Miami shoot 1-9 from 3 point land.  Their star performer held to about half his season average.

How did the Pack answer?  By not scoring a field goal until 9.5 minutes into the game. (They had 6 turnovers during this stretch.)

The Wolfpack managed to find a way to slide in under the low bar the Hurricanes set to lose to Miami 63-50.  The ACC tournament loss puts an end to a disappointing season.

The loss was pretty much symbolic for how the Wolfpack played the 0′7 - ‘08 season:
Uninspired, ineffective effort with plenty of turnovers and uncanny ability to not be able to score.

Hickson got his game back, scoring more than half of the Pack’s 50 points (27). If that wasn’t enough, he also tossed in 14 rebounds.

Just how bad was it? Fells was the second leading scorer on the team with 6 points.

Departing senior Gavin Grant, in his final game for the Wolfpack, was seemingly pulled from the game for not being “ready to play.”

The Pack as a team shot 34% on the day from the field (vs. Miami’s 37%). They also shot 2-15 from the 3 point line, apparently believing that if you have one of the ACC’s lowest field goal percentages, you should try shooting from farther out.

This was NC State’s first losing season since 2001.

The only bright spot from the season, freshman J.J. Hickson, didn’t say whether he was going to bolt for the NBA. He’s projected as a first round pick. While he could improve his game, this season’s team was left no indication that there’s any reason to stick around.

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State ends the regular season on a depressing note, losing to Wake Forest 78-67.

It looked like departing Wolfpack senior Gavin Grant might lead State back as his layup with 5:30 minutes left to go brought State within two, 60-58. But it was not to be. After fighting back from a defect of 10, the Wolfpack seemingly ran out of steam and Wake Forest went on a 7-0 run to put the Wolfpack’s regular season out of it’s misery.

State’s leading scorers against Wake were Grant (16), Hickson (11), and Costner (10). Grant also threw in 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Low points include Courtney Fells (1-5 from the field, 1-4 from 3pt line; a turnover and 4 fouls in 25 minutes) and Marques Johnson (why does this guy still get playing time? 3 points in 11 minutes on 1-4 shooting with 2 turnovers). McCauley only saw 11 minutes of action as he gave way playing time to Costner. While Costner scored 10, it was on 3-13 shooting (1-6 from 3pt land) and had 2 turnovers with only 2 rebounds.

While these are a lot of numbers, I think it’s important to point out that State shot 44% on the day. Replacing Fells, Johnson, and Costner, State would have shot 59% from the field.

Up next (and all that’s left now) is the ACC tournament.

As StateFansNation.com points out, NC State will play the ACC tourney as a twelve seed …dead last in the conference. The tournament starts on March 13th and runs through the 16th.

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850thebuzz says:

If I hear one more time about “the hook” I’m going to throw up. There were about three hundred plays in that game at the RBC Center Saturday afternoon and they all impacted the game, many of them to greater extent than “the hook” that — upon further review — probably would have been better as a no call, but Ben McCauley put himself in bad position by bodying out on Nelson, a much quicker player. –850thebuzz.com

While I agree that there were other plays that could have made the difference just as much, this was an awful call at a critical point of the game. What was McCauley supposed to do? Get out of the way give him the easy layup? C’mon…

See it for yourself:

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According to 850 the Buzz’s recent blog post, if the players were at fault for the FSU loss (which they were), then the coaching staff were at fault for the Duke loss:

One game after Sidney Lowe called his starters “awful” and essentially said that it’s the players fault not the coach’s, Lowe’s decision to allow Duke to melt the clock without making any effort to steal the ball — let alone commit a foul — ranks as one of the worst I have ever seen.

(This point was also debated over at RedandWhiteFromState.com Saturday.)

I definitely agree that Lowe isn’t doing enough to get this team to where it needs to be. State certainly hasn’t lived up to their potential this year and while the onus is on the players to execute, it’s on the coach to motivate them to do so.

It would seem that others are starting to focus on whether or not Lowe is the right guy for the job:

As a NC State Grad, I would like to know how all the alumni that chased out Herb Sendek feels now. Sidney Lowe could not coach if he had 5 Lebron James on his team. I was pissed off when Herb went to ASU. People did not like his slow tempo, but he got better results than Sidney ever will. Herb took us to the dance several times. We will be lucky to make it to the NIT with Lowe.

“LOWE MUST GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” –NCStateGrad96
(as submitted to NCStateFans.com)

Despite how well State played this weekend vs. Duke, Gavin Grant gets it:

“There are no moral victories,” Grant said. “There is no ‘L’ with an ‘M’ next to it. They made plays down the stretch. They could have easily folded, but they didn’t. They made plays and hung tough. That’s why they are who they are.” –Gavin Grant

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Despite the season pretty much being over for State, they had a perfect opportunity to play spoiler on Senior Day at the RBC. Coach K was going for win #800 and a State win would surely knock #6 Duke out of the top 10.

The Wolfpack got off to a great start lead by a rather un-likely trio: Javi Gonzalez, Ben McCauley, and Tracy Smith.

Sidney Lowe (sporting the red blazer) sent Tracy Smith out to start the game for State (in the spot that has been filled this season by both Costner & McCauley) and he brought some much needed rebounding, inside play, and energy early on. Smith finished the day with 14 points in 22 minutes. He shot 4-5 from the field and was a perfect 6-6 from the line.

Gonzalez helped set the tone early for the Wolfpack when he caught Paulus with