I got just got to say i hate our style of basketball. It kills me to watch. Seriously, under 50pts who wants to watch that. Now i will admit i am a Herb Hater but i have been one since he got here. And i know what he has done for the program so dont come back with all that crap either. I am not saying fire him (all though i would like that) but i wish he would just change his style of play. It is so slow and boring, i seriously couldn't stay awake through the whole game because it was that boring. I watch UNC and Duke and as much as i hate those schools they are more fun to watch. Hell UNC is playing with all freshman and it is still an exciting game, and i HATE HATE UNC. I know that some of you will come back that they gettter better recruits then us but that is a bunch of bullshit. Yes there recruits are slightly better but ours could still play that style of ball and we will never get better recruits then that with the type of basketball we play. Also, besides Hodge who has Herb put in the NBA, hardly anyone. Superstar players are not gonna want to play for a school that does put people in the pros. And the reason we don't put out pros is because of this slow ass game we play. GOD I HATE WATCHING US.
Rant over


[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 7:21 AM. Reason : :]

12/1/2005 7:19:07 AM

I agree on a lot of this.

Not because it's slow and boring (well, that too... but if we win then I can stomach it)... becuase it always has and always will rely too much on the 3-pointer and doesn't lend itself to much rebounding.


In Herb's defense... he has been recruiting well since he came to NC State. Granted, he seems to recruit a lot of "slower" athletes than a team like UNC or Duke, but they're pretty highly touted. Athleticism is getting better on the team, but we still have a long ways to go

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 7:27 AM. Reason : afds]

12/1/2005 7:24:32 AM

If we didn't have 46 turnovers the final score would have been in the low 60s.

UNC is scoring more because they make all their turnovers at a more erratic pace.

12/1/2005 7:27:59 AM

^^i agree with the 3-pt statement

but i wish people would look on the bright side...while i agree we should have won that game, we only lost by 3 pts to a ranked team (#15) that beat #10 kentucky and lost to #2 Texas by 9.

personally im glad to have the undefeated aura off our back, and we also have two more OOC ranked teams to play (Alabama and GW).

AND THIS IS ALL BEFORE THE REAL SEASON ANYWAY

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 7:29 AM. Reason : ]

12/1/2005 7:29:25 AM

I don't think anyone's flipping shit about a loss. I'm most certainly not... Iowa can be a good team.


Any good team in the country would have killed them last night. They looked like UNC receivers dropping balls out there. It's more of a "we had the perfect opportunity and blew it again" type of deal....

It's just how we lose. The game was ugly... but to lose on a shitty last second play like we've done eleventy-bazillion times before just sucks.

12/1/2005 7:32:53 AM

Quote :

"I don't think anyone's flipping shit about a loss. "

You, me, and maybe 3 others. Everyone else is having a fucking aneurysm.

12/1/2005 8:00:27 AM

I dont care that we lost, Iowa is a good team, if you go by rankings they should have won. It just hurts to watch us play. Can anyone say they truly enjoy watching us, that it's fun, i doubt it.

12/1/2005 8:01:59 AM

of course you care that we lost... why else would you make this post RIGHT AFTER A LOSS!!!

if we had won, you wouldn't have posted a damned thing...

we could win 25-22 and you'd be perfectly happy...

but we lost, so you're flipping out about the only thing it seems safe to criticize herb over anymore...

this is just more herb bashing under a slightly more civil face...

12/1/2005 8:09:31 AM

win or lose, that was a boring game. Both teams played like absolute crap.

