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Great win tonight. Even if Mav didn’t have his sea legs and Yurt was getting his first action, we finally at least had all the options. That helps tremendously.
You can see the talent this team has. All the pieces are there to be very, very good. Here’s to hoping tonight starts that trajectory.
The best thing I heard all night may have been Dino’s comments about Schroyer. In case you mentioned it he said HS was basically the DC and that Gott has turned defense over to him. That bodes well.
Joe Gigilo’s 32-5 stat is pretty amazing. It sounds like when we do try to play defense and value the ball, we do pretty well and win at a 86% rate.
That also means that when the opponent scores over 60, NC State under Gott is 83-65. That translates into a 56% winning percentage.
It’s not just against the cupcakes. There are enough conference games in there to show that we clearly do much better one way versus the other.
Come on Gott, you’re not going to win playing no defense and being loose with the ball. It’s right there in the stats from your games! You can do it man!
You can find the Tenn State game on ESPN3 if you care to watch. We looked much, much better in the second half playing the Aeomeba match up zone. It’s clearly different than the 2-3 that Gott has occassionally played in the past. Tenn State may have reverted to the norm, but our players were in much better spots positionally and as a result forced some turnovers. That’s Schroyer’s influence. We’ll see if we see more of it tonight.
I never thought HWSNBN’s teams were great defensively, but they were at least average. One thing his teams did consistently well was have a big man blitz the ball screen and force the guard to turn out or retreat. It was never an intent to trap, but just enough to break up timing, force the guard to move, allow rotations, etc.. At the time it was maddening to me that we never looked to trap out of that, but I guess years of watching the roller slam it home against Sid and Gott coached teams have softened me.
I think part of this fan base is incredibly frustrated with Gott because we watched V. V wasn’t perfect and a large subset of our fan base loves to tear him down to prop up “their man” who is currently coaching, but he could really coach defense. I would love to have another head man take that sort of pride in defense and funnel their creativity into that side of the ball.
I like your summary at the end the best of the entire series. The issues are there every year regardless of the players. There’s always a WTNY group of our fan base saying the currently players are bad at defense and the next crop is more physically able, etc., but when the faces change and the results are the same it’s on the coaches.
But hey, Yow knows basketball…………
I always liked the Tark. One had to remember he was doing it at UNLV, and in a time where high majors ruled college basketball.
Peak seasons can happen and runs in the tournament can happen. Gott made an Elite 8 at Alabama on the heels of a fairly mediocre season.
In the end though, I do agree that the lifetime moving average is what one can expect. With Gott that’s .500 in conference play. His record is nearly identical at State as it was at Alabama.
That’s what was most aggravating about the hire of Gott. There was nothing on his resume that suggested he’d ever break through and maximize the resources of this program. Almost any coach would have improved over Sid, but we went out and hired HWSNBNv2.
I’ll be the first to admin that I have zero faith in Gott to get this program up to the level of the inputs that we have. I’ve felt that way since the day his hiring was announced, and nothing I’ve seen since then changes my mind.
I had a friend who was a lifetime Alabama fan and at Alabama when Gott was there. I followed that program more closely than most non-conference programs. Gott wasn’t even as good as Wimp Sanderson (that’s where he picked up the plaid jackets, not some tip of the hat to Case), so it’s hard to argue he maximized Alabama.
With Gott, you know what you’ve got:
– Good recruiter
– Good offensive coach
– Good talker
– Good with the media
– Lots of attrition
– Starting over every year, don’t build off of the last year
– Weak man to man defense and seemingly allergic to playing zone
– Inconsistent results
– Athletic teams that look best in transition
– Typically don’t shoot that well, particularly from the line
– A star player that is featured
– Some “outside” distractionsMy hope for this team was that the new assistants might help shake things up a bit. We hired a defensive guy and a hustle guy — two things we clearly were missing. I was hoping that the happenings for Gott over the past year to 18 months on and off the court might have knocked some humility in him and made him realize that there were some expectations here beyond just squeaking into the tournament and maybe putting two wins back to back to get into the Sweet 16. I was also hoping there was enough talent on this roster to overcome the “coaching.”
Tonight is our first game with our full roster. Admittedly, Mav’s not 100%, but it’s the first real time we’ve had everyone since the exhibitions (where we looked the best we’d looked in 20 years). I’ve not been sweating it up until now given that Gott’s teams typically improve through the year.
The season starts tonight for State, and we need to improve really quickly. Those first 2-3 weeks of ACC play are going to be critical. We can’t dig ourselves a hole and expect a top 4 ACC regular season finish.
