NC State - ECU Preview
December 15, 2008 by admin
Filed under NC State Basketball Blog
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
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Pack_Attack_3000 on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 6:08 am
Totally agree with the analysis. ECU is playing very well this season and although we have seen some improvement and some depth, I feel the one area that Sid really needs to focus on is set lineups (in turn hopefully building chemistry and team identity). Nevertheless, we are in ACC country and should never, regardless of how well ECU is playing, not be able to beat these guys. I was feeling more confident at the beginning of the season with the two-man rotations as the ‘red’ and ‘white’ squads would rotate in periodically. I must say that I think the Davidson game really opened up some areas that need to be adressed - offensive rebounding (really? we should have solved this after the ECU game last year), turnovers (PG?), and a set lineup. (among other things) Although I dont understand why (in the Davidson game) if your starting lineup goes on a 15-4 run why you take them out? They are athletes, build that lead up to twenty then put in your second squad (just to give the group thats playing well a little break). If it isnt broke, dont fix it. I am not down on this team, we saw in last years NCAA tourney what Curry could do, and unfortunately didnt have anybody (besides maybe a hard-working Fresh) that could even slow him down. I think we have got great potential and I feel that if the team can limit the turnovers and stay healthy, Sid’s gameplan will more than position our team for the win. I’ll be there, screaming my heart out, and eager to see a ‘hungry’ state team ready to beat ECU back into the conference they came from.
Wolf! Pack!
Red_Pride_in_Raleigh on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 6:11 am
Website looks good. Lets keep this thing going, positive, and looking great.
State Fan on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 9:54 am
Updates to the injuries for this game from Sids radio show… I quote gopack.com
“During his weekly radio show on Monday night, Lowe said that neither Fells nor Smith were able to practice on Monday. Lowe also added that he had not yet decided whether he’d allow point guard Farnold Degand to play against the Pirates. Citing disciplinary reasons, Lowe held Degand out Saturday’s contest.”