Quote :

"They all look to be solid offensive threats, and several have NBA potential."

So, we're looking at a bunch of JJ Hicksons who will play for a year, fuck up the team chemistry, and then drop us for the NBA after an overall disappointing season?

Thanks but no thanks.

Not until he can fix most the other problems we're looking at, anyway.

[Edited on February 8, 2009 at 11:39 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2009 11:38:33 PM

Quote :

"So, we're looking at a bunch of JJ Hicksons who will play for a year, fuck up the team chemistry, and then drop us for the NBA after an overall disappointing season? Thanks but no thanks. Not until he can fix most the other problems we're looking at, anyway."

ATTN: users who can't ID the problem (not players like JJ who work their asses off to get better, but players like Ben who get pissy when that better player means he won't play quite as much), and have no idea what the deal with our recruits are.

2/8/2009 11:50:17 PM

yeah, that was a pretty retarded statement.

fuck it, let's just not recruit anyone anymore. clearly recruits are the problem here.

2/8/2009 11:51:16 PM

Wasn't being entirely serious with that post...

but even with high-caliber recruits who stay on the team I can't really imagine Sid doing especially well. At least not as well as our fanbase would expect, given how Herb got chased out. (Not saying Herb should come back... but Lowe clearly is not the answer either)

2/8/2009 11:54:00 PM

if we actually get "a bunch of JJ Hicksons" we will be just fine

we only had ONE JJ Hickson...if we actually have multiple NBA caliber talented players at the same time, WE WILL WIN BASKETBALL GAMES

Quote :

"but Lowe clearly is not the answer either"

Lowe isn't clearly anything...its too early to tell if he is the answer or isn't

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:04 AM. Reason : .]

2/9/2009 12:03:46 AM

i'd love a team of jj hicksons assuming that one jj hickson could play PG and one could play the 2, etc.

2/9/2009 12:05:10 AM

i use JJ Hickson as a synonym for NBA-caliber player

if we literally had 5 JJ Hickson's, we would have the worst handles of any team ever

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:11 AM. Reason : excellent front court depth though]

2/9/2009 12:08:21 AM

FUCK THAT SHIT

I JUST WANNA DUNK

2/9/2009 12:21:33 AM

If this thread reaches 100 pages, Lee Fowler said he would resign.

2/9/2009 12:23:43 AM

i thought it was post nude picz.

2/9/2009 12:26:44 AM

of his daughters?

2/9/2009 12:27:39 AM

Quote :

"if we literally had 5 JJ Hickson's, we would have the worst handles of any team ever"

shit son, just throw it up in the air to each other and dunk it everytime. in theory, it'd be the best team ever.

2/9/2009 12:34:54 AM

in theory, my penis is two miles long.

2/9/2009 12:37:29 AM

Quote :

"Lowe isn't clearly anything...its too early to tell if he is the answer or isn't"

When can you say if he is the answer or not then?

It's good to know that now it's not only the players fault but its the refs too instead of Sidney. And are people seriously blaming the refs on this loss? Come the fuck on. We were up 19. I know the Fells Intentional was not right but still. We were getting all the calls in the first half. Sid has got to take some blame for today's debacle.

2/9/2009 12:38:38 AM

everybody deserves blame in a loss, the players and the coaches

as far as when do we know if sid is the answer or not, i think we will all definitely know at the end of next season

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:58 AM. Reason : v]

2/9/2009 12:56:45 AM

i really don't think anyone here is saying that sidney is absolved of responsibility

however, I think the argument is that when you get right down to it, you just got to feel bad for a nigga cause he's the guy who is getting screwed the hardest right now.

furthermore, the second part of the argument (and this is fundamental to being able to let him slide in part one) is that with these new recruits he will bring us out of the shitter. If we're still in the shitter, it isn't like people won't turn on him. It's fucking NC State after all.

2/9/2009 12:58:00 AM

^^^ Glad you've finally seen the light. This kind of performance is unacceptable from any coach. Coaches who do this regularly should be canned.

2/9/2009 1:47:44 AM

We were up by 19 against a team that is more talented than we are. IMO if he was the terrible coach you seem to think he is we would have been blown out by this team. As for officiating: 11pts in less than a minute all on bad calls definitely don't change the outcome of a game that is decided in overtime .