12/1/2005 8:20:27 AM

OK, Yes i do care that we lost
But before this game was even played i've been talking about this.
Like i said before i haven't liked Herb and his style since he got here and i wont deny it but in all fairness he doesn't desrve to be fired (all though i would love it). I just wish he would adjust his play a little.
We could be 21-0 this year and yes i would be exstatic but our games would still be incredibly boring and uninteresting and i still would want a change in our style.
But never the less we will never go 21-0 nor will we ever win a national title with this offense. This offense is better suited in a 1AA program where you can't get the athletes and have to beat them with smarts, why do you think it's called the Princton offense, there smart not athletes

12/1/2005 8:20:31 AM

how have you not liked his style since he got here when he CHANGED his style of play 4 years after getting here?

seems odd

12/1/2005 8:21:14 AM

maybe i didn't like both styles

not so odd

12/1/2005 8:22:24 AM

^^^agreed. At this level of play, athleticism is key. Sure you can compensate and do all you can to level the playing field by using the Princeton offense...but he's right, we'll never be a top national contender with an offense that's designed to best suit mediocre athletes. Herb, its time that "athleticism" became part of your recruiting criteria.

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 8:24 AM. Reason : .]

12/1/2005 8:23:45 AM

Compare and contrast Herb Sendek's offensive and defensive styles of play before and after the installation of his Princeton-style offense.

12/1/2005 8:25:26 AM

Quote :

"Herb, its time that "athleticism" became part of your recruiting criteria."

Umm Cameron Bennerman, Gavin Grant, Brandon Costner, Courtney Fells, see where Im going. He IS slowly recruiting faster and more athletic players. God some of you all have no brains at all.

12/1/2005 8:43:51 AM

you people are idiots

this game was not representative of nc state basketball. our offense does NOT average ~40 points a game. we didn't even run our offense for the majority of this game. we ran down the court and jacked up a 3 or turned the ball over IMMEDIATELY almost every possession of the first half. we were taking bad shots. that isn't our offense. also, our offense does rely SOME on shooting the 3, however it is just as much about finding a backdoor cutter or somebody down low.

cedric didn't get open down low too often, so it was tough to feed him the ball. our cuts worked sporadically, but i don't think we made enough of them. if i fault herb for anything this game, it would be for not getting the team to actually settle down and run the offense every time down the court (except fastbreak). we were averaging 78 points a game coming into this one, and we had been running our offense pretty decently. yes, this is tougher competition, but that isn't why we scored less.

if you think what you saw tonight was representative of our offense, you don't know shit and should stop posting immediately.

12/1/2005 8:45:59 AM

^Yes. Someone gets it. We actually ran our offense about 10% of the time, and when we did we got the ball to Ced at the free throw line and got some back door cuts and lay ups by Cam and Atsur.

12/1/2005 8:47:54 AM

Ding! Good posts.

12/1/2005 8:53:58 AM

Alright. What would you consider "representative of our offense"


What I saw:

- Turnovers... lack of a point guard. How many times did Atsur come down the court, throw a lazy, stupid pass that was intercepted for a fast break score. How many times did Gavin Grant play ridiculously out of control and turn the ball over? We got a 10 second violation becuase we sit there and pass the ball back and forth instead of actually having someone who can dribble through pressure... Evtimov is the best passer we have. He's our freakin center.

- Cant break the zone. Still... to this day... we have not figured out how to break the zone. We still attempted to shoot them out of it, and we still failed. If Alford was smart, he'd have stayed in the 2-3 or 1-2-1 all night long. We would have scored about 20 points.

- Cedric didn't get open too often, but regardless...we've got to find a way to score inside more. Last night we actually tried a little... when we play someone with a true center I guarantee you we'll shoot 60% 3-pointers.

- Again, cold streaks. It's always plagued us... it did again last night. They switch defenses and we look like deer in the headlights for 5 minutes.

- Offensive rebounding. I didn't check the numbers last night... i know Brack had a few, but with our size advantage, we should have racked them up. Our players take shots and all start running down the court. No one goes to the basket for a rebound, no one blocks out except maybe Ced. We just shoot and pray.... we dont even try to rebound


"This offense is designed for slow untalented white boys to compete with more athletic teams. We actually do have talent. We need to play a style that gives us more second chance opportunities. Not a system that limits your opportunities and requires perfection to run and win against a good team."

Against teams like Harvard it might work. In the ACC, with ridiculous defense and athletes, it's too streaky and you're bound to have off nights no matter how good you are. Welcome to NC State basketball.

