b/c that's exactly what he was doing here.

1/20/2009 11:58:58 PM

I'm pretty sure it was 19 which is close to our average. If we didn't have that deer-in-headlights look early on then maybe it would have only been 14 or 15.

Herb is definitely doing things differently at ASU

[Edited on January 20, 2009 at 11:59 PM. Reason : ]

1/20/2009 11:59:24 PM

Quote :

"Uhhh yeah. Still though, good thing we got rid of Herb, with his top 15 Sun Devils and James Harden and beating UCLA at home. Man, I'm so glad he's gone."

Take it to the credibility thread or quit trolling, we've been over shit like this a thousand times already

1/21/2009 12:01:21 AM

^UCLA is overrated and the Pac-10 is not as good as the ACC. When he was here he had to worry about some solid Wake Forest teams, Marylands second best team all time, some of Duke's greatest teams ever, and UNC. That's 8 games out of 16 every year. The Pac-10 has Stanford, California, Arizona who is going down hill, an overrated UCLA team, and a lot of other crappy programs that have a good year once in a while.

1/21/2009 12:03:44 AM

Quote :

"and a lot of other crappy programs that have a good year once in a while."

So Washington, Washington State, Oregon, and USC are crappy programs?

Then what are we?

1/21/2009 12:10:45 AM

Quote :

"Take it to the credibility thread or quit trolling, we've been over shit like this a thousand times already"

Don't even know what trolling means there hot stuff, just saw the thread and posted so calm down there guy, its just sports talk. Besides I've been making the pro-Herb argument since 04 so you better checkity check yourself before you wreckity wreck yourself.

1/21/2009 12:12:57 AM

^Yeah me too. Sadly dumbfucks ran him off but nothing can be done about it now is the point.

Quote :

"an overrated UCLA team"

Lol just like the overrated Duke team we lost to? BTW UCLA has made 3 straight final fours.

1/21/2009 12:15:00 AM

^^then its time to quit it

it doesn't make any fucking sense

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 12:15 AM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 12:15:03 AM

Quote :

"checkity check yourself before you wreckity wreck yourself."

holy shit i didn't know this was a 4th grade message board

i better watch my language

1/21/2009 12:15:19 AM

^^shhhhhhhhhh.

^yeah I was listening to some old incubus the other day and that was in one of their songs, been stuck in my head ever since so I had to find the right time to pull it out and TAA DAA!

1/21/2009 12:18:43 AM

you've got to be the only person i've ever heard argue that herb is better than sidney

1/21/2009 12:23:54 AM

You should seriously get out more. I'm in the midwest and I still hear it often.

1/21/2009 12:26:22 AM

1/21/2009 12:32:12 AM

1/21/2009 12:35:27 AM

Seriously though step out of Raleigh for a day and have an actual coversation about sports with an intelligent person that is unbiased, it would seriously do you and a lot of others on here some good.












































Seriously.

1/21/2009 12:43:59 AM

i'm really not arguing with you... you're beating a dead horse

1/21/2009 12:45:38 AM

And you are getting off topic.

1/21/2009 12:47:53 AM

Here's my take:

That was a damn good effort. Not a so-so effort, not a "good for 30 minutes or so" effort, nothing like that. Simply put, it was a damn good effort. Period.

And if you didn't think that when the game was over, then you and I were watching different games.

Lowe was calling out plays, positions, and defenses all night. He was constantly switching things up when they needed to be. He kept subbing players in and out to keep up with Duke's incredible pace. He did, as someone else put it, "coach is ass off."

Sidney came into this game prepared, and his team was prepared too. Tonight we saw the intensity finally pick up. Finally the team looked like it came ready to play, and at times it looked like we were firing on all cylinders. Yes the Pack had 3 turnovers and several missed shots to start the game, but let's be real - this is Duke @ Cameron Indoor. A rough start is understandable, and if it isn't then you don't know shit about ACC basketball, let alone Big Four basketball.