In a bit broader post, this is why in the DD and Avent threads, I’ve always talked about inputs when people are judging the coaches. Avent isn’t perfect, but of the 3 biggest sports (football, men’s basketball and baseball), he is the closest to maximizing his program’s potential. DD is historically bad, but any change there is really a roll of the dice. If the best move is to keep him around longer to reduce the buy outs, then so be it. With basketball though, Gott clearly underperforms relative to the inputs and is the one that should have the most scrutiny. Unfortunately when our fans spend all fall after DD, then valid criticism of Gott is just lumped in as fan related noise.
Great read! Very nicely done. Hopefully part 3 goes into a look at fouls, and what causes us to foul so much. Yes, there are “tendencies” in officiating, but there are “tendencies” in the way we play our man to man.
This is the quality we used to regularly have at this site. Now it’s kind of turned into game threads and off topic musings. I understand that the moderators can’t carry all the content and have lives, so it’s nice to see some other contributors.
The actual analysis is why I think we should play nothing but zone. At least in zone, we have guys roughly in the right positions with their backs to the basket and facing the ball. Given we switch poorly, don’t help, don’t close out and routinely aren’t aware of what is going on, at least we’ll sort of stay in the right positions. We’re also tall, so if we just keep our hands up and active, things can be made more difficult. We play man to man so poorly, and have for years, that I think it actually hurts us.
Rebounding isn’t going to get any worse. As mentioned here, that’s not a symptom of man defense vs zone defense. It’s a lack of commitment to rebounding or knowing how to do it. They need to bring Howell in to run rebounding drills. He’s still young enough to get out there and show the guys how to do it.
Part of this also comes down to developing a bit of a mean streak. Teams that typically rebound and defend well aren’t necessarily the nicest teams (think Michigan State, Pitt under Dixon, Kansas under Self, Howland’s teams, UVA). We need to get a little bit nasty and treat it like our pride is on the line. I saw that from BJ last game, and I have seen it from DSJ, but it’s an entire team mentality.
I will say that I think this is symptom of the issues that we had with Canada. It wasn’t so much on the field results — though I’d argue that we were very predictable in down, distance, motion and formation. It was with the off the field stuff.
Before we ever hired Canada, I was told by a friend who is a huge Badgers fan that we were getting a guy who was highly divisive. He was at the center of a fight that got the OL coach fired 3-4 games into the season. He may have had play calling duties removed. It was a mess.
While we had Canada, there was seemingly turmoil around him. There was an issue initially right after he was hired. He looked in the offseason at least once before (Tenn job that got him a raise/extension). He interviewed for the ECU job. There were rumors of friction with HS coaches in clinics. I think the bowl game was just the last straw. He was hired so shortly after, that he may have already been talking with Pitt.
Now, the question we should ask ourselves is whether this was true. If so, are we doing the same thing with Drink? It’s clear that we scored fewer points this year and struggled in the red zone. I’m not sure that can all be blamed on our QBs, because it’s not like JB was all world.
With respect to Canada, it will be interesting to see how Pitt does next year. This year he had Connor, a great OL and a good QB. Half this board can coach an effective offense with that combination. The QB was a redshirt senior, and Connor will be gone. It will be interesting to see how he brings those younger QBs along.
Teams that play good defense typically have players in good positions to rebounds. The ones that often hurt them are the long rebounds, but those come typically on long, lower percentage shots. Personally, I’ll give up that rebound.
It’s the one 3 feet from the basket, and that one likely comes because we don’t have bodies in the right position. The rebounding is the symptom, not the cause.
The original post is spot on. I’m looking forward to the other videos. The issues are with system and approach. They can’t be blamed on the players because they are there year in and year out.
Yeah, I know, the coaches tell the players and they don’t do it. If they don’t do as told, yank them out.
I was really hoping that the hiring of Schroyer would fix this. So far that’s not been the case. Here’s to hoping we rapidly improve on defense as the year progresses. If not, we’ll underachieve yet again.
Yogi: We will agree to disagree on the actual voting system. If you think the system we have is more tamper proof than the one that could be built, then I suggest we’re not finding any common ground on 90% of these topics.
Golden chain: Let me explain the flaw of the current system in picking a President. In other parts of our system, your vote counts equally against all others that voted in that election. Take the local election. Say you are one of only 10 people that voted. Your vote weighs a ton (1/10th of the vote), but it is equal to the votes of the other 9 people that voted. Maybe more people should have voted, but your vote was counted and weighed fairly against the others cast. That’s about as fair as it can be in a system that doesn’t require mandatory voting.