I'm satisfied with our defense... more than satisfied. Our offense always has been way too streaky

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 9:02 AM. Reason : adfa]

12/1/2005 8:59:02 AM

Astur is usually money with the ball. One of best AS/To ratios in the league. Played like shit last night, but he'll be fine.

The whole team looked out of sorts from the jump. Must have been too much corn or something for dinner.

12/1/2005 9:02:49 AM

Quote :

"Astur is usually money with the ball"

Are you kidding me?


I cringe every time he attempts to dribble

I don't know about the assist to turnover ratio of him. Regardless, that's becuase all we do is pass around behind the arc until someone takes a 3. That isn't very indicating of how many times he's picked up his dribble at halfcourt from pressure. He throws the ball away with lazy and telegraphed passes... and he gets the ball stolen against quicker guards.

We need a point guard. You hearin' me Chris Wright?

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 9:07 AM. Reason : sdfsd]

12/1/2005 9:03:17 AM

"You play to win the game"

12/1/2005 9:13:24 AM

when i said representative of our offense, i meant that it WASN'T our offense. our offense is several plays where we work the ball around the perimeter and look for a backdoor cutter or an open guy with a good shot. while doing so, try to get the ball inside to cedric so he can slam it or clank it off the rim 20 feet up in the air.

we did not do this.

Quote :

"- Cant break the zone. Still... to this day... we have not figured out how to break the zone. We still attempted to shoot them out of it, and we still failed. If Alford was smart, he'd have stayed in the 2-3 or 1-2-1 all night long. We would have scored about 20 points. "

actually, i would have loved if they stayed in a 1-2-1 all night, since we'd have 5 guys to their 4. ok, kidding aside, our double backdoor cuts and open outside shots still worked against the zone.

Quote :

"- Cedric didn't get open too often, but regardless...we've got to find a way to score inside more. Last night we actually tried a little... when we play someone with a true center I guarantee you we'll shoot 60% 3-pointers. "

i don't really understand this. first, when our inside guy doesn't get open, we have to find a way to score inside regardless? if our cuts aren't working and he can't get open, how else to you score on the inside? and what are you talking about with the 60% 3-pointers? are you saying that's what our 3pt percentage will be? or that 60% of our attempted shots will be 3-pointers?

each part of our offense should work to open up the other parts. what i mean by that is, if they have cedric on lockdown with some zone defense focused down low in the paint, you take good outside shots by finding the open man along the perimeter. i don't care how cold we are, someone should be able to make an open 3 enough times for them to make an adjustment on D.

if they come out and guard us on the perimeter, feed it to cedric in the paint and make backdoor cuts with our guards (or both). cedric is really good at dishing it to other players in the paint.

i mean, it's just like in football. you can run or you can pass. if they stack against the run, take it to the air and tear em apart passing the ball. if they drop everyone into coverage, run it down their throat. it's all about adjusting to the defense and picking which method will work the best.

we just flat out didn't run this offense much last night. we were too busy turning the ball over or taking ill-advised shots.

Quote :

"I cringe every time he attempts to dribble"

atsur is actually quite smooth with the ball. i really like the way he drives an maneuvers to get a layup. he generally makes good passes and handles the ball well, but last night he definitely sucked.

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 9:15 AM. Reason : ]

12/1/2005 9:14:03 AM

Quote :

"this game was not representative of nc state basketball. our offense does NOT average ~40 points a game. we didn't even run our offense for the majority of this game. we ran down the court and jacked up a 3 or turned the ball over IMMEDIATELY almost every possession of the first half. we were taking bad shots."

Have you watched an ncstate game over the last 10 years? That is exactly how our offense runs. Now, obviously it is not supposed to be that way... but our team has been playing that type of game for years now.


I am not on the fire Herb bandwagon. In fact, far from it... I want him to stay around. What I do want to get rid of though is this friggin offense that looks like ass. It was great when we couldn't recruit anybody and we didn't have the athletes to compete with most of the acc teams. Now that our recruiting is there consistently and we have the athletes, we should USE them.

