96

2/20/2009 9:45:39 AM

Almost to 100.

2/20/2009 9:49:43 AM

yep. 96 is almost 100.

2/20/2009 10:24:11 AM

Quote :

"There are 14 players in the ACC averaging 30+ minutes per game There are 3 that average 35+ State and UNC are the only teams without a player averaging more than 30 http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=PctMin&y=2009&f=ACC We also go to the bench more than anyone in the ACC, 12th most in the country http://kenpom.com/height.php?y=2009&s=BenchRank [Edited on February 19, 2009 at 7:12 PM. Reason : ]"

Modlin, Ernie found some excellent statistics that back up what I'm talking about. State and UNC do not have the same depth, yet we play our bench more than anyone in the ACC....why? Why can't our starters play more minutes and our shitty bench stay on the bench? Early in the year this was acceptable, but not in crunch games in the ACC.

Javi was on fire, ie. hitting his shots and carrying the team offensively....at least for the first half. Degand had a horrible game and Javi simply should have been able to play more than 26 minutes. I know he was breathing hard, I'm saying that he should have better conditioning, etc.

[Edited on February 20, 2009 at 10:40 AM. Reason : ]

2/20/2009 10:38:41 AM

^That's why I said the question should be "How come Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington are playing more minutes than Degand and Fells?"



Which is apparently a little-too-roundabout way of saying that we're playing a lot of guys in the backcourt because we are having trouble finding guys who play really well all the time. If we had Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington, they'd play all the time. Our good starters do play as much as anyone else in the league.

Javi was guarding a guy who is bigger, faster, and stronger than him. So he's gonna have to play with a higher energy level to keep up. Which means that even with good conditioning (which he has), he's gonna get tired. Part of him hitting his shots and not going all to shit was probably involved in getting a breather every now and then.

Saying "he simply should have been" able to do anything is just ignoring all the stuff that keeps it from being "simply". There's nothing "simply" about playing better than UNC, esp. at their place.

2/20/2009 11:33:07 AM

Most of our players haven't played consistently well enough game in and game out all year to warrant huge minutes/game

Farnold has had some good games, so has Mays, Javi happens to have the hot hand amongst PGs currently

Smith is good enough where he effectively takes away mpg from Costner and McCauley

Fells' injury limited his minutes in some games...it took CJ a while to deserve big minutes

plus with UNC, they play a more up tempo style of play which seems like it would require players to play less minutes since they're supposed to be running up and down the court the whole time, whereas we play (or are forced to play) a more half court offense

2/20/2009 11:40:46 AM

what's the obsession with page 100?

2/20/2009 11:47:09 AM

page 100 is the super secret sidney celebration

2/20/2009 11:51:27 AM

Quote :

"what's the obsession with page 100?"

'

100 pages of BS

2/20/2009 11:56:26 AM

it's a nice, round #.

2/20/2009 12:05:25 PM

Got to win Saturday.....only "sure" win we have left. Even though they beat VT, their big men are terrible.

2/20/2009 12:26:52 PM

goddammit

now i've got my hopes up that we can pull 8-8

i hate being a state fan sometimes.

2/20/2009 1:03:54 PM

If we can beat Wake and Miami at home, we should certainly be able to beat UVA here as well.

2/20/2009 1:07:10 PM

7-9 is more realistic, but i'll take single digit losses considering we went 4-12 last year

2/20/2009 4:49:09 PM

i was going to say we're making progress, but we were 15-7 (4-4) at one point last year.

2/20/2009 6:22:06 PM

^Is our RPI higher or lower now compared to that point last year? The lack of pre-ACC challenges makes the record not look as great but I feel like our ACC opponants have been better this year (the other Tobacco Road schools at least).

2/21/2009 2:07:51 AM

our RPI has to be lower, but on the other hand we've played 4 games against teams that are currently ranked in the top 10 and beaten 1 of them....plus clemson who has been playing much better basketball this year.


I'm more impressed with our 4-7this year than our 4-4 last year. We're playing good team basketball and we don't have any WTF losses with the exception of VT but they had help. I think we're sitting pretty to finish at a respectable 7-9 after pre-season expectations and a bad start to ACC play.

2/21/2009 9:22:40 AM

first you lose by a little..

2/21/2009 9:47:17 AM

..then you lose by a lot?

2/21/2009 9:53:11 AM

^ nah, BobbyDigital's got it.

i was really starting to get on the 'sidney lowe can't do it' bandwagon, but as of late (and i hope i don't eat these words at approx 3PM) i've been really pleased w/ how the team is playing.

2/21/2009 9:58:26 AM

last year we were playing our worst ball of the season at this point

this year we're playing our best ball of the season at this point

you cant complain too much about 4 straight ACC games with 80 points

and 4 of our losses (UNC, UNC, Duke, Clemson) were NOT bad losses

2/21/2009 11:24:22 AM

i agree that we're playing the best basketball of the season...i'd go so far as to say it's the best basketball we've played in Sid's tenure

but we're still losing. i'm not quite ready to jump on the moral victory train. we need to get over the proverbial hump. and as soon as we do, we're going to be a dangerous team

2/21/2009 11:34:26 AM

the VT loss was tough, but this team just isn't going to beat carolina when carolina plays well, no matter how we play.

