I think that DSJ has improved on the year, last night was a tough one for him. I hope he takes something from that.
Kapita could really have used those 3 games in the Paradise Jam, he looks just a little behind.
I suspect we will see the same from Yurt7 when he starts.
Based on previous GOTT teams, I think this team will be ready to play by the time the ACC schedule hits.
Do I expect us to play great defense? No
Do I expect us to win the ACC regular season? No
Do I expect us to win the ACC or NCAA tournaments? No
Do I expect us back in the NCAA tournament? Yes
Do I think we are capable of getting to the Final 8? YesMaybe I’m a little crazy, but I still think this team has a chance to be GOTTs best team, lets give them a little time.
I agree with Fergus above, nice post. We are capable if we get hot and can somehow manage defense and rebounding. Also Smith Jr. MUST improve his shot selection and tempo. But I’d expect if we get into the NCAA’s were going to need 3 upsets in a row to get to an elite 8.
Rick – I don’t think it’s the ankle that are causing his lapses. I believe his defensive laps are a direct result of being in the “program” 3 years.
He knows the expectations on both ends of the floor.
I remember watching Ralston Turner playing d in red / white game the year he sat out. He had a great stance and got after it.
I haven’t bailed on the team. I know that Gott’s teams typically improve a great deal during the season. It will be interesting to see how things are handled if we eak into the tournament and lose in round of 32 or 64 or miss on the bubble.
If that’s the case it can’t be blamed on talent and we can have the highest possible degree of confidence in the ceiling of the program. Knowing our history, it will be time to explore the floor.
No worries, everything is under control.
“I don’t think there’s any question we can get it fixed,” Gottfried said.
That’s because the problem is easy to fix. Gottfried said his team plays “summer league” defense. N.C. State will guard the ball for two dribbles on the perimeter but then will try to go for a steal as the offensive player goes to the basket.
“We have to have discipline, stay solid and make people score over us,” Gottfried said. “All of that can be fixed. We just have to trust ourselves defensively.”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/nc-state/state-now/article117887663.html#storylink=cpy
Here’s an idea. Don’t have them watch their own game tape, have them watch Indiana from tonight’s win over unx.
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