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Yeah, it is official. When you lose Anya, you’ve lost the team. People took a lot of uncalled for shots at BJ, but from what I could tell, he looked like a great teammate to me.
Gott should be the one suspended from FSU…
Lay off Anya. His weight is his weight. It’s no conspiracy against NC State sports, or deal with Gott. It’s likely an addiction to food and possibly a low metabolism or some sort of thyroid issue. I hope for his sake that he can get it down a bit for his life after NCAA sports.
I’m personally thankful for the fact that he stuck it out for years and seemingly did so with a great attitude. This program would be in much better shape if more kids had done that.
xphoenix87: Those are exactly my thoughts, and I’ve looked at those same numbers and trends. Arch has done more than enough to prove himself. It’s time to make it happen.
Note, there’s no guarantee that Arch will succeed here because there are simply no guarantees in life outside of death, taxes and change. It’s just tha the gives us about the best chance of anyone we can realistically hire, and we *might* have a leg up on him over other teams because he is an alum.
Unrelated, but that is a painful walk down memory lane with HWSNBN. My biggest memory of him was thinking so many times that we might finally break through, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was a valuable lesson in killer instinct / performing in the clutch and understanding that some people have it and others don’t. If one doesn’t have “it” then they will never acquire it. HWSNBN never had it, never acquired it at State or ASU and never will.
Yow says she is retiring in 2019, and that has nothing to do with what is going on now. So if a coaching change is necessary, she will do what is best for the university.
Is this something new or just previous discussion about her retirement. Is the bolded part something she actually said, or speculation on your part?
Not trying to be difficult. This would frankly be good news. I just don’t have that much faith.
I want all the players back and all the coaches gone.
I’ve been saying since day one that we’d have been better off with Lutz coaching and Gott recruiting. Looks like that’s obvious.
Miami just had two guys get career highs, out rebounded us and shot 50% from 3. Seem like trends?
Grey: Yep, clock management is awful. A friend of mine is a Duke grad but likes NC State (didn’t grow up in Nc but liked V). He watches some of our games and has commented on how awful DD is at managing the clock, keeping the foot to the floor, etc.. Watching K all of those years, Duke fans know about killer instinct and also when it is not there, and DD just doesn’t have that.
There would seemingly be too much $$$ in play to land Marshall if he is even available. I’m not convinced he is. Maybe for UNC he is. I’d wonder if he is worth the $$$. If the Koch brothers want him, they will keep him. If not then one also has to ask questions.
Arch has to be the first, second and third calls. One thing that I forgot to mention above is that Arch’s teams win the second half. At one point in time this season, they’d outscored 18/19 opponents in the second half. I haven’t checked to update that stat, but he either has better depth than everyone (which they don’t) or he is in there making actual adjustments.
Now all this requires we actually have a spot open. While it is obvious to me what needs to be done (and what I’d have done after last season), it will seemingly have to continue to be a burning dumpster fire to force action. Even then I wouldn’t put a move at over 50/50 given all the other “factors.”
Red: Martin accussed NC State of tampering and then wouldn’t grant a transfer a release to State. I sense some bad blood there. I don’t think he’d ever be in play.
Grey: Thanks for the class break down. You’ve looked into it way more than I have. I don’t really follow football recruiting and instead focus on who is on the roster day one of the season. There are too many recruits and the evaluation in football is nowhere near as good as it is in basketball.
I will say that I think DD and staff have done a good job in finding the diamonds in the rough, redshirting them, coaching them up, etc.. What many TOB fans swore the guy did (and I guess he did for any that actually made it through) is what I see us actually doing now. We matched up better physically and speed wise with Clemson and FSU better than any time since early in Amato’s tenure this past season.
I’m willing to give DD a bit of a pass on recruiting rankings because the on field eye test has really been pretty good outside of place kicker, QB and corners. I’d have loved to see some help with those units.
DD’s issues aren’t as much Jimmies and Joes, injuries, prep, etc.. They are the consistently awful in game decisions he makes that spot the other team 6-10 points per game. He might be a CEO type that once the ball gets kicked in the air needs to take a Wooden like approach and let the players and assistants execute the plan.
Oh yeah, and DD is awful with the media. He needs considerable coaching in that department.
Ply: I’ve watched Dayton a dozen times over the past 3-4 seasons. I’ve watched them win and I have watched them lose. In every game they have played hard nosed, man to man defense for every possession. If you look at their defensive efficiency, it has been in the top 35 in each of the last 4 or so years (and I think was around 15th this year the last time I checked).
They run a motion offense and mix inside and outside on the attack. The ball will be moved with the pass. They’re not as 3 happy as many mid-majors but they don’t quite have the shooters that some mid-majors do either.
They’ve typically lacked size, and when I have seen them lose it has been on the boards against bigger teams on a day that they also didn’t shoot well (like Syracuse in the tournament last year).
They play smart ball and typically don’t beat themselves. They’re not robots, but college kids so they do make mistakes, but they’re not of the dribble up the court and throw it straight out of bounds variety.
My sense is that Arch gets most out of them most nights and runs a tight ship. They’re not recruiting at an elite level, but are bringing kids through and developing them.
Frankly, it is by watching them that has made me high on Arch. I will admit that I did not think Arch was ready for this job at our last search. He needed to go run a program and prove himself. He’s done so with me. Bring him home.
I watched the game on recorded delay late last night. I had some commitments when it was actually on, but didn’t learn the score so I could watch it “fresh.” I always want to see State win and as discussed in a previous thread, I thought it was one of our best chances at getting a win left on the regular season schedule.
There were some pros. I have now watched all three triple doubles by NC State players in the last 20 years. DSJ is a special player, and honestly looks even better when he is focused on getting others involved (first 2/3rds of the game) than he is when trying to score. That bodes well for him in the pros. It is sad to see some Gott defenders (not necessarily here) throw him under the bus to defend Gott. Imagine how awful this team would be without him. Oh wait, that’s next year’s team if Gott is coaching us.
Mav and Abu both also had really strong games. They each took advantage of a great match up for them. I also thought we looked good when Yurt was at the high post and we were actively feeding the low post.
When we were up 14-16 late, I thought we were in pretty good shape, but when Syracuse went on the 12 point run and we didn’t do anything to stop it, I had a sinking feeling. When it went to OT, I knew it was over. We saw Gottball at its finest — missed free throws, no defense, way too late to call a time out, poor situational awareness, letting one kid light us up in a career game (most points ever scored by a player in the ESA).
I wonder if there’s ever been a game in ACC history where one player had a triple double, a teammate had 30 points and the team still lost. I’ve not looked it up, but it would be fascinating to find if that anomaly existed.
It’s been past time for Gott to be gone. As I said before the game, a win wouldn’t change my opinion of that. A loss doesn’t change it either. Nothing short of a 1983 styled run is going to do that for me.
My only real solace in last night was that with each mounting loss it is going to be harder for Yow to excuse away another year. Eventually it will be bad enough that action must be taken. Note, I would never pull against NC State, and take no joy from a loss, but if there is a silver lining from last night maybe it is that.
bill: I’ll always pull for the Pack and hope we win tonight. Tonight is one of the most winnable games left on the schedule in the regular season.
I don’t think that a win or loss tonight really changes the overall picture. Sure a win helps Gott and maybe he goes on a late season tear like DD did and gets into the Dance. I tend to doubt it, but stranger things have happened.
I would say when one is on a game by game referendum, it’s not good. I personally don’t think people should be swayed by that. I wasn’t more positive on Gott after the Duke win than I was negative after the UNC loss. My mind has personally been made up on Gott. The question is whether the admin and the real money brokers feel the same way because it doesn’t really matter what I think.
cowdog: I think you and are in the same boat. One isn’t terrible if they’ve made the 2 Sweet 16s, but we’re clearly trending downward and haven’t shown the type of in season consistency that most other teams in that 2+ Sweet 16 group has shown.
My biggest thought is that the two Sweet 16s isn’t the huge achievement that some make it out to be. It feels that way after wandering in the desert under Les, HWSNBN and Sid, but eight teams in the ACC have done that in the past 5 years. It sort of seems to be table stakes given the type of resources that programs in our league have. Our goal should be in that 3 or more group, as well as a consistent staple in the top 25 during the regular season (i.e. a real top 25 program).
