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^If I heard correctly, I think the radio guys said last night we’ve been outscored 34-12 from the line the last two contests. That’s striding toward outlier territory.
When you lose one game by 5 and another by 3 and your opponents have a combined +22 differential from the line – that’s gonna frustrate quite a few peeps.
Front ends and missing two on an act of shooting.
Why continue to bring this up?
Zeebs were from a different plane last night. Not so in Miami.
Did anyone NOT expect us to blow that lead? I figured best case was we figure out a way to win in the last second but stupidity and lack of rebounding killed us… again.
We are who we think we are.
I did because ever since a kid watching Sloan’s teams I have known any Wolfpack team that gets double digit lead at half (FB or BB) has a better chance of losing than winning. This ain’t just this year’s team
To clarify my point, though I totally agree there was some bad officiating, if we had shot a respectable precentage in the second, we would have been so far ahead, bad officiating wouldn’t have mattered.
Recruiting is fine. Abu is coming on and Washington is becoming a go-to scorer. We have everyone in the rotation returning next year except Turner and we already have his backfill. There aren’t any minutes available for a freshmen next year so why throw out an offer just to burn it? And we have all seen what happens to a freshman who doesn’t play how much/when/or the position he wants.
Pakfanistan is right. Rick is wrong.
Front ends and missing two on an act of shooting.
Why continue to bring this up?
Zeebs were from a different plane last night. Not so in Miami.
I was thinking the Miami game was poor too but Icould not watch it. I was going off CBSSports box score that showed NCSU as 3-4 from line. I guess this was wrong.
I posted this in the other forum thread but since the topic of fouls and FT’s is discussed, it seems very relevant here as well.
One of the stats to look at is something I was reviewing earlier and what Wolfson was saying. When the fouls occur and what kind of fouls are called is an interesting concept.
ND was called for 14 fouls and we shot only 12 FT’s.We were called for 20 fouls and they shot 24 FT’s. Granted, more fouls means more time at the line with the bonus, but it seems all the fouls we commit are shooting fouls and the fouls others commit and non-shooting fouls.
Miami was called for only 10 fouls and we shot 4 FT’s.
We were called for 21 fouls and they shot 21 FT’s.
FSU was called for 16 fouls, and several of those were end of game catch up fouls. We shot 18 FT’s.
We fouled FSU 21 times and they shot 30 FT’s.
I dont have time to do a full statistical analysis (nor am I qualified) but the last 3 games are as follows:
NC State 62 fouls – opponents shoot 75 FT’s or 1.2 FT’s per foul.
Opponents 40 fouls – we shoot only 34 FT’s or .85 FT’s per foul.The fact that the fouls are 62/40 is interesting but the FT’s taken per foul is interesting as well.
The other thing that cannot be measured is the timing of the fouls. Duke several years ago is a prime example – we are way up, the zebras start calling ticky tack fouls on us and the whole complexion of the game changes. Same thing has happened this year on several instances, which takes away the agressiveness on D amd forces us to play passive and scared. Then when other teams can press us and no fouls are called, we start to get tight (of course) and they get away with steals that could be fouls.
I AM NOT A CONSPIRACY THEORIST. John Clougherty is family friend and his sons went to State. But tendencies are observed, and our tendencies seem to get us in trouble rather than watching the actual play.
I do not even care enough to look at the refs. Until we decide to stop giving away leads it does not matter.
That game was a train wreck plain and simple and we ALL knew it was coming because it happens so often under Gott.And I really wish people would stop with the youth excuse. There is not a coach in the country that wouldn’t like a 5th year senior, 4th year junior and a soph (who happens to be a McD AA) at the guards. That is more than enough experience. More than enough. But if you are looking for an excuse you will always find one.
The fact that the fouls are 62/40 is interesting but the FT’s taken per foul is interesting as well.
To some degree that disparity has to do with the style of offense and aggressiveness on offense. It seems that most teams put themselves in position to draw fouls more often on offense.
It also has to do with the fact that we give extensive minutes to 4 sophomores and 3 freshmen, and those players make both stupid fouls at times and at other times fouls due to being unnecessarily aggressive. And we have a 5th year senior who is a bad defender and reaches too much.
I am reminded of Hanlon’s Razor: never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity/incompetence. In this case, there is incompetence in officiating and also in our team’s ability to play defense without fouling.
Rick: agree on the youth excuse. CBB is different than it was even 10 years ago, in this regard and others.
General re: ND game
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand the binary juxtaposition of saying “we blew the lead, it’s what we do” and “the refs sucked”. Here’s maybe a different take:First of all, I will posit that with about 4-5 min to go in the first half, and throughout the second half, the officials abruptly changed the tenor of the game – for details, see several wufpup76 posts above. If you disagree with the previous statement, you can stop reading. When that kind of change happens, it tends to have a pronounced psychological impact.
Q) Why didn’t we keep penetrating and feeding the ball low like the first half?
A) Because ND changed their defense out of the half to clog these passing lanes and take that option away.Q) Why did we play tentative?
A) Because players were afraid of whistles.Q) Why did we let an 18-point lead evaporate?
A) Hint: it’s not because we’re NC State and that’s what we do. See above. It’s because the combination of tight whistles on one end and no-calls on the other, combined with ND’s defensive adjustment, took away what was working so well and left us with WAY fewer optionsQ) Why didn’t we make the plays to win the game.