The key was how State responded in the early going. The Duke D was fucking brutal. State didn't have but a handful of uncontested shots, and it wasn't from a lack of effort on the Pack's part either. Still, they fought back. They scrapped, dove for loose balls, wrestled away rebounds, and stayed right with a DAMNED good Duke team for, yes, most of the game.

2 things standout as reasons for the late game collapse. First is fatigue. A lot of you here are calling that a piss poor excuse. So be it. But this was not only a Duke team firing on all cylinders. This was a team custom built by a Hall of Fame coach who wrote the book on the pressure man-to-man defense. And for most of the game, State was not only running with them, State was contesting their shots. Anyone chalking up the close score up until the end to a "bad shooting night" is kidding themselves.

Again, no one (especially not me) should accept fatigue as an excuse, but for pete sake... Let's at least tip our hats to Duke for keeping up their incredible pace AND shooting the lights out down the stretch.

The second and most overlooked reason for the collapse? Mental fatigue. Bear with me, it makes sense.

Lowe spent the entire game giving orders from the bench. And he had to do that. The Duke D was suffocating. Penetrating it took precision. Passes had to be on the money, or it was a TO. You guys saw the game - the Pack had no room for error. None. So what did they do? They ran a lot of set plays. They changed defenses. They managed at times to out-hustle DUKE. Mock me all you like, but that's a noteworthy feat.

But in the end, they got tired. They got tense down the stretch, knowing the game was in reach. And the offense just broke down under the pressure. Degand tried to take it himself. Damn near everyone tried to force bad passes through traffic. Our big men let themselves get swarmed and either committed a TO or forced a bad/tough shot that missed, got blocked, or both.

This where the Pack sorely needed what it doesn't consistently have: a go-to-guy. Someone who steps up and creates his own shot. Someone who can take it himself, or hit the three with a hand in his face, or simply bully his way to the basket. I've seen flashes of this kind of leadership from Costner and Fells, and McCauley is for the most part a reliable post presence who always gives 100%. But those guys didn't delives like Henderson did tonight.

Bottom line: State right now is, for better or worse, a team of role players. True we have talented players, some very talented. But this year State doesn't have a Gerald Henderson, a Hansbrough, a Tyrese Rice, or an Anthony Grundy of J-Hodge to compliment the great hustle and intensity shown tonight. And until State has players step up and assune these roles, they're going to have to give a near perfect both mentally AND physically to beat a great team like Duke, especially in their own house.
All great teams have great leaders, but right now the Pack's leader is on the bench. If tonight's effort is any indication, I'd say Lowe is living up to his promise from earlier this year. He's taken on the leadership role that has been noticeably vacant for some time. People can say State has talent until they're blue in the face, but State does not have Duke-type talent. Not right now. So to keep State competitive this year Lowe basically has to run the team as efficiently as possible from the sidelines. He doesn't have the horses needed for hin to sit back and say "Have at it."

Yes, that Lowe doesn't have great talent is ultimately his responsibility. But performances like tonight give me hope - that if Lowe can be competitive w/o great talent, he can be a force when he DOES have it. This is what we saw, and hoped was the case, after Lowe's 1st year. That sentiment was lost in his 2nd. Tonight gave me reason to believe it again.

I don't know what to expect ther rest of the way, but I DO know that I want to see more of what saw tonight in the Pack's play on the court. B/c that's what it will take for Lowe to get off the hotseat. That's what it will take to calm State's ravenous fanbase. That's ultimately what Lowe has to do to survive, and God-willing thrive in the ACC and beyond.


I think what I'm supposed to say is "Thank you, I'm out..."


...




Bitches

1/21/2009 12:51:20 AM

Forget a Grundy or Hodge, we don't even have a Marcus Melvin or Justin Gainey.

1/21/2009 12:54:36 AM

Erios is my new favorite ST poster

1/21/2009 12:57:57 AM

Quote :

"Gerald Henderson"

We have a player with a similar skill set and almost same exact size and attributes....he just chooses to not be the caliber player he could be.

