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[Edited on May 19, 2009 at 2:23 PM. Reason : df]

5/19/2009 2:22:38 PM

Lorenzo Brown


Richard Howell


DeShawn Painter


Scott Wood


Josh Davis


Jordan Vandeberg

5/19/2009 2:51:38 PM

Is Howell about to dunk over Cothron?

That fade box of the other dude looks like cothrons 80's hairdo

5/19/2009 2:56:17 PM

that is indeed cothron

5/19/2009 3:00:40 PM

Howell looks like Amare in that pic

Painter looks like Luol Deng

5/19/2009 3:07:28 PM

i think i might skip next season

we are prob gonna be complete garbage, right?



[Edited on May 19, 2009 at 10:07 PM. Reason : sid is making me that fan everyone hates]

5/19/2009 10:05:21 PM

^yeah, you should probably skip it.

5/19/2009 10:07:26 PM

Quote :

"we are prob gonna be complete garbage, right? "

are you being serious?

5/20/2009 10:39:36 AM

i tend to think that middle of the acc is our ceiling next year. and im okay with that as long as we progress beyond that in 2010.

5/20/2009 12:11:01 PM

^ I agree. ~.500 in the acc should be considered a success.

5/20/2009 12:45:31 PM

ESPN now has us as the number 11 recruiting class in their updated rankings

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/classrankings?classyear=2009&classmonth=5

5/20/2009 4:17:01 PM

^yeah I just saw that, here is what they had to say about our class:

Quote :

"This talented group of freshmen brings plenty of skill, size and depth to the Wolfpack next season. Coach Sidney Lowe and his veteran staff have hit the recruiting trail hard and the fruits of their labor are paying off in a big way. Guards Lorenzo Brown (Roswell, Ga./Centennial) and Scott Wood (Marion, Ind.) both have great size, at 6-4 and 6-6, respectively. Brown is an extremely talented combo guard who can shoot with range to 20 feet, slash to the basket and find his teammates. He has all the tools and athleticism to be a great one but needs to be aggressive and assertive on every possession. Wood is an exceptional shooter with range to 25 feet. He moves well without the ball and gets open. He's good at reading screens and comes off them ready to shoot. Richard Howell (Marietta, Ga./Wheeler) is a highly skilled power forward who can create his offense from the high post with a jump shot or off the dribble drive. He also is an excellent passer for a four-man offense. He will add immediate help to the Wolfpack's frontcourt. The welcome addition of ESPNU 100 big man DeShawn Painter (Norfolk, Va./Hargrave Military Academy) is an excellent pickup for NC State; he is an active, athletic frontcourt player who can run the floor for transition baskets, finish around the basket and be a solid low-post defender. Jordan Vandenberg (Melbourne, Australia/Institute of Sport) is a legitimate 7-footer who plays the game like a European big man. He likes to step away from the basket and shoot jump shots out to 15 feet. He is considered a top-10 center and a top-30 prospect overall among Australia's 2009 prospects. He needs to become more assertive and bring a consistent effort when he arrives at NC State next season. Josh Davis (Raleigh, N.C./Athens Drive), a 6-6 SF, brings energy and effort and poses a matchup problem because he can go inside and post up or drive bigger guys to the basket. "

5/20/2009 4:19:55 PM

watching that video of painter, he had a few moves like Hickson.

5/20/2009 5:27:20 PM

Great recruiting class, indeed. But here's where my problem lies. Since sid got her, he has had issues when he has 6, 7, or 8 players that he plays. It has always seemed like we play worse than we are because sid rotates players out to frequently and they can never get their flow down. flow and rhythm are very important in basketball, and with this many players, I think sid will have a problem picking a clear starting 5 and sticking with it and getting them enough playing time to get in a rhythm.

5/20/2009 5:47:09 PM

alright you heard the man. limit the number of good players you sign, sidney lowe.

5/20/2009 5:49:28 PM

Its a legitimate concern. Lowe's substitution patterns have ranged from questionable to down right retarded.

5/20/2009 5:54:28 PM

Well I think sometimes that was b/c he didn't like the effort he saw in some of the players, so he tried to send a message to them by subbing them out for a few minutes. Unfortunately that didn't seem to work on some of them.

5/20/2009 5:57:25 PM

i've often wondered about Sid's substitutions. Not because we have so many great players, but when somebody is the hot hand and then sits on the bench for 9 minutes of gametime. So then I have to question the stamina of the players and how hard Sid pushes them to be conditioned. But whatever, we should be better next year.

