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A wide open look isn’t always a good shot, particularly a shot from the perimeter. I’ll give up way more open looks from the perimeter, particularly to certain players than giving up lay ups to every position.
Here’s a bit of light reading for the holidays:
I know, lies and damn statistics. Can be interpreted a lot of ways. Correlation, causation. Can’t trust the Washington Post.
To me, those two things capture the election. They also signal some serious issues that face Trump as he comes into office. He’s going to have to figure out how to navigate in that reality.
The other real story of the election is the fact that the President Elec lost by 1.5M votes, yet won the Electoral College by a landslide. If one doesn’t believe that’s a sign of a broken system, I am not sure there’s a lot of common ground we’ll find in any sort of discussion.
As far as immigration, every last one of us that isn’t a “Native American” is an immigrant. This seems highly relevant:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”I’d never pull against State, would never pull for UNC and would never pull for UNC against State. I do think that UNC will handle this team fairly easily at home. When that happens, I think DD is gone.
Chop: I think the middle game is dead in college basketball. We’re one of the few teams around that still really uses it (function of the high post). When I watch most college teams, I see a lot of shots right around the basket, a lot of 3 point shots and little to nothing else.
I also see a sport with a 50% player transfer rate. That’s paired with a trend for players to give up their eligibility to chase pro $$$. Anya will be the first 4 year player under Gott to graduate and exhaust his eligibility. This is much worse for the high majors. Of the “good” teams in our league, only UNC and UVA really keep players around 4 years. Most teams are trying to go from storming, norming and performing every year.
To me, that’s a combination that makes zones highly effective in the college game. They’re easy to teach and to introduce new players into. They require discipline and shooting to beat (and I think fewer kids can shoot now than they could 20 years ago). Discipline comes with time and reps in a system, which most teams don’t have a chance to build. Heck, they work in the international game, against teams like team USA that don’t have a lot of time together.
I also think man to man takes time to learn to play well, particularly a really effective man that uses a lot of switching and mixes in some trapping. We have 5 years that show us that we don’t teach it well. We foul at an alarming rate and give up many an uncontested shot in the lane as a result. We rank 75+ in defensive stats every year. Why keep doing the same thing?
Why not try something else? Why not try something that at least makes a team seek the perimeter as their first option? Why not run a defense that puts our all time leading shot blocker in the lane with his back to the basket facing the offensive players? Seems like a low risk strategy for me, and should absolutely be the plan when Anya is on the court.
I would agree that rebounding and second chance points are the weakness of zones, particularly ones that collapse. I will still take a second chance opportunity over a wide open first shot or an uncontested drive to the lane that results in an “and 1.” Make no mistake, that is the reality of our man to man defense under Gott.
Kapita and Yurt are rebounding machines. Dorn also has a nose for ball and isn’t afraid to mix it up. Smith rebounds well for a perimeter player. Pair them with Abu and I have zero concerns about us getting our share.
I love BJ, but he’s a bit slow of foot. We played most of the game against St. Joes with one big man on the court. We also looked like we had some tired legs (most clearly evident with our big men and MJ). I’m not an excuse making apologist, but that was the reality of last night’s game.
I would agree with the statement that this St. Joe’s team is young. Martinelli has had some issues in recent years, and it’s not just on the court results. This isn’t a great win, but we need every win available in the non-conference given the way the schedule is structured.
I remember a handful of possessions and Creighton shooting long shots. Give me that any day.
Of course I’m a bit of a contrarian against the modern game. I don’t subscribe to 3 > 2 and 33% = 50%. Give me 50%, some and 1s and another of those 5/7 precious ones against the opponent and I like my chances against the 3/35% crowd any day of the week. They might win on a day that they go 3/45%, but that’s at most 1/5 days in college ball.
I actually think the mid-level people have some influence here in numbers. Right now anyone with LTRs is a captive audience. They’ll pay full price for tickets at whatever cost. As demand drops off, those same seats can be had for a fraction of the price. It’s not just that all tickets get sold, but it’s the average price they’re sold for.
