Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
freshman: Hines is pretty ripped. I think he’s a great balance of speed and power where he’s at right now.
My guess is you see him in the JSam position next year. Gallaspy or the freshman better be ready to carry the rock.
The N. Iowa and Tenn games were disappointing. We went away from what won against Arizona, and back to the team that likes to jack up threes (but doesn’t have any true 3 point shooters). Tenn played good defense though, so I will give them that.
I figured we’d struggle this year against teams that want to pack it in. N. Iowa and Tenn showed how to beat NC State. We just don’t have the shooting right now, so expect a lot of sagging zones paired with overplay on the pick and roll.
We finished at 8-4, which is exactly what I thought before the year. We lost to S.Carolina and WF, which I didn’t expect, but beat FSU and Louisville. Overall, that’s a solid season.
DD should get his automatic 1 year extension but nothing more. I hope he’s back next year, but he may put his hat in the ring for other jobs. If he does and gets hired, then so be it.
I didn’t see much of the game, but am very happy with the outcome. I’m happy for Hines that he bounced back and had a great day against UNC. That’s something he’ll remember forever (as should the OL that opened the holes).
We finished at 8-4, which is exactly what I thought before the year. We lost to S.Carolina and WF, which I didn’t expect, but beat FSU and Louisville. Overall, that’s a solid season.
DD should get his automatic 1 year extension but nothing more. I hope he’s back next year, but he may put his hat in the ring for other jobs. If he does and gets hired, then so be it.
My second half issues with DD aren’t with the fourth quarter. They’re with the third. We seem to consistently come out flat or “out schemed” by the opposition.
This is great analysis. I would love to see two additional numbers to go with it:
– What happened in the third quarter for those variou games?
– The delta in FGs in the second half. We’ve not made many FGs, but I’d bet we’ve missed some that hurt our chances in our losses.We’ve got to get a better place kicker. I’m not sure what we do about the complete vacuum that is halftime.
My expectations are the same — 2 non conference losses and .500 in league play. Style wise, we matched up well with Zona, but I can tell you that there are programs on the schedule (like UVA) that we are going to struggle with.
Just enjoy the evening, a win over a highly ranked team (and Sean Miller) and don’t get ahead of ourselves.
Just watched the game on replay. Zona has a very talented team. They probably win that game 7 out of 10 times, but didn’t today. There’s no way that freshman center is 18, just no way. He can really play.
I had thought we’d play them close but lose and that some garbage free throws by Zona at the end would make it a ten point game and seem
bigger than it was. I knew we were quite a bit better than most of our fans thought, but with Abu being out (and likely rusty), it was a very tall task to expect the upset. I was hoping though, and told Paki not to spoil it for me given he was watching live.Great team and program win tonight. NC State looked like one of those veteran teams that makes deep tournament runs by playing at a high level and very poised. Every single player with a NC State jersey contributed to that win, regardless of whether they got in the game.
I know it is early. I know we’re going to take some lumps. I know with our style we’re going to get in foul trouble some games, or due to lack of shooting we’ll struggle against pack it in / stall ball teams, but I love the style of play and am cautiously optimistic about our early returns.
Before the year, I predicted 8-4. We can still hit it. Just beat UNC, and it will be a good year for DD. He’ll roll over a year automatically on the contract so there’s no need to extend it.
Lose to UNC and it will get ugly. I don’t think it is happening.
The picture seems clear with DD though. Those thinking we were winning 10+ this year may be starting to see it. I would argue that will be extremely hard to do if the best recruiting class is about 30th and still only the 5th or 6th best in the ACC.
There is a massive delta in talent. The elder Miller is a recruiting machine and this is his first chance to show little ol’ NC State what we passsd up. Thanks Lee.
I will go with Arizona by 10-12. We don’t shoot wel enough and don’t have Abu, so we won’t be winning.
I tend to think the best thing for all parties might be if another team hires him away. We can then look at what is working on the staff, potentially make a promotion or keep the good parts.
I don’t think DD needs to be fired, even if he loses to UNC this weekend. I do think that he built towards this year, and it’s going to be 8-4, despite a historically weak FSU and an underachieving Louisville squad. That’s not necessarily bad (DD’s year 1 is a good example of bad), but it’s the 6-6 to 8-4 plateau that is just good enough not to get fired.
DD can parlay this year into his next job. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his agent weren’t trying to make that happen.
Sunshine squad says ten
Prediction from realist
DD wins eight topsAll down to last week
To avoid four out of five
Must beat arch rivalIf Wolfpack wins eight
Automatic extension
Thank you AD YowFootball version of
Chop wood day tight compartment
Where is ASU?Zingo: After the humiliation by ND, I laid out a scenario where we might well lose 4 of 5 to end the year. I said I didn’t want to enter the UNC game needing a win to avoid that. That’d be a lot of pressure in a rivalry game with an opponent who had nothing to lose.
Well here we are. For the second straight year, it seems DD’s fate comes down to UNC. Can he get it done again? We’ll be 10+ point favorites.
