^^^^ oh I agree. he's not the 9th best player on our team, but he plays the same positions as brown/wood/leslie and even javi will play some 2guard this year so it's going to be tough. I wish we had someone with his skill level backing up howell and tracy

vandy looks the same as last year to me. when he isnt out of position he's good on D and since we actually have a ton of good offensive players this year he might be able to survive a few minutes here and there as long as he never touches the ball on anything but rebounds and blocks

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 9:36 PM. Reason : talking about cjw]

11/9/2010 9:35:02 PM

Not only was he spastic but he was never in position on defense and never got good position for rebounds. I'm not mincing words. He's awful and hasn't gotten any better. He WILL cost us points on both ends of the floor if he plays against a real team like that...

CJ Leslie is the complete package. Touch on his jumper to 18 feet, great handle for a big guy and explosive athleticism. Nothing I've seen from him has changed my mind that he is a one and done.

Harrow/Brown as advertised. CJ Williams was the best sign for me. If he can ball, we are a DEEEP team.

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 9:39 PM. Reason : x]

11/9/2010 9:38:13 PM

All vandy has to do is stand near the basket and rebound. He's got to get that together.

We really need a good defense to have a good season. Haven't had a good one in any of Lowe's years.

11/9/2010 9:39:54 PM

Harrow and Brown look like they don't really have to think about it, they just do it (swoosh). Leslie's ball-handling and shooting surprised me.

I know, I know, this was just Pfeiffer.

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 9:53 PM. Reason : ]

11/9/2010 9:47:13 PM

Quote :

"CJ Leslie is the complete package. Touch on his jumper to 18 feet, great handle for a big guy and explosive athleticism. Nothing I've seen from him has changed my mind that he is a one and done."

To be fair he is not very focused on defense and does NOT block out well. He is a pretty complete player offensively though. Overall I think Brown might be the most complete of the freshmen.

11/9/2010 9:52:18 PM

Just got back. Leslie looked pretty good, but both Harrow and Brown looked much better. I guess that's a good thing.

11/9/2010 9:55:14 PM

Quote :

"reverse dunk off alley was sick"

11/9/2010 9:59:29 PM

Quote :

"Smith - 17 pts, 5 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks, 1 turnover Harrow - 17 pts, 1 rebound, 8 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover Brown - 17 pts, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 4 turnovers Leslie - 17 pts, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 turnovers"

from pp

17

11/9/2010 10:03:14 PM

Quote :

"We really need a good defense to have a good season. Haven't had a good one in any of Lowe's years."

Our defense was pretty solid last season

11/9/2010 10:05:06 PM

Starting 5:

Javi
Harrow
Wood
Leslie
Smith

your welcome Coach Lowe

11/9/2010 10:06:04 PM

Why would Harrow play the 2? That's retarded

11/9/2010 10:07:45 PM

Quote :

"YOUR WELCOME COACH LOWE"

11/9/2010 10:08:31 PM

^^ He wouldnt, I meant to have him at 1

^ I do that shit on purpose. If you want to compare brain juice, let me know

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 10:10 PM. Reason : 9]

11/9/2010 10:08:52 PM

Why would Javi play 2 over Brown?

11/9/2010 10:09:42 PM

^^
Brown's our best player.

11/9/2010 10:09:47 PM

I mean, I really only watched 10 min.

How did Brown do?

11/9/2010 10:12:46 PM

I don't think Harrow should be starting any time soon with that kind of defensive performance. I sure do hope he learns quick though.

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 10:15 PM. Reason : he]

11/9/2010 10:14:29 PM

I will not post about Scott Wood in this thread

11/9/2010 10:14:56 PM

You'd think being a Sendekophile would make you love goofy white boys that can hit the 3, but I guess not

11/9/2010 10:16:20 PM

not gonna do it

11/9/2010 10:18:34 PM

I just don't get why you love Kuksiks, who is arguably a worse defender but you HATE Scott Wood.

11/9/2010 10:23:14 PM

Rik takes it to the basket and fights for rebounds and actually spends time inside the 3-point line

11/9/2010 10:25:59 PM

I think Wood's going to be a legend.

He's already #2 in most 3s by a Wolfpack freshman, and was an all-acc-tournament 2nd-teamer.

where the hell did ncstatetke come from?

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 10:39 PM. Reason : {]

11/9/2010 10:31:45 PM

Quote :

"To be fair he is not very focused on defense and does NOT block out well. He is a pretty complete player offensively though."