If enough rank and file LTR walk, the AD would be foolish not to fire DD. It becomes not only about selling out this year but ensuing years. It is a lot easier to do when significant portions of the tickets are already “spoken for.”
Regardless, if (when) DD loses to UNC he is done. I looked back through 40 years of history before the season ever started. No NC State coach has ever been retained after pulling the “trifecta” twice (having a losing season while losing to both ECU and UNC). They can sometimes make it through one pass at that but only early in their tenures. DD got his mulligan in year one. Right now he’s almost as much of a dead man walking as MOC was before MAF did the deed.
I’ve got no insider information and don’t pretend to. I’ve thought this from the second I saw our schedule. I said before the ECU game that DD better treat it like it was his Super Bowk because winning was the only way he’d be back. Nothing has has happened that has changed my opinion.
Beat UNC or DD is done. The real people that matter won’t put up with this any more. If the AD doesn’t go along, she’ll be looking at early retirement.
We were gassed, but looked better, played smarter and played much better defense than against Creighton. This is a glimpse of what we can be.
DSJ is getting it going. Dorn is the most efficient perimeter player we’ve had in a long time. We have depth. We can play up tempo or slow it down. The pieces are there.
Regarding the zone, the one thing that makes our man to man look good is our zone d. It gives up more offensive rebounds and open 3s.
Teams that move the ball well -which Creighton does – eat that stuff up. OTOH, it is probably a good d against us.
Give these guys time though. It is a young team and is still in the infancy of developing chemistry. The team ready to throw down together was an excellent sign.
Chop: Did you see the exhibitions? Have you seen us play the match up? Not trying to be combative, but generally asking. It looked great in the exhibitions (way better than our man to man). The few times we switched to it in the “regular” games, we have forced a bad/long shot. It basically snuffs out the middle and shots close to the basket and then traps at the perimeter.
It’s sort of like stacking the line in football and forcing the opponent to throw. That’s fine with me because I’d rather have a team beat us by shooting 35 3s than by fouling us out. We’ll beat more teams than not that way.
I think we might be better off with Schroyer as the head man. There were rumblings when we hired him that if Gott imploded, he was going to be the guy. Gott’s a recruiter for sure, but if he can’t get it done this year with the talent he has, he’s just not a good enough coach.
As for defense, ESPN did a “statistical model” analysis prior to the year ranking all teams based on factors — offense, defense, coach, talent. We were 15th, but the team with the worst defensive rank (83rd) and the least balance. It was also clear to be really good, one needs to be top 25 in both areas, which we are not. That’s where the recent “good” teams have been.
Note, this isn’t a one loss, fire the coach post. It’s just a view about problems that have been inherent in Gott’s program for years. I hope we get them corrected. We’re really close to being good, but these problems have to be fixed.
Hmm… I’ll offer a slightly different view.
I expected to lose by double digits last night. Creighton is a good team, a deep team, one that can shoot, one that has older players, and one that has older players coming off the bench (accepting their roles). They’re in mid-late season form right now, as referenced by their win over Wisconsin and the fact that they blew out Wazzou. Take the name Creighton off the jersey and put the name Kansas or UCLA on there, would opinions change? How much is bias based on the “who?”
We on the other hand are down 3 out of our first 8 guys. It was a tall order to beat a team like that given we were so thin. Give me a rematch in January and I think we win. Our team has a lot more upside whereas I think Creighton is about maxed out.
I saw some pros:
– DSJ: he’s improving.
– M Johnson: We’re going to LOVE this kid by the time he’s done. He’s the steal of the recruiting class for us. He’s the best “pure” freshman PG we have had since Corch. DSJ is a better player, but he’s more of a combo.
– Henderson came alive. We need that type of shooting to reach our goals this year.