A) We DID. This is the one that always kills me from the “stop blaming the officials crowd”. We made enough plays to win the game. We didn’t make enough plays to overcome the combination of a talented opponent and inconsistent officiating.There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy of any kind for there to be bad officiating. For me, “bad” means inconsistent. Call the game however you like, but be consistent on both ends. The crew for the ND game was just BAD.
BTW: None of this applies, IMO, to the Miami game. We should have won that one and didn’t – let it get away. That’s on the players and, to a lesser degree, the staff.
But I will argue ’til I drop that the staff and team did a fantastic job against ND, just not quite enough to overcome the inconsistencies.
State had a four-pt lead and the ball with about a minute to go in regulation. The officials may have impacted the game up until that point, but I can’t recall that they had an impact over the closing stretch. State simply didn’t make a decent play on either end of the court and let ND shoot about a dozen shots to tie the game. Losing the ND game is on the players and the coaches…not the refs.
^^Agree, 1987.
VaWolf makes a valid point about State’s glaring errors down the stretch. If there’s a consensus that there were inconsistent stripes it does not take away from nor cancel out team errors.
You guy/gals can blow me out of the water if you wish – but I feel one can say both reasons were factors in the outcome. It’s my opinion that one reason feeds the other. Inconsistent calls will lead to inconsistent play; that said, inconsistent calls can not be an excuse for inconsistent play. I think the real argument is whether the game would still have those specific conditions had the game been called in a consistent manner. And, well, that’s basically arguing semantics. The painful facts are that State lost the game while still having good opportunities to win (edit).
For my part, even had State won the game I would still be highly miffed at the way the game was called. Twas bad.
I was wondering about Cat not playing, but I think the way the game played out and who was in the game had the best players in at the best time. With the Martins in in the first half, they built an 18-point lead. Granted that was helped by Notre Dame missing shots, but it was working fine to have the better defensive player sitting if the offense was clicking. Abu was being effective, so KW was waiting his turn. When the Martins lost their effectiveness and defense was slipping, Cat got his shot on the court and his defense slowed them down and with him out there, they got the lead back and were a crazy inbounds pass away from being able to having a chance to be able to ice the win by hitting (assuming Notre Dame would have fouled). The way a player plays in a certain part of the game doesn’t mean that if they had played all other minutes of the game, the results (score) can be extrapolated. What Gottfried did in the first half personnel-wise seemed to work. Bringing in Cat for defense also seemed to work. I thought he did a good job of player management even though it meant sitting a player who has played a high percentage of most (all?) other games this year. Of course there could have just been something else going on with Cat. If they’d won the game, I think the personnel decisions would get higher reviews.
What helped State “blow” the 18-lead is what helped them build it in the first place – Notre Dame’s 3-pointers. They were shooting them in the first half, but weren’t hitting them. They’re a 40% 3-point shooting team, so they were bound to start hitting them. They had multiple guys no 3-pointers in the first half who regularly make them. The best way to make up a big deficit is to make a bunch of 3’s (7 in the second half) and that’s exactly what they did. Of course there’s more to it than that, but that certainly helped.
When I see stats like this: “in games this season where State is up/down by four inside the 3:00 mark, the Wolfpack is 1-6?
…I unfortunately can’t help but think about coaching.
And that’s just THIS season! In those final minutes, how badly have we been outscored? I’m guessing 100-30.
It’s tough to pull out the close ones when most of your starters are trying to avoid fouling out. If we could get to the 4 minute mark with our starters having only 2 fouls a piece, we could win! But we pick up too many cheapies, now the other team is in the double bonus, and we squander the game. I hate allowing a guy to cruise around late in the game because we’re too afraid to play real defense.
Notre Dame is a worse defensive team than we are, and scoring 29 points in the second half was inexcusable. Poor shot selection continues to be a glaring problem for every Gottfried team. It’s only masked by the fact that his offense generally generates good shots–for somebody, mind you. The selling point for the UCLA high post, particularly to 18 year olds, is that it generates shots for everybody. That’s nice. But the problem is that everybody doesn’t need the same touches or shots. When you have a star player like Warren last year, we made a concerted effort for him to get more shots, but he was also very active and highly efficient on his own. IMO, Gottfried doesn’t exploit mismatches in man-to-man situations nearly enough. He used Buckets wisely last year, but hell, who couldn’t? With this bunch, we definitely settle to much for jumpshots, too little penetration, and there’s too little cutting and activity by the bigs and wings.
Gottfried is repeating his Bama performances, albeit it, with better talent and depth, and in a better league. I still say his best option is run out 9-10 a game, play with a 20-25 second shot clock, press, trap, and run, run, run. Score in the 80s-90s, not the low 70s. You don’t need 35 seconds to run the UCLA high post. That’s my biggest issue, we say we’ll outscore you, but we don’t really appear committed to the scheme that will create more possessions, or bait teams into taking quicker shots, creating turnovers, or lessening the effect of our bad halfcourt defense.
I just got back to the site and would like to say, that I enjoy the dialogue and the spirit of the group, and would like to apologize as the comment was inappropriate, and I was just a little frustrated by the loss.
I would also like to thank everyone for participating and all of the comments I have read have been insightful and refreshing.
Timbo,
No problem. We were all frustrated and we all handle it differently. We welcome differing opinions and I for one enjoy the back and forth.
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