What defines progress?

I'm no basketball expert but I think it's pretty clear we've improved as a team from last year. We're a ways from being a tournament team or conference title contender but that doesn't mean there isn't progress.

Win one game against a shitty Maryland team and everybody's talking about NCAA Tournament bids. Lose the next game against a shitty GT team and we're back to Lowe levels of suck.

1/12/2012 8:06:17 AM

Alex Johnson is just as fast as Brown

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 8:07 AM. Reason : ^ Rest assured that that loss was as crappy as anything Lowe did. Really bad loss]

1/12/2012 8:06:42 AM

No

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 8:10 AM. Reason : http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/120110aab.html]

And so what if it's a bad loss? If the losing continues and we win 4 games in the ACC maybe I'll agree with you that Gottfried is just as terrible as Lowe. The reactionary bullshit after every loss and every win gets really old.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 8:15 AM. Reason : .]

1/12/2012 8:09:01 AM

Difference being that Wisconsin was actually good and we were on the road. That translates to the same thing as being blown out by a shitty GT team at home.

1/12/2012 8:15:29 AM

Quote :

"Alex Johnson is just as fast as Brown"

Yes but he is also about 3ft tall in his shoes which is why anyone over 6' tends to score over him with ease.

11 pts now equals blowout? Nice to know. This was simply a case of an immature team coming out and fucking around instead of being serious and getting punished by desperate team. Team was to cocky and they paid for it.


[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 8:22 AM. Reason : asdf]

1/12/2012 8:18:03 AM

Yes, we've improved offensively and that will always catch the eyes of a fanbase but the thing is we've regressed as much defensively and we weren't very good to start with. We may have a slight net improvement but the bottom line is results aren't much different.

And I don't think that is a referendum on Gottfried. Just what I am seeing..

1/12/2012 8:35:57 AM

Quote :

"Rest assured that that loss was as crappy as anything Lowe did. Really bad loss"

It was a bad loss...but this is a stretch. Gtech is not a very good team, but they're decent. They did take Duke down to the wire.

That being said...this coaching staff loses some credibility on the defensive end. If our defense doesn't start to improve just a little bit, then we're going to be on the freaking NIT bubble.

1/12/2012 8:49:36 AM

Absolutely ridiculous how drastic the swing of emotions are on this board. Get one win over a mediocre Maryland team and we're looking at a NC in the next two years. Follow it up with loss to GT and we're no better than we were with Lowe here.

What ever happened to keeping it on an even keel?

1/12/2012 9:02:46 AM

extremism is cool!

1/12/2012 9:20:26 AM

lets get real.

Coaching the talent we have to their potential was never going be complete in year one under Gott (or anyone else).

There's gonna be ups and downs and inconsistency.

Those of you ready to give up on Gottfried already are fucking stupid.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 9:37 AM. Reason : .]

1/12/2012 9:30:13 AM

It's mainly just skokiaan and face.

GT hit everything, we didn't. Simple as that. You can put the lack of timeouts on Gott though.

1/12/2012 9:32:23 AM

^^

1/12/2012 9:33:19 AM

We lost, so NOT CREDIBLE!

1/12/2012 9:46:43 AM

Quote :

"That being said...this coaching staff loses some credibility on the defensive end. If our defense doesn't start to improve just a little bit, then we're going to be on the freaking NIT bubble."

Clearly you don't know defense when you see it. We played some good D last night, GaTech just couldn't miss.

We do need to work on our 3pt D, as that has been a weakness, but the D last night was pretty intense for them. That's not to say there wasn't some break downs here and there, but it was improved.

1/12/2012 9:47:18 AM

1/12/2012 9:50:59 AM

most of these guys have been playing shitty D their entire time under Lowe, and probably didn't learn to play great D in high school/AAU. Did anyone really expect Gottfried to come in and flip some magic switch?

1/12/2012 9:52:06 AM

obviously, yes, some people did

1/12/2012 9:58:51 AM

Quote :

"Absolutely ridiculous how drastic the swing of emotions are on this board"

BOAST BOAST BOAST

BLAME BLAME BLAME

1/12/2012 10:08:54 AM

Quote :

"Clearly you don't know defense when you see it. We played some good D last night, GaTech just couldn't miss. We do need to work on our 3pt D, as that has been a weakness, but the D last night was pretty intense for them. That's not to say there wasn't some break downs here and there, but it was improved."

Yeah yeah yeah...I saw us play have some good possessions on defense and I saw them hit some tough shots (the banked three and dead ball rim three were ridiculous)...but the bottom line is that Tech came in averaging less than 65 points a game and they hung 82 on us. 65 points against a shitty schedule and they hung their second highest point total of the year on us.

You dissect that any way you want...but our defense sucks right now.