– Dorn is Dorn and that is a very solid all around player
– Anya: People can pile on, but I thought he played a pretty good game and within himself. The issue is he doesn’t need to be out there 30 minutes. I think he can provide about the same impact in 8-12 minutes, and that would make him really effective.
– I LOVED that we got chippy. We’ve been meek and passive for darn near 20 years. We’ve had a couple of players with mean streaks (Inge, Hodge, Javi), but I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a team ready to watch one another’s backs and go to fisticuffs if needed. It changed how the refs blew the whistle and it brought the team together for one more run. This bodes very well for the season.There were some cons:
– Defense sucked: Gott can’t teach man to man, period. We’ve been awful at it and foul a lot as a result. Last night given that difference in depth, the game plan should have been the match up zone. It should have been the plan at halftime when everyone had foul trouble. It’s like Gott has some religion there and doesn’t look objectively at what the evidence shows. I don’t know why we’d hire Shroyer, run the match up in both the exhibitions (and look great doing it) if we’re not going to play it in games.
– Even expecting to lose, I knew we were in big trouble when we were something like 7-11 from the 3 and still only up 3.
– I knew post halftime when Gott made those comments that the game was over. It was up there with “they’ve got to guard us too pal.” That halftime message should have been to slow it down, pack it in, ugly the game up and manage fouls. We shot as well as we possibly could have, tried running with them, racked up the fouls and still lost the first half. I don’t know who thought a good plan was more of the same.This team goes as far as defense and coaching take them. The pieces are definitely there to reach every goal we have. It’s up to Gott to earn his pay.
Fastback: I’ve got nothing against Providence/Latin kids. Some of my family members went there. I’m just providing balance that I’m far from a silver spooner or living a lifestyle that is completely disconnected from the poor, rural position. I spent week days in Raleigh and the RTP and then weekends down east, so I saw both sides.
I agree with your second point very much. The only way to fix this is to make some significant, serious and hard budget cuts. I doubt that’s going to happen. Neither party has the stomach to do it, nor are they incentivised to do so.
The same applies to Electoral College reform. Those that just won have no desire to change a system they think they’ve figured out. It did work for a long time, but 2 out of 5 elections where it failed isn’t good. Something’s clearly not right there. There are several potential solutions (ditching it completely, doing away with winner take all, redoing the allocation per state), but I suspect nothing will be done.
Given I have zero faith in the government and politicians to fix any of the actual problems, I tend to focus on the social ones. That’s where the law, judges, etc. does end up being affected.
I’m going to close with this post and bow out because there are many real life things that need attention. Just some quick points:
– Don’t view myself as 1%er. Thus why I said the point that I might be defined that way. Some would say I am. I would argue that if you looked at my home, vehicle, clothes, diet, hobbies, work hours, having kids in public school, etc., I’m much more middle class. It’s just really expensive where I live so the salaries “look” high. In reality, the buying power that my wife and I collectively have (both working) is lower than I had when I lived in Raleigh (with just my income). If that’s 1% then so be it. If I pay more taxes as a result, so be it.
– Strongly for environmental protection. I was going to amend my original post to add that in, but the edit button wasn’t working.
– See sustainable energy as a huge issue facing America (top 4 with the debt, a national water movement infrastructure, and educating the next generation). I think the anchor of our energy policy should be nuclear, solar, wind and hydro. I recognize all have their own considerable environmental concerns and some may actually be worse than fossil fuels, but I think they’re the right approaches and right messages. I’ll admit my affinity for nuclear is linked to those in the industry (regulatory) who have convinced me. There are real draw backs to solar, wind and hydro, but I’m still for having a solar panel on the top of every house, business and being the roof of every car. It’s out there for “free.” We just need to harvest it and we need our best minds focusing on doing that in an environmentally safe way. The same goes for wind and hydro. Oh yeah, all roofs need to be white (or a light shade) in certain regions and black (and a dark shade) in others. We shouldn’t be tearing down mountains or polluting our watershed to get some cheap fossil fuels.
