Yeah as of right now the team is so flawed defensively (including defensive rebounding) that we can't expect to contend until that is fixed. It's starting to become our identity, so I'm not sure its fixable but I keep on hoping.

We really haven't had a good defensive effort yet...

1/1/2013 8:45:25 PM

Wasnt the lack of defense sort of the knock on Gottfried at Alabama?

So it's not really unexpected...

1/1/2013 8:58:50 PM

half of the "good defenses" in college basketball are just teams that waste the clock on offense to limit the other team's offensive possessions

1/1/2013 9:03:05 PM

We've reached a point where we are complaining and finding faults when we win by 21.

It's a great time in Wolfpack Basketball.

1/1/2013 9:39:22 PM

remember when we used to lose to uncg

1/1/2013 9:41:08 PM

We are bad at defense and rebounding in tempo-free terms, so ^^^ that is irrelevant

[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 9:42 PM. Reason : We were predicted to beat UNCG by 23 before they lost their best player -> underachievement ]

1/1/2013 9:41:25 PM

that was when they had charles barkley

1/1/2013 9:42:52 PM

if we're predicted by a computer algorithm to win the national championship by 13 points and we win the national championship by 4 points, some people will call that underachieving

1/1/2013 9:43:19 PM

Quote :

"remember when we used to lose to uncg"

We never did

1/1/2013 9:51:58 PM

I'm not complaining about the fact that we beat UNCG by 21. Our offense is amazing.

I'm complaining that we are the worst defensive team in the 13 years I've been watching State basketball and given our athleticism that's unacceptable.

Our defense has actually started getting worse as the season has progressed. And yes Gottfried does not have a history of successful defensive teams, but no one could have predicted it would be THIS bad.

[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 9:59 PM. Reason : a]

1/1/2013 9:58:57 PM

Quote :

"we are the worst defensive team in the 13 years I've been watching State basketball "

wait, what?

1/1/2013 10:05:12 PM

We are #141st in the country and just slipped out of the top 30 nationally and are fucking behind UNC now.

This is a huge problem. Our season is starting to slip away and we need to get this shit under control immediately.


(Sorry I misspoke we were slightly worse in 2009 forgot about Costner, Tracy Smith, Horner. Good lord. The fact that we are even comparing this team to those guys is SCARY)

[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 10:13 PM. Reason : a]

1/1/2013 10:11:55 PM

we are probably the worst coached defensive team in america

generally when you have an elite offensive team your defense can only be so bad simply due to the overwhelming talent advantage.

the other teams with high level offenses that suck defensively are athletically challenged teams like notre dame, st marys and colorado state

UCLA is the only team that comes close, although I think their entire team is made up of trash transfers from unc and freshmen so it's slightly more forgivable

tj warren sucking at defense is understandable. leslie, brown and howell? no

1/1/2013 10:16:53 PM

That's true. I was just thinking to myself, "this season is slipping away."

1/1/2013 10:17:51 PM

Defense is threatening to destroy our season.

#296 in creating turnovers?

#286 in defensive rebounding %?

#331 in opponent FT% shooting?

These are not numbers for teams who play winning basketball. We are starting to look more like a bubble team than a contender.

I'm not saying we can't correct these issues, but it's certainly at the point where it is a HUGE concern because we can't win like this.

We've already seen what happens when we play legitimate opponents. We don't score 90 points. So if we can't stop other teams from scoring on every possession, we are going to lose 10 games this year.

1/1/2013 10:18:59 PM

141st in the country in what?

and if we're 296th in the country in creating turnovers, i'm just gonna have to call out that stat as being disingenuous...we're in the top half of the ACC in steals per game, i fail to see how we're worse at forcing turnovers than 290+ teams in the country


[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 10:23 PM. Reason : stats are for losers, we're 11-2 with both losses to top-25 teams, one to the #2 team in the nation]

1/1/2013 10:19:13 PM

the only good news is thanks to our inflated RPI we would have to collapse sidney lowe-style in the acc to miss the tournament

most likely we'll end up with a 6 or 7 seed

i think our true defensive ability is probably more like ~100 in the country simply because so many players on our team like to coast so they give up points against scrub teams because they treat it like an aau game

but then there was the ok state game where we let marcus smart, a worse shooter than zoco bell, hit a ton of 3s because our defensive strategy is to literally not guard them

1/1/2013 10:22:45 PM

adjusted defensive efficiency

1/1/2013 10:23:52 PM

People called me an idiot for saying this at the start of the season. I guess you just needed more data points.

