Alternative titles to this entry can be found here.
I’m not going to spend time breaking down last night’s 21 point loss to Texas in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. I shared a pre-game analysis that I think was on target, so you can read that and just add to it what you saw during the game. Man, I am just glad that I don’t live in Houston anymore after the multitude of emails and calls that I got from former friends and former colleagues.
If you want to read more from the mainstream media regarding the debacle you can click here for a Webrun.
My comments about the Pack and the Longhorns:
* Texas’ trouncing of the Wolfpack was the 4th largest margin of victory in the entire NCAA Tournament and the largest margin of victory for any team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
* Rick Barnes has attended 11 consecutive NCAA Tournaments. Since Lee Fowler and NC State have mandated that college basketball did not exist prior to the 2001-2002 season, I wonder if Barnes gets to count these appearances? Regardless, you can see a deeper analysis of the last five years by clicking here.
* Texas moves on to their 4th Sweet 16 appearance in the last 5 years. Over the last three years, Barnes’ Longhorns have eliminated Roy Williams’ North Carolina Tarheels and Herb Sendeks’ NC State Wolfpack in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. If the seeds hold, Barnes will get a shot against Coach K in the Elite 8 in Atlanta.
* After setting the ACC Tournament record for the gap between seeds to lose a game (8 seeds separated #4 NC State and #12 Wake Forest) , Herb Sendek now holds the NC State record for worst NCAA tournament loss in history. Who says the guy can’t create records?
* NC State averaged the fewest points of any of the 32 teams that played two games in the NCAA Tournament.
* We hear that Lee Fowler and Herb Sendek (in addition to some longtime HSSSers) were irate at the comments that Tommy Burleson made last week. It seems that in their world, the only tall white guys that played college basketball in the 1970s that are allowed to “know basketball” are those that were the least successful and didn’t attend NC State.
* Burleson has got to feel an awful lot of vindication this morning after what transpired last night when State’s only streak of success against Texas came when the Pack scrapped the offense that Burleson criticized last week. In the final ten minutes of the first half of last night’s beatdown, Courtney Fells finally got to play and the Wolfpack scrapped its offense. The result was a huge run where State scored 28 points and outscored Texas 28-18 to end the half. After Sendek had time to “correct that street ball crap” at halftime, the return of The Offense Formerly Known As Princeton’s scored a total of 21 points in the final 20 minutes. It was a fun 10 minutes to watch. As someone else said, “Sendek didn’t like people saying he couldn’t make adjustments, so apparently at halftime he decided to adjust us out of the best basketball I’ve seen from an NCSU team in years.”
* I don’t care what bullshit the media tried to position about the Barnes – Sendek “relationship” on Sunday. Their handshake after the game looked nothing like the kind of handshake that real friends tend to have after a beat down.
* And the final numbers were even uglier. State was 3 for 22 from 3-point range, for 13.6 percent, committed 13 turnovers, and needed some baskets at mop-up time to shoot 39.3 percent from the field.
* “Barnes likely sees NC State as he once did Clemson”. Try not to cry too much.
* We talked about the 1989 NC State-Iowa game just last week in the 63 Greatest Games in Tournament History. Ironically enough, Sunday was the anniversary of that game when NC State scored 102 points behind Rodney Monroe’s 40 points. Noah, one of the best NC State historians around, shared on a message board thread that, “Brian Howard had 16, Chucky Brown had 14, Avie Lester had 10 and Corch had 16 and 10 assists. We had a grand total of 6 points off the bench (Kelsey Weems had two, Mickey Hinnant had four). Ed Horton had 32 for Iowa. Roy Marble had 24 and BJ Armstrong had 20. The score was tied at the end of the first half, second half and first OT before we pulled away 19-13 in the second OT. ”
* You can click here for a statistical look at NC State’s 2006 (and 2005) Basketball Seasons.
* Parting Shot from Lenox Rawlings:
Trailing only 38-33, State soon reverted to the stagnant offense that contributed to a late-season fade. Simmons became a minor character as his teammates launched 3-point rockets with metal-seeking qualities, making 3 of 22 (14 percent). The Wolfpack scored 21 points in the second half, another embarrassment for Coach Herb Sendek’s offense, which many people call the Princeton offense. Sendek loathes that description. When State runs the thing like it has for the past month, Princeton should consider a lawsuit.
