havi, tracy and dennis played well, but didn’t get any help. state can’t win if williams, wood and mays don’t provide anything. c.j. williams i don’t understand. for the second straight year lowe has started him at the beginning of the season, and for the second straight year he has failed to produce. hopefully, degand can start playing soon and put williams, who made statements prior to the beginning of the season about being the team leader, on the bench. as the number two guard he needs to score. he didn’t last year and hasn’t so far this year.
as to wood, i expected him not to shoot well once he got to state. not surprised by his poor shooting and will be surprised if he starts shooting better this year. i sure hope he does. he has a quick release and great form. freshman pressure?
another player i don’t understand is degand. its his last year! one would expect him to do what it takes academically to ensure that he can play.

The small forward position was a black hole. Wood missed lots of open shots and Davis was not impressive at all and ideally would be a victory cigar type player. Don’t even get me started on CJ at the 2.

Mays seems uncomfortable out on the court. I really hoped he and wood would have some chemistry from high school.

Our “strategy” against half court traps does not appear to have changed. Step 1: cross the time line and stop. Step 2: Wait for the trap. Step 3: Nobody left open move to relieve the trapped ballhandler. Step 4. Dangerous lob pass. Being PGs, you would think that Lowe and Towe would be able to instruct the team how to properly handle half court traps.

Horner needs to be more assertive the whole game. The team needed him to step up in the first half.

It is hard to win with offensive contributions from only 3 players.

The players are forcing it a little too much to Tracy right now. He should be our first option, but the players go into modes where they act like he is the only option. This makes things way too easy on the defense.

Everytime State made a run and needed one more stop they allowed either a wide open 3 or a wide open layup.

The refs: NW big guys shuffled their feet A LOT. Lots of moving screens, and lots of hack a tracy with no call.

I was impressed with Northwestern’s execution. They were able to squash every run we made with a well run play.

Javi is the leader of this team, and he played like he really wanted the win. I liked what I saw of Vandenburg (besides the sky hook). Painter is promising, but is very much a freshman. I liked his aggressiveness on the boards and willingness to take shots on offense.

The opening video/song is a freaking embarrassment. I don’t know why NCSU can’t put together a decent intro. Why choose a Rihanna song for a men’s bball game? With very good computer science and design programs can’t we get some better animations? Also, when everyone has stopped clapping and cheering before the end of the video it means it is way too long.

Good TO numbers again. Particularly encouraged by the defensive TO numbers against a team that has been taking care of the ball. We’ve certainly improved on the defensive side of the court from last year.

Otherwise, this loss is basically indistinguishable from any number of other losses over the past X number of years where we missed a bunch of shots. I don’t see any reason to get worked up about this unless you were one of those people who had deluded yourself into thinking that the NCAAs were possible.

for any male who feels bad about n.c. state basketball, football, lee fowler etc watch this old video. you willll feel better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFEfmbAeEDY