T. Smith helps NC State beat Towson

What a game for Tracy Smith.  Smith scored 31, a career high, to lead the Wolfpack to a 88-68 victory over Towson.  With the narrow victory on Monday night against Loyola(MD), NC State looked to go up big on Towson and not look back.  That didn’t turn out to be the case when NC State was down by 11 with about 11 minutes left in the first half.  Smith then came off the bench to score 12 consecutive points for the Wolfpack.

Tracy Smith continued his scoring and finished the first half with 19 points and a 5 point lead for NC State.  Costner didn’t have to bad of a game himself with 15 points and 10 assists, many of which went to Smith.  To round out the rest of the numbers, Horner and McCauley each had 10 points and Courtney Fells had 11.

Another big number I noticed was Tracy Smith’s 11 for 11 from the free throw line.  Helping his low 53% FT average on the year.   One thing we know the Wolfpack need to work on this year and get straight before ACC action is free throws.  Previously one of the best teams in the country at free throw percentage with Herb, the Wolfpack have fallen greatly and have struggled a lot this year at the line. 

Next up for the Wolfpack is a road game at Florida on Saturday January 3rd at 4pm.

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NC State Loses to Rutgers in PapaJohns.com Bowl

Just as we all thought the injury stricken season was over, it came back to bite us in a 29-23 loss in the PapaJohns.com bowl to Rugters on Monday. With an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 of the total 38,000 fans to be the Wolfpack Faithful, it brought record attendance for the bowl only in it’s third year.

NC State was up 17-6 at halftime, led by starting quarterback Russell Wilson who went 11-23 passing for 186 yards and a score. Late in the first half however Wilson left the game with a strained knee and did not return. The second half didn’t fair so good for second and third string quarterbacks Harrison Beck and Daniel Evans, who threw a combined 5-16 passing, 3 interceptions and one score for a total of 83 yards.

With scoring a mere impossibility with Wilson out, NC State turned to it’s defense to try and hold the 11 point lead. The defense however turned out a disappointing performance and left the game with 0 sacks, 3 quarterback hurries, and a single interception.  With the Wolfpack defense not playing its A game, Rutgers offense came alive and put up 23 points in the second half.  With the loss, NC State fell to 6-7, for its third straight losing season.  The game really showed how much Russell Wilson contributed to the Wolfpack’s success, and why he deserved to be ACC rookie of the year.

Looking forward to next years starters, Willie Young, the Wolfpack’s sack leader, should be back at defensive end. Solid safety Clem Johnson will be a senior and returning next year as well as Javon Walker who will be coming back from injury.   At the quarterback spot look for current starter Russell Wilson and Redshirt Freshmen Mike Glennon to battle it out.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr, maggieandcharles

Quick thoughts from Marquette-NCSU game

In the words of the Wolfpack faithful, “that’s some NC State sh*t right there.” The Pack holds the lead throughout the majority of the game, lose the lead with minutes to play, fight back, and lose on a last second 3-pt shot.  I know the Pack did some things that didn’t help their effort, but I’m starting to lose my faith in karma….

*Marquette scored 18 points off 18 NCSU turnovers, with the majority of those turnovers coming from the guards against the Marquette press in the first half.  Is it just me or has NC State not been able to attack a press comfortably since Dumb & Dumber was #1 at the box office (or at least #1 in my mind) .  Cut those turnovers in half, and State has a double digit lead going into the half. 

First half defense was very good against the quick slashing guards of Marquette, holding them to 39% shooting  in the first half , compared to State’st 54%.  Again, the turnovers limited the Pack to get a better cushion at the half.

*While our turnovers did tremendously hurt, it does say a lot about the Pack to lose the lead and fight back  to have MULTIPLE opportunities to take the lead  in the closing moments, despite Marquette shooting over 60% in the second half (including 57% from 3 pt range). 

*I still do not agree with the way Sid is substituting during the games.  Costner, Fells, and McCauley should NEVER be on the bench at the same time at this point in the season, especially against a Top 25 team at home.  Costner and McCauley came out of the 2nd half with a lead, and did not come into the game until <10 min left in the game and we were down 4.  Why take them out for so long?  Costner was shooting 90% from the field last night!  I dont know…..I know we want to get the younger players experience and playing time to ready for conference play, but this was a crucial game for our NCAA resume and needed to be treated like a conference game.  We don’t have the talent right now to let our main starters sit on the bench for 5+ minute stretches when we have a lead <15.

Also another bit of good news for the Pack is that Fergalicious was reported to have broken/fractured his hand last night.  At least it wasn’t a knee I guess.

All that said, we got a lot of season left to go.  All we can do is work hard on the things we didn’t do well and maintain the things we did do well.  I love the way the team is playing and it is nice to see a Wolfpack team on the court actually showing a hint of competitive emotion again.  Now lets take care of business before another huge game @ Florida next week.

