DOS MEXICANOS

1/25/2008 10:39:18 AM

He looked better but still not as good as we need to be top 3 in ACC

1/25/2008 10:39:40 AM

Quote :

"He looked better but still not as good as we need to be top 3 10 in ACC"

1/25/2008 10:40:36 AM

EVERYONE NEEDS TO EMAIL THIS DOUCHE POUCH
http://tinyurl.com/2gfg4u


EMAIL: lrawlings@wsjournal.com

Howlin’ Wolves and other notes:

Everyone knows that N.C. State doesn’t have a point guard. After Javier Lopez fired a flagrant airball - wide left - on his last-second 3-point attempt against Georgia Tech, everyone realized that the fallback point guard can’t shoot.

Georgia Tech survived 77-74 in overtime, mainly because it guarded the other four Wolfpack players and let Gonzalez dribble into the Twilight Zone. State (12-6 overall, 1-3 ACC) receded into a last-place tie. Things might be worse had Miami failed to deliver on that belated Christmas gift on Saturday.

Lopez’s shooting percentages dropped to 28 from everywhere and 21 from the 3-point desert. Dark thought: What will happen when the NCAA moves the line a foot farther out next season?

By then, injured Farnold Degand will heal and grow into a passable point guard or Coach Sidney Lowe will find someone else. But this is now, and the Wolfpack needs a solution before the season slips away.

Lowe could see the immediate future by glancing into the past. When injured point guard Engin Atsur sat down last season, the Wolfpack ran much of its offense through 6-10 Ben McCauley in the high post. McCauley used his vision, savvy and outstanding passing skills to locate cutters or dump the ball to Brandon Costner.

McCauley became the adhesive in a tight bond. He flashed that same ability in brief spurts on Wednesday, but the Wolfpack chemistry seems almost beyond laboratory repair.

The problem: Lowe elevated freshman center J.J. Hickson to star status before the opener. McCauley’s minutes declined, and so did his assists (from 3.2 a game to 1.4). Costner hasn’t approached the form that made him one of the two best players in the ACC Tournament. Hickson scored a lot early, but ACC games have exposed his youthful limitations. Wings Courtney Fells and Gavin Grant sometimes perform at high levels, but the sum remains less than the parts.

TV bowl ratings produced one major surprise: The Capital One Bowl in Orlando, considered a second-tier game, drew the third-largest TV audience, according to the National Football Foundation.

About 10.3 million households watched Michigan’s upset over Florida on New Year’s Day, a total surpassed only by the LSU-Ohio State title game in prime time on Jan. 7 (16.3 million households) and the Southern Cal’s Rose Bowl romp over Illinois in late afternoon Jan. 1 (12.5 million households). Those games trounced the other three prime-time BCS bowls, the Fiesta (8.7 million for Oklahoma-West Virginia), the Orange (8.4 million for Kansas-Virginia Tech) and the Sugar (7.9 million for Hawaii-Georgia).

The BCS bowls were unopposed, but the Capital One Bowl competed against three other games in early afternoon, the weakest time for high ratings. Two games started before Michigan-Florida, which kicked off about 1 p.m., directly opposite the Gator Bowl between Texas Tech and Virginia (2.96 million households). The Gator audience was lower than 15 bowls, including the Chick-fil-A (4.9 million households for Auburn-Clemson), the Music City (3.9 million for Florida State-Kentucky) the Meineke Car Care (3.6 million for Wake Forest-Connecticut), Champs Sports (3.6 million for Boston College-Michigan State) and Emerald (3.5 million for Maryland-Oregon State).

The other game involving an ACC team, the Humanitarian in Boise between Georgia Tech and Fresno State, drew a paltry 745,082 households, the lowest rating other than two games on the subscription-based NFL Network and about half the audience for East Carolina’s win over Boise State in Hawaii.

If the NCAA basketball committee picked the field today, only four ACC teams would make it: Duke, North Carolina, Clemson and Miami. But the committee won’t decide until March 16, which leaves plenty of time for comebacks and collapses….

Trot Nixon, the gritty outfielder from Wilmington, remains a free agent. Nixon, 34, has been working out at Laney High School, sometimes on frozen ground. He won a World Series in Boston and nearly returned last season with Cleveland, which blew a 3-1 lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS when the pitching unraveled. Nixon, who rushed back from back surgery in 2007, wants executives to know that he isn’t ready for retirement. His philosophy: “I want to keep going until they say no or the body says no.”

Rick Hendrick’s drivers won half the races on NASCAR’s big circuit, and Jimmie Johnson won his second straight championship. “I think too much has been made about how dominant we were last year,” Hendrick said. That’s why all his racing employees autographed an oversized pledge hanging in a company building. They agreed to forget last year and push the envelope this year.