5/20/2009 5:57:49 PM

I think Sid's crazy sub patterns is the only legitimate criticism of him, at least IMO. He finally starting curtailing it toward the end of the season, but it was still a mess.

*Ferguson starting one game and playing extended minutes after not having played for a month.

*Sitting Fells seemingly the minute he'd start getting hot (and Fells then losing all his hotness)

*Mays playing almost the entire second half of the ACC tourney after not playing for a month.

*Javi disappearing early in the year only to re-emerge a surprisingly decent PG.

*Horner getting a shit-ton of minutes early in the year when he was obviously playing awful (he picked it up).

*CJ in the starting 5 early in the year, vanishing for a month, and reappearing as a bigtime contributor later on.

*Smith playing around 10 minutes a game early on when he was obviously our best inside scorer. It goes on and on.

A lot of it had to do with the player's inconsistency, sure. But if you're constantly pulling them out the minute they mess up, they're never going to become consistent. I think he starting grasping this later in the year. Hopefully guys like Javi, Tracy, and CJ will be models of consistency next year so we can let the younger guys cut their teeth.


[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 6:44 PM. Reason : ]

5/20/2009 6:42:15 PM

a bit of it had to do with injuries that werent disclosed to the public and keeping guys as healthy as possible.



Sids game and plays are all about mismatches and matchups, I think thats why he does some odd subs sometimes but as far as the vanishing and random minutes from players...a lot of it was injuries we didnt know about.

5/20/2009 6:46:36 PM

Javi shot down the depth chart after he got that elbow injury which sidelined him for awhile, then he had to get back into a groove with the rest of the team, so there was some adjustment there.

5/20/2009 7:32:52 PM

Injuries + people getting tired + off court issues + people going cold explain every sub/starter change he made this year. It's not like he just closed his eyes and spun around to pick his starting 5

5/20/2009 7:36:20 PM

yeah, injuries had a big thing to do with those sub patterns in question.

fells, for one, was playing the majority of the season with a torn ligament, bruised bone and high ankle sprain. i know a lot of us had no idea it was that serious, but the guy toughed it out and took on the assignment of guarding the opposing teams best player night in and night out despite all that.

[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 7:41 PM. Reason : .]

5/20/2009 7:41:24 PM

- Ferguson got minutes b/c of State's piss poor backcourt depth. As usual Fergy proved he wasn't start material and subsequently rode the bench the rest of the way

- May be true, need some example. But FTR Fells was a hot-and-cold sort of guy. I also think he was yanked while on a hot streak at least once simply b/c he was tired and needed to rest up.

- For the last time, for the ACC Tourney game Degand was benched for "disciplinary reasons" and Javi got into foul trouble. Why people are still bringing this up is beyond me.

- Doesn't make sense on the surface, but early in the year Javi was the same turnover machine and bad shooter he was last year. To me, he got benched, worked his ass off, got another chance to play, and never looked back. It's all subjective unless either of us know what went on behind the scenes.

- Horner was also one of our best shooters. Costner and Fells were both streaky, and CJ didn't come on until midway through the season. IMO, Horner got minutes simply b/c he was the best available option.

- CJ getting benched really isn't surprising. CJ getting minutes at all was surprising. The dude was a freshman, and I doubt any of us were expecting him to play significant minutes right away. I think Lowe deserves some credit here, b/c CJ became a damn solid player in short order.

- Smith not starting... well you got me on that one. The only thing I'll say is that it's tough to play Smith in the post over Ben McCauley, who's a senior, two inches taller, and a fan favorite.


Lowe's approach IMO appears to be:
1) When you find a player combo that works, stick with it.
2) When your lineups suck, keep changing them until a player/unit stands out from the crowd.

And honestly, I have no problem with that. The guys know what to expect from Sid. If they suck and/or don't hustle in practices/games, they're getting yanked. If they perform well and give it 100%, they get to play. Simple as that.

It's not easy to do what Sid did, which is to open up competition at every position. I don't think he liked the effort on the court, and quite frankly neither did I. Fells, B-Mac, and Costner all played subpar bball during various points of the year. Taking PT away from them hurt our continuity, that's true. But it also also sent a message - "If you want to play, show me the effort."

I believe we're going to see that philosophy start to pay-off about midway thru next year and next year.