1/21/2009 12:57:58 AM

this is both very sad and very true

1/21/2009 12:58:58 AM

erios wins. good post.

i usually get bent out of shape after losses and find no moral victories in them. however, tonight i was unusually calm after the loss. and i think it's because sid restored a little of my faith in him. good game plan, good D, good hustle from the players. i was most amazed at how we responded to the duke runs every time except for the last 7 minutes, when the number 2 team in the country really played like the number 2 team in the country. we just didn't have the talent/leadership.

1/21/2009 1:14:01 AM

Quote :

"Lol just like the overrated Duke team we lost to? BTW UCLA has made 3 straight final fours."

What happened last year doesn't matter. They have not played like a top 10 team the few times I have seen them play.

Quote :

"So Washington, Washington State, Oregon, and USC are crappy programs? Then what are we?"

They actually are like us. Every now and then they have a good season. Right now ASU and UCLA are the only 2 Pac-10 teams ranked. The ACC on the other hand has 3 ranked in the top 5 of the AP Poll.

1/21/2009 2:21:45 AM

GREAT POST ERIOS

Quote :

"But performances like tonight give me hope - that if Lowe can be competitive w/o great talent, he can be a force when he DOES have it. This is what we saw, and hoped was the case, after Lowe's 1st year. That sentiment was lost in his 2nd. Tonight gave me reason to believe it again."

this was exactly how i felt after the game.... sid had a great coaching game imho... with the guys we have coming in, i would expect us to be able to win games like this in 2 years


also, it was probably discussed, but i was extremely happy with Johnny Thomas tonight.... he plays really solid d, and had a number of big rebounds... i think he can develop into a really good player... has a ton of athleticism...

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 8:30 AM. Reason : ]

1/21/2009 8:28:14 AM

If coaching your ass off means losing by 17 after a team proceeded to shoot 29% in the first half, then we really have hit bottom of the barrel expectations.

Quote :

"but i was extremely happy with Johnny Thomas tonight.... he plays really solid d"

He was Henderson's bitch the entire night.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 8:46 AM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 8:46:19 AM

^you must have just read the box score this morning instead of actually watching the game.

We were up by 5-6 at about 15min in the second half and Gerald Henderson started going off and pulled them even. Johnny Thomas came in and more or less shut down offensively one of the best players in the country for the next 5 minutes while he was in.

Erios nailed it. That wasn't a 17 pt. game and I am proud of what we brought to the table against a great defensive team who DID NOT MISS down the stretch.

We play like that for the rest of the season and we finish between 5 and 8 in the ACC. I'm not getting my hopes up, because this team has never had any consistency but that was a great effort.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 9:20 AM. Reason : d]

1/21/2009 9:19:07 AM

Please tell me someone else questions Sid's omission to sub out the PG when Duke started to pull ahead toward the end. Why the hell did Degand get to play down the stretch when both Javi and Mays did a better job than him. It was one thing already to start him in the first plays when Mays came off a productive last game. Perhaps Sid wanted to start some one who he THOUGHT would preform better because of experience and composure in an atmosphere Degand is bit more familiar with. But the guy started horribly and never really got the offense rolling. There is no excuse for keeping Degand in there the last 5 or 6 minutes when we had two that preformed better during the game. Our offense was stagnant and the other two, particularly Javi's defense and Mays' drives/pull-ups, were obviously more efficient. I was at Cameron and was apalled by Sid's lack of initiative to make the change.

1/21/2009 9:19:57 AM

I'm a little worried that we were playing up to our competition and won't see effort like that again until the UNC game though

If we can play that way throughout the rest of the season, things are looking a little brighter

1/21/2009 9:22:04 AM

I gotta say our freshman looked nice again by the way. Rest assure CJ Williams will get more open looks and knock down some big shots as the season progresses.