– On the debt, the only way to solve it is to raise taxes while cutting spending. The problem I see is that neither side really wants to make those hard decisions (and both of those can be very tough sells).
– I voted in my local elections to raise taxes and voted for taxes that will impact me more than those with lower incomes. Ironically I might benefit from GOP tax cuts, but I don’t think the country wins. I think the GW Bush tax cuts were one of the worst things his administration did. If someone is serious about dealing with the debt, they’re not cutting taxes. They’re cutting out loopholes and write offs and looking at the corporate tax structure to raise the tax base.
– On the spending side, it is going to be painful to do what I feel must be done. NC made some tough choices. I just ask that choices be looked at holistically with ripple impact analyzed. Services that are preventative and avoid costs down the road need to be prioritized. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and I see that every single day in my job. Money should be spent on public works type projects long before it is spent on things like the military or hand outs.
– I tend to be like Rick mentioned earlier in the thread. I think the government works best when NO party has things lined up. A little gridlock forces compromise which is the foundation of our system. I’d be as wary of the Dems lining things up as I am of the GOP’s current situation.
– I don’t think that NC has been run that well at the state level for a long time, regardless of which party has run it. It’s been filled with corruption and wasteful spending, but I tend to think those are things that come with governments. Some things have been done well because the population has increased, but there are some consistently poor things like education and significant gaps between the haves and have nots that have been true since my childhood. There’s also been constant friction between the state government, Charlotte and Wake County, as well as a disconnect with some of the poorest areas at least as long as I can remember. Time and again the state has tried to flex its muscle with respect to Charlotte and Wake county, and it has always seemed to me to be a bit of a proxy battle where the rural areas are trying to get back at the cities who “are too big for their britches.”
– Oh yeah, the hearth of my family is actually in rural, poor, eastern NC. I’m not some Charlotte Providence/Latin kid with this opinion.
– I’d imagine that we’d get along swimmingly if we all got together and had a few beers. We may not have voted the same way, or have exactly the same view on how to get there, but I think we all want what is best for the country.
– To that point, I think we all want the best from the Trump administration. Here’s to hoping that we’re better off four years from now collectively than we are today.Oh yeah, and Go Pack!
Yogi: That’s fine. You see what you see based on your experience. You live there. Maybe things are better for you and your kin. If so, it’s been a great 4 year run.
I don’t live there. NC’s made a steady series of decisions at the State level about what to fund and what not to fund that I do not think are good things. They make me shake my head and be ashamed to say I hang my heart in NC. This was long before HB2.
If you want an example of utter failure, it was cutting programs to help the mentally ill and addicted. That only drove the cost of those services up for those that could actually get them while reducing those that could get them.
You seem to want to go to HB2. My thoughts are that it is easily solved by single, unisex bathrooms with locking doors. I see these all over the globe. A sign on a door isn’t going to make anyone more or less safe. If someone wants to do something bad to cause harm, they will do it.
It was clear the actual law itself, and the way it was passed was going to have significant financial ramifications for the state. If the GOP didn’t understand that, they’re not nearly as pro-business as they make themselves out to be. I’ve seen some outrage over this posted by some on this forum, but it was predictable as the sun. HB2 WASN’T good for the masses and predictably wasn’t so, and that is my whole point. That is the responsibility of the government and from this outsider’s position the leaders of NC failed.
Daniel: I would agree. My trajectory has been steadily upward. I’m sure it is in large part due to the many advantages that I’ve had since birth — genes, education, parental efforts, safe environments, travel, exposure to the larger world and technology. I care about these discussions because I care about the world my children will live in. I want the overall trajectory of the American people to be upward across the board, and I want those advantages available to as many as possible.
Bill: Agreed. I’ve been asking for this my entire adult life.
I would start my own party if I had the means to chart that middle ground. We may never win an election, but we’d be there fighting what is right for the vast majority of the middle class.
