Howell's gonna be better than Horner. He already is, in some aspects.

Do you think Sid knew that Costner would forgo his final year?

1/28/2010 5:00:10 PM

that's why you gotta have back-up plans

out of our 15-man roster, only 6 of them are upperclassmen...and out of those 6, only 4 receive ANY playing time...and out of those 4, only two are forwards

15 guys -- only two upperclassman forwards

out of his first 2.5 recruiting classes (i'll let 2006 kinda slide since he got on the job May 5th) he only personally brought in ONE FORWARD who is currently on the roster

too many wasted recruiting classes and not enough planning for the future

1/28/2010 5:12:54 PM

Meh, 2008 was Sid's only weak recruiting year. 2007, 2009, and 2010 are all top25 soild. 2006 isn't on him.



Couldn't you make the exact same argument about every position? Out of 15 players, only 2 serviceable upperclassmen guards? Out of 15 players, only 1 serviceable upperclassmen center....

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 5:27 PM. Reason : ]

1/28/2010 5:25:49 PM

Quote :

"so is any argument that we can get any coach who will have us back in the tourney in a year or two. We're getting better year over year under lowe. It's slower than anyone would like, but the progress is there. just be fucking patient and we'll get there."

Year after year? His best year was his first....I'm tired of waiting for "next year"

1/28/2010 5:31:31 PM

sorry, i should have clarified. i was considering Tracy a forward (since he's listed as an inch shorter than Dennis. but obviously height isn't everything)

but if you want to label him as a center, that makes one upperclassman center and one upperclassman forward

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 5:34 PM. Reason : m]

1/28/2010 5:32:38 PM

what does upperclassmen have to do with anything?

in basketball a freshmen can make a huge impact...so why does it matter what status they are?

1/28/2010 5:34:26 PM

because sometimes I feel that the only reason Dennis gets significant playing time is because he's a senior

if he were an underclassman, with his current skill set, he would not average any more than 10 min a game

1/28/2010 5:36:24 PM

so your dear ASU and sendek have no upperclass forward and one upper class center who transferred to ASU

1/28/2010 5:38:50 PM

Quote :

"Meh, 2008 was Sid's only weak recruiting year. 2007, 2009, and 2010 are all top25 soild. 2006 isn't on him."

Not to nitpick, but last years class was NOT top 25 without Brown.

You are talking about ZERO top 50 guys and only TWO top 100 guys. Two four-stars typically aren't going to get you in the Top 25. You can make the argument that we were about on par with Oregon State, who was #25 on Scout but it's a stretch... actually, you know what... Oregon State's class is much better on paper.

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 5:42 PM. Reason : x]

1/28/2010 5:39:04 PM

^yeah, i realize the recruiting sites dropped our 09 class out of the top25 after brown didn't qualify, but I'd take a class of Howell, Wood, Painter, Vandenburg and Davis over several of the "Top25" classes. Florida, for example.

1/28/2010 6:17:38 PM

^^^ well, except for their leading scorer, Rihards Kuksiks

1/28/2010 6:38:56 PM

If Vandenberg had played in the US I bet he would've been a 4* based on the fact that he's legitimately over 7 feet tall and can move relatively well. That doesn't make him good, but yea. Wood was also probably under ranked (though not as much as some fans are making him out to be). Conversely, Painter seems like a guy who was decent as a 9th grader, got ranked really high as a result and never got any better but he could only fall so far. I still think that's probably a top 25 class, but borderline for sure. It's wasn't even top 10 with Brown. It's concerning that the class all our hopes and prayers fall upon is in danger of essentially having one new guy, for sure.

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 6:49 PM. Reason : ]

1/28/2010 6:48:19 PM

I dare you to find 100 freshman playing better than Wood

1/28/2010 8:55:25 PM

Wood walked into a fortunate situation where he was able to take a relatively safe starter's role on a team with little resistance from day 1. In some other programs he would've been benched for the season after starting the year out cold regardless of his surprising talents at things other than shooting.

He was still a great recruit for us and will likely be the best player from this class, with maybe Howell challenging him, but some people seem to think he's going to be a 20+ point scorer his JR year that plays lockdown defense, which just isn't going to happen.

I mean, Wake has a guy in CJ Harris that is scoring 12ppg shooting over 40% from 3 and he wasn't in the top 100 either

1/28/2010 9:13:52 PM

^^ define "playing better"

points wise? points per minute wise? +/- on the court wise?

impact on the team would be tough to quantify, so I'll let you investigate that one

1/28/2010 10:47:50 PM

His offensive rating is 16th best in the ACC, the only freshman ahead of him is CJ Harris

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 10:53 PM. Reason : #1 on the team, too]

1/28/2010 10:52:14 PM

i'm not hip to the terminology

what does offensive rating measure?

1/28/2010 10:55:42 PM

Points scored per 100 possessions

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/stats_explained

State: http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=North%20Carolina%20St.

ACC: http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=ORtg&y=2010&f=ACC

He doesn't have enough possessions for this to really mean much, though

[Edited on January 28, 2010 at 11:00 PM. Reason : His possession % is actually the lowest on the team besides Vandenberg]

1/28/2010 10:56:27 PM

I think mays can maybe have a career similar to cliff crawford's (fingers crossed). Crawford kinda sucked his first 2 years, was solid his jr, and pretty damn good his senior. cj will likely play very minimally the next 2 years.

also,

Quote :

"Herb is a defensive guru"

That's quite a stretch. I wasn't ever that impressed with our d when he was here. I haven't seen ASU this year, so maybe they are the best defensive team in the nation (riiight). We led the nation for a little while under Herb in defensive ppg when we had Gainey - but slow tempo /= good defense, as we still lost by 20 ppg.

but yeah the 2008 class is pretty horrible

1/28/2010 11:29:21 PM

his d is hold the ball for 30 seconds each possession to lower the other teams scoring total.