5/20/2009 7:55:39 PM

PG- Javi/Brown/Mays
SG- Brown/CJ Williams/Wood
SF- Thomas/Howell/Wood
PF- Painter/Horner/Howell
C- Smith/Painter

No other player should see the floor next year.

5/20/2009 8:31:01 PM

Quote :

"Injuries + people getting tired + off court issues + people going cold explain every sub/starter change he made this year"

No, no it doesnt.

[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 10:04 PM. Reason : ^ agreed]

5/20/2009 10:04:23 PM

^^i would agree except for games against complete scrubs where we could try out some of our complete project players (eg davis)

5/20/2009 10:06:25 PM

^^^I expect degand to be in that PG rotation.

5/21/2009 12:15:47 AM

Am I the only one that noticed Josh Davis' hops in that photo?





[Edited on May 21, 2009 at 12:53 AM. Reason : s]

5/21/2009 12:53:10 AM

No. Did anyone notice Howell's lack of hops in that photo? He must be about 3 inches off the ground

5/21/2009 1:09:47 AM

^^^i don't. he has to earn it just like everybody else. nobody has guaranteed playing time.

5/21/2009 2:13:10 AM

I still laugh every time I see that Painter pic. He kinda looks like a black Psycho T.

5/21/2009 7:59:24 AM

Quote :

"No, no it doesnt."

Name one that isn't explained by it

5/21/2009 3:01:58 PM

^ being lazy in practice

lazy does not equal tired



[Edited on May 21, 2009 at 3:20 PM. Reason : df]

5/21/2009 3:19:15 PM

In other words something that is easily explained... seems this lowe guy has NO idea how to select who plays...

5/21/2009 4:20:45 PM

Pack finishes strong with spring signings

Quote :

"No, N.C. State didn’t get John Wall. But on the final day of the spring signing period (Thursday), the Wolfpack’s basketball future looks brighter than it did at the end of the 2008-09 season. Coach Sidney Lowe desperately needed to add punch this spring to a front line that was scheduled to have just three players – Dennis Horner, Tracy Smith and Richard Howell – to fill two positions. Lowe delivered, landing 6-foot-9 DeShawn Painter of Hargrave Military Academy, one of the few top-100 players who hadn’t already committed to a school. Seven-foot Australian Jordan Vandenberg and 6-6 Josh Davis of Raleigh’s Athens Drive High also signed in the spring, giving N.C. State a six-player class ranked No. 11 in the nation by ESPN.com. The prize of the class remains Lorenzo Brown of Roswell, Ga., who can play point guard and shooting guard. Scott Wood gives the Wolfpack a pure shooter with some potential, and Howell is an athletic, top-100 big man who can play either forward spot at 6-7. It’s a class that demonstrates that Lowe has some skills as a recruiter after his third full season. He got off to a rough start in that aspect of his job as he made the transition to college coaching from the NBA. Lowe also has a top-50 point guard committed in the Class of 2010 in Ryan Harrow of Marietta, Ga. N.C. State still realistically doesn’t have a good shot at gaining an NCAA Tournament bid next season because Lowe’s first few recruiting classes weren’t stellar. But the 2009-10 team no longer looks painfully thin in the post. And players like Brown, Howell, Painter and Harrow are good enough to form the nucleus of an NCAA Tournament contender in the future. After two straight seasons with no postseason berth, that’s a welcome glimmer of hope for Wolfpack fans even after coveted Raleigh Word of God Academy guard chose to leave his hometown and play for Kentucky."

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/pack-finishes-strong-with-spring-signings

5/21/2009 4:40:41 PM

^Tysiac's got the Wolfpack's back.

5/21/2009 5:29:39 PM

WPH's review of the article:

http://wolfpackhoops.blogspot.com/2009/05/sharing-wealth-wolfpacks-last-minute.html

Call WPH's assessment biased, blindly optimistic, "viewing the world through rose colored glasses" homer talk if you like. I'd certainly understand thinking that way. Given the results on the court it sounds pretty hollow to say State's recruiting has been decent, much less good since Lowe took over. And if yo do think Lowe's recruiting has been good, then that begs the question "What has Lowe been DOING with said talent?"

That being said, I think the optimism over State's recruiting is justified. I also agree that an NCAA Tourney bid is a unlikely, but not unrealistic. There's no need to place limitations on next season before it even begins. Expect the worst, hope for the best.

I'm cautiously optimistic about how the team will come together next year.

