The loss stings, but I'm not as bitter about it as I thought I would be. I never expected us to beat Kansas, let alone Georgetown.

On the bright side, at least the refs didn't steal this one from us.

What pisses me off the most is that UNC has been playing horrendously and, yet again, they are sitting pretty in the Elite Eight. Makes me fucking sick

3/24/2012 2:10:09 PM

I thought they played pretty well against Creighton. But they've literally had no competition to get where they are, all in all. But I'm tired of jocking that team; who cares...

3/24/2012 2:13:01 PM

Quote :

"Its always easy to get 120% out of another coaches players when it is your first season because the players know if the season isn't good, all the blame will be placed on them. It happens all the time."

You can't be serious. Did you happen to watch Maryland football this year?

3/24/2012 2:25:47 PM

Harris came in and did his job, grabbing important rebounds and keeping us out of foul trouble until the half without dramatically lowering the standard of play.

On top of that, he shows his teammates he can come in and be effective in a pressure situation, something they won't forget when the time comes for him to get more minutes next season.

3/24/2012 2:31:35 PM

He LOOKED nervous as shit...but he didn't play terribly

gg

3/24/2012 2:32:13 PM

^^until the half? you must have forgotten about the 5+ minutes he played late in the 2nd half. THAT was the stretch that killed us.

3/24/2012 2:34:00 PM

Coach, too bad you didn't win us a national championship in your first year to quiet all the critics.

3/24/2012 2:37:02 PM

Harris was fine. He wasn't great, but he wasn't terrible, and he looked better than he's looked all season. He took minutes that were necessary for the course of the game. I would rather he played 5 minutes in the middle of each half, than have to play the last 10 minutes of the game.

3/24/2012 2:37:37 PM

Harris played 7 minutes total. Had 3 rebounds.

3/24/2012 2:56:09 PM

7 minutes 0-3 FG, 2 fouls, 3 rebounds.

That's bad.

We lost the game by a freaking basket. We couldn't afford the risk and it burned us.

3/24/2012 3:01:19 PM

Wow you would make a great coach. You know the exact outcome of making one decision over another. You'd be unbeatable. Why aren't you on a bench with a clipboard anywhere yet?!

3/24/2012 3:08:29 PM

What's the point when he knows the outcome?

I mean, really.

3/24/2012 3:10:27 PM

You guys act like it's so impressive that I know all of this stuff.

It's really basic strategy to play your better players.

3/24/2012 3:10:47 PM

^Gold

3/24/2012 3:11:40 PM

lol

3/24/2012 3:12:54 PM

ok "face",,, how old are you? I gotta know. What do you look like. This will help everyone

3/24/2012 3:14:47 PM

Don't criticize rallydurham, he knows everything about hoops.

He's about to win 3000 bucks when wisconsin wins the championship

3/24/2012 3:17:12 PM

Quote :

"That's the problem. Don't get me wrong we have a good shot selection against normal teams. I like the way we force the ball inside against most teams. However, Kansas isn't most teams. Those baskets we are used to scoring inside aren't going to be good looks against Kansas. We absolutely must take perimeter shots. We've got a guy who can stroke it (Wood), a guy who can shoot (CJW), and two guys who can sometimes make it if they squeeze their buttcheeks real tight (Zobes and AJON). We need those guys to make their shots. If we try to force it down low to CJL/Howell all game we are going to be in trouble. This is the same mistake Gottfried made the first time we played UNC. He tried to "play to our strengths" and ignored our opponents strengths. We're not good enough to impose our will. We ARE balanced enough to take what the defense gives us. Let's see what we do. If CJL and Howell can draw contact and get their guys in foul trouble, GREAT. If they can occasionally score or make their free throws even better. But there is no reason to go out there and force the ball inside and then throw our hands up in the air after it doesn't work and say well we tried our best! Can't believe it didn't work, great season! Don't get me wrong. We're all happy to be here. But that doesn't mean we have to play like it."

I know nothing about hoops, right?

3/24/2012 3:19:37 PM

right

3/24/2012 3:22:35 PM

You wrote a bunch of bullshit everybody already knew. That's like saying UNC will not be as good without Marshall.

3/24/2012 3:24:42 PM

No, that post was insightful. It said if we force the ball inside it won't work. And it didn't. And we did.

3/24/2012 3:26:25 PM

We forced the ball inside to get their bigs in foul trouble! You say we only shoot behind the arc whole game??

The coach and Wood acknowledged that if he had shot a greater % we would have won. We tried what we could and we lost. Deal with it!

3/24/2012 3:31:10 PM

Everyone knew that the chances of winning this game were slim. How many people had us beating Kansas in their realistic bracket? We had a chance, the boys were a little nervous, next year they won't be.