I was with you on Marshall last time around. I also liked Sean Miller, but knew that ship sailed when they beat Duke in the NCAA tournament. Up until then, I thought we had a 50/50 shot. I liked Randy Bennett (and still do). I actually thought we’d end up with Mike Brey, but I guess his ties to his home (Bethesda) were what had him in play at Maryland and not the relationship to Yow (as some claimed). I’d have been okay with Lon Kruger as the desperation hire because he’d built winners multiple places. He wasn’t going to be the long term answer, but would have quickly righted the ship before growing bored and leaving.
owen: Is Marshall really going to turn down the Koch brothers’ money? Are we really going to pay that premium? I don’t know. My first call would be to Arch. I’d happily take Marshall, but am just not as sure about that one working out. I would definitely engage with Keats as well as what he has done at UNCW has impressed me, but there’s more risk there than with Arch or Marshall. My longer shots would be Randy Bennett (am very impressed with what he’s done at St. Mary’s) and then a desperation hire of Vinny.
Roo: I get your point about the separation of the WPC and Yow’s budget. At the same time, if we spent money on Reynolds to build a museum, but then can’t take care of the actual program it is a shrine too, then we are even more incompetently managed than many fear. I also think Woodson is making a big endowment push, and a healthy men’s basketball program will make his job easier.
shoes: I’d agree that the 4 Sweet 16 and 3 Sweet 16 teams are the blue bloods. Year in and year out, they’re turning out the type of team that we aspire to be. I personally think we could get there and really want us to model our program after Wisconsin’s. I really liked Bo Ryan when we hired Sid and there were rumors of talks there.
bjd: There were rumblings when we brought in Schroyer that he might fill in as interim in case of an emergency or might even inherit the program. I guess they were hedging on Gott’s health issues. Unfortunately, as the season wears on and we continue to be bad on defense, I would hope we would go a different way. Of course, maybe that’s on Gott. I don’t know. Defense and effort seem to start with the head man, the culture he sets, and what dictates game time. Maybe Schroyer as head man would set up a different incentive system which would reward better defense?
rthomas44: Never give up! Our whole athletics department is run on the premise of blind faith. Why should the fans be any different? 😉
If we could fund the Reynold’s renovation, we should be able to find money to take care of our most important sport.
I’m with BJD. Clean break time. We have to get a coach in here we think is the person given that Duke, UNC, Louisville and Syracuse will all be making changes very soon.
Just to look at the “Sweet 16s” thing I went and pulled the Sweet 16 teams from the past 5 years. Here are teams that have gone multiple times:
– 4 times: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Louisville
– 3 times: Kentucky, Syracuse, UNC, Duke, Kansas, Indiana, Florida, Arizona
– 2 times: UCLA, Baylor, Gonzaga, NC State, Iowa State, Marquette, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, Xavier, Witchita State
– 1 time: W. Virginia, Utah, UConn, TAMU, Tennessee, Stanford, San Diego State, Cincinnati, Dayton, Florida Gulf Coast, La Salle, Maryland, Ohio, VillanovaSome things jumped out at me:
– A program may have a fluke year and make it once, but few mid-majors do it twice in a five year period.
– Move to 3 times or more in 5 years and that’s pretty much the blue bloods.
– Wisconsin has gotten way more out of less than anyone else
– Few mid-majors are really punching at high major level. These are Gonzaga, Wichita State, Xavier.
– NC State has done well and made it twice. That’s some nice company.
– Unfortunately for NC State, 7 other ACC programs have made it 2 times or more during that period. That means 8 teams in all have, or OVER HALF THE CONFERENCE. We can be doing well in the larger spectrum, and still not be doing that well relative to our peers. Tough neighborhood.
– Looking at the list of teams with 2 trips or more, we probably have the fewest number of weeks in the AP top 25 in that span. We’re not consistently good, but have gotten hot a couple of times in the end.
– Two teams have a lone Sweet 16 in that period, but also have a title that year — UConn and Villanova. Both teams maximized once the got into the second weekend.
– Buzz got those two for Marquette, but will probably push VT into that group eventually.As this relates to the “Sweet 16s show Gott can coach,” it does prove that there’s some correlation. NC State didn’t make the Sweet 16 under Lowe and only did it one time HWSNBN, so it’s not just the platform that is NC State that makes it happen.
At the same time, 7 other ACC teams have performed that feat (or more) in a similar span and this is a high major’s milestone. There’s something to be said for the level of resources, exposure, recruiting, etc. that are required to actually do it. NC State has to judge itself and its performance against those peers. We have lots of built in advantages. That milestone isn’t the rarefied air that some make it out to be, particularly not for an ACC team.