2/9/2009 10:45:48 AM

Lowe knows how to motivate his players, but he doesn't know how to coach them. Calling timeouts before the point guard reaches half court is dumb. Forcing us to inbound on a full court press increases turnover chances and shows his inexperience. Not screaming his head off when the video clearly shows that Fells blocked the shot shows his inexperience. Not coaching his team to hold onto a massive lead by controlling the tempo and milking the clock shows his inexperience.

2/9/2009 10:50:47 AM

the fact that all these games are winnable, shows Sid's doing a number of things right.

the fact that we're losing all these winnable games shows Sid's inexperience as an HC and college BB in general.

he has a season or two to manage the learning curve before the pack turns on him.

i'm still not turning on him -- i think he needs a bit more learning time.

2/9/2009 11:09:24 AM

I have given up on this season entirely. I will give him one more year before I join the club demanding his resignation.

2/9/2009 11:11:56 AM

from statefansnation........

Speaking of death spirals — I interviewed a guy once who was a former Navy test pilot. After the Korean War, he spent his days up on the coast of Virginia trying out new planes.

Airplane manufacturers would bring in new gear and he and about a dozen other guys would take them out and see what they could do. They would push these planes to the absolute limit to see where they failed, where they succeeded, what was good about them and what was bad.

He said that it was critical to believe that you were invincible. It was critical to be able to stay completely calm. It was critical that you read all the manuals that came with the plane and that you remember what to do when the plane went into a flat spin or the tail fell off or the engine died.

He also told me that the difference between a good test pilot and a bad one was that the good test pilot knew when the gig was up and the bad one thought anything could be fixed. The plane would stall and start to spiral down. The bad pilot would keep talking to the guys on the ground and keep trying new things to regain control. Their bodies would be recovered with a squeegee and a pair of tweezers.

The good pilot would be able to salvage what was salvagable…but always knew when the plane had crossed some threshold and was doomed and would at least try to bail out.

I am afraid that the people who make the decisions on NC State sports are in the “bad test pilot” category. You really DONT have to wait until the plane hits the ground and is a smoking hunk of very flat metal to determine, “This plane should probably not be a part of the fleet.”

2/9/2009 11:12:09 AM

lol. Blame the players, blame the refs, blame the moon, anything but Sidney Lowe. As if Herb ever had a team full of world beaters or the benefit of the refs. Yet, we still managed to get to the NCAA tournament with regularity and finish in the top half of the ACC standings. Now, we're permanent fixtures in the bottom 2 and can't even make the NIT. We have a worse basketball program than all 3 Big East transplants and FSU. God, we fired Chuck Amato for much less than this.

2/9/2009 11:13:18 AM

jesus christ i've grown to hate sfn.

all they do is bitch and moan.

worse than this board even.

2/9/2009 11:14:55 AM

Quote :

"the fact that all these games are winnable, shows Sid's doing a number of things right. the fact that we're losing all these winnable games shows Sid's inexperience as an HC and college BB in general. he has a season or two to manage the learning curve before the pack turns on him. i'm still not turning on him -- i think he needs a bit more learning time."

unfortunately, a lot of people don't agree with you. I couldn't have said it better myself.

2/9/2009 11:24:41 AM

i'm not turning on him yet

but early* indications do not look good


* = 2.5 years worth

2/9/2009 11:53:59 AM

Quote :

"As if Herb ever had a team full of world beaters or the benefit of the refs. Yet, we still managed to get to the NCAA tournament with regularity and finish in the top half of the ACC standings"

Ok, this has been mentioned many times on this thread, but you must have missed it. It took Herb six (yes, six!) years to make the tournament. Six. 6.

2/9/2009 12:07:40 PM

^OMG BUT HERB LEFT LOWE WITH ALL-STAR ALL-ACC TALENT YOU IDIOT

2/9/2009 12:09:18 PM

And I'm guessing you are too young to remember that most wanted him gone after year 4 and 5.

2/9/2009 12:10:19 PM

We are in games that we have no business being in. If you are going to blame him for losses you need to give him credit for competing against teams which have better talent. It is true that Sendek was a master of this (mainly through his system). The facts still stand that Mccauley, Costner, Fells are inconsistent producers (two of them didn't even get significant minutes as freshmen so they can't have been that great) and they were recruited by a coach who ran a less traditional system (a quarter of mccauley's shots as a freshmen were 3pters). You don't know what kind of "pilot" Lowe is because what he has had to fly so far has been a cobbled together piece of wreckage. Next year will be a deciding year right now it is TOO EARLY to tell.