3/24/2012 3:43:13 PM

Your earlier about going inside being useless and we need to focus on the perimiter clashes with your current argument that leaving CJL on the bench is the worst mistake we could have possibly made.

3/24/2012 4:02:28 PM

People are letting their enthusiasm for what Gottfried has done this year cloud their judgment. Overall, for the season, he's been beyond excellent. He got a perennially underachieving team to the Sweet 16. He's got a top 10 class coming in. He's a good interview, the players love him, and he has Roy and K shaking in their boots. You couldn't ask for anything more.

But you have to look at last night in a vacuum. View it as one game, not the culmination of the previous thirty six. Last night, Gottfried was not a very good coach. His strategy, substitution patterns, and late game tactics were mediocre at best. When a team goes 2-25 on shots outside of the immediate basket area, a competent team should defeat them. Now, our outside shots weren't really falling either, but at least we had a chance to make most of them. Continually going inside time after time on a player who was half a foot taller than anyone on our roster was just silly. The guy had six blocks in the first ten minutes of the game. Thats when you realize the gameplans that worked against SDSU and Georgetown aren't going to work here and make the necessary adjustments; Gott failed to do so, in spectacular fashion.

I'll say it again: I love what he's done this year and I'm jacked about the direction of the program. But he turned in a C- performance last night when all we needed was a solid B. He's only had a handful of really big games thus far, so its too early to make an accurate assessment on his in game coaching ability, but I will say that I'm now a bit skeptical of his merits as an X and O's guy. Talent wins most college games, but when talent is close, the coaches usually make the difference.

3/24/2012 4:43:58 PM

i think he did a good job, it was a 3 point game in the end. just some poor execution at times: like not blocking the inbound pass layup and missing a couple 3s.

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 4:52 PM. Reason : .]

3/24/2012 4:49:50 PM

Everything that we've had for the past going on 20 years has not been as good as what I see in Gottfried, so even if you're critical about last night's performance, I still have an uplifted sense of faith in the direction of the program as you mentioned. He can only control what our players do to a certain point, and obviously they have to learn by experience. I personally have a hunch Leslie will stay because of him. When he came in, I had no idea who the hell Gottfried was, really. I just keep in mind that the team ('we' if you will) wasn't expected to do a damned thing. Even though last night's performance is, in fact, unsettling to a degree, I'm not putting all of the blame on Gottfried. It sucks they lost several heart-breakers this year, apparently didn't even practice or something before that Georgia Tech game, and fucked up royally against Duke, but I'm all for him doing his thing here...

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 4:54 PM. Reason : k]

3/24/2012 4:53:50 PM

I just hope our fans don't scream for his head if we don't go to the Sweet 16 every year....

3/24/2012 5:06:24 PM

slave, i agree with you for the most part. but execution was just as much of an issue as coaching was, IMO. brown's cross court pass to wood out of bounds, cjw letting his man get an easy lay up on the bounds pass with around 15 seconds left, wood was 2-9 on 3s. we just didn't play a great game...and still had a chance to win. part of that falls on the coaching but part of it also has to fall on the execution.

3/24/2012 5:16:29 PM

^ you don't put any of the blame on gottfried for calling that stupid cross court pass play?

C'mon that was just dumb. I've never seen a team intentionally throw a cross court pass, that's usually something you do when the defense just totally loses sight of a man and it's too good to pass up.

3/24/2012 5:33:24 PM

^of course i do...that was not a smart play.

3/24/2012 5:36:27 PM

^^ you need to watch more basketball then

and that play would have been gold if the pass had been better

3/24/2012 5:37:27 PM

Grant Hill's pass was just dumb. Blah blah blah.

3/24/2012 5:39:18 PM

^^^^ He said in the presser that play was not executed as designed. It was supposed to be a drive with a baseline dish to Wood in the corner. That I have no problem with.

3/24/2012 5:43:37 PM

ah, okay that makes more sense. I couldnt believe we threw it cross court. Never seen that before, it looked like it was drawn up that way

3/24/2012 5:56:49 PM

i'm okay w/ gottfried being a subpar tactician in exchange for the way he had this team playing together and motivated, and the way he has, so far, signed great talent.

that's all i'm going to say on that matter.

3/24/2012 6:11:43 PM

face, here is what Gottfried thinks of your comments:

3/24/2012 6:13:33 PM

Definitely, if he can continue to bring in big talent we'll be good.

But I've seen a lot of new coaches get a good recruiting class or two based off promises... everything looks great... then you miss on a few classes, a guy leaves early, underachieve, player suspensions/transfers, etc and pretty soon he's being fired a la Bruce Weber.