12/1/2005 9:16:07 AM

this is only the FIFTH season with the princeton-style offense, and it's goal has NEVER been to jack up a quick 3 or turn the ball over immediately. and if you can just link me to the page that shows the season we averaged 40 points a game under herb i will gladly stop posting.

again, last night we really didn't run the fucking offense.

12/1/2005 9:18:58 AM

I think we'll end up running more because Ced and Brack are starting to rebound more. Ced was a fucking maching last night. A swat or rebound opens up the fast break most of the time.

12/1/2005 9:19:42 AM

^^ Obviously, when we are running our offense to perfection... it is a beautiful thing to watch. Unfortunately, in every game for the last 5 seasons we have typically fairly long droughts were our SOP is to jack threes with noone underneath and to make careless passes. Some games our "drought" is pretty much the whole game ala St. John's last year or Iowa this year, or [insert numerous ugly losses]. Sometimes we can survive the drought and win anyways, other times we lose bad because of it. Then other times we get it close at the end and take a terrible shot by ourselves or Herb draws up a terrible shot for us to take.

At the very least, I hope you can agree that even if we don't completely scrap the offense (which, IMO is the reason for these droughts) we have to get the bad patches down to a minimum.

12/1/2005 9:31:39 AM

Quote :

"or Herb draws up a terrible shot for us to take."

Im sure this is exactly how it works. Herb told Cam last year against Miami to wait till 1 second left and hit the side of the backboard. Im done arguing on here for now I can't take much more of you idiots.

12/1/2005 9:34:08 AM

^^you aren't getting it

it's not that we ran our offense poorly last night. as in, we ran it and it just wasn't working. we didn't actually get into our offense much. there's a difference between finding an open guy behind the arc and taking the 3 vs just jacking up a 3 with 28 seconds left on the shot clock. i'm not saying we didn't run the offense to perfection, i'm saying we didn't run the offense. if you criticize or style, then you're criticizing the wrong thing because this wasn't it.

12/1/2005 9:37:49 AM

ok, i realize that for most of the game we didnt run it. My point is that this happens every game when we stop using our offense.

12/1/2005 9:39:38 AM

well even then there's a difference between "most of the game" and "at some point in the game"

i'd say we actually ran our offense maybe 15% of the time last night. i think 20% would be a very conservative guess at it. on a normal night, you'd want that to be the amount you DIDN'T run the offense.

we lost last night because we DIDN'T run our offense.

12/1/2005 9:43:00 AM

^^ agree, I know its the style of offense that we run, but you cant expect to win alot of games when a player takes the 3-pointer and there are 4 people on offense outside of the 3 point line. ANd usually the guy who is inside the paint is our smallest guy

12/1/2005 9:44:39 AM

We don't do a good job of making quick adjustments. I saw the same thing in the ND game...when they switch defensive sets, we look lost for awhile. When ND switched into zone, it took us a long time before Ced starting setting himself up at the free throw line. Same thing last night, we stick with one set even as they adjust defensively.

12/1/2005 9:45:31 AM

the only time the guy in the paint is our smallest guy is when he's making a backdoor cut.

i swear, most of you don't know a damn thing about our offense. the fact that you don't know anything about our offense is not a good reason to stop running it.

12/1/2005 9:46:12 AM

Quote :

"i don't really understand this. first, when our inside guy doesn't get open, we have to find a way to score inside regardless? if our cuts aren't working and he can't get open, how else to you score on the inside? and what are you talking about with the 60% 3-pointers? are you saying that's what our 3pt percentage will be? or that 60% of our attempted shots will be 3-pointers?"

No, I'm saying that 60% of our shots will come from oustide the arc.


As far as "how else do you score on the inside". It's not so much that we can't get open... it's that we dont' try to go inside. Good teams will pass inside and collapse down into the lane when the ball goes inside...either for a backdoor pass or rebound.

We pass inside, and 4 of our guys are still standing outside the 3 point line looking for a kickout. We don't really seem to look to score IMO... we're just looking to kick out for a 3. That's fine for a player or two... but when the ball goes inside, at least 2 of our players should go to the rim. Chances are they'll double down on Simmons and open up a baseline pass to Brackman or Evtimov. We did it a little bit, but most of the time we never even tried to go to the rim. We simply stood around at the 3 point line after giving it to Simmons and one of two things happened:

1) Simmons shot it without anyone there to rebound
2) Our players stood around like "Hey, pass it to me and let me shoot".