I don’t share much about myself in public forums. I do want to frame some things though so people know where I’m coming from:
– Arguably a 1%er, but think it is in my best interest to ensure that the country works for everyone.
– Hyper conservative on personal spending. I’ve been called “cheap” my entire life. Follow Buffet’s approach to personal finance.
– Split family: 1/2 into banking/medicine. The other half into engineering/farming/military. I’m personally an engineer.
– Raised very religious, but having studied religion feel it is very secular and divisive. I am not really of faith at this point, but believe in living by the Golden Rule.
– Believe in personal freedoms as long as those don’t infringe on the beliefs and freedoms of others. Believe that safety and decency for the masses trump personal individual freedoms.
– Have swung from State’s rights to Federalist
– The children are our future. I will pass the baton and there needs to be an educated workforce that is socially and globally aware there to receive it.
– The US “hasn’t missed a war” in 200 years. I don’t see a lot of good coming out of most of these. War should be avoided at all costs.
– Pro-choice, and don’t understand pro-lifers who want to do nothing to help a child once they are born.
– Huge believer in adoption. Any properly vetted people with the right resources and commitment should be able to adopt children. Many times adopted children are treated better than what their biological parents could provide.
– Huge believer in equal pay for equal work, and equal protection under the law regardless of race, sex or sexual orientation.
– Believe that any two people should be able to be married and have those protections under the law. If they’re dumb enough want to enter that arrangement, I say all for it.
– Think the national debt is the biggest issue that the United States has.Makes me a hard one to profile as a voter. It also makes it hard for me to fully back any candidate.
Bill: Correct. There’s far more happening in this country than what is shown on TV. There are articles popping up everywhere, and social media is covered with instances of people reporting real behavior that is happening to them.
It’s either a massive left wing conspiracy, or it is happening. Occam’s razor time. It’s the latter — just like it’s reality that Trump won the election in our system. Trump’s got a tough road ahead of him given how he’s behaved over the past 4+ years (birther nonsense) as well as how he ran his campaign.
The bigger issue that I see with all of this is that for the second time in five elections a candidate won more popular votes but lost the Electoral College. With Gore/Bush, it was kind of understandable that might happen as it was a race that was so close it came down to a recount in Florida. It was understandable that maybe the popular vote wouldn’t come out to Bush. With this election, the popular vote went to one candidate and the Electoral College resoundingly went another way. According to the EC, this was a landslide (with one party pointing to a mandate). According to the popular vote, it was a loss.
Just as the Dems missed on the anti-establishment and anti-media feelings that fueled Trump’s election victory, I suspect the GOP is already forgetting they lost that popular vote. There’s no mandate. A middle ground must be charted.
I don’t currently live in NC but have called it home for 30+ years. My heart lies there. From the outside, the last 4 years have been an utter failure even if the balance sheet looks good. I don’t want the same for our country.
So yes, I’m going to sit back and watch and hope for the best. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to form an opinion based on what I see.
Yogi: Respectfully, there has been a significant spike in hate crimes by certain people claiming allegiance and sympathy with his positions on certain wedge issues. That behavior is shameful and those doing so feel emboldened by the President elec’s past actions and campaign stumping. That’S not what will make America great again.
Obama’s election was a significant milestone for minorities in this country. They can truly tell their children that they can be anything. With it came a spark of xenophobia from groups that felt they were traditionally in power and were threatened.
The RNC, Tea Party and similar backers have been involved in stirring that pot since the day Obama was elected. There’s not much redeeming about that, particularly when it was at the heart of Trump’s election.
Picking certain people for staff positions with clear ties to this behavior doesn’t bode well for any sort of healing. For those of us hoping for the best, it instead looks like the vitriol spewed by those controlling NC for the past few years.
Frankly that’s not what I want for America. It is not what I want for my children. It is not what I want for the world. Like I said before, I’m hoping for the best but this isn’t a great start.