Now let’s take it to the State level. There are two counties in your State. You have ten people in your county that voted fo governor. You were one of those ten. The next county over had 990 people that voted. Your vote would count as 1/1000th of the vote for governor. It would not be that your vote counts for 1/10th of 1/2 of the voting weight while the person at the next county over’s vote counted 1/990th of 1/2 of the voting weight.
Now let’s take it a step further. Let’s say that 6 people in your county voted for one candidate and 4 people in the county voted for the other. You were one of those four. It is winner take all. Your vote no longer counts. Now let’s say the other county voted 600/390 for the candidate you voted for. Seems obvious that 604 votes should put the candidate in right? Nope, stalemate. Hmm. Something isn’t right there.
The argument will be that the states are supposed to be weighted, but the weighting isn’t right. Also it doesn’t ever reflect properly in winner take all. Flawed system.
We have a representative democracy and a Republic in the make up of the Senate and the House. In all of those elections, voted to select those representatives are all counted evenly amongst those that are cast in the election for those candidates.
In the election for the President, we do not. It should be a common vote across the masses where reach vote is the same.
We’ve systemically removed systems of fractional votes or other legal residents not getting to vote. Removing this system that gives fractional weighting is next.
Yogi: I respectfully suggest that I know more about that topic of how to build that system than anyone on this thread. It absolutely can be built and effectively be tamper proof. If the Federal government wanted to give me a grant, I could lead a team to do it.
The real question is whether we want real time election results. I’d say we don’t because it might tamper with the outcome. It would just need a reporting delay built in.
Statered: Multi-culturalism is and always has been the union.
Old vs. young is one that links with red vs blue voters. It has done that election over election every since the solid south swung from one party to another. Older people get more “conservative” and typically vote towards issues like national security, pension protection, and to the right on social wedge issues.
Trump won. That’s great for him and those that support him. I really hope he does a stupendous job and goes down as one of our nation’s best presidents.
He’s got a lot of challenges based on how he got elected. This isn’t a mandate as many GOP proclaim. It’s an election where the candidate lost the popular vote, lost the educated vote, lost the moneyed vote, yet won. He’s seemingly not recognizing that and running his early days like his campaign, and with all the tact, awareness, sensitivity and understanding of his new job like it’s the days of the wild wild west.
Some other quick thoughts:
– A representative Democracy is an idea that is past its time. It was primarily put in place to protect the interests of white, land owning males and to figure out what to do about slave populations. That’s not the country we live in any more, and the system should be changed to reflect that.
– The beauty of our system is that it allows for change, and that’s been done many times over the years. It appears it is time to change something else. I highly doubt it will happen.
– Absolutely agree that voting should require appropriate identification.
– The article about tax money is tax money sent to and received from the Federal election. The Federal election is about the Federal level. Local taxes and state taxes are taken in at the local or state level and spent at the local or state level. Pretty simple. Yet, if the argument is that the article at the Federal level doesn’t matter because there are additional local and state level taxes, then that is incorrect.
– I see California leaving as similar to Texas leaving. Both have made noises in this direction over the past 10+ years. Both would fracture our union. Our geo-political enemies (China, Russia, and others) would like nothing more than to see this happen. Fracturing the USA would leave us similar to what Europe was before the EU and what they’re seemingly going back to.
– Globally the world is seeing a rise in nationalism. In the US, we see nationalism, but I think it’s also paired with a rise of “don’t tread on me” States’ rights. What many call nationalism is something that I think is more like isolationism.
– Our actual voting systems need to be overhauled. The fact that we run elections with a piece of paper and a pencil is baffling. The fact that there are “counts” and “recounts” is baffling. The fact that it isn’t real time is baffling. I work in technology. This system is primitive and prone for errors. I’ll bet it is the same 2 years from now and then 4 years from now.Bill: I think I’ve been pretty clear that I think everyone should vote. What I’m calling out is a broken system where candidates receive more votes yet don’t win. That’s now happened in the Presidential election 2 out of 5 times. Getting the most votes and that being the basis of a decision has kind of been the basis of our system since the Mayflower Compact.
Now, do I think this is changing? Nope. The winning party has zero incentive to change.
Should it? Yes, but not because of my position on Trump. It has much more to do with general stability and trust in our system. Trump brilliantly played on distrust of the media. That distrust in the system only worsens when a candidate gets more votes and yet loses.
Those in power need to recognize that these sorts of outcomes are the “let them eat cake” moments that dissolve an empire. All it would take is for Ca to vote to exit Brexit style…..
If you want to have a good look at how that works you only have to go 100 miles to the south. Dillon county and Williamsburg county in SC butt up against Horry county. Horry is one of the richest counties per capita in the US while Dillon and Williamsburg are two of the poorest.
Check out my previous posts.
The rich counties that drive the economy correlate with the educational levels. It’s not always linked, but there’s quite a bit of correlation there. Education is clearly a proxy for voting which in turn is linked with those high output areas. The high output areas are the ones in that top 15 states that give more than they get back. The low output areas are the ones that take more than they put in.
Let’s take the example in S. Carolina that you cite:
Dillon (poor and uneducated), voted blue
Williamsburg (poor and uneducated), voted blue
Horry (rich? and educated?)
All three are below the S. Carolina and Federal median household income averages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_Carolina_locations_by_per_capita_income
They’re all poor counties — far from what I’d describe any as “one of the richest in America.”All three are below the S. Carolina and Federal % of college educated adults:
https://data.ers.usda.gov/reports.aspx?ID=18243#P0ac0756fe43c4756a761bfe38f9e38f3_4_69iT1
The national average is 29.3%. Horry is admittedly the highest, but it’s still at 22.9%. They’re all in the “uneducated” bucket to some degree.If this is meant to be an example of why the above research is incorrect, then I’d suggest finding different data sets.
Respectfully, I think your argument is mixing local level taxes with Federal level taxes and policies. If people get higher salaries, they’re paying more Federal taxes. Property taxes, school taxes, etc. are all local level and don’t relate to this conversation. This is talking about what states pay “up” to the Federal level vs what they get back. All of that local and state level stuff they take in and then spend.
If your argument is that people get higher salaries because there’s higher cost of living, then that’s completely ignoring supply and demand. They get higher salaries because their skills are more sought after. The urban areas typically have the demand to support more specialized jobs which pay higher salaries.
I work at a large multinational with regional based salary bands and adjustments. We’re only adjusting 10-15% or so between two of the highest cost of living spots in the US to RTP (pretty neutral on the national cost index).
Take an expert in fracking — they’re paid a very high salary to live in North Dakota because that’s where the need for their skill resides. They are also possibly getting more $$ because no one really wants to live in N. Dakota, but that’s clearly secondary because there are people that live in ND for almost no money (historically low cost of living). It is the skill they have in a field of need (demand) that drives the salary.
Maybe your argument is that everyone in cities is asking for that bump because they don’t want to live there. I think that’d be very hard to find supporting data for. Because of those higher taxes that you cite, urban areas typically have better educational systems, park systems, public transportation systems, public safety, the arts, etc.. People vote with their feet and their spending money to gravitate to those areas. One can see the same behaviors at more micro levels where those local level policies, tax decisions, spending decisions, etc. create clear inequities and desirable and undesirable areas to live within a very tight geographic range.
Again, I am party neutral. I think the two parties are more similar than they are different in how they run a government. Give me some gridlock.
I point this out though to show that the electoral college is clearly broken and to show that Trump has some massive challenges ahead of him. He’s coming from a very difficult position where the vast majority of the educated and people with wealth don’t support him. His early nominations aren’t doing him any favors either.
Another good read on the national election, the electoral college, etc.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/opinion/sunday/why-blue-states-are-the-real-tea-party.html?_r=0If one is to believe the Times……
Can Wes coach the men’s team as well? Glad to hear the ladies are headed in the right direction. I thought that was a great hire.
Roo: GT’s contract with Hewitt is up there with NC State’s last two basketball coaching searches. They are all case studies of what not to do.
I’ve said numerous times and I will say it again. State should have zero buy out on their football and basketball coaches or AD. It hampers us more than it protects us.
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.
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 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.
For those that would rather see DD gone you’re welcome to post REALISTIC replacements. Carnac the Magnificent selections don’t count.
A few weeks back, I laid out a realistic scenario with respect to Kitchings. I figure it’d be about as cheap a move as we could make, that it might actually fix things, but realistically isn’t worse than what we are doing now. We’d probably get a bump in recruiting.
I think we have some things that are really working well with this staff, and I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Kitchings has been here the entire time, has seen all parts of it, and is one of the pieces that is seemingly working (we’re the most stocked at RB that we’ve been in my lifetime). He’ll know up close what is working at what isn’t (and that was what helped Dabo immensely at Clemson). From the outside, some things I like are the RBs, DL, OL, S&C and the WRs.