I don't have a problem with kicking back out for a 3 if the shots there every now and then... but you're not going to beat many teams living by kickout 3 pointers. You have to control the glass. We had the size. Pass into Simmons, 2 guards move to get open for 3, the PF and SF go baseline straight to the boards. If Simmons shoots...rebound. I'm convinced Simmons can take anyone one-on-one. If they double Simmons, look to pass to the baseline to a cutting Brackman or Grant for the easy bucket.

All we do is look to kick it back out. Either that or Simmons throws up an ugly double-teamed shot while the other 4 guys just stand at the 3 point line and watch. One and done for another trip down the court




[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 10:00 AM. Reason : sfdgfds]

12/1/2005 9:55:20 AM

Quote :

"You, me, and maybe 3 others. Everyone else is having a fucking aneurysm"

add me to the list
we just played sloppy last night and Iowa was really the first good team we faced

Gavin played way too out of control (too much like hodge), i think herb should have benched him for a while.

Ced was a beast though

12/1/2005 9:58:27 AM

We did have a lot of sloppy play last night, but a lot of that's understandable. When you're facing good defense, it's very difficult to find your rhythm and let the offense flow. Iowa faced the exact same problem.

Both teams got on runs for a few possessions, but then got slugged out of them rapidly. I don't think this game was nearly as bad as a lot of people are calling it. I saw a lot of great play on both sides.

And I think, if this was played in Raleigh, we win.

12/1/2005 10:00:38 AM

Quote :

"And I think, if this was played in Raleigh, we win. "

That's not going out on a limb.


We always play tough in Raleigh...and always play terrible on the road... no matter who we play

12/1/2005 10:02:07 AM

Iowa did one hell of a job switching from zone to man
and that 1-2-2 was killing us

12/1/2005 10:02:19 AM

^^^or if it was played on a neutral floor, say in the NCAA tourney, we win

yes, it was ugly at times as many people are saying, but there is some good to take from this game such as simmons and the defense; and we can and will improve on what we saw offensively last night

[Edited on December 1, 2005 at 10:03 AM. Reason : ^^]

12/1/2005 10:02:50 AM

I just rewatched the game this morning and here are my complaints.
- I think I can count on my hands the number of times we actually tried to charge to the basket and rebound a 3. Everytime we took a 3 last night, our entire team ran down the court to set up the defense.
- And once again a wasted last possession. In the last 2 years we done this against vanderbilt, miami, virginia tech, and now Iowa. I'm just tired of it.

12/1/2005 1:07:43 PM

^Just last year we won on last possesion plays at Georgia Tech and against UConn. There might be more. That's the problem, everyone only notices it when we lose but not when we win.

12/1/2005 1:12:10 PM

we didn't lose by a lot the last i remember
if you hate watchin, don't.

12/1/2005 1:18:31 PM

Quote :

"Now i will admit i am a Herb Hater but i have been one since he got here."

i quit reading after this

man, sports talk sucks today

12/1/2005 1:23:59 PM

I like our style of play because it allows us to play with anyone no matter how good they are. I mean we did beat UConn last year in the tourney with it, played UNC and Duke close. So the style works we just didnt' shoot well last night and you are goin to have nights like that.

12/1/2005 1:57:22 PM

i like that now that we have a decent inside option, we're using it. cedric has come along way in 1 offseason. its added another option to our offense, and if we coulda hit at least 25% of our 3's (still bad, but better than our 1% or whatever it was we shot last night), we woulda won that game, and i think its due to the changes herb's made to the offense.

12/1/2005 2:03:55 PM

IT REMINDS ME OF A BAD VERSION OF HOOSIERS

12/1/2005 2:12:38 PM

I agree. Sometimes you're just going to suck at shooting. Hopefully it won't be the whole damn team next time.

12/1/2005 2:13:04 PM