He had Eric Gordon and Derrick Rose locked up until they got paid to go to IU/Memphis and backed away from Illinois.

We had a great opportunity with a banged up UNC squad and Kansas laying a total stinker.

Sucks to not cash in because it was there for the taking.

There's reasons to be excited, but there's also reasons to be hesistant. This is NC State after all.

At the same time I've always said if we got a pretty good coach we could become nationally relevant again. Everyone always said I was an idiot and that Herb was a great coach and that we couldn't do better than him. It's ridiculous that I'm being labelled anti-Gottfried. I was one of the few who was happy about the hiring and I still am. I was THE MOST VOCAL HERB HATER on this board by far for years! Where is the credit for that. If us Herb haters had listened to you guys we'd still be stuck with that abomination of a coach.

Being a Gottfried supporter (I am) doesn't mean I can't point out potential problems. Especially when one of them like the foul trouble thing comes back to bite us.

Hopefully, we'll have a bench from now on and the foul trouble thing won't matter as much anymore. This year the dropoff from starters to bench was about as dramatic as any team I've ever seen. Once we have some depth it will mitigate that problem.

3/24/2012 6:44:09 PM

That's possibly the worst attempt at trolling I've ever seen.

I hope to God nobody responds to that shit.

3/24/2012 6:47:09 PM

I've been quite negative on here, but never such the pessimist as this guy. Do you have a gambling problem or something?

No, let's be confrontational. I really think this dude's problems lie in the fact that he can't say no to betting the wrong thing. It's turned him into a complete pessimist that can't enjoy shit. There's a difference between an examination of a 10 year coaching job fail versus harsh criticism coming right out of the door and that's all it is with him. His confidence is shaken and replaced with skepticism because he has a fucking gambling problem and the debts associated with it. I would almost guarantee this being the case.

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 6:55 PM. Reason : k]

3/24/2012 6:52:05 PM

^^^

LOL, flip-floppers deserve no credit. You're a troll PERIOD

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 6:52 PM. Reason : ...]

3/24/2012 6:52:13 PM

Hey, rallydurham -

http://www.ncpgambling.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3577

http://www.ncdhhs.gov/mhddsas/services/problemgambling/

Those two resources should help. As I'm sure you know, there's also plenty of resources on drinking problems, as well. As part of the wolfweb community, I wish the best for you. We all have our vices and such, and it's understandable that they can get out of hand. The good news is that there's tons of resources out there providing support.

3/24/2012 8:03:22 PM

Quote :

"We had a great opportunity with a banged up UNC squad and Kansas laying a total stinker. Sucks to not cash in because it was there for the taking."

Not to mention the McDonald's All American game being on Wednesday.

We will already get mentioned often since we have 3 All American's coming in, but it would have been a real NCSU lovefest if we had made it to the final four.

3/24/2012 10:32:51 PM

i think i am completely serious when i say that i agree with everything face says. i don't read everything posted, but i catch a lot and i honestly think he's right.

we sat calvin for too long, we should have had a UNC-like gameplan (2nd game, not going inside very much) since that guy has i think a few more blocks than henson in much less time.

we'll have to see if he lands anybody (Torian Graham if he's 2013 would be a nice start) but we need a deep recruiting class again with everybody leaving that year (Wood, Painter, Howell, Brown - pro, Leslie - pro if not this year) before I think we'll have sustained success. I do think 2012 could be a very good year (Duke and UNC could both be down, FSU lost a lot of seniors) in the ACC at least.

3/24/2012 10:47:23 PM

So what is the chance that Gottfried gets a studio gig for CBS or ESPN for the remainder of the tournament?

3/24/2012 11:06:39 PM

doubtful since Shaka didn't turn CBS down....

3/24/2012 11:20:27 PM

Like the second game against UNC? We fucking outscored UNC in the paint in the second game. If you're going to come in here and lay your wisdom on us get it right.

3/24/2012 11:21:33 PM

The problem with Face is that he states the obvious and second guesses a game that could've gone a million different ways. I was pissed when Calvin was out for that long, but missing 3s and not executing were also to blame.

Gottfried took us far this year, especially after losing to Georgia Tech and Clemson (2 serious WTF loss), and people decide to whine about losing to Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen...

So stating the obvious doesn't make you smarter than everyone else, it just shows you have time to type up long, bullshit posts...

3/24/2012 11:24:46 PM

they key to face is to consider the post over once he starts talking about himself.

if you do that, he's a pretty good poster.

3/25/2012 5:01:38 AM

Face is the Colin Cowherd of sports talk

3/25/2012 8:25:02 AM