1/12/2012 10:17:03 AM

Quote :

"We've not regressed but we've not made progress either. Same old "wait for recruiting class X" as always."

you're a pretty shitty fan if

1 - you can't tell we've made progress from last year
or
2 - you're playing the "wait till next year" card



get your shit together people.

1/12/2012 10:42:09 AM

read somewhere that gottfried was quoted as saying that we dont play pressure perimeter defense in order to conserve energy since we're so thin

its in some war zone video on go pack or something the other. I haven't seen it but thats the summary I read about it.

1/12/2012 10:54:43 AM

Then I'm a shitty fan, that's fine. I'm not criticizing the team or Gott at all, just being realistic and not having inflated expectations. Last years team had no bad losses at this point same as this. It takes time for a new coach to implement his changes, which is fine, but I simply don't see grandiose improvement that some do. I'm not sure why saying that is the least bit offensive. It's not even a criticism.

1/12/2012 10:57:56 AM

Quote :

""

this is the most accurate post i have ever seen in the history of sports talk

1/12/2012 11:00:24 AM

my fav was when we lost to cincinnati in football and about 90% of tww said we wouldn't win more than 4 or 5 games total.

lol

Quote :

"but I simply don't see grandiose improvement that some do"

then you obviously havent watched a single fucking game for the last 2 years. last year we scored around 20 points less a game. this year we score at will. yesterday was teh first game where that wasn't true.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ,]

1/12/2012 11:01:46 AM

Quote :

"Last years team had no bad losses at this point same as this."

Do what

1/12/2012 11:01:47 AM

Wasn't the best grammar because I'm doing other things but Georgetown, Wiscy, Cuse and Arizona? No bad ones I see unless you count the way we lost in Madison.

Quote :

"then you obviously havent watched a single fucking game for the last 2 years. last year we scored around 20 points less a game. this year we score at will. yesterday was teh first game where that wasn't true. "

Thanks Mr. Offense is the only thing that matters. Again I don't feel I'm being critical by saying I'm not seeing but a small net improvement. You guys just want to lump everyone with an opinion in with the morons screaming and yelling after every win or loss.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM. Reason : X]

1/12/2012 11:04:39 AM

I know what you're trying to say

Regardless of the fact that we were underdogs in those games, the Wisconsin loss was as bad as they come. We lost by 40 fucking points.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 11:08 AM. Reason : Wisconsin game was several orders of magnitude more demoralizing than last night]

1/12/2012 11:06:23 AM

Fair enough, that was abysmal. We actually were respectable in the other three losses. I want to say we lost Tracy during the GTown game and were up at one point in the second half but my memory may be fuzzy.

1/12/2012 11:09:44 AM

I don't see that any of our losses this year (save last night's) have been terrible. We have lost a few games we could have won, but last night's was really the only game we, by all means, should have won.

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 11:14 AM. Reason : ]

1/12/2012 11:10:58 AM

LOL at people thinking that Gottfried was going to improve the defense. Did y'all never see his Alabama teams?

1/12/2012 11:27:49 AM

[quote]I don't see that any of our losses this year (save last night's) have been terrible. We have lost a few games we could have won, but last night's was really the only game we, by all means, should have won./quote]

Exactly. This was the only "we should have won" loss we've had. Our other losses were "could haves".

And we have won games this year that we would have lost last year, ie Texas.

1/12/2012 11:30:56 AM

I kinda question the 7-man rotation. At least give Harris and TDT 5 minutes for the starters to get a break. TDT did look awful last night, but in the long run I think they both will help.

1/12/2012 11:35:01 AM

It's basically the opposite of Lowe, who never grasped the "less is more" concept of rotation. He'd play 10-11 guys a game and no one could get into a rhythm. A guy like Wood would get hot, sit the bench for 5 minutes, then come back in missing everything. Julius Mays would play 30 minutes one game and 30 seconds the next. It was almost hilarious.

I actually prefer the pared down rotation, but I think we need to get TDT a few more minutes a game. You can see his potential, and he's a smart player, he's just not comfortable out there yet. Harris ... he's just not ready.

1/12/2012 11:45:58 AM

I don't think TDT or Harris should go into games where we are down, but have a chance of coming back. I don't think TDT has hit a basket this season, and he's had plenty of opportunity. He took a horrible 3 last night on a play that shouldn't have gone to the 3, especially not from him. Until they can gain some composure, we can't risk having them in more.

However, if we've got a buffer, then I do think they need some more playing time, to give our starters a rest, and to gain some of that composure, which they won't get from sitting on a bench.

1/12/2012 11:46:00 AM

Quote :

"the Wisconsin loss was as bad as they come. We lost by 40 fucking points."

yeah, that one and the '04 or 05 loss to st. johns where we only scored like 10 in the first half are the games that stand out as the worst losses i've ever witnessed.

1/12/2012 11:46:42 AM

where did this come from? is it an Ernie masterpiece?