I suspect the first 100 days to include tax cuts for the rich, a highly conservative judge put on the Supreme Court bench, and an increase in defense spending. If so, that will like more of the same partisan politics to me….
I’m an independent voter. My votes land all over the ticket. I’m fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.
I am also a father of a daughter, and have friends of many races, sexes, ages, sizes and shapes. I try to treat people by the Golden Rule. One can take from that and figure out how I voted at the Presidential level.
Having said that, my take on the election is fairly simple:
– HC was an un-electable candidate. The signs were there in the Democratic primary. Bernie wasn’t electable either, but he would have rallied the Democratic base. HC did not.
– Dems had more money, a better ground game, and an opponent that shot himself in the foot over and over again but lost. It was in the back drop of a pretty good economy, record high stock market, low inflation and cheap gas. That’s due to the candidate they ran and how they ran. They ran the poorest campaign at a national level that I can remember in my lifetime.
– Trump ran a masterful campaign. He used the media as a foil and every time they dug something up on him, it fed right into his narrative and emboldened his base.
– Trump had to hit a straight flush, and he did it. Sometimes it happens. It’s not a massive conspiracy. He got his vote out, particularly his rural vote.
– This election, as many are are the city mice vs the country mice. Almost every state’s county map looks like that. The Brexit vote in England looked the same way.
– The Dems didn’t come out to vote. Trump got the voters out at about the same rate has previous Republican candidates. Had HC gotten the vote out at Obama’s level, she’d be the president elect. It just didn’t happen. Simple as that.
– Washington, the media and the polling agencies really missed. There was a strong anti-Washington, anti-establishment undercurrent that they missed on.In the end, none of this really matters. Trump is the president elect. I hope he runs the country as well as he ran his campaign.
The problem Trump now has is where he goes from here. His campaign had no real policy meat behind it. It was a campaign of wedge issues, distrust, and anti-establishment. That was an effective strategy to win the election, but it’s hard to then pivot from that and build anything.
One party has control of the house and senate. There’s a bit of wild card as the president. His appointees are clearly closely tied to the RNC, so it’s not going to be an “outsider’s” administration. If one is staunchly conservative, this is probably the best thing that’s happened since Reagan because the machine is lined up.
We’ll see what happens. A similar situation didn’t work out very well for NC, but maybe it works out better at the Federal level. I tend to doubt it, but am generally hopeful.
I enjoyed Saturday’s game. This was one I’d had down in the “W column” and it was nice to see it go there after the BC game (another one that I thought was a win). The team played very hard.
The offensive play calling was the best it had been all year. This was the game plan that I’d been hoping for all year — run based, but some deep passes mixed in to keep things honest. I’d prefer even more balance but recognize we hit on two big pass plays that kind of skewed the stats. We used McClendon just enough to be effective, but it’s obvious he’s never going to win games with his arm. Here’s to hoping the other teams don’t figure that out.
I thought the defense did a nice job. They made Syracuse one dimensional, and that’s the goal of any defense.
We did get a gift in that the starting Syracuse QB was out. The win still counts without any sort of asterisk. If the losses count when our guys are out, then the wins count when the other team has players out.
Having said that, there were still a few WTF coaching moments. I don’t blame the staff for the punt block (those things happen), but some of the “to kick or not to kick” and the time out when the other team had 3rd and 14 were classic DD.
DD’s coaching tenure here is going to come down to whether he can get a win at UNC. I personally don’t like his chances, but I don’t think he’s back if he goes 5-7 with loses to UNC and ECU.
Mixed feelings on the basketball game. I’ve watched them all thus far.
– We aren’t playing defense like we did in the exhibitions. In the real games we’ve been playing more man to man, and we frankly stink at man to man. The beauty of the zone is that it let an Anya, Yurt, Kapita sit under the basket and clean things up. We need more than that. We also need to trap more, like we did in the exhibitions because that allowed us to force tempo and get out on the break.