#magellenswag

1/1/2013 10:25:40 PM

so Savannah State, Texas Arlington and Wagner, who have 5-7, 6-4 and 6-4 records, not only have better defense than us, but have top-30 defenses in the nation? not buying it

1/1/2013 10:27:16 PM

I like how in only ONE page, face has gone from

Quote :

"this team COULD win a title."

to

Quote :

"Our season is starting to slip away "

and we won two games by 16 and 21 in between those two statements

well done

1/1/2013 10:54:58 PM

^ LOL well done sir

1/1/2013 11:04:03 PM

Nothing conflicts. It could win a title, we are that efficient offensively. However, we played so poorly the last two games that our situation continues to get more dire.

When I talked to Howell the other night I even told him they have to start trying to play at least a little defense.

The simulation today gives us a 2.35% chance of winning the ACC regular season title. With our talent level that's fucking absurd. Duke is at 88% and UVA is at 5% for gods sake.

1/1/2013 11:12:31 PM

when the simulation starts warming up and playing basketball games, let me know

1/1/2013 11:13:55 PM

nm

[Edited on January 1, 2013 at 11:31 PM. Reason : face hath spoken]

1/1/2013 11:14:03 PM

Our inability to guard people and our lack of rebounding initiative are HUGE problems.

But....I'm still on cloud 9 that we're legit again.

1/1/2013 11:19:54 PM

Obviously some of our issues are correctable and I wouldn't give you 50:1 odds that we win the ACC regular season.

However, we are past the point of blind optimism. This team is MAJORLY flawed defensively.

Costner, horner, and Tracy couldnt guard ANYONE and right now that 2009 team resembles us defensively. Do we really want to chance getting swept by UNC again this season???

1/1/2013 11:24:46 PM

You're upset we didn't show up defensively against teams we punished? This team shows up when it counts. If CJ Leslie doesn't get the charge at the end of the Michigan game, we have a chance to win. This team has improved offensively and defensively since then.

1/1/2013 11:25:17 PM

I seriously think some of it stems from being afraid to foul, compounded by our lack of depth. It's not just the fans who think the refs are out to get us. (you can see it in Howell's face)

1/1/2013 11:28:22 PM

Quote :

"you can see it in Howell's face"

1/1/2013 11:30:17 PM

hahahahahaha

1/1/2013 11:31:45 PM

Quote :

"This team shows up when it counts."

how did you come to that conclusion?

1/1/2013 11:33:05 PM

Yeah, they really showed up for the osu game

1/1/2013 11:36:24 PM

The Michigan game is a terrible example to reference. We lost that game because they shot 60% FG, had 6 freaking turnovers, and killed us at the FT line. We scored efficiently and still almost got blown out of the building because we couldn't do anything defensively.

I will agree that I think our "fear of fouling" is causing us to play less aggressively on the defensive end and to some extent that is necessary. But it's gone too far when we can't stop anyone in the country from scoring. Good teams play good defense. Bad teams play bad defense.

As of right now we've got some major problems. Lewis has been unable to replace Johnson effectively. They were both poor offensively, but at least Johnson was able to apply ball pressure. Purvis has been unable to play at CJ Williams level on either end of the floor. Vandenberg has been completely ineffective replacing Painter.

We have gotten minor improvement from Zo, CJL, Wood, and major improvement from Howell. Warren has been a godsend offensively. But our defense and rebounding has gotten so much significantly worse that we're not a better team RIGHT NOW than we were at the end of last season.

It's gone from being a minor concern to a glaring weakness that threatens to derail our entire year.

I think we've got to try #34 immediately and see if he can give us a boost defensively. This season is too important, and you don't want to have to push an emergency button at year end with someone who is untested.

1/1/2013 11:41:04 PM

i won't agree with any fear of fouling until there are advanced statistical metrics on it, since thats the only thing that really matters

quantify fear, and you'll have an argument, hey now

1/1/2013 11:44:09 PM

we have kept our last two opponents under 70 points while scoring over 85. That kind of differential has to be good because you are scoring at a high volume and high possession rate but keeping your other opponents offense down at a lower level.

There has to be some metric out there that weights these numbers per offensive possesion and what not, because a lot of teams are good defensively because of a herb sendek style offense. Remeber, he always had really good defensive teams. And some teams are high volume and have opponents that also benefit off of that system due to the extra possessions (see UNC this year).