1/28/2010 11:53:34 PM

troll trying to troll the troll

1/28/2010 11:58:46 PM

more like troll trolling the troll trolling the troll

1/28/2010 11:59:39 PM

Quote :

"His possession % is actually the lowest on the team besides Vandenberg"

yea, he was scared to shoot for a while when he wasnt hitting anything early in the year. and lately he's clammed up any time he isnt wide ass open. the only games he's really forced his shot were fsu when he was blazing hot and unc when he went 1-9

i think horner did well on kenpom his freshman year by hitting some wide open 3s on low possessions - not that i'm comparing the two

1/29/2010 2:02:09 AM

Quote :

"that's why you gotta have back-up plans out of our 15-man roster, only 6 of them are upperclassmen...and out of those 6, only 4 receive ANY playing time...and out of those 4, only two are forwards 15 guys -- only two upperclassman forwards out of his first 2.5 recruiting classes (i'll let 2006 kinda slide since he got on the job May 5th) he only personally brought in ONE FORWARD who is currently on the roster too many wasted recruiting classes and not enough planning for the future "

You keep referring to upperclassmen. As you already stated, Sid didn't get hired until May, so there was very little chance he was going to be able to get anyone worthwhile out of the 2006 class. From the class Herb had coming in, all but Horner bugged out, so that lackluster recruiting class lays at the feet of either Herb or Lee Fowler. No way it's on Lowe.

So, focusing on the upperclassmen part of your argument, not even specifically forwards, Lowe only had 1 year to recruit players who would now be upperclassmen. In that class he got Degand(G), Gonzalez (G), Smith (PF/C), Thomas (SF), and Hickson (PF/C).

For the sake of the argument, let's only count 1 of Smith and Hickson as a forward, since they both have played a lot of their minutes at center while here at State. So, of the 1 class that's old enough to be upperclassmen and that Sid had a chance to recruit, we got 2 forwards. 3 if you count both Smith and Hickson. How many forwards was he supposed to get in that one class?...And I bet you were one of the folks last year lamenting his inability to get a decent point guard.

Anyways, back to your argument. Of the forwards I mentioned above, Thomas blew out his knee, Hickson went pro, and Smith is having an all-ACC caliber year this year. So please tell me how you're blaming the dearth of "upperclassmen forwards" on Lowe. Unless you're suggesting that he somehow should have known Johnny Thomas was going to blow out his knee?...Or maybe you would prefer he not go after top-flight recruits like Hickson because they're so good they may leave in a year?...And "upperclassmen forwards" wouldn't be much of an issue right now if Herb's boy, Costner, hadn't decided to be a bitch and leave before his eligibility was up.

You maybe could argue that Lowe should have tried to get an upperclassmen forward via transfer, but even then, transfers don't always pan out, and there's no guarantee that they would be better than the forwards we have available to us now.

1/29/2010 9:15:08 AM

i appreciate your post

that's what my threads are -- a safe harbor for quality posts

1/29/2010 9:24:18 AM

Quote :

"Or maybe you would prefer he not go after top-flight recruits like Hickson because they're so good they may leave in a year?"

Everyone including Lowe knew JJ would only play college ball for one year so there's not much excuse there.

1/29/2010 4:04:54 PM

^ While that was correctly assumed that that was to be the case, it wasn't a foregone conclusion. I'm sure everyone including Roy knew the same thing about John Henson, but it hasn't turned out that way.

You could argue that Roy planned for losing Henson by recruiting the Wear twins to step in and fill the void in the event Henson is a one-and-done, but Lowe's situation wasn't quite the same. It would have been hard to convince another quality forward in that class to come to NC State knowing that in their first year they would be competing for playing time against Grant, McCauley, Costner, Horner, Hickson, Smith, and Thomas. It probably wouldn't have been easier to sell them on pt as a sophomore either, as in their second year they would likely still be competing for pt with McCauley, Costner, Horner, Smith, Thomas, and any incoming freshmen (this would be assuming Hickson did turn out to be a one and done).

Playing time does matter to quality recruits, which I think is something we're seeing played out in the recruitment of CJ Leslie and how that is impacting Cothron.

Note: I'm focusing specifically on the '07 class because, as stated above, that's the only one of Lowe's classes that would be upperclassmen at this point.

Lowe could only recruit so many quality forwards in that one class...

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 4:31 PM. Reason : forgot about Gavin Grant]

1/29/2010 4:25:01 PM

Hickson was 1 and done from the moment his recruitment started. He would not have gone to college if the 1 year rule wasnt in place

Some people actually thought Henson might stay in college 2 years to work on his anorexia, even before it became apparent that he sucked.

Lowe did fine with the 07 class. He got Hickson for a year and Smith for the three after that. The problem with the forwards is that Horner should be playing in a positionless offense and that CJ Williams sucks. If CJ was any good we could go small with Javi/Degand/Williams/Wood/Smith for 5-10 mins a game

[Edited on January 29, 2010 at 4:37 PM. Reason : ']

1/29/2010 4:37:03 PM