(about CJL)

yeah i was questioning his effort level in general and his resulting lack of effectiveness on defense, but I guess that's to be expected for the type of player he is. hopefully lowe can teach him up.

zo was friggin amazing, all over the place. excited to see him play this season.

tracy was tracy. all kinds of strength with a great finish.

howell seems to be the same as last year. an absolute rebounding beast, and absolutely sketchy in most other place, especially trying to score.

vandy was a liability. sure he blocked a shot and got a few boards, but he looked lost otherwise, again especially offensively. hell i'm pretty sure he scored two points for the other team towards the end. the fouls were pretty ugly too...he was out there straight mugging people.

cj williams played great, on both sides of the court. i'm gonna feel bad calling him sleepy head if he keeps playing like this.

not sure what to make of painter yet...need to see some more minutes. i'm hoping all that work with hodge will pay off.

11/9/2010 10:34:46 PM

Re: Painter.

I think the fact that he was on the floor at the end gives you an idea of where he is on the depth chart. He certainly has natural athletic ability but he looks like he is going to be one of those guys that only gets significant play this year if we have some ineffective play or injuries.

He'll continue to improve and refine as his career here goes on.

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 10:38 PM. Reason : btw is there a tennessee bball thread this year? Just curious...]

11/9/2010 10:37:16 PM

Just checked out Kenpom and our highest predicted scoring total in a game this season is 72 points against Fairleigh-Dickinson and Alabama A&M...

Might just have to update those numbers, Ken! Unfortunately you'll probably have to bump up the other teams' scores too.

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

11/9/2010 10:44:50 PM

if you have anything to whine about this game you got issues. Besides them throwing UP THREES and getting lucky we DOMINATED.

11/9/2010 10:46:10 PM

Quote :

"Besides them throwing UP THREES and getting lucky we DOMINATED"

if we didn't dominate a team like that we'd be having some serious problems imo


everybody who saw that game should be excited about our potential this year. doesn't mean we didn't see some liabilities out there

pointing out where we need more work != whining

[Edited on November 9, 2010 at 10:59 PM. Reason : ]

11/9/2010 10:54:30 PM

Quote :

"if you have anything to whine about this game you got issues. Besides them throwing UP THREES and getting lucky we DOMINATED."

We will all be complaining about the defense the rest of the year while suffering many losses if it doesn't improve. Otherwise, there is no reason to be pessimistic.

11/9/2010 11:08:02 PM

^ yeah that and getting beat on boards for almost the entire game by a team with only 1 player over 6'5" are both pretty scary. i'm sure we'll see huge improvement in both areas though

11/9/2010 11:12:16 PM

Anyone else a little disappointed with Howell on offense? Seemed like he missed 3-4 really easy buckets that should have been gimmes.

11/9/2010 11:16:07 PM

howell was a poor finisher close to the rim last year too. I'm not really sure why but he just needs to go up stronger

11/9/2010 11:23:43 PM

Team looked good.

Vandy looked horrible and whenever he was in the game our scoring suffered. Seriously, why the hell is he being paid to go to school again?

11/9/2010 11:25:29 PM

You know, I just occasionally play basketball for fun, but I feel like if I had Vandenberg's body, I could be blocking 10 shots a game, and putting up 10 points just from just offensive rebounds alone. So many of his fundamentals are just off that he is a net loss on both ends of the court.

I mean, does he not watch tape of himself? Do the coaches not? It astounds me that he hasn't improved. I want him to be good. I really do. He is the only true Center that we have on the team, and the only one that we'll have in the foreseeable future (at 6'9'', neither Painter nor Uchebo are true Centers, imo). In the Pro-Am in Durham this past summer, he actually looked somewhat improved. He was getting those garbage baskets, and was doing a pretty solid job at finishing on the offensive end. On defense, his feet didn't look so firmly planted. Perhaps it was just because he was playing people that he literally towered over, but his footwork on D was horrendous. All the guy had to do was pivot around him, and he had a clean shot at the basket.

Other than that, this game just reaffirmed my previous assertion that Zo is going to have the biggest impact on the team. Though having CJL crashing the boards so frequently on offense made me wet my pants in excitement. That kid wants the ball in the basket on every single possession no matter what.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 12:09 AM. Reason : clarification]

11/10/2010 12:08:35 AM

thoughts from the game: lorenzo brown is really fucking good, and plays fucking hard.

11/10/2010 12:33:22 AM

regarding the D, we've played the best defense ive seen in a long time the last 8-10 games of last year. i think

1). they just didn't play up to the competition
2). its the first game, real game
3). they are going to get coached, the coaches have to see how they screw up and in which groups they screw up in so they know how they are responding etc.
4). maybe there's miscommunication (no way!?!?) at this early point in the year which will get ironed out as well.

11/10/2010 12:44:27 AM

11/10/2010 7:10:26 AM

Harrow just looks baked 97.3% of the time.

