The team chemistry has been completely destroyed. Based on a mixture of what i've heard word of mouth from players, and interviews there are some major problems going on. I heard about them much earlier (before the season) and Grant pretty much indirectly confirmed it ON THE RADIO tonight.

A strange scenario has played out where guys are "the man" one year and the next year are showed up by freshmen.

Many guys on the team are upset because JJ is stealing all the spotlight, ben especially. He has reason because he knows he is one of the best bigmen in the country but is nowhere near as good as a guy on his team and can barely get minutes. Brandon and courtney are upset because they aren't getting shots/isolations. Pretty much the entire team is upset over not getting the minutes they know they deserve. This is what happens when you have too much depth and is exactly why an ideal team only has 7 or 8 guys. Late in the game older guys don't want to give the ball to a freshman even though he is the best on the team and because of that, we lose.

The arrival/dominance of Hickson has ruined our chemistry. Hopefully Sid can get it fixed ASAP

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 10:00 PM. Reason : we could have a bad year if we don't become a family]

11/18/2007 9:59:12 PM

11/18/2007 10:00:15 PM

WOW YOU MUST BE REALLY GOOD FRIENDS WITH THE ENTIRE TEAM

Earl is back

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 10:01 PM. Reason : ]

11/18/2007 10:00:37 PM

stfu howard you stupid forestry major

11/18/2007 10:01:36 PM

lock this up. it's all rumors. besides the announcers said that Ben has been sick and that's why he hasn't been playing all that much.

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 10:03 PM. Reason : ]

11/18/2007 10:02:02 PM

Quote :

"the announcers said that Ben has been sick and that's why he hasn't been playing all that much."

according to sid's postgame against w&m, this is no longer a factor in mccauley's pt.

11/18/2007 10:06:04 PM

^^yea wtf. it wasnt a factor last game either. so yall can quit using that as an excuse. jj's better. the other guys better get used to it quick. FACT.

11/18/2007 10:08:11 PM

Earl sucks, but I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a legit concern.

Quote :

"“It’s just players. It’s nothing between coaches and players it’s between players and players. They’re having issues with each other that they shouldn’t have,” Grant said. “It’s nothing that I want to talk to the media about, it’s between the team and the team.”"

11/18/2007 10:10:40 PM

If this is the problem, then they need to get the sand outta their vaginas and do something about it. Man up and take the damn spotlight back. Sure Ben didn't get much playing time, but that would change if he was productive with the minutes he did have.

11/18/2007 10:15:22 PM

Quote :

"besides the announcers said that Ben has been sick and that's why he hasn't been playing all that much."

ya, sick of jj hickson.

Gavin Grant said this on the radio tonight (i'm not word for word but basically)

"Some guys are used to thing being like they were last year and were spoiled last year but now they have to just accept that there are better players on the team now and they need to do whats best for the team instead of complaining about shots and minutes realize that the team is better"

this quote was clearly indirectly talking about Ben. Probably some Costner too. With Hickson in the middle all game, these guys really can't operate like last year and i'm sure they only planned on bigger numbers from season to season.

I don't blame anybody because its a tough situation having a player that shouldn't even be playing on this level join a team that already had identity. Sid just needs to convince them to hang in there this year and play their role on Hickson's team and then make JJ go pro after the season so things can get back to normal.

11/18/2007 10:17:56 PM

itd be easier to get production if you didnt have to play with the scrub team everytime you came on the floor.

Also, Costner was lazy as fuck tonight.

11/18/2007 10:20:28 PM

you're a fucking idiot if you honestly want hickson to go pro after this season.

11/18/2007 10:22:19 PM

Quote :

" Sid just needs to convince them to hang in there this year and play their role on Hickson's team and then make JJ go pro after the season so things can get back to normal"

yes, back to normal

back to the NIT

that would be spectacular

how insightful of you

11/18/2007 10:24:43 PM

yeah normally howard/earl/alias is often an annoying jackass, but he is so absolutely right on point with this thread

it does appear that this team's chemistry has been destroyed - it seems like we're force-feeding our offense through hickson

where are the costner, mccauley, and fells that played with their hearts (and balls) out last year?

the students busy stroking jj's cock with chants every five minutes aren't helping matters either

11/18/2007 10:27:57 PM

ya if costner is gonna play how he played tonight fuck him, ben looked pretty good and i think he should have had costners minutes

costner just looked like he didnt care

11/18/2007 10:29:00 PM

We were not really an nit team last year. not having a pg most of the season screwed us.

degand/javi
fells/johnson
horner/thomas/smith
costner
ben
and whatever we recruit

is a damn good team for 08. If he convince costner and ben that their time to be the man like last year will return in 08 maybe they can buy in to playing around hickson and having good chemistry this year. we have a chance to be great but we also have a chance to be average. If Hickson plans on staying then ben might as well transfer for his own good.