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:12 PM. Reason : adfasdf]

2/9/2009 12:11:35 PM

Quote :

"the fact that we're losing all these winnable games shows Sid's inexperience as an HC and college BB in general. "

Does it reflect on Sidney or the players? With our players these shouldn't be winnable games, and no one expects us to be in the game beforehand. When Sid's coaching gets us in a position to win, and the players don't hit the FTs at the end of the game that would have won it, or fail to run the play he calls a timeout to give them 2 seconds before they fuck it up, you can't put that loss on Sidney Lowe.

2/9/2009 12:46:12 PM

Quote :

"We are in games that we have no business being in. If you are going to blame him for losses you need to give him credit for competing against teams which have better talent. It is true that Sendek was a master of this (mainly through his system). The facts still stand that Mccauley, Costner, Fells are inconsistent producers (two of them didn't even get significant minutes as freshmen so they can't have been that great) and they were recruited by a coach who ran a less traditional system (a quarter of mccauley's shots as a freshmen were 3pters). You don't know what kind of "pilot" Lowe is because what he has had to fly so far has been a cobbled together piece of wreckage. Next year will be a deciding year right now it is TOO EARLY to tell."

So much of this post is wrong.

1) Herb never played freshmen.

2) In ACC games what percentage of points, rebounds, and assists are coming from those three "inconsistent" Herb guys?

3) We will be worse next year......

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 12:55 PM. Reason : ^So we build an 19 point lead due to Sid's coaching but we lose it because the players???? ]

2/9/2009 12:53:54 PM

1. Very true (except for J. Hodge) Sendek didn't believe in Freshmen starting but they got hardly any minutes as freshmen. Brackman for example got more minutes as a freshmen then either Mccauley or fells. Fells even got less minutes as a freshman than Bennerman did.
2. Who is our "go to guy"? Which of these players is consistent enough that you will rely on them to win you a game as the clock is winding down.
3. Predictions that can never be verified are really excellent ways to prove your point.

2/9/2009 1:11:16 PM

I would love for you to be able to come back next year on TWW and bring this thread up and say that I was completely wrong. No doubt about it.

But.....I am very afraid that I will be right.

You seriously think we are going to improve by losing our three best players just because they were "Herb" guys????

2/9/2009 1:14:08 PM

Yeah I really do. Guard play defines the college level game. There are a lot of teams out there with good guards and mediocre big men who get it done.

2/9/2009 1:20:58 PM

Time for a recap post.

First off, JJ Hickson was NOT a cancer or a problem. He, Josh Powell and Ced Simmons do nothing but help our national reputation by playing in the NBA. Period.

adder:

Quote :

"We were up by 19 against a team that is more talented than we are. IMO if he was the terrible coach you seem to think he is we would have been blown out by this team."

Virginia Tech is NOT more talented than us. They have a better PG, but man for man they are not as talented as we are. They play balls to the wall every possession though and AD Vassalo (an unranked 3* guard) has developed nicely.

Quote :

"Ok, this has been mentioned many times on this thread, but you must have missed it. It took Herb six (yes, six!) years to make the tournament. Six. 6."

That should be irrelevant to this discussion. The State program was in shambles after the (whether it was deserved or not) the end of the V era. Les was brought in to run a clean program and that is all. Winning was an afterthought. Herb did not inherity anywhere close to the talent that Lowe did and he did not inherit a program with a recent history of success (and yes, making 5 straight tourneys is success -- not elite level by any stretch, but successful).

Quote :

"3. Predictions that can never be verified are really excellent ways to prove your point."

Well, to be fair, we lose like 60% of our offense. Our three returning leading scorers will be Tracy Smith (who Lowe seems to have an aversion to handing significant playing time to), drumroll please... Trevor Ferguson and Dennis motherfucking Horner!

These freshman better all be ACC caliber starters right from the get go to make the top 2/3s of the ACC next year.

2/9/2009 1:22:16 PM

Costner said as recently as last weekend that those rumors about him leaving early are just that....rumors. IMO if we return him next year, we have a good season regardless of who else we add to this recruiting class. If we lose costner, we have to add Cousins or Wall. Period.



Of course the only player in the league that gets less respect from the officials is fucking Zoubek. Costner cant look at a guy wrong without getting a foul called on him.