2/21/2009 11:37:38 AM

granted I don't get to see a lot of OU games, but I think Carolina is the best team in the country right now. they are so deep and so well coached.

beatable? hell yes

2/21/2009 11:49:58 AM

UNC.. well coached? what?

2/21/2009 2:07:59 PM

Still credible

smart play at the end to foul before they could get a 3 off twice. With they way they were shooting at teh end I have no doubt they would have made it

GG Sid and crew

2/21/2009 3:16:11 PM

Yeah, I was happy to see the fouls also. I always wonder why more coaches don't do that.

However, he still loses some credibility for having Horner in there at such a critical time.

2/21/2009 3:20:29 PM

technically he is one of our best FT shooters so its not like he is keeping Smith in there at teh end with his <50% FT shooting

2/21/2009 3:21:52 PM

Quote :

"technically he is one of our best FT shooters so its not like he is keeping Smith in there at teh end with his <50% FT shooting"

I guess you want to play the percentages here, but Horner has missed critical free throws at the end of at least 2 games

2/21/2009 3:27:50 PM

Honer's FT percentage means dick. He shouldnt be on the floor in crunch time because he will choke at the line.

Ok game for the team, but feels as though we have lost some of the momentum from previous games.

^No, you DON'T want to play the percentages unless you are an idiot who lets gross statistics fool you. The real stat you need is FT percentage with the game on the line.


[Edited on February 21, 2009 at 3:30 PM. Reason : .]

2/21/2009 3:29:17 PM

^&^^ notice how I prefaced my sentence with technically

because I totally agree with both of you

2/21/2009 3:35:31 PM

Yeah, you said technically then proceeded to still say it wasn't the worst decision to keep him in. I'm willing to bet that smith shoots just as well as horner in clutch situations.

2/21/2009 3:41:02 PM

i thought we shoudlve gone to cj at the line but fells was the right call

2/21/2009 3:44:05 PM

^^and by that you mean would miss his shots as well, that's something Smith needs to work on for the amount of time he's going to see on the line

2/21/2009 3:59:14 PM

Last year W-L regular season: 15-15 (4-12)

This year W-L regular season: 15-10 (5-7) thus far

I think this is a not only a big improvement from last year, but over the course of the season.

Not to mention, Sid's recruits have been outscoring Herb's over the course of this run we've had (from what I can remember, not sure abt UNC game). Some really talented guys coming in next year, especially with Brown at the PG position.

Sid is doing a good job, and for the time being, is credible. Even if he wasn't, we don't want to buy out the rest of his contract, and who the hell else would we hire if he got fired? He wasn't really the first guy on our coaching list after Herb left.

I'm happy with the young talent, incoming talent, and direction of this team.

2/21/2009 4:29:31 PM

Quote :

"He shouldnt be on the floor in crunch time because he will choke at the line."

i'm not a huge horner fan. but how quickly we forget those horner OTs

2/21/2009 4:30:55 PM

still credible even when playing degand too much the entire game

2/21/2009 6:06:30 PM

hopefully this will put to rest any of the "but can he develop players?"

CJ, Javi, Tracy Smith and (dare i say, flaming tat) Horner

2/21/2009 6:11:28 PM

I wouldn't get too excited yet but the fact that the team hasn't folded and disappeared is good.

2/21/2009 6:18:34 PM

still credible

2/21/2009 6:20:05 PM

Still credible. I think that we have a good core of players in place for next season. Javi, Smith, and especially CJ have really impressed me.

2/21/2009 7:22:41 PM

I'm more thankful than impressed. I say that because unless we manage to miraculously land the monster recruiting class we're all hoping for we need people to STEP UP. CJ and Tracy are the notable two that appear to be doing that. Javi has stepped it up in the scoring category but still needs to work on the turnovers.

2/21/2009 8:07:02 PM

so starting lineup pieces for next year that we ALREADY have on the team?

PG-Javi
SG-Williams
SF-Thomas
PF-Horner
C-Smith

thats a "conventional" lineup.

2/21/2009 9:55:22 PM

i dont like it

2/21/2009 9:57:44 PM

^No shit.....Horner starting better not happen.

Our zone offense needs work but our man offense is golden.

If UVA played zone the whole game today we would have lost. Thank God Leitao is a terrible coach.

2/22/2009 2:09:42 AM

Quote :

"If UVA played zone the whole game today we would have lost. Thank God Leitao is a terrible coach."

i lawld, even though it's totally true.

2/22/2009 2:28:18 AM

if they played zone all game, we'd just put javi back in, tell him not to foul no matter what on the defensive end, and have him drain 25 footers over their zone like he's been doing the last few games

2/22/2009 2:33:46 AM

what was hurting our zone offense was degand's inability to recognize it and attack it. it seemed like they would switch to zone as soon as he was in and he played into it. he never tried to penetrate, he just continued to pass the ball around the horn. get the ball, reverse, get the ball, reverse. rinse and repeat.

it also seems to me that degand gets caught up in concentrating on the defender right in front of him instead of keeping his eyes up to see the floor and he always ends up dribbling himself into trouble.

2/22/2009 2:35:39 AM

FARNOLD CANT GO LEFT, he is terrible

to be a college player and you cant dribble with your left hand!

2/22/2009 10:22:33 AM

Farnold looked horrible yesterday.

2/22/2009 10:26:45 AM