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 10:33 PM. Reason : its funny that adding the best player in 30 years has made our team net worse]

11/18/2007 10:31:12 PM

haha

2 games into the season

and we're already hearing, "wait until next year"

11/18/2007 10:32:04 PM

Quote :

"We were not really an nit team last year"

yes, we were

that's why we played in the NIT

11/18/2007 10:32:36 PM

if i had a vagina i would be a girl

11/18/2007 10:33:49 PM

I still don't see why Ben's minutes have plummeted to watch JJ rake them in. What did Sidney Lowe think would happen after he had a breakout season?

Seems plausible to me that JJ was guaranteed minutes to get him to play here, otherwise Ben would be starting.

11/18/2007 10:33:56 PM

listened to lowe's post game. i'd say he knows what's going on. i hope he can fix it.

11/18/2007 10:38:59 PM

Quote :

"Seems plausible to me that JJ was guaranteed minutes to get him to play here, otherwise Ben would be starting."

Or maybe JJ always seems tired and he is trying to build his stamina by throwing a lot of minutes at him.

Or maybe he wanted to give JJ a good bit of minutes early in the year in games that should be easy wins so that there wouldn't be a drop off with either Ben or JJ in later in the season.

Or maybe JJ is just sick nasty and deserves to play.

Or maybe . . .




I've got an idea, lets all sit here and make up possibilities and bitch and moan. That'll sure fix the team.

11/18/2007 10:40:40 PM

Quote :

"I still don't see why Ben's minutes have plummeted to watch JJ rake them in. What did Sidney Lowe think would happen after he had a breakout season? Seems plausible to me that JJ was guaranteed minutes to get him to play here, otherwise Ben would be starting."

WTF are you talking about? JJ is clearly the better player if you saw any of this game. Why would Ben be starting over him?

11/18/2007 10:41:32 PM

thats my whole point. jj is EASILY the best player on the entire team. He is better right now than anybody else on our team will ever be in their life. Its not even close and its not like we have bad players its just that jj is our best player since david thompson.

11/18/2007 10:44:47 PM

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

11/18/2007 10:45:22 PM

i swear to god

i hate the fucking wolfweb

11/18/2007 10:46:31 PM

^^^ummm

11/18/2007 10:47:57 PM

well if he wants to play bad enough he will go out work hard and make the most of his minutes. Competition within a team is normally a good thing as long as there's no jealousy.

11/18/2007 10:52:43 PM

but honestly I dont think the whole place chanting JJ Hickson's name every game is doing anyone any good. All it can do is stroke his ego and make him overconfident while at the same time making the rest of the players pissed and jealous that he is getting all of the spotlight.

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 10:57 PM. Reason : y]

11/18/2007 10:56:41 PM

couldn't agree more

11/18/2007 10:57:19 PM

if we cant celebrate players of JJs caliber then things need to change no matter what the cost

ibtl

this is the worst thread I have ever seen

11/18/2007 11:00:48 PM

Yeah once the game was final I was like I bet Sports Talk is imploding. Rally would be wanting to fire Sid. Earl would have some conspiracy theory, and everybody else would be all rabble rabble. Its early in the season. We have been shooting terrible that will change.

11/18/2007 11:00:51 PM

Quote :

"saps852: ya if costner is gonna play how he played tonight fuck him, ben looked pretty good and i think he should have had costners minutes costner just looked like he didnt care"

I was extremely negative in the other thread, but I've had a moment to think about it. And Costner is the one that really bothered me.

The way he played was disrespectful, and he's done it in the past, too. I want him off the team.

I called my sister, and we talked a bunch of shit about Carolina, which felt really good. And I'm going to harness my hatred for Carolina to find a way to love our team. But fuck Costner.

11/18/2007 11:03:36 PM

When is Marques Johnson eligible?

We are going to have to disrupt the chemistry again to get him in the rotation b/c if he is as talented as he was thought of out of HS he'll be getting some run...

11/18/2007 11:07:41 PM

they don't call him big lazy for nothing

and I understand chanting hickson's name when he scores freakin 31 pts in his first regular season game as a freshman, but it's like omg JJ made a dunk chant chant chant

11/18/2007 11:07:48 PM

Quote :

"but honestly I dont think the whole place chanting JJ Hickson's name every game is doing anyone any good. All it can do is stroke his ego and make him overconfident while at the same time making the rest of the players pissed and jealous that he is getting all of the spotlight."

well he had an awesome first game, anyone would have had their name chanted

and he made an awesome play, anyone would have had their name chanted. There were several times last year where someone would make an awesome play and have their name chanted and it didn't cause problems then.

11/18/2007 11:09:03 PM

everytime we do that i wonder how much it pisses off costner and mccauley.

apparently, quite a bit.

11/18/2007 11:09:16 PM

Quote :

"but honestly I dont think the whole place chanting JJ Hickson's name every game is doing anyone any good. All it can do is stroke his ego and make him overconfident while at the same time making the rest of the players pissed and jealous that he is getting all of the spotlight. "

My thoughts exactly. He's a young guy, and he's probably already having trouble not buying into the media hype, and it sure as hell doesn't help things when we're chanting his name like he just saved the world or something. He's one player. One player having a monster game every game but the rest of the team playing like shit isn't going to win us many games this year. I would say the same thing about any of the other players on our team. It's got to be about the team, not an individual player. Chant N C State, not J J Hickson.

