Arizona (9-2)
	vs
	NC State (6-3)
	Sunday, December 19th, 4:45pm TV: FSN (National)

Arizona schedule to date:
Idaho State W 90-42
New Mexico State W 83-57
Northern Colorado W 93-70
Bethune-Cookman W 78-45
vs Santa Clara W 82-59
@ #6 Kansas L 87-79
@ Rice W 84-57
Oklahoma W 83-60
Cal State Fullerton W 73-62
@ #21 Brigham Young L 87-65
Northern Arizona W 63-58

12/17/2010 3:53:45 PM

Dancing letters.

12/17/2010 3:54:41 PM

12/17/2010 3:58:36 PM

Yeah, that's the one.

12/17/2010 3:59:29 PM

^

12/17/2010 4:02:47 PM

12/17/2010 4:03:47 PM

I like how the FSN commercials describe us as:

Quote :

"Upstart NC State..."

in an incredible effort to find something positive to work into a one-liner description for us.

12/17/2010 4:05:44 PM

12/17/2010 4:07:49 PM

actually...can we just rename ourselves Upstart State? that way when we lose, the ESPN ticker like it was some podunk team that lost to Stetson.

12/17/2010 4:08:41 PM

12/17/2010 4:10:00 PM

12/17/2010 4:19:57 PM

very win-able ... but would love to see tracy back and strong for a good 15 minutes tonight.

12/17/2010 4:36:30 PM

What do you want to see him do for 15 minutes tonight?

12/17/2010 4:46:46 PM

^ I really don't want to know
^^ AWESOME

12/17/2010 4:51:28 PM

Yes, this game SHOULD SOOOO be played in Reynolds coliseum, the State fans would intimidate and disrupt every god-damn shot the wildcats put up!


I know its not the building its the team on the court yada..yada,,but folks who say that CLEARLY never went to a State vs. any ACC team in Reynolds coliseum...god-damn I miss the 'good games' in that place.

Good luck in the RBC Pack!

12/17/2010 5:35:44 PM

do you end every sentence with a !

12/17/2010 5:40:35 PM

as someone who has watched a lot of AU basketball over the past few seasons, I can say that we need to get them into foul trouble early and we need to press them.

their PG committee is shaky with the ball.

12/17/2010 5:48:36 PM

Yeah, I can't wait to see what our guys can do against another team who is looking to push the ball. I would expect this game to probably be more high flying/exciting than most this year.

12/17/2010 6:13:37 PM

Jesus can the RBC/Reynolds debate stop? And yes plenty of us went to acc games in Reynolds.

Back on track, who guards Williams? I don't know we have an answer for him.

12/17/2010 10:21:51 PM

he and Howell have very similar bodies. i think if Richard can learn the fine art of the flop, he'll do just fine

12/17/2010 10:27:21 PM

does derrick williams also have a 2 centimeter vertical?

12/17/2010 10:45:57 PM

Quote :

"Back on track, who guards Williams? I don't know we have an answer for him."

Why not CJL? He gives up some size, but he's certainly athletic enough to match Williams' quickness.

And when I say size, I mean bulk ... lots of bulk. They're virtually the same height. It's not ideal, but I'd rather have someone hyper-athletic on him than, say, Vandy

[Edited on December 17, 2010 at 11:26 PM. Reason : ]

12/17/2010 11:22:18 PM

can CJ flop? because the key to the game is getting Williams into early foul trouble

12/17/2010 11:41:03 PM

^have you watched a lot of their games or something?

12/18/2010 1:02:24 AM

^ tke is a huge Herb fan and since Sean Miller is a Herb disciple, I'm assuming he's a big fan of him as well.

12/18/2010 1:05:34 AM

^^ i've watched every game that's been televised. they're an interesting team...

12/18/2010 8:23:47 AM

IOP1. Hopefully we'll at least have a good crowd for this game. I expect another loss and multiple pages added to the Sid credibility thread.

12/18/2010 8:53:06 AM

IOP1

If we come out focused and play like we did against Georgetown and Syracuse I think we could win this game. If we come out flat like we have the last few games, then we'll lose by a lot.

I really hated Harrow's comments after last game where he said the team was looking ahead and wasnt focused coming out of the gate against YSU. Sidney is doing a TERRIBLE job getting the players hyped up for games, and he shows little emotion on the bench so its entirely up to the players to generate their own energy.

Also, for some reason the players act like we can win a game against inferior competition (ala Youngstown State) just by rolling the ball out onto the floor, even though we havent proven a damn thing all season.

I'm not trying to turn this into another Lowe bashing thread, but he absolutely must figure out what these guys need to hear in order to get pumped up and focused for the start of a game. We are going to be in for a long season if we think we can mail it in for the first 20 minutes and then turn up the intensity in 2nd half and pull off a win - especially against Arizona and/or any team in the ACC.

12/18/2010 9:55:16 AM

The remarks were very telling but many teams (especially young teams) have been guilty of this. Lowe said that they had a shitty practice the day before so maybe it is a good dose of reality for the freshies that we rely on so much? They are used to playing high school opponents where if you are playing inferior competition it is simply a matter of rolling the ball out. Finally something that is being forgotten so much in the analysis of that game is we won by 17. This wasn't UNC just barely squeaking by Long Beach State. We won by a significant margin.
^BTW nice direct quotes from the AG show yesterday...