Yow has a stated goal that this Gott run a top 25 program. During the past 5 years, 26 teams have made it to the Sweet 16 twice. One could argue those are the top 25 teams, and that Gott’s hitting the mark. One could also argue that another 3-5 of the one time Sweet 16 team punch their second ticket this year. At that point, we’re not in that top 25 and fading badly.
Year 2, friends. It’s been down hill since then. The fair Gottfather was always a fraud. The only changes are the additions of our old Big East friends and Notre Dame and a full complement of his recruits, minus Bobby Lutz, who was never a defensive genius, but at least provided some level of game prep that now appears lost.
He simply thought we’d out talent people this year. And he’s perplexed now and has no solution, because to swallow the pill, he either has to say he can’t coach, or we don’t have players. He’s run out of excuses, so now it’s “bad energy.”
Bingo. The worst thing that happened to NC State with respect to Gott (outside of hiring him initially) was how bad Lowe was at extracting anything out of the stacked roster he had built. Virtually any average P5 coach could have taken the year 1 roster and won with it. It was just that Lowe was so bad that Gott looked like a genius, and Yow rapidly changed his contract structure.
The signs were there early in year 2 though. When Oklahoma State whacked us by 20 in Puerto Rico, the major red flag should have gone up right there. Instead, our fans where after the ESPN analyst who correctly (though abrasively) pointed out the glaring weaknesses in defense, fundamentals and toughness. Thomas de Theay said the same thing later that year and people didn’t want to believe him. It’s kind of like they are finally waking up, in what should really be a strike 3 kind of season.
I’d suggest that Gott’s not the coach today that he was in year 1. I don’t know if it is motivation, health related, personal life, whether it was really Lutz, or maybe it was Harrick. I’d suggest though that we’re in another situation where any virtually average P5 coach could again take this year’s roster and do a lot more with it than what we are getting now.
When the employee makes 3-4 times the boss, and the boss is known to be on their way out, the employee doesn’t care so much about the boss. That is particularly true when the employee is going to get a package with a guaranteed severance.
As for the game, is anyone really surprised? Winning against Duke without K while having close to season best games from three players was Fool’a Gold. Back to reality today for even the most optimistic. Of course it should have been obvious after UNC (if it wasn’t already after year 2 or 5).
I would and will never pull against the Pack. I take solace that each passing loss gets us a game closer to HWSNBNv2 leaving us. I do wonder how many it will take to remove doubt from some…
I am concerned about Louisville. We’ve struggled, particularly on the road, against teams that play physical defense. We don’t seem to want to play physical unless we clearly outmatch the other team.
It would take a heck of a rally for us to make the tournament at this point. It’s not that we can’t. We have more talent than most of those teams. It’s just that the easy games are behind us, and match up wise Louisville, UNC, UVA and FSU look rough (and honestly look like the top 4 in the ACC to me). That means we have to upset one, or hold serve against the rest.
Or we can just win the ACC tournament. That’s a bit tough without one of those top 4 slots, which is what some of us have been highlighting for a while…
Glad we got a win, no matter how ugly it was at times.
Defense wasn’t good. Situational coaching was awful.
I like Yurt and MJ’s games a lot. They could both be fantastic college players if they stayed around and developed.
Pitt doubled DSJ and dared the other 5 to beat them. I’d suggest we will see that strategy a lot.
Doubling DSJ gave Mav and TH a lot of open looks and they capitalized. We need more of that.
I’ve stayed off of the threads since the UNC one. From my perspective, all that needed to be said was said there. Some still need more convincing. BC, GT and possibly ensuing losses may convince them. Maybe they won’t. Some needed to wait until the Titanic was obviously going down to try and get on the life boats.
In my mind, this was a hire with red flags and always needed to have a much tighter leash. This isn’t the first year of underperforming:
– Year 2: Start #6, waste a lot of talent, bow out of the tournament in the first round. Received mulligan because of “bad players.”
– Year 5: Losing overall record. Blames injuries and short bench. Fires assistants (blames bad employees).
– Year 6: Not complete yet, but well on our way to waste the most talent and deepest team we’ve had since V. If that happens, it should be strike 3.Roo: Great read. You probably want to remove the sources so those sources don’t get burned. That was pretty much what I’d pieced together.