NC State / Marquette Recap

This was a game we all thought it would be, and even better in some areas.  We knew that they had some really talented guards (3  Senior) and were going to full-court press our inexperienced guards.

The positives - Costner of old played awesome, he should have played more imo.  Mays looked very smart and assertive on the offensive glass. Fells came through in the cluth when we needed him and had some nice drives, dunks, and slashes to the basket.  Ferguson played ok, had some nice drives.  Our freshman look really sound fundamentally and seem to be progressing nicely.  Halftime show- great turnout and crowd cheer for the 1974 national championship team.  Great recap of the 1974 championship run on the jumbo-tron and well planned by the ath. department.

Negatives / Areas for improvement - I’ve read that Ferguson broke his wrist, not confirmed yet,  but if true, would be a big blow to our inexperienced guard lineup.  Free throws - missed free throws at the end cost us the game.  I want to emphasize that our D really stepped it up in the clutch and made several huge stops at the end to put ourselves in a position to be up by 4 with 30 seconds left.  We faultered down the stretch by I have confidence that Farnold now knows that if the opposing team is running a screen, you trust your big man (Ben) to move over into the passing lane on the left side and you hold your ground.  For some reason, Farnold tried to do too much and got burned.  Kind of reminds me of last year when the Clemson guard (Hammonds?) went for the steal against unx and got burned.  Degand is a smart individual and a progressing player coming back from a serious injury, and although he sometimes get himselves into situations that are too hard to get out of, I think he learned a valuable lesson last night by not standing his ground on the screen and trusting his teammates to help out.  Also, half court traps - Degand has the speed to beat the trap, why not use it?  We had several bone-head plays trying to pass it too much and got torched.  I am confident that Sid is all over the guards today in practice about dribbling (and passing if necessary) out of the half-court defense.

All in all, I am very pleased with the way we played last night and are progressing this season.  This team is playing hard and needs to play smarter, but we knew going into this season that we werent going to blow people away.  IMO, we could have easily put away Davidson and Marquette with just a couple few changes in either the lineup (Costner and Smith getting more p.t.) or decision making (dribbling out of the half-court trap and playing smarter defensively).  For now, lets hope Ferguson is alright and at worst just a sprain.  And lets hope that in the next big matchup, if your best player is 5-5 from behind the arc and simply unstoppable in the paint, the coach decides to let you play a little longer.

Time for the fans to rally around the team and support them, for we need to get through Loyola and Towson and then head down to Gainesville to steal one from Florida.  They are well coached but I feel like our team matches up with them a lot better than the guard-oriented teams like Marquette.  Go Pack!

Photo Courtesy of Flickr, john.d.long

NC State - Marquette Preview

Marquette @ NC State
7:00 pm
ESPNU
RBC Center, Raleigh, NC
NC State Basketball Tickets
 
Tonight provides another good test for Sid Lowe and sons as #24 Marquette makes its way into the RBC Center as we relive the 1974 NCAA Championship game (NCSU 76 – Marquette 64).  I haven’t got to see Marquette play much this year, but these are my thoughts on tonight’s game.
 
*NCSU has a size advantage down low so look for the Wolfpack, like usual, to feed the ball into McCauley/Costner/Smith for most of the games, and hopefully kick a few out to Turd Ferguson so he can keep the D honest on the perimeter.
*Looks like the guards are a little more experienced for Marquette so Sid needs to get Mays, Gonzalez, and Degand into a good rotation to keep fresh legs.  With lingering injuries to Degand and Gonzalez, possibly look for Mays to get the start for the second game in a row.  After a little bit of a shaky start, Mays produced very stable numbers against Limpscomb – 9 pts, 7 assts, 0 to’s
*There were 3 games in pre-conference play that would help us HEAVILY if we want to even start considering being an NCAA tournament invitee in a few months: Davidson, Marquette, and Florida.  Obviously we could not quite put it together against Davidson with Curry’s 40 ft prayers and all.  This would give us a very good OOC win for the resume come tourney time, as would Florida.

Blog Courtesy of dubpack
Photo Couresy of Flickr, themarquettewarrior

NC State - ECU Preview

NC State is set to take on ECU, 7PM Wednesday, December 17th, at the RBC Center in Raleigh, NC.  The Wolfpack will be  looking for a bit of revenge after last seasons 75-69 upset loss to the ECU Pirates.  Coming off of a 74-56 win over Winston-Salem State the Wolfpack looks to continue their success against a pretty strong ECU team.
 
ECU is currently on a 5 game winning streak. With an 8-1 record, ECU is on its way to a winning record season; which last happened in 1995-1996.  With Mark McCarthy as head coach, ECU has been stomping through its competition this year. One of those wins was against UNCG.  NC State also beat UNCG, however State’s 27 point win was not as impressive as ECU’s 44 point win (97-53). 
 