1/21/2009 9:22:46 AM

^^^Javi's defense was horrible dude. He left Nolan Smith wide open (as in, not within 10 feet of the guy) for two consecutive threes that basically ended the game at about the 5 mniute mark.

Not sure why Mays didn't play down the stretch, but Degand played ok and had some nice drives to the basket. The only way you are gonna beat Duke's D is to drive the basket and dish to the open man when they collapse to help. Degand was doing that.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 9:26 AM. Reason : d]

1/21/2009 9:23:26 AM

Quote :

"He was Henderson's bitch the entire night."

Fells was much more Henderson's bitch than Thomas.

1/21/2009 9:38:10 AM

For the record I think it was a HUGE turning point when Degand drove to the basket and no foul was called (obvious there was body contest-Degand fell to the ground). It would have been Singler's 5th, but the referee noticed that and it was a "good no call"......what else to expect from Duke in Cameron.

And in no way am I blaming the refs for the loss, but I do think that was a big no call that had implications

1/21/2009 9:43:33 AM

This is the first State game i'v been able to watch all season and we weren't as bad as I expected. It may have helped that I knew going in we were going to lose this game: either by just comletely sucking or the typical Duke shit would happen at the end (which is what happened). What impressed me though is that we seemed to have an answer for most of the game. Typically, we would have folded a lot earlier on. Instead, we just marched back down to the other side and scored. Unfortunately we couldn't hold on, but it was much better contested than I expected.

The one thing I would have really liked to see was us go after Singler when he committed his 4th foul.

1/21/2009 9:57:32 AM

We did go after him for a few possessions after he got the 4th, but they kept switching off him and McClure so that we were never able to get any one on one with Singler which is where he is going to commit the foul.

1/21/2009 10:00:22 AM

Krzyzewski praises Pack
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/krzyzewski-praises-pack-and-other-notes

1/21/2009 10:20:23 AM

you know damn right they weren't going to call a 5th on Singler at Cameron. He could have punched Sidney Lowe in the face and they wouldn't have called anything.

1/21/2009 10:21:13 AM

Man, look, I'm not going to bitch too much about a 17 point loss @Duke. We did about as good as you could reasonably expect. However, let's be real for a second.

The only reason we were ever in this game, at any point, was because Duke shot like shit in the first half. Had they hit those wide open 3s and mid range jumpers they were getting during the turnover fest that was the first 10 minutes, the game would have been a laugher before half time.

But hey, if you guys are happy with that, who am I to rain on your parade. I just love how to same people who bitch about getting pissed at Lowe after 1 loss (or 1 season, or 2 and a half seasons of the same shit) all of a sudden already to crown him after 1 OT win against a shitty team and a 17 point loss to Duke.

1/21/2009 10:21:33 AM

Quote :

"^you must have just read the box score this morning instead of actually watching the game. We were up by 5-6 at about 15min in the second half and Gerald Henderson started going off and pulled them even. Johnny Thomas came in and more or less shut down offensively one of the best players in the country for the next 5 minutes while he was in."

You're confusing "shutting someone down" with "someone not scoring because his team is hitting open 3 pointers".

Maybe you should've watched the game.

1/21/2009 10:23:59 AM

nice bit from ken tysiac:

Quote :

"·Starting point guard Farnold Degand committed six turnovers – three in the first two minutes and five in the final 5:07."

6 or 8 Ken?

1/21/2009 10:24:56 AM

^^^You could also say that if they hadn't shot 76 fucking percent in the second half, we very well could have won the game. If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass when they jumped.

We kept it close because until the last few minutes we got quality offensive possessions and played tough D all against the #2 team in the nation in their arena.

I wasn't ready to praise anyone after the GT game. Frankly, I am much more pleased by our effort and game plan against Duke in a 17 pt. loss at Cameron than I was after squeaking out a OT win at home against the worst team in the ACC.

^^Either way, he didn't score while Johnny Thomas was on him. That hardly constitutes Henderson making Thomas his bitch. If Henderson made anyone his bitch, it was Fells.

