…three complete and unequivocal ass kickings. Today’s was probably the worst, because of the listlessness I saw at times. Also, our guys need to learn that you can play hard on D and still play smart. We seem to have two (equally lousy) settings – 1) Don’t even put your hands up; and 2) Bite wildly on any and all ball fakes.
As noted in the game thread comments, Lavin and Mussberger did a very nice job of being fair to Sidney and praising what we have to offer as a program. They even went so far as to say that the cupboard was pretty bare when Sendek left (and completely bereft of PGs), without taking a single shot at NC State or its fans. Were you listening, Jimmy Dykes? That was fair and professional broadcasting.
On the flip side, we have played two ACC road games (where I expected things would get ugly early and stay that way) and came away with a very competitive loss and a blowout win. Of course, it may just be that any good team will kill us, but we can stay with any bad/mediocre team regardless of location. But I’m not sure that caliber of opponent explains things 100% – perhaps our guys are putting too much pressure on themselves playing before the home crowd. Or maybe it’s just a small sample size fluke.
If you want a positive to take away, here’s one – we have fairly consistently handled the competition in our “tier” (i.e., against lower division major conference teams and mid/low majors). As SFN noted earlier this month, this young, undermanned team suffered no embarrassing losses (from a program standpoint). We played an awful Wake team, and won handily. State has hung in against “middle tier” teams like Cincinnati, West Virginia, UVA, and Michigan, winning the home contest. And against “first division” teams like Duke, Alabama, Clemson, and Boston College…we got our asses handed to us.
Help is on the way. We will be a significantly more talented team next season, with 2 at least viable options at PG, and with good depth everywhere else. Perhaps we can move up a tier, and win more than our share against “middle of the pack” teams, with the occasional upset (while continuing to not slip up against weak foes). That likely gets us an NCAA bid in March 2008. The following year (barring an early exodus to the NBA of our frontcourt), we could easily move up yet another tier, and be a legitimate contender.
It’s more likely that there will be additional bumps along the way as Sid learns the ropes of coaching in the ACC, but this optimistic scenario is certainly possible.