Bob Harris, radio voice of the Blue Devils for 31 seasons, tells audiences that he has broadcast more Duke basketball victories than anyone…. and more Duke football losses.

¦ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com.


http://www.redandwhitefromstate.com/?p=1404
http://www.statefansnation.com/index.php/archives/2008/01/25/rawfs-takes-down-lenox-rawlings/

1/25/2008 12:23:02 PM

after reading this thread...

fuck you idiots who think we lost the game on one airball at the end...you guys are just stupid fucks

1/25/2008 12:24:37 PM

wow, lenox really has no idea what he's talking about...lopez? mccauley running the offense last year?

1/25/2008 12:29:12 PM

HOW ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE SAYS:

Quote :

"Georgia Tech survived 77-74 in overtime "

THE FUCKING GAME DIDNT GO INTO OVERTIME DUMBFUCK

1/25/2008 12:35:14 PM

I sent him a very nice email I must say.

I encourage everyone to send one as well.

1/25/2008 12:48:01 PM

Although most of the article is crap....this part is spot on:

Quote :

"The problem: Lowe elevated freshman center J.J. Hickson to star status before the opener. McCauley’s minutes declined, and so did his assists (from 3.2 a game to 1.4). Costner hasn’t approached the form that made him one of the two best players in the ACC Tournament. Hickson scored a lot early, but ACC games have exposed his youthful limitations. Wings Courtney Fells and Gavin Grant sometimes perform at high levels, but the sum remains less than the parts."

1/25/2008 12:58:20 PM

yeah, it is...but it is also something everyone knows

esp. everyone or anyone who has watched any of our games at all or can copy and paste segments from any article about us over the past few months

1/25/2008 1:01:16 PM

^^^^^ he never said mccauley ran the offense. he said the offense was run through mccauley. really, i think this is the best option for our offense. kind of a herb-esque, cut to the basket offense with mccauley doing what he does best - passing. if we revert to an offense similar to what we did last year (since obviously we don't have a competent pg) i think we could win a few more games. basically what i'm saying is hybrid herb and sidney's offenses.

[Edited on January 25, 2008 at 1:04 PM. Reason : ^]

1/25/2008 1:03:57 PM

I just read the Lenox Rawlings column. That guy's been a retard since I've been old enough to read.

1/25/2008 1:06:16 PM

Quote :

"Hi Lenox Lewis! Rut roh, wrong last name!!! Do you get paid or are you an intern? How much is your overtime pay? Every time you start to write something I hope your editor shouts................. Airball, Airball, Airball, Airball, Airball, Airball !!!!! Sincerely, L. Jenkins"

1/25/2008 1:12:53 PM

a ripping e-mail was well over due considering all the bad media we get...some of which is well deserved, but not all

1/25/2008 1:42:20 PM

well we are pretty much the worst team in the acc. so if the shoe fits. . .

1/25/2008 1:51:01 PM

uh, that has nothing to do with it

1/25/2008 1:55:25 PM

eh. whatever. if he thinks that one email is any way unique, he's a fool. people from the wolfweb alone probably write an email like that a day. and every fan base thinks they are portrayed negatively in the media. it's just how it goes.

1/25/2008 1:57:27 PM

If you like Javier Lopez

at running point in the game

...

1/25/2008 3:06:37 PM

sarijoul, im confused

this is about the piss poor journalism and fact checking not the fact that we do, indeed, suck

1/25/2008 3:28:56 PM

i'm not talking about this specific incident. i'm referring to the mentality that we're always some sort of victim of terrible journalism. let's see, how about this angle: if gonzalez was any good, the guy wouldn't have screwed up his name. but honestly i wasn't responding to anything specific about that article before. more the "we always get so much bad press" part of the previous post.

1/25/2008 3:41:06 PM

But we do.

1/25/2008 3:45:44 PM

I didn't realize our PG used to be a MLB catcher.

1/25/2008 4:06:35 PM

Does this mean we have to sub in Eddie Perez when Ben McCauley is in the game?

1/25/2008 4:15:47 PM

Not if Sidney Whittenberg has any say

1/25/2008 4:23:20 PM

ahahahahaha he responded!

Quote :

"My mistake. I wish it hadn't happened, obviously. (And, you raise an interesting point. I do have one friend who, for the first year after he met me, often called me Lenox Lewis.) Thanks for writing, Lenox Rawlings"

1/25/2008 6:04:56 PM

the braves actually signed javy lopez again to a minor league contract

1/25/2008 6:11:47 PM

Richmond!