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 1:29 PM. Reason : ]

2/9/2009 1:28:41 PM

Here's some stats for you guys to look at:

Costner, McCauley, Fells: 40.5 PPG 18.2 REB 5.6 AST 2.7 STL 2.0 BLK 62 Threes made

Rest of the team: 32.1 PPG 19.0 REB 9.3 AST 2.9 STL 2.1 BLK 69 Threes made

So they outscore, equally rebound, steal, and block as much as the rest of the team (7, 8 players)

In ACC play, I'm sure the trio has done even better.

2/9/2009 1:28:54 PM

and assist!

2/9/2009 1:32:01 PM

nm, doesn't matter, just going to cause more retarded arguments.

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 1:35 PM. Reason : ]

2/9/2009 1:33:01 PM

Quote :

"Costner said as recently as last weekend that those rumors about him leaving early are just that....rumors"

and right after that Lowe acknowledged that they are making plans for a possible Cosnter departure.
so while still rumors, they have legs.

2/9/2009 1:42:55 PM

^well of course they'd be making plans if there was any possibility that he woudn't be coming back. that doesn't mean anything. however, i am afraid that he will leave after the season, but i'm hoping he won't.

2/9/2009 1:53:43 PM

coaching has been putting us in position to win games. there are some questions about substitutions but that's really just monday morning quarterbacking on our part. there are reasons certain players play over others during the game that we just won't know about unless you're on the coaching staff.

we have a team full of roll players, we don't have anybody that's a leader on the team or anybody that can take over a game when shit hits the fan like the top teams in the acc have. because of this we have to pretty much play flawless the whole game. the guys lack confidence to be able to close out a game themselves and we're still having turnover problems. if they make one mistake down the stretch everything seems to go south. i'd like to see sid make some more improvements there, but our seniors should be the leaders on the floor and they continue to make dumb mistakes. our defensive intensity needs to pick up too. our guys for the most part are too slow to keep up with the quicker guards in the league and our post players are not very imposing. we could try different schemes to play more to our strengths and we have done this at different times during games, but there's just so much we can do with how we match up.

overall, we've been in every game due to coaching, but there are still little things that are keeping us from finishing it out. i have confidence that things will turn in our favor in the next couple of years. you have to admit that javi's turnaround is a big positive going into the next couple of games. he's taken a complete 180 to how timid he was early in the season.

2/9/2009 2:09:23 PM

Quote :

"overall, we've been in every game due to coaching"

So once again, we are in the games because of good coaching but we blow them because of bad players?

The excuses are getting pathetic. We are even blaming the refs now.

2/9/2009 3:54:02 PM

who is our clear leader on the court?

2/9/2009 3:56:36 PM

Who is our clear leader on the sideline?

I can make things look bad too...

2/9/2009 3:58:44 PM

Quote :

"I can make things look bad too..."

you continue to prove that with every post

2/9/2009 3:59:54 PM

Quote :

"Who is our clear leader on the sideline?"

Sid, right? Isn't he the guy on the sideline that's always whistling and calling plays?

[Edited on February 9, 2009 at 4:35 PM. Reason : letters on the keys]

2/9/2009 4:07:00 PM

Quote :

"Well, to be fair, we lose like 60% of our offense."

well to be fair, coming into this season, we lost our top 2 scorers from last year (Grant and Hickson)...its kind of the nature of college sports

Quote :

"we are in the games because of good coaching but we blow them because of bad players? "

thats how basketball works...players have to make plays down the stretch...sid isnt in there turning the ball over or missing free throws

Quote :

"The excuses are getting pathetic. We are even blaming the refs now."

you're right...lets do like you do, and blame the coach for everything imaginable

2/9/2009 5:58:32 PM

Quote :

"there are some questions about substitutions but that's really just monday morning quarterbacking on our part."

Bull shit! The the rotation is fucking terrible. You sit Javi for like 6 games after he is healthy and then decide to play him for 36 minutes in a single game. Then Lowe says to the media, "Degand didn't deserve to play tonight" and turns out to be an academic violation? Who fucking says that to the media?

You don't fucking bench Mays when he hits game winning 3 pointers. Where is CJ Williams and Johnny Thomas? Why not mix them into the rotation? Why is Dennis Horner ever on the floor at any point in the game?

2/9/2009 6:31:59 PM