Regardless the best thing for all parties might be if DD is allowed to leave. I have felt that he is the football version of HWSNBN. He isn’t as good as the basketball version, but our program doesn’t have those inputs either. Is there an Arizona State out there for DD to go and reset the clock with? Is Tennessee actually interested?
6 wins contract talks
Wait until the season ends
Might lose four of fiveWe are what we are
Snatch defeat from victory
Is the Wolfpack wayFeel bad for the kids
Coaching and schemes are not good
Oh what might have beenTAT: Do you not like KK? Did I miss something there?
I kind of think that Rome wasn’t built in a day. I think we’re going to take some lumps. I don’t think we have the shooting to really make noise this year, but we might have the shooting we need on the roster next year. We’re recruited a full roster for next year before the games are really going this year, so anything we do from here on out is really playing with house money.
Right now I’m glad we’re 4-0. Yeah, we look ragged in some areas, but I think we’re ahead this year of where we were last year this time. Last year we went to an early tournament (Puerto Rico?) and got rolled by Creighton. Arizona is a much better team, and we may end up with the same result, but I think we’re better going into that game than we were last year.
JeremyH: Freeman played at Baylor. Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, etc. have some good talent. Hunt played at A&T, but he lit up Ga. Tech last year. I think these guys can play at this level.
I do agree that neither are natural fits to our style. Hunt can shoot well enough but isn’t probably the size we’d recruit. Freeman has the body and physicality, but I don’t think he is a pure shooter.
I do think that finding kids that can shoot who are also bouncy, quick and high motor is going to be the recruiting challenge. We’re going to have to be very targeted, even if that is slightly lower player rankings.
I’ve watched all our games, the exhibition and our Italy games as well. I see clear progress.
Things that are good:
– Effort
– Pressure defense
– Help defense
– Taking charges
– In game adjustments
– Getting everyone involved
– Playing for the team
– Pace
– Team fitness and S&C
– Not barking at the refs
– Active coaching by the head man when players come out of the game or at dead ball situations
– Some of our players fit perfectly into this system. The back court combination of Johnson and Batts are going to give teams absolute fits over the next three years. Dorn is really playing well. Nard looks by far the best he has in a NC State uniform.Things that need improvement:
– Player fit to system. Some of our guys just aren’t aligned to this style of play.
– Half court offense. We’ve adapted well in game to what is working. Last night we switched to driving to the hole again and again after getting down by chunking up a bunch of threes. The first game we moved the ball incredibly well, and moved off the ball well. That hasn’t been as good the last two games. I think this is something that can improve this year.
– OOC schedule: Not set up to give us the RPI needed to get off the bubble. It is the ONLY thing I’m seeing that Gott did better than KK. Something to keep an eye on.
– Shooting. Outside of Hunt, we really don’t have any good shooters. This is back to player fit to system. We’re going to have to recruit some.
– Free throws. I think this is different than just pure shooting. Sure a pure shooter is going to make more, but I think across the board teams can improve. Last night was better. We’ll see if this continues.I’m seemingly in a minority, but I’m pretty excited. We’re going to take some lumps along the way, but this is the best I have felt about our basketball program in 20 years.
Coach Dave said in his press conference that on the long run given up, that the linebackers were at fault.
Not surprising to hear him say it. Can’t go a game without pointing blame at a player. I’m sure some will argue it is a “culture of accountability” but I’m more about correcting people in private and personal accountability in public.
Do you mean fourth?
Clemson, day, LouisvilleRick:
I see the conference standings as a zero sum game. For every game won by a team, there’s a loss by another. It’s zero net sum in the end. Teams go up and down at the expense of others. Clemson is up in large part because FSU has stumbled. VT won the Coastal all those years because Miami didn’t meet the expectations the league had of them when they joined. Now Miami is pushing their way back to the top, and VT won’t be there. Shrugs.
For BC and NC State to be up, some are going to have to go down. I actually would have put Wake in this group, but I just don’t think they recruit well enough. The coaching staffs look about the same to me, but BC and NC State have recruiting and built in program advantages.
I think Petrino’s time at Louisville is coming to an end. He seems to get an itch or self implode. With this “protection” getting fired, then they can move on him if they want. I have to think that there are a lot of pointed questions happening about how they have so little to show for a Heisman winner. If Jackson goes to the NFL this year and they stumble again/more next year, that seat is going to get really hot.
Louisville isn’t a “can’t miss” football job. If they make the wrong hire, they’ll go straight to the bottom. I think it is very similar to Pitt or UNC — one with high upside but also no real floor.
I wonder if people have already forgotten our recent past in basketball. The last two years of Gottball (and really the last four) were an example of doing less with more, marching steadily downward. Maybe NC State fans are just trained to be pessimistic but ere are some scores from early games the last three years:
– 2016-2017: 2 pt win against Georgia Souther, 25 pts against St Francis, 13 pts against Montana, beat down by Creighton, 10 point win against St. Joes, 2 pt win against Loyola of Chicago, beat down by Illinois, 4 point win against Boston University, OT win against Tennessee State…..– 2015-2016: beat down by William and Mary, 18 pt win against S. Alabama, 23 point win against IUPUI, 3 pt loss to Arizona State, 11 point win against LSU, 8 point win against Winthrop, loss to Michigan…. 3 point win against high point, 6 point win against UNC-G, 6 point win against Northeastern
– 2014-2015: 3 pt win against S. Florida, 6 point win against Boise State, loss to Wofford, 8 point win against Louisiana Tech
Are we already expecting more, and a 20 point win feels like a loss? I have to be honest that I kind of felt that way after game 2 because I felt like we only really played well as a team for about 5 minutes and that’s when we went on the big run. I’d love to feel that way and still win by 20+ as opposed to so many years of just mailing it in.