1/25/2008 6:22:47 PM

running circles around fsu

1/26/2008 2:09:58 PM

BOTH points Javi and Marques playing really well today....

Makes me

1/26/2008 2:24:07 PM

perez sez gonzalez has potential

1/26/2008 2:27:05 PM

Quote :

"Javi and Marques playing really well today...."

1/26/2008 3:20:05 PM

javi looks like he's a damn frog when he takes a shot from outside.

1/26/2008 4:04:55 PM

his form is terrible. gotta work on that in the offseason

1/26/2008 4:05:34 PM

Still not making great decisions but both shot well and played solid. Cutting down on the turnovers game by game. Now if Javi could learn to play defense.

[Edited on January 26, 2008 at 4:13 PM. Reason : those free throws were big....still his 3s are terrible. He doesn't even set his feet]

1/26/2008 4:10:50 PM

hah, javi shot well?

0-4

...but 7-8 from the line. eh, good enough.

1/26/2008 4:11:50 PM

^^ that is the second time i have seen you say something about javi's defense.. are you seriously not watching the games? or do you just not have a clue about basketball?

the kid forced or contributed to 6-7 turnovers today.

1/26/2008 4:31:37 PM

Quote :

"you just not have a clue about basketball"

ding ding ding

1/26/2008 4:37:35 PM

^^ see, the announcer made a comment about javi getting drived on, so expect a lot of people to echo similar thoughts on his defense the next few days.

it's like after the carolina game last year everyone was talking about how horner was a human turnover machine and shit, which i could not figure out the reasoning behind. then i watched the broadcast of the game and saw that jimmy dykes had made a passing mention of horner making sloppy passes in practice.

[Edited on January 26, 2008 at 4:39 PM. Reason : .]

1/26/2008 4:38:02 PM

yeah, the announcer is an idiot too.. what was supposed to happen on that play was JJ stepping up to help. There is no way that you can always get in front of a guard and never let them drive by without fouling... particularly when the game is being called as closely as it was. That is what help defense is for, which unfortunately is not one of JJ's strong points yet.

1/26/2008 4:41:57 PM

Quote :

"the announcer is an idiot too"

yessir.

1/26/2008 4:42:39 PM

the second time though, when we were up 2, jj did step up.

and dudeman stopped and popped. they missed, we rebound and win. what a difference help defense makes.

1/26/2008 4:45:06 PM

^^^ spot on. If you watch the game tape, after douglas drove and scored on javi, lowe goes over and lays into Hickson for not helping. Next time around, they get the stop.

[Edited on January 26, 2008 at 4:45 PM. Reason : .]

1/26/2008 4:45:08 PM

Quote :

"Cutting down on the turnovers game by game. Now if Javi could learn to play defense."

yeah, he only had 1 turnover in 24 minutes...come on man
he did a great job today as did johnson...good for them

1/26/2008 4:51:05 PM

^^agreed. i thought javi did a great job yesterday. his ball handling is improving, passing, as is his defense. and he's getting some good rebounds for a guard. if he can just get that shooting thing down...

what really impressed me was the few times he drove the lane, he actually looked pretty good.
two thumbs up.

[Edited on January 27, 2008 at 11:49 AM. Reason : .]

1/27/2008 11:48:47 AM

^^ yeah, 2 turnovers combined for marques and javi is pretty damn good.

if only they could throw a few more assists in there
(javi had 4, marques had 0)

1/27/2008 12:03:37 PM

Javi is basically the little engine that could on Sid's train. When he gets his confidence up to full speed, he'll be pretty decent. You'll see.

1/27/2008 11:58:15 PM

hes still a freshmen
hes undersized(dont tell monty)
and hes coming off an injury


hes getting A LOT better IMHO

1/28/2008 12:01:26 AM

I'm sure it's a confidence thing but the one thing that I keep noticing is Javi is now driving the basket and breaking down defenses. That is going to be huge for the success of both Ben and JJ throughout the rest of the season. I hate the guy, but TY Lawsons speed and ability to drive is what makes them as good as they are.

1/28/2008 11:41:57 AM

yeah, that's one of the things that makes carolina good.

javi driving to the basket and in general being more aggressive will definitely work in our favor. he's a much better FT shooter than FG shooter also, so drawing some fouls around the basket would be a good way for him to contribute.

1/28/2008 11:50:36 AM

he's timid, undersized and can't shoot. He might gain some confidence with age/experience, but he's not getting any taller and I'm not sure anyone can improve his shooting form. Lets hope I'm wrong

1/28/2008 12:02:38 PM