– I’m not worried about DSJ. He’s had a year off, and his last real ball was AAU style. Teams are going to focus on him. As long as he stays aggressive, and doesn’t just sit around chucking up 3 pointers, he’ll shine.
– Dorn is the player I had hoped Purvis would be. Chucky Brown calls him a glue guy, and maybe that’s what he is because he stuffs the stat sheet in so many ways, but he’s a glue guy that would be a focal point on most teams. Right now I think he’s the best wing we have.
– Abu looks to be in mid-season form. He’s ready to go.
– Kapita hustled which I liked, but he was also more skilled and a better FT shooter than I expected. Hopefully it’s not a one time fluke because this was the best “first game” by a freshman in years. To me, he and Abu were very complimentary when on the court together.
– We’ve got to play the bench, and I don’t mean an 8 man rotation. I want to see us going 9 deep a night, riding the hot hand and pushing the pace. We should be playing so hard that guys CAN’T play 38 minutes a game because of how tired they are from defense and the pace. For once depth is our advantage and we need to use it.In the end, we won by 25 and the game was never really in doubt. I will take that every night, regardless of opponent.
Walked the ball up the court.
AA point guard passed to a big in the back court at the sign of token pressure. Then in the half court set, chucked up 3 pointers.
We shot 23 3 pointers and made about 4 of them.
We played man to man, and not well.
You get the idea…
That wasn’t the same team we saw in the scrimmage or the two exhibitions. Maybe Gott decided it was time to coach tonight?
The result was a W and it is miles better than the first game last year, but we looked terrible. I can only hope this is a learning experience and everyone recognizes we need to play with full effort every possession, every night.
Oh and Gott…. Please use the @#%! bench….
Bill: I’d be as bullish to move to Kitchings as anyone, but I think most of those things in your list may not correlate with that move. I’d suggest it is more like this:
– Fire DD, promote Kitchings with probably double pay and something like a 2 year deal (through Deb’s retirement)
– Kitchings fires multiple assistants and needs to hire replacements
– NC State and Deb have “done something”
– Recruiting takes some sort of uptick because it always does with a coaching change, and clearly Kitchings can recruit
– We keep focus on kids keeping their noses clean and doing the right thingWith respect to wins, beating UNC, etc., anything could happen. We could actually be worse. UNC could hire poorly and we shift the tide.
Fan participation, cell phones, curses, bands, Wagon Wheel, etc. had nothing to do with that loss after we were up 10. That had to do with play calling and game management. Shrugs. It’s the same story for 4 years. DD is good for 6-10 points for the opposition every game. We lose a lot of games by that margin.
I like the Kitchings plan because I actually think that this staff is close, but can’t get out of its own way. I think a lot of that is due to DD. Things I like:
– Talent: We’re stocked at RB, DL. OL looks pretty good. Young receivers do as well. There is enough talent there to play even with FSU and Clemson.
– Guys seem to be good citizens off the field.
– Several of the coaches seem like good ones — RBs, OL, DL, WRs. I’d hate to lose some of that momentum.There are clearly some things that aren’t working — special teams, run/pass mix, defensive scheme/pressure, penalties and god awful in game decisions and clock management. I would expect Kitchings (who was here for TOB and all this tenure) best knows those reasons — whether they are due to the head man, assistants, etc.. He can’t be any worse at in game decisions than DD.
Oh, and did I mention that Kitchings can clearly recruit, and that it seems to me that this is about the lowest cost move we can make? If it revives any interest in the program (full season ticket price sales, concession sales by more showing up, bowl revenues if we actually win), it’s probably better than cost neutral (may be a clear benefit).
Maybe he’s our Dabo. Here’s to hoping. It’s a pretty low risk option.
Maybe he’s not. If not, the next AD can make the hire without being shackled by debt from Yow or recruiting that has fallen off the map.
Seems like a no brainer to me…….
