fractured a bone in his hand, I think.

12/23/2008 9:56:48 AM

the lack of point guard is the obvious reason that we aren't any good.

all else can be fixed.

12/23/2008 10:04:07 AM

Noone is arguing that we do have a good point guard. I think people are saying that in both losses this season, despite not having a serviceable PG to speak of, we have still been in a position to win and probably would have pulled out both had we not used some questionable (at best) substitution patterns.

12/23/2008 10:23:13 AM

All I will say is look at the turnovers. Starters were pulled when they started turning over the ball. It is a sign of being tired and needing a rest. I am not a coach but even I can see this... Geeze sometimes I think state fans really are as dumb as the N&O pretends

12/23/2008 10:34:12 AM

Look, there is no doubt the players need to rest. The point is, you don't sub out the whole goddamn team at once and put in the B team. Seriously, how many teams in the country use a 12 man rotation?

Most don't even go 10 deep. There is a reason for that. Most teams, including ours, don't have the quality depth to go more than 8 or 9 deep unless they are playing cupcakes.

12/23/2008 10:47:30 AM

^ the teams that go 12 deep are the teams that run and gun successfully, namely, a couple of teams up the road.

12/23/2008 10:56:25 AM

^^ But, we are not getting blown away out there. State has never been a team (for whatever reason) that would win by a huge margin, but we have been a team that can disappear during some games and get mollywhipped by a lot.

I think that since these are really close games, it is way too early to judge his coaching. I am sure if we had a couple of extra points here or there, then people would be singing their praises of Cids coaching.

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 10:58 AM. Reason : B]

12/23/2008 10:57:58 AM

^^I'm not sure that either of them go 12 deep consistently the way we do and I am positive they don't sub out 4-5 at a time in close games against quality opponents. Even if they did though, when we get top 10 recruiting classes every year for the last two decades, then maybe we can start running 12 deep.

Until then, we can win the way the rest of the country does--run our few quality players basically the whole game every game.

^I'm not on the Sid hate bandwagon by any means. I think overall he is a good coach and it seems we are making some progress. I just think the whole subbing scheme that we are using needs to be overhauled

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:03 AM. Reason : d]

12/23/2008 11:00:22 AM

^what does "mollywhipped" mean? and who is this "Cid" you speak of?

12/23/2008 11:00:24 AM

If you have a first team and a second team mentality you can concentrate on the strengths of each of those teams and each team builds it's own chemistry. Once we get healthy I think people will be pretty impressed with team especially after last years debacle. Remember Sidney is the coach that everyone lauded for his ability to manage substitutions and timeouts his first year with an incredibly thin lineup.

12/23/2008 11:05:55 AM

mostly because he left our good players in and didn't make any substitutions his first year...

12/23/2008 11:07:41 AM

yeah first year we got lucky because he literally couldn't substitute more than one or two at a time due to our total lack of depth (not that we were any good that year either, it's just we had such low expectations and with the UNC win, ACC Tourney run, and nearly making it to the NIT semis that got everyone excited)

it's also very bad news that ferguson has apparently broken his arm/wrist and we're gonna lose one of our scrappiest hustlers and a decent shooter for a while at least

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:18 AM. Reason : ]

12/23/2008 11:16:58 AM

And in this instance it's good that CJ Williams has played so much. Any word on how Javi's elbow is doing? I know they held him out of the last game, and played him a little in this game to get his feet wet again.

The reason why Tracy Smith doesn't get more minutes is b/c he's a liability from the FT line. He got to play more toward the end of last season b/c he got better at shooting free throws (as well as being just more experienced). This year he hasn't been as consistant with his free throws as he was at the end of the year. Say what you will about McCauley missing those two free throws last night, but he's generally a pretty decent FT shooter (70+%).

12/23/2008 11:28:19 AM

i just watched it (dvrd it and didn't know who won yet)...

way too many turnovers, especially in the first half... poor guard play...

also, really doesn't matter to me if we lose by 2 or by 20...still an L

also, why does state ALWAYS (every year) have such a hard time breaking the press? other teams should press the whole game

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ya]

12/23/2008 11:42:14 AM

^PG play...duh

Quote :

"Most don't even go 10 deep. There is a reason for that. Most teams, including ours, don't have the quality depth to go more than 8 or 9 deep unless they are playing cupcakes."

Uhh in case you haven't noticed, we don't run and gun. We have the slowest offense in the ACC. No need for subs as much. Hell we give away windshield washer fluid for scoring 60.

12/23/2008 12:00:57 PM

gotta love that windshield wiper fluid

12/23/2008 12:20:25 PM

^^ I don't know why you quoted me, but I agree with you. There is no reason for us to go as deep into the bench as we do.

12/23/2008 12:54:30 PM

^we're gonna surprise the ACC with our super duper athletic ability!!!!

12/23/2008 1:53:30 PM

Quote :

"also, really doesn't matter to me if we lose by 2 or by 20...still an L"

that's a funny way of thinking. while it is still a loss, i'd much rather lose close games to good teams than get blown-out.

12/23/2008 2:13:45 PM

that's true but at the end of the season it doesn't feel much better to look back and say, well we were 15 collective points and 10 or so critical mistakes away from winning 5 more games this year and maybe going to a tournament

12/23/2008 2:42:56 PM

Unless you cover the spread and then a close loss is OK, too.

12/23/2008 2:47:12 PM

Quote :

"Starters were pulled when they started turning over the ball. It is a sign of being tired and needing a rest. I am not a coach but even I can see this"

no college/professional athlete needs to sit out two timouts in a row like costner did.

12/23/2008 3:21:10 PM

^but he hadn't missed a shot. or maybe he missed one. clearly he was tired. get him outta there!

12/23/2008 3:24:53 PM

Sid has repeatedly said he is all about defensive effort, if you're not keeping up on defense, he will pull you out.

12/23/2008 3:42:27 PM

http://aboverim.blogspot.com/2008/12/injured-wolfpack-guard-to-miss-3-6.html

12/23/2008 3:46:22 PM

damn that sucks

12/23/2008 4:00:57 PM

It is a good thing we have bench players like CJ williams who have had some significant minutes to take his place... hmmm wonder how CJ got that experience?? OH YEAH FREQUENT SUBS!!! This team is all about getting as much experience so we build our program. It might hurt early on but maybe we won't end up with another Javi who's probably never going to recover from the shock of being thrown to the wolves last year.

12/23/2008 4:08:21 PM

^That post doesn't make much sense.

You talk about frequent subs and young guys getting playing time and then you said Javi will never recover because he was playing so much early.

12/23/2008 4:11:06 PM

I am fairly confident I will be able to just post this after every game this season:

Quote :

"When your point guard(s) can't shoot and are not a physical threat to drive and/or create shots, other teams get to play 5-on-4. It is perplexing that Sidney Lowe and Monte Towe can't recruit or get any production out of the position."

12/23/2008 4:26:53 PM

javi wasn't able to be benched when he was in trouble he just had to work through it. If he had been able to get more playing time with the option of someone to come in and spell him if he wasn't getting it done he might have been a much more successful player.

12/23/2008 5:38:09 PM