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 10:29 AM. Reason : d]

1/21/2009 10:27:28 AM

Quote :

"You could also say that if they hadn't shot 76 fucking percent in the second half, we very well could have won the game."

We made exactly 2 field goals over the last 8 minutes, and 0 during the last 5. So no, you absolutely couldn't say that.

1/21/2009 10:33:46 AM

It was pretty clear to me that as long as we held it close, that we were able to counter their possessions with good offensive possessions of our own.

Then, they made a half dozen ridiculous shots in a row and we were down 7. Boom, game over. Our inexperience at guard shows, we start pressing and throwing up bad shots and they stomp on our throats like a good team should.

Either way, we are both talking about "ifs" so neither of us will be able to prove it.

1/21/2009 10:39:07 AM

^^ you do understand what momentum is right??? Duke had all of it bc they couldnt miss.... we answered every run they made until the 10 minute mark.... then tehy hit 3 consecutive 3 pointers... so we tried to start forcing stuff bc we knew they had the momentum and we had to score every possession.... got too uptight, and didnt score at all...

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 10:42 AM. Reason : ]

1/21/2009 10:41:54 AM

i'd say we need to work on scoring during the final 5-6-7-8 minutes of games.

you can't go dry during that time and expect to have much of a chance in conference play.

/anagnorisis

[Edited on January 21, 2009 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

1/21/2009 10:42:03 AM

i agree with all of what erios posted; effort was there tonight and we hung with Duke for a while. Their depth wore us down (wierd to say depth about duke team but they brought in paulus, thomas, mcclure and even pocius for some solid minutes).

However, my complaint would be, not with this game, in general: where is this effort every time out??? If you watched our D in the first half last night and then look at all the other games, where was it?? We have played atrocious defense IMO for most of the year but tonight, esp. in the first half, our D was very good. We dictated to Duke what to do instead of vice versa. I want to see that kind of defensive effort every time on defense and not just a couple of games a year.

Also, I think most can see why our offense is, if we keep with this system, never going to be a good college offense. We are running a pro offense where we look for mismatches and go one-on-one with those mismatches. It works great at times, but we are usually the less talented team on the floor. This means that more times than not our guys are going to have to score one-on-one against guys that are better than them. This is why, IMO, we go into such long lulls like the last eight min. last night. I would like to see much more ball movement throughout possessions to create some easier baskets than always feeling like every shot we take is contested.

1/21/2009 10:45:09 AM

Quote :

"Then, they made a half dozen ridiculous shots in a row "

Just because we can't make three pointers doesn't make them "ridiculous shots"

1/21/2009 10:50:30 AM

I'm glad you finally conceded that Johnny Thomas wasn't anyone's bitch last night.

As for the threes, aside from the wide open ones that Nolan Smith took, the Singler three from NBA range with horner's hand in his face was something I would classify as ridiculous. As was Paulus' walk up and pop three that was also contested. Henderson also had a handful of jump shots and drives that were great.

Sure, great players make those types of shots, but not 100% of the time. There was a stretch of the game where they just about did not miss. That broke us.

Anyways, I'm done with this thread. It's clear some of you would just prefer to watch the game with pessimistic eyes.

1/21/2009 10:57:01 AM

No, he still got schooled earlier in the game by Henderson. There's no shame in it, Henderson's very good. Lets just not act like Thomas is a great defensive player because Henderson didn't have to score on him at times.

I don't see how you can call people pessimists after watching State again play well then squander a lead and lose by double digits. It'd be one thing if we'd sucked all season, were never close, and then had this game. Then you could go "yeah, well, we played tough and if we can get this type of effort every night, we'll win". The problem is, it's the same shit over and over and over again.

1/21/2009 11:02:33 AM

I still don't see where Henderson schooled anybody really--he got hot towards the end but he was non factor in the first half and first half of the second.

1/21/2009 11:18:37 AM