1/12/2012 11:48:58 AM

Quote :

"Mark Gottfried cut to the chase in his post-game comments about N.C. State's 82-71 loss to Georgia Tech on Wednesday. The first-year coach called it one of the team's "poorer" performances of the season. He gave a rather amusing philosophical answer in trying to explain what went wrong against a struggling Tech team that entered the game with a 7-8 record. "Sometimes, we'd all like to come up with this grand answer of why your team doesn't play good," Gottfried said. "Sometimes you just don't play good. Hell, I go golf, (expletive), sometimes I'm terrible, sometimes I'm a little better. It's part of life. "Tonight, we didn't play very well, we have to play better, that's on us, not anybody else." Gottfried got called for a technical foul at 12:12 in the second half, with State down 49-40. Foul trouble also hurt forward C.J. Leslie, who was limited to 24 minutes and ended up fouling out with 12 seconds left in the game. State's players did not react well after Gottfried's technical, from official Roger Ayers, failing to get closer than 11 points the rest of the game, but Gottfried wasn't interested in blaming the loss on anyone other than his team. "Let me say this clearly, the officials, they did not cost us the game, not at all," Gottfried said. "Everybody can have an opinion but my take on all that is my team has to play better. I'm not into excuses, I'm not into that at all." Gottfried did add he never received an explanation for the technical. He threw his jacket after a no-call on a Lorenzo Brown layup-attempt right before the technical. After a stop in play after the call, he walked out near midcourt and motioned to Ayers, who was under Georgia Tech's basket, but Ayers never came over to the State sideline. "I can take my jacket off any time I'd like to," Gottfried said. That's my prerogative. I never got an explanation. I asked repeatedly and never got one, never had any communication after that from them, and that's a little bit frustrating on my side.""

1/12/2012 11:52:24 AM

Dec. 20, 2006 - Alabama at NC State

http://www.gopack.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/122106aaa.html

I think this tells us quite a bit about how Gott's team defense is. Yeah, we lost the game, but I remember we were down 20+ points in the second half and cut the lead to 6.

1/12/2012 11:56:19 AM

Quote :

"LOL at people thinking that Gottfried was going to improve the defense. Did y'all never see his Alabama teams?"

Pretty much this. My officemate is a rabid UNCC fan, and his first response to hearing Gottfriend and the assistant coaches was "well, don't expect any defense"

1/12/2012 11:56:59 AM

it's still worth noting that if Jamie Luckie dies in a one car wreck, I'd smile.

1/12/2012 11:59:28 AM

Ha, I grew up with his kid

1/12/2012 12:01:49 PM

You should call his kid up and say "hey it's been awhile we should catch up at lunch" meet him for lunch walk up and kick him in the nuts and walkout say "tell your dad i said hi"

[Edited on January 12, 2012 at 12:10 PM. Reason : h]

1/12/2012 12:10:02 PM

How do you plays basketball??

1/12/2012 12:11:58 PM

Quote :

"This was simply a case of an immature team coming out and fucking around instead of being serious and getting punished by desperate team. Team was to cocky and they paid for it."

This

1/12/2012 12:25:46 PM

-1 for the untimely technical foul.

1/12/2012 12:32:58 PM

how can you take away cred points when he doesn't even know what he did to get it?

1/12/2012 12:36:31 PM

Quote :

"where did this come from? is it an Ernie masterpiece? "

It is!

1/12/2012 12:37:47 PM

Everyone I know named Jamie has a vagina.

1/12/2012 12:47:19 PM

Gott has forgotten more about college basketball than Sid or you guys on these internet boards will ever know. Hes taking the right steps and moving the program in the right direction without a doubt. This was the second ACC game for the coach (first ACC loss), chill out. Bottom line is GT had a hot hand tonight and simply couldn't miss at times with or without a hand in their face. We, on the other hand, had a poor shooting night, our best player in foul trouble, and some bad breaks. Its all about developing consistency and right now, we dont have it. But hey, at least the team is showing determination and hustle this year. For the past 5 years, we were inconsistent and really didnt seem to care.

1/12/2012 12:50:04 PM

those of you who think its as simple as "they scored a lot of points therefore our defense sucks" are oversimplifying the numbers to fit your narrative.

The truth of the mateer is that we played pretty good defense. We made them hold the ball for 30+ seconds on a lor of possessions. The only repetitive breakdowns i saw were from players jumping at 41's oump fake and leaving him wide open on the wing a couple of times trying to collapse in on a driving player. The rest of it was just GT being uncannily accurate. There were a ton of catch and release threes and hard shots they just had going in last night. Its part of the ups and downs of basketball.

The problem was our inability to score, especially from right under the basket. If Gott needs to work on anythibg its protecting the ball against tight defenses. Also, we shot horribly from behind the arc, and thats why we couldnt keep up.

1/12/2012 12:50:13 PM