I flat out love this style of play. When Gary Williams really had things rolling at Maryland (and won the title), this is the style they were playing. It’s when he took the air out of the ball that things went the other way. This is a fun style to watch, a fun style for kids to play (which will help with recruiting), requires that everyone play (which helps with retention), and obviously works.
Are we going to take some lumps? Sure. We were an awful team the last 2 years, lost our top 3 scorers, have the 4th hurt right now, and are installing a whole new system with basically a new team. I’m not one for excuse mongering, but I would suggest realistic expectations (which even with my rose colored glasses are 3 non-conference losses and a .500 in league play).
When I watch the team, we seem like we’re 1-2 players away from being quite good. The pieces are coming together faster than I would have expected.
Bring on Bryant!
Back on topic. I’ll take the win. Any at this time of the year is good because at some point it is hard not to look forward (or backward). Coming off two straight losses that were physically and mentally draining, it was nice to see us rise to the occasion. That wasn’t easy to do, particularly on the road against a hot BC team on a cold day of tackling on concrete.
Other random thoughts:
– Long run, that was the safety. The TV replay pretty clearly showed it, and they even called it out.
– Offensive play calling is regressing. I think we’re down to about 8-10 plays, and the formation is starting to tip them. I get that it is natural for teams to find plays they run well, practice them and stick with them, and that the average fan thinks there are far more on than would ever actually be called. The issue I have is that our formations often tip what that play will be when one understands our 8-10 that we’re going to call.
– FG kicking is awful, but a tip of the cap to Bam for fighting through BC’s attempt to ice him. That was effectively the game winner.
– BC wasn’t much of a threat after the starting QB went out.
– BC has a young but talented team. I really like Adazzio and suspect they’ll become the team that we fight for third in the Atlantic (just don’t think Wake can recruit consistently well enough). They just need some players because they play very fundamentally sound ball and stick to a plan.I wouldn’t lay a dime on this one, and the odds makers don’t surprise me either. I think we have the better talent, but Wake is getting more out of them. They’re just playing better than we are right now and this one is on the road. It’s going to take an A game to beat them and we’ll have to play better than we did last week.
As for the plan, Bill’s got it.
Yogi: The one call I thought was bad was the catch that was ruled as indisputable evidence that wasn’t. I would agree that was a very bad overturn because the call on the field was that it was a catch and I saw nothing there that was so indisputable that it should have been overturned. That was a miss, and one could easily argue that old Swoff liked how it turned out.
Outside of that, most complaining about the officials are either wrong (the complaint about the shift that clearly was at the end), or that judgement calls either should have been called tighter against Clemson or were called too tightly on us. I get that for us to beat Clemson we need every break going our way, and no bad calls, so I do understand the frustration.
I would say every pass interference call on us looked like a legit one to me. We were grabbing a lot of jerseys to keep from getting run by. That’s honestly a GOOD penalty for a defensive player if the result of the play will be a touchdown. I’d coach my defense to do that and live to fight another down. I’m amazed in college ball we don’t see far more of it.
I would see the argument of the officials if this were a one play game. It wasn’t though. We lost that game on a LOT of plays. Heck, we lost it in the first half when we played almost perfectly on offense given what we brought that day (no Hines) yet only had a 4 point lead. Shrugs……..
The season is the next three weeks. For DD, these are career defining games. Go 0-3 and while he’ll still be a rich man, I doubt he’ll be a head coach again at a high major. Go 3-0 and we’ll have had our best season in 15 years, and a legitimate reason to argue that we have momentum and may have turned a corner. Alea iacta est.
I dislike Swofford and absolutely think he needs to go. The officiating was bad against ND and is often atrocious in men’s basketball. You won’t get any disagreement from me on those points.
We didn’t lose to Clemson due to officiating or due to a laptop. We lost due to too many mistakes, special teams, and being out coached and executed in the second half. Shrugs. Time to tip the cap to the better team and move on.
We cannot let Clemson beat us two weeks in a row like we did last year. BC right now is the most important game on the schedule and we have to treat it as such.
Gut check time for DD and the Pack. If we have really turned the corner, the we’ll go 3-0 from here to close and it the regular season. All the games will be tough but winnable. We will have to have the quality of effort, focus and game plan that we showed against Louisville and FSU.
We could easily go 0-3. If we do, I personally would end the DD experiment. I don’t think that is going to happen.
I think we will go 2-1 from here, finish 8-4 and DD will get an extension. Whether we win the bowl will be entirely based on who we are matched up against.