11/10/2010 7:34:23 AM

harrow has got some sick ball handling abilities. i love it.

11/10/2010 8:14:12 AM

Lorenzo goes hard in the motha fuckin paint

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 8:53 AM. Reason : hh]

11/10/2010 8:51:58 AM

in vandy's defense, he missed about 6 weeks of pick-up/conditioning in the summer/fall with an ankle injury.

11/10/2010 9:52:06 AM

are there any highlight vids?

11/10/2010 10:30:03 AM

Quote :

"getting beat on boards for almost the entire game by a team with only 1 player over 6'5" are both pretty scary."

I think a large part of the poor rebounding was due to the long misses. If we can just work on our defense, I think the rebounding will take care of itself.

11/10/2010 10:30:05 AM

^I disagree. Even with the longer misses (which many weren't, but there were some), boxing out a guy 5 inches shorter than you should lend you to getting rebounds more often than not. Not only did we not box out well, we didn't hold on to rebounds well which ended up with us getting our hands on it just to have the ball knocked away to a Pfeiffer player. Rebounding NEEDS to improve.

- I have no idea what you guys talking about our defense being horrible over the last few years are talking about. We've improved tremendously with Lowe's defense.

- Harrow is siiiiiiiiick. I can see him starting over Javi in no time. His ability to create was astounding, compared to Javi continuing to just throw the ball around the perimeter.

-Our offense against the zone continues to struggle. We had too many possessions against the zone where Javi took a last second prayer shot to avoid the clock violation turnover (two or three, I think) or the team just passed around the perimeter until someone had to try to make something out of it (usually a low percentage shot). On a couple of possessions we had some guys cut into the guts of the zone, get a pass, cause a collapse, and either move to the basket, pass for a sweet finish underneath, or kick out to Wood (etc.) to put up an open three. There were flashes of brilliance against the zone, something I want to see more of.


- I can believe no one mentioned it yet! No five minute scoring drought. We produced that whole game. I was proud of the guys.

- Leslie has like a mental uplink with Harrow. I think every shot Harrow missed (and it wasn't that many), Leslie managed to catch at the rim and put back. It was nasty, and I loved it.

-upbeat tempo was awesome. Sometimes the passing was flashy and led to sweet finishes, sometimes people weren't expecting the passes/keeping up with the tempo and caused some less than attractive stuff down low. It happens, I'm not worried about it.

-Javi didn't hit deliver a haymaker on that guy who threw the elbow into his jaw. I was worried, Javi looked like it was all he could do to control himself.

-Vandenburg was HORRIBLE. Maybe whoever mentioned it up there has a point with the size difference causing him problems, but geez if he doesn't improve a lot over the next couple weeks, he needs to sit the hell down.

Overall, great game. I look forward to seeing them against Tennessee Tech on Friday

11/10/2010 10:46:09 AM

^^^PI said that HoopsMixTape would have one out today available on the PI site.

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 10:46 AM. Reason : ]

11/10/2010 10:46:15 AM

^^ we had a bit of a scoring drought at the end of the first half.

11/10/2010 10:48:31 AM

Quote :

"- I have no idea what you guys talking about our defense being horrible over the last few years are talking about. We've improved tremendously with Lowe's defense."

Our defense hasn't been great efficiency wise. Don't mistake low scoring games for good defense..

11/10/2010 10:51:05 AM

Quote :

"We've improved tremendously with Lowe's defense. "

Ha ha what team are you watching?

11/10/2010 11:31:10 AM

In regards to Vandy I was under the impression the guy was a major project anyway and if we got any minutes out of him before his Junior year, or maybe even senior year it was a win.

It isn't like in the past where we've been forced to put players on the court that maybe shouldn't be there simply because of injuries or depth issues. If he can get some minutes here and there, gain experience, and just simply be a body for a few minutes a game, give some fouls, maybe flop around and throw some accidental elbows then it is all gravy. It isn't like we need him to be a force this year, it would be great if he was better and I think he'll keep getting better as the year goes on, but we are going to be fine even if he doesn't offer much.

We had the scholarship room it isn't like he is taking up a seat from someone so it was worth taking a shot. I would think the coaches right now would say he is ahead of where they expected he would be although still behind in general. So I guess anything he offers this year to me is a bonus, hopefully he is more developed and helpful in the next 2 years, and if he doesn't amount to anything oh well it was worth a chance.

11/10/2010 11:32:33 AM

Here's a highlight reel from last night's NC State vs. Pfeiffer game, courtesy PackInsider.com

http://packinsider.com/2010/11/video-nc-state-vs-pfeiffer-highlight-reel/

[Edited on November 10, 2010 at 11:37 AM. Reason : .]

11/10/2010 11:37:20 AM