As always, ECU will be relying on a few veterans on Wednesday night in Sam Hinnant and James Legan, to continue their combined average of 33.2 PPG.  Defensively, ECU tends to play mostly a man-to-man game, with the occasional zone.
 
If we are lucky the Wolfpack will bring a full roster back in action by game time.   You can expect Degand on the court following his one-game suspension for misconduct.  After Costner suffered a deep gash above his right eye in the UNCG game, he should be back in action this week. Finially, Fells incurred a recent ankle injury although Lowe didn’t appear too concerned about his ability to still play; but I believe will still be a game time call.
 
Keys to the game include sealing up the point guard position, getting production out of Furg, and producing less turnovers.  With Javi’s horrible play against Winston-Salem and Degand’s actions off the court, it leaves the point guard position wide open again.  Both players need to come into this game ready to play. I can almost guarantee the better of the two will start the Lipscomb game.  Furg came off of a good game against WSS, but prior to that his three point average was garbage.  Furg needs to the step up to his pre-season averages and play with confidence. 
 
Lastly, we need to hault the amount of turnovers per game and the turnover ratio.  As the season continues, this is becoming more and more of a issue.  It should be a good game, lets just hope our Wolfpack basketball can do what  our Football team did in the fall, kill ECUs early hopes of a glorious season.

roks

Home of the Wolfpack, RBC Center

The RBC Center located next door to Carter-Finley Stadium is home of the NC State Men’s Basketball team.  The arena is the second largest in the ACC with a approximate total of 19,700 seats including 66 luxury suites and 2,000 club seats.  Check out the NC State Basketball Seating Chart to find out more about the layout of the seats. 

The idea to create a new basketball arena came from a great NC State Wolfpack visionaries Jim Valvano, the coach of the famous 1984 NCAA National Championship team.  The arena was completed in 1999, with an estimated cost of $158 million.

Curry Fury…

If Coach Lowe knew one thing before going into the game on Saturday, it was to stop Stephen Curry on the court.  Instead just the opposite, Curry slipped by with 44 points and took the Davidson Wildcats to there 6th win of the season and 2nd in the past 38 meetings against NC State.  With Lebron James just 10 rows under me and JJ Hickson across the way behind the NC State bench I felt it was time for the Wolfpack to put on a show. 

From tip off, the Wolfpack had control of the game, though both sides played ugly, the edge was leaning toward NC State for the most part of the game.  The fans didn’t seem to care, I was amazed at the turn out for Davidson and how excited the Wildcat fan base was.  From the white lobster to the 30 guys with no shirts on, I felt that I was in Cameron indoor and UNC was in town.   With NC State up by a few with just minutes remaining, it seemed that something clicked in Curry’s head.  This I call the Curry Fury, after this moment every play involved Curry and most of them involved him scoring.  Needless to say Curry put up 10 points to NC State 5 points in the final 4 minutes.  

All of this scoring and momentum was accompanied by Lebron James and the crowd going absolutely crazy.  In the end, NC State failed to finish a game that had one mission, stop Stephen Curry.  NC State will host Winston-Salem college in Reynolds Coliseum on Saturday at 2pm.

roks
Photo Courtesy of Flickr, j_visser’s photostream

NC State Wolfpack Accept Papajohn.com Bowl Bid

It’s official the NC State Wolfpack Football team has accepted its invitation to play in the Papajohns.com bowl against Rutgers(7-5).  The bowl will be played at legion field in Birmingham, Alabama on Dec 29th at 2pm (central).  This will mark the 24th all time bowl appearance and 1st for Tom O’Brien as head coach of the Wolfpack.  

Tickets will be sold through www.gopack.com at about $40 and at Stubhub.com. This really is great news for a team that much deserves it.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I ready to show ESPN and the rest of the college football nation what NC State Football is all about.  As far as Rutgers goes all I remember is a North Carolina spanking early in the season to give them one of those five losses.

Bowl Bound?

That’s the current question right?  In the end will the Wolfpack get a bowl bid?  With all the latest scrutiny in the sports world about the BCS system, what better way to get a feel for it then a 6-6 Wolfpack.  It seems that now, almost a week after NC States victory over Miami, the Wolfpack at best will get a at-large bid for a bowl.  NCAA and ACC officials have pretty much canned the idea that NC State would get one of the 9 bowl bids associated with the ACC.  I remember back in early November when they started the, “…if the wolfpack win out they are going to a bowl,” talk; let’s just hope it will be true.  Just think, if we would have taken down Maryland we would be a number one seed in the ACC.  Here is what the bowl picture looks like.

·     Orange Bowl — Winner ACC Championship

·     Champs Bowl – Looks like FSU

·     Meineke Bowl – ? (more than likely the scum of the earth UNC) 

·     Gator Bowl: Clemson (what the?)

·     Chick-fil-A – Ga Tech

·     Music City Bowl – Loser ACC Championship

·     EagleBank Bowl – ? (ACC)

·     Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl — ? (ACC)