11/18/2007 11:10:27 PM

yes, please reserve chants for players that have dominated at the end of a game when they are taken out. the individual chants should only be when they have dominated or just hit a clutch shot at the end of the game.

11/18/2007 11:12:58 PM

Quote :

"This is what happens when you have too much depth and is exactly why an ideal team only has 7 or 8 guys."

I don't know about that. UCLA seemed to manage pretty well in the early 1970s with teams that sent the bench players to the NBA.

11/18/2007 11:15:14 PM

^ Yeah, but if you're on a team winning a national championship every year, you can't exactly question why you aren't getting more playing time.

11/18/2007 11:17:11 PM

Wouldn't that make it an ideal team then?

11/18/2007 11:18:47 PM

^ what?

UCLA when it was winning all of those championships might have been ideal, sure. But last time I checked, we have yet to win against a BCS school (this season), much less win multiple back-to-back national championships.

11/18/2007 11:24:37 PM

depth? what depth?

our starters looked like crap tonight and our bench got murdered when they were in the game.

its time to go back to being humble until we earn the right to assume anything...

11/18/2007 11:27:54 PM

chanting JJ's name pissed me off.....much less McCauley and Costner. Hes a freshman who has played two games against (assumed) nobodies. Why the fucking chanting?

Anyways.....its painfully, painfully obvious to see that McCauley and Costner are both having trouble sharing the spotlight with Hickson. McCauley is visibly sulking and Costner just isnt putting forth any effort.

11/18/2007 11:33:05 PM

^^^^What UCLA did was wrong.

Recruiting players to put them on the bench just so you won't have to play against them is fucked up to the players and the other teams. In fact, they placed a limit on scholarships to address what UCLA was doing.



Overrecruiting in general is a very ugly thing (it was definitely one of Valvano's nastier downfalls). These kids are often promised the world to get their commitments. Making them compete for PT with a new kid every year is disloyal and has a very destabilizing effect on a team and even the sport in general. This is not the case with State's team though--it's impossible to destabilize a team that was never really solid to begin with...it's gonna take a few years.

^I'm not big on excessive chanting either. It's generally corny/pathetic and should be reserved for rare occasions.

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 11:35 PM. Reason : sss]

11/18/2007 11:33:16 PM

Quote :

"“I don’t want to say we took them lightly because I don’t think we did,” Grant said. “But we didn’t come out with the energy we should have. It seemed like, I don’t know, [there are] just inside the team issues that we’ve got to work on. We’ve got to come out and play 40 hard minutes. We didn’t play 40 hard minutes today.” Coach Sidney Lowe echoed Grant’s concern about a lack of intensity. The smaller New Orleans’ team out-rebounded State 41-37, and turned the ball over only 8 times compared to the Pack’s 14 turnovers. “We didn’t have urgency,” Lowe said. “They kept their thumb on us and we didn’t execute like we should. Our defense let us down because they were running all around us.” Though the outcome was unfavorable, there were bright spots for the Pack, according to Lowe. Freshman J.J. Hickson continued to wow fans and please his coach, scoring 22 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in the contest. Representatives from at least eight NBA teams were present for the game. Though the Pack blew an 11-point second half lead, Lowe said he is confident the team can use the game as a leaning experience and even a wake-up call as not to take any game lightly, particularly going into the Old Spic Classic in Orlando, Fla. this week. Lowe also mentioned the shift in playing time as a potential problem among teammates. “We should be able to play together because these guys have been here,” Lowe said. “It’s a matter of discipline and being unselfish. They need to not worry about how many minutes they’re getting.” And though Gavin Grant chose not to elaborate, he feels there is a tension among teammates that needs to be resolved for the Pack to play to its potential—whatever that may be. “It’s just players,” Grant said. “It’s nothing between coaches and players it’s between players and players. They’re having issues with each other that they shouldn’t have. It’s nothing that I want to talk to the media about; it’s between the team and the team.” Whatever those “inside the team issues” may be, Lowe and the Wolfpack will try to fix them before this weekend’s Old Spice Classic in Orlando, Florida. The Pack will face Rider at 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day."

sounds like its pretty serious

11/18/2007 11:37:50 PM

ok hickson is taking away costner and McCauleys mins but thats no excuse to play everyone on the bench like they did tonight. The bench almost had more playing time then the starters.

[Edited on November 18, 2007 at 11:44 PM. Reason : :]

11/18/2007 11:40:30 PM

HICKSON WILL GET HIS ASS BUSTED AGAINST REAL COMPETITION, WE HAVEN'T PLAYED ANY GOOD BIG MEN YET. BY THE WAY HE IS NOT THE BEST PLAYER ON THIS TEAM JUST TAKES 18 SHOTS TO SCORE 18 PTS.

11/18/2007 11:41:52 PM

The bench had nowhere near the playing time of the starters.

11/18/2007 11:44:03 PM