Has anyone heard any updates about Lo Brown and his status for AZ. If he is on the court I don't see any reason why we can't beat them even with out Tracy.

12/18/2010 10:46:20 AM

^ Why are you so confident we are going to win this game? Because we played well against a cold shooting Syracuse team and only lost by 6 points or whatever? This team has shown no ability to beat a decent team like Arizona. Yeah they lost badly to BYU, but talent wise they are as good if not better and they have a better coach.

Maybe the home advantage will help us, but I have no confidence in this team until they show that they can win a tough game. George Mason does not count as a tough win.

12/18/2010 11:42:46 AM

it's gonna be fun

12/18/2010 12:09:29 PM

Arizona is severely overrated. They also have lost to every decent team that they have played. We played damn good defense against Syracuse and contributed to that "cold shooting night". I get the feeling that after the Syracuse game the entire team circled this game on the calendar as a chance to make a statement. The YS first half debacle just reinforces the idea that they were probably looking past that game. They came out in the second half flipped the switch and blew them out.

12/18/2010 12:09:46 PM

^ Syracuse missed a bunch of open looks. Yes State played much better D than they did in the Wisconsin game, but Syracuse was off all night. Arizona played damn well at KU so clearly this is a good team even though they do not have a marquee win. They actually look like State in terms of a results except they were not thoroughly destroyed by an unranked Wisconsin team like State was.

12/18/2010 1:01:00 PM

Quote :

"Arizona is severely overrated."

I don't see how an unranked team can be severely overrated but whatever. Continue on with your ignorance.

12/18/2010 1:30:40 PM

Pomeroy says they're 17th, Sagarin says 27th

EXPAND YOUR MIND DUDE

12/18/2010 1:33:26 PM

All I'm saying is calling an unranked team "severely overrated" because 2 websites rank them a little higher than they should is a stretch.

12/18/2010 1:52:33 PM

There are plenty of folks that think Arizona is top 30, I just picked the two most prominent.

Conversely, saying it is impossible for them to be considered overrated because they aren't in two subjective top-25 polls is a stretch.

12/18/2010 2:03:02 PM

Syracuse has been known to be suspect shooting from the outside so us limiting their inside game is what made the game close. If it wasn't for Arizona being on their jerseys I don't think we would already be putting this in the loss column. They have shown the same trends we have. Haven't beaten a good team yet and beaten the cupcakes.

12/18/2010 2:09:07 PM

Quote :

"If it wasn't for Arizona being on their jerseys I don't think we would already be putting this in the loss column"

The reason I'm putting this in the loss column is because a)Tracy Smith might not play and even if he does play he won't be anywhere close to 100%, b)we just got outplayed by Youngstown state for a half and c)Sean Miller is a better coach than Sidney Lowe.

12/18/2010 2:25:54 PM

^
This

12/18/2010 2:48:13 PM

Quote :

"If it wasn't for Arizona being on their jerseys I don't think we would already be putting this in the loss column. They have shown the same trends we have. Haven't beaten a good team yet and beaten the cupcakes."

Arizona, to this point, has been a very good offensive team. 9th in offensive efficiency in the country and 12th in effective FG%. Compare that to our offense and it isn't pretty... at all. We are 64th in efficiency and 181st in effective FG%.

They have been better and it hasn't been really close... doesn't mean we don't have a chance to beat them, though.

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 4:25 PM. Reason : defensively, they've been better too]

12/18/2010 4:25:11 PM

How come I don't get this game in DC? I thought it was on national TV.

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 4:54 PM. Reason : Hahahahah n/m. Thought it was today.]

12/18/2010 4:46:08 PM

They have also played a bunch of cupcakes. A higher percentage of of our schedule has been tough teams. If we had played 9 or so games against nobodies our efficiency rating would look a lot better. In other words those efficiency ratings don't mean shit when teams have played such different schedules. Their best game was against Kansas and USC almost beat that ass today.
Arizona is very very winnable.

12/18/2010 4:50:04 PM

Those stats that NyM referenced are adjusted for the strength of the opponent

So SOS is irrelevant

12/18/2010 4:54:56 PM

Can we look at efficiency versus the cupcakes we've played? They still have #6 and #21 teams rolled up into their rating.

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 4:56 PM. Reason : ^ that works too I guess]

12/18/2010 4:56:34 PM

[Edited on December 18, 2010 at 4:58 PM. Reason : misread]

12/18/2010 4:56:50 PM

Quote :

"Those stats that NyM referenced are adjusted for the strength of the opponent So SOS is irrelevant"

How do they do that given that national ranking is almost irrelevant still (not really challenging this but more for my own education)? And if so we have destroyed them in rebounding!

Quote :

"Can we look at efficiency versus the cupcakes we've played? They still have #6 and #21 teams rolled up into their rating."

Yes while we have 3 decent teams and 6 cupcakes they had 2 decent teams and 9 cupcakes. Much bigger percentage of our games have been against decent competition.

12/18/2010 5:09:03 PM

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/ratings_explanation/

12/18/2010 5:19:52 PM

Quote :

"Their best game was against Kansas and USC almost beat that ass today"

Almost doesn't mean jack shit, Kansas is one of the best teams in the country.

12/18/2010 5:21:48 PM

^^ Thx
^ Kansas is severely overrated. They almost lost to Arizona and USC. If almost doesn't mean shit I guess our first half against Youngstown doesn't mean shit cause we sure as fuck won that game by 17.

12/18/2010 5:32:18 PM