It doesn’t matter though. DD has been retained this year. He’ll come back next year on a very hot seat and expectations that probably won’t be met (8-4 regular season). If Yow doesn’t leave at the end of this year, then we’re in a tough spot 12 months from now due to probably needing to make two moves.
If “ifs and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be a holiday.” That 5 missed FGs and a called back touchdown straw man is some Curry math if I’ve ever seen it.
You are what your record says you are. DD’s is awful.
He scraped by with the bare floor this year after digging himself a big hole. It’s obvious that Yow didn’t want to fire him and that timing and budgets are bad with/because of her. Sometimes standing pat even while sub-optimal is the best move and that’s evidently what the “powers that be” felt. That doesn’t mean the situation is good and we shouldn’t lie to ourselves and say it is.
Oh well, on to basketball. That one should be viewed through a much more critical lense because those are the Crown Jewels of NC State athletics.
Yogi: Those stats work other ways too. I’d like to find the coach that ever got over the hump after a 4 year conference record of 9-23, particularly if that coach inherited a program that was coming of multiple .500 (or higher) conference records.
There is NO coach that will be guaranteed to succeed at NC State in football. I have argued for quite some time that the “input$” are stacked against NC State in football, and that our soundest strategy might be to try and achieve mediocrity for the lowest price. As for translation to a record, given the way schedules are built now, buy outs, recruiting advantages, facilities disparity, etc., a middling Power 5 team should be 7-5 (4-4).
Beat BC or ECU and Dave would have been right there. We should have shrugged, renewed his contract another year and turned our attention to basketball. That’s a sport we should actually have championship exectations.
He had to win against very long odds at UNC just to get to 6-6 (3-5), so he shouldn’t get extended and should be feeling some heat. That’s a pretty low bar.
Finish 5-7 (2-6) and he should have been gone based on pulling the trifecta for a second time. I think most fully expected that we’d lose to UNC and are probably surprised at where we are today.
Let’s not polish this too much. I’ve been watching NC State football since the early 1980s. DD is giving Reed a run for his money as our worst coach. He’d have to have a miraculous string of conference records just to get to MOC’s level of mediocrity.
Before the year, I thought we’d go 6-6 (3-5). We went 6-6 (3-5), but we had some that I had down as wins that were losses and the other way around. I definitely didn’t see going into UNC with DD’s head on the line and coming out with a win. It was a pleasant surprise in what was a schizophrenic year.
I was very happy with Friday’s win. After it, the vote of confidence didn’t surprise me. Yow clearly doesn’t want to fire DD and that was just meeting the minimal floor to keep him around. She smartly put that message out there quickly while people are still smoking their cigarettes and basking in the after glow.
I want NC State to be successful but I’m not sure the “best” thing for the program isn’t quite clear. I don’t think it is DD long term, but I don’t think it’s Yow hiring a coach either given her track record and status. Probably the “best” thing for the program is to bring him back for another year with no extension, get rid of some of the buy out and money owed, and then accelerate Yow’s departure. To me it’s more interesting to see what happens with Yow over the next 6 months.
The sad thing is that we have some very good pieces and good coaches in some positions. I really like what we’re doing with the RBs, DL, OL, S&C and progress with the young receivers. The head man costs us 6-10 points a game, the place kicking rough, the back 7 as weak as I’ve seen it since MOC, and we’ve not really developed a QB. There’s a “patience” squad, but there are too many holes that I see to think that some light is just going to flip. That’s why I was for the “Kitchings plan” but that one obviously isn’t going to play out.
As for discussions regarding HWSNBN, I’d argue it’s not DD. It’s Gott. That situation is eventually going to get ugly, particularly if he can’t get it done with the talent he has this year.
Great win yesterday. The team came out playing like they had nothing to lose and then held on at the end. Good game plan and nothing is nicer than NC State beating UNC.
Also, our fans really showed up. There was a lot of red in the stadium for what looked like a loss. Tip of the cap to those who made it.
As for DD, I expect he’s back next year. He avoided the trifecta against tall odds and met the minimal floor. I don’t think Yow wants to fire him. The only way he might be gone is if we lay an egg in the bowl game.
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No. The irony is that ANY non-Native American is bitching about immigration. This country has been built on it.
The interesting thing is that the immigrants most complain about are Latin Americans. Studies show that this is a red herring and that they’re on a similar upward trend that other hated groups in the past have been (e.g. Germans, Irish, Asians, etc.).
My thoughts are that immigration is fine. Most immigrants I know pay taxes, keep their noses clean and just want a better life for their families.
Are there some bad ones, sure. There are in every group. We should treat bad people consistently regardless of where they were born or the color of their skin.