I question whether Yow given her long relationship with Gott and her proximity to retirement has the ability to objectively evaluate Gott. I watched the video of the “outburst” and if one wanted to, they could think it was just showing some “fire in the belly.” It’s all about how one wants to interpret it.
What I’ve personally seen as people age and move towards retirement is that they begin to think that relationships are more important than the actual job at hand. It’s not that the job isn’t important, but they are more concerned about maintaining the relationship over minor misses in job performance. It’s particularly true when one is financially set enough to not really care about getting fired — which we clearly have done with Yow with that buy out.
I think it’s going to have to be really bad to get Yow to act on her own. By this I mean missing the NCAA tournament level of bad. Squeaking in on the bubble and maybe winning a game or two and Yow’s going to completely ignore how much we have actually underachieved this year.
Looking more and more like Lutz may have the “glue guy” holding things together as best he could from his position.
We dumped him and many of the intricacies required for being a team appear to have vanished.
We have all the pieces to be a top 10 squad and we look awful, uncoached, and have NOT shown any signs of improvement throughout the season.
This was the roster to show what Gott can really do, and unfortunately we’re seeing it.
That’s kind of how I see it as well. The season technically isn’t over and there is lots left to play for, but the trajectory we are on right now is that of yet another season where we don’t maximize potential.
When that happens over and over regardless of the players, there is one common denominator — the coaches. When it happens across different sets of assistants, and different programs, then it is the head coach. Nothing’s really changing until he’s changed. I don’t think we should move now, but we need to be making plans and setting very clear expectations.
The bigger question is Yow, whether she has the gumption to do what is needed to her personal friend, whether she can actually hire a good coach in men’s basketball and whether the powers that be have seen enough? My suspicion is that she’s done all she can do at NC State but we may be too cash strapped to buy her out (hilarious that an AD has a buy out).
We’ll win by 15+ tonight. DSJ will bounce back nicely. We’ll dominate inside and have 4 guys go for 10+.
We really need to go 4-0 in this stretch. We need to get some breathing room.
Bass: You nailed it with points 1-7. I absolutely agree with all of those.
To answer your question, I’d be tickled to death if Yow could make an Arch move happen. I don’t have faith that she’d fire Gott or be able to manage that transition, but if she can, then fantastic. Frankly that’d be the best possible outcome as it would avoid an ugly divorce with Yow — who has done a lot of good things.
Tau: I agree with you entirely on points 1-4. It seems like we’re more similar in thinking than different.
Where we seemingly don’t agree is on item #5. I tend to think that NC State fans have “battered spouse syndrome” when it comes to our men’s basketball program. We are so focused on UNC and Duke (part of the very few Elites) and the delta, that we fail to recognize how good our job actually is. We tend to undersell it, and then accept lesser results.
I really would invite you to take the Pepsi challenge. Go and find 25 men’s college basketball jobs that:
– Pay their head coach more
– Pay their assistants what we pay
– Have higher average attendance
– Have newer/nicer arena
– Have an on campus practice facility
– Have Nike or Adidas clearly pushing kids their way (check our correlation of elite signings with Adidas kids)
– Have S&C facilities and budget as good as we do, and have basketball as their primary S&C focus
– Have a brand value higher
Now find 25 jobs that have all of those things together. Those are the jobs that are better than NC State, with respect to the “inputs.” I think you will find very few.A great example right down the road of a program that doesn’t have those things, but that is out performing us is UVA. Another would be Miami. Another would be FSU. Common denominator there? Better coaches.
As to why we’ve hired poorly, I think you can look no further than the AD. I suspect we’ve all had job offers where the job looks great, pays well/more, is interesting and has what we want but we don’t trust or have a good feeling about the hiring manager. We end up not taking that job. I recently turned one of those down and it was due to the hiring manager. The hiring manager may not be the most important aspect of a job, but it is the one thing that can clearly cause people to turn a job down.
Now look at our hiring managers. Fowler’s buffoonery was well documented. Cal recently said as much in a radio piece.
Yow came out with big talk and later decided that GW had sabotaged her. She clearly mis-managed the end game because she though she had Shaka Smart inked, signaled too early to the other candidates so they all publicly backed out within 24 hours. Then when Smart didn’t come in, she was in big trouble, thus “the email” came out. Those other candidates that backed out (e.g. Cronin) would have all been good hires and better than Gott. Good people were clearly interested, but she botched it. Again, it’s back to that hiring manager.