Right now, our worst defensive game has to be UNCA (I am leaving OKST out of this because we had a lot of foul trouble), which I think is a team that got hot: It happens.

1/2/2013 12:10:14 AM

gottfried's teams dont foul

it's part of his brilliant defensive coaching. he's probably more pissed at howell's dumb fouls than cj leslie's lack of doing anything ever positive on defense

1/2/2013 12:13:54 AM

^^

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/north-carolina-state/game_stats

Offensive and defensive efficiency account for pace of play. Those numbers have already been quoted in this thread. The only people not using tempo-free stats in here are dumbasses

[Edited on January 2, 2013 at 12:27 AM. Reason : .]

1/2/2013 12:18:39 AM

Quote :

"I think we've got to try #34 immediately and see if he can give us a boost defensively"

Yes we are horrendous defensively, but this calling for a walk-on to play because he looks somewhat athletic is absurd and has to stop.

[Edited on January 2, 2013 at 12:26 AM. Reason : He didn't even play basketball at his U.S. high school]

1/2/2013 12:19:42 AM

My main concern is, why in the world did it take CJ and Zo so long to come around?

[Edited on January 2, 2013 at 12:28 AM. Reason : z]

1/2/2013 12:27:41 AM

Come around from what to what? I say they still have a ways to go on the defensive end. They are just now getting back to where they were offensively at the end of last season.

1/2/2013 12:29:01 AM

^^ an athletic foreign player without a lot of bball experience may actually have high major upside

the problem is he will be absolutely clueless on the court. i guess that really wouldnt be any different than the rest of our team on D

1/2/2013 12:30:29 AM

Quote :

"The only people not using tempo-free stats our 11-2 record in here are dumbasses"

1/2/2013 12:31:26 AM

Quote :

"because a lot of teams are good defensively because of a herb sendek style offense. Remeber, he always had really good defensive teams."

Are you trolling or dense? Defense was never a problem with Herb. And FWIW most stats are tempo related and we actually were a top-half ACC scoring offense team under him. Not sure what point you are trying to make here.

[Edited on January 2, 2013 at 12:48 AM. Reason : he who shall not be mentioned]

1/2/2013 12:47:45 AM

Quote :

"Come around from what to what? I say they still have a ways to go on the defensive end. They are just now getting back to where they were offensively at the end of last season."

just now? Just before conference play? Brown leads the league in steals, btw, & adds almost a block a game. Leslie indeed sucks on defense and blocking out.

A lot of you act as if no other top teams have major deficiencies. Lets see, we suck at:
rebounding
defense
free throws
3pters (when Wood's off)
Weak bench
turnovers
fouling

Yet somehow we are 11-2 after one of our toughest non-conference schedules in 2 decades

We are not a top-10 team...everyone now knows that. But we're probably at worst a bubble team, and with our offense we could absolutely go on a run come tournament time.

1/2/2013 1:02:36 AM

fuck, I am just confused. Uconn is a guard oriented team and look what we did to them. What can you take from our defence if you were to cherry pick the Uconn and Stanford games?

1/2/2013 1:14:55 AM

we gave up 79 points to stanford on 67 possessions

theyre a pretty poor offensive team. the only time theyve scored that much the rest of the season was against cal state fullerton - 81 on 79 possessions. our offense was insane that game despite them having a good defense

uconn 65 points on 62 poss.

uconn has been pretty mediocre this year. if they could turn it around and be a tournament team that would help us out a lot

1/2/2013 1:29:26 AM

Quote :

"i won't agree with any fear of fouling until there are advanced statistical metrics on i"

Our bench plays the 322nd most minutes in the entire nation. So depth is clearly a concern.


Fouls Committed / 40 mins comparison between last year and this year:

Richard Howell: 5.0 down to 4.4

CJ Leslie: 3.5 down to 2.6

Clearly we are fouling less. I think it's a fair assumption that we are actively trying to stay out of foul trouble because the dropoff from our starters to our bench is so extreme.

To an extent that is good strategy, but it's becoming a little ridiculous. I think we have to give minutes to #34 before it's too late.

1/2/2013 1:54:04 AM

omg i hate face

1/2/2013 8:38:49 AM

^ he knows his shit, though.

1/2/2013 10:43:15 AM