5/22/2009 1:40:28 PM

Quote :

"Name one that isn't explained by it"

How about the uncountable times Fells or McCauley or whoever would be hot and then we would nto see them for 5-8 minutes after?

Or the dozens of times he would have horner guarding post players for far too long before he put someone with adequate strength in to guard them (McCauley, Smith).

Injuries and bad attitudes dont explain away the outlandish substitution patterns you would see game to game from lowe. When he actually STOPPED doing that shit we showed a lot of improvement. Hopefully he will remember that going into this year.

5/22/2009 2:18:53 PM

95% of the time Fells came out of the game he was tired/injured. 4% was because he did something really stupid. 1% was because Lowe didn't want him to get tired/injured yet since it's a 40 minute game.

McCauley was rarely hot and when he was he played most of the game. Not once was i actually surprised by a substitution by Lowe

5/22/2009 5:47:42 PM

gfhdtrghfdgfg

[Edited on May 22, 2009 at 9:29 PM. Reason : hfdghfdgh]

5/22/2009 9:29:27 PM

Don't underestimate the fact that Fells, Macauley or Costner wouldn't have been recruited by Lowe to begin with. It'll be interesting to see what he can do with a roster of his own players.

5/22/2009 9:37:56 PM

Quote :

"Not once was i actually surprised by a substitution by Lowe"

Then you clearly didn't watch anywhere near all of our games or know next to nothing about the subject.

5/22/2009 10:47:21 PM

^
+10 Million

5/22/2009 10:53:13 PM

Quote :

"Not once was i actually surprised by a substitution by Lowe"

I wasn't either after I realized he was never going to figure out how to properly use that bench.

I just hope he learns from it, gets some good advice from some other people, and figures it out this year

5/22/2009 10:58:00 PM

Quote :

"Not once was i actually surprised by a substitution by Lowe"

you can't be serious. maybe after we switched to the "big lineup" but definitely not before that

5/22/2009 11:02:19 PM

I wrote a long detailed post on why individually each player saw the minutes he did, including reasons why they each should have seen more and less time (both), but realized 2 things:
1)This is a Basketball Recruiting thread on tdub, not the place for this convo
2)This is tdub, you don't want to see the block of text, no matter how enlightening it may be for you.

So I deleted it and wrote this

Consider the following:
-Players with injuries made public (rumored to be far from all injuries on the team): Degand, Thomas, Javi, Fells, Ferg
-Players with no or low meaningful experience: Degand, Thomas, Javi, Smith, Mays, Williams
-Several players had rumored/confirmed problems outside of the game, whether in practice or completely off the hardwood.
-Sidney Lowe has been playing basketball since before you were born, got paid to play basketball before most of us were born, and was considered to be a great "coach on the floor" by one of the greatest coaches EVER when he was at Dematha. He's highly thought of in the NBA, has been the HC multiple times, and probably would have been given another shot at being a HC in the NBA within the next 5-10 years. There shouldn't be a doubt in your mind that he knows basketball better than you or I do. He also see's things that you don't. Let me ask you this: How often have you seen our basketball players in person? How many practices have you attended? The man knows what he is doing.

Back to recruiting. In a premium article Telep mentions that the most pressing need for the 2010 class is a 6'6 or 6'7 wing player. I agree, I think Parker should be priority #1 for the remaining recruits. He also thinks it's highly likely we're going to see a 3 man class. I agree there too.

5/23/2009 12:25:57 AM

# of minutes played has very little effect on poor substitution patterns. The key is putting those minutes together well. Lowe didnt do that very well until towards the end of the year.

You're not even arguing the same subject. And your argument has zero merit with crap like 'Lowe was alive before you and other good coaches say nice things about him when the cameras/recorders are on'

You may as well say you cant comment on any coaches ability because since they all invariably have more experience than any of us, they all know what they're doing and are doing it well.

So yes back to recruiting talk.

[Edited on May 23, 2009 at 10:00 AM. Reason : *]

5/23/2009 9:57:58 AM

Quote :

"This is tdub, you don't want to see the block of text, no matter how enlightening it may be for you."

5/23/2009 10:08:03 AM

^^I'm arguing that he might just be able to better evaluate who should be playing and when. There was a more detailed post I decided not to post, but there isn't a situation that isn't easily explained. You name it and I can give you a reasonable answer. To back up the thing about NBA thinking highly of him, I could mention that several NBA teams approached him this offseason.

^the post would have easily taken up more than the screen displays at once, no one wants that.

5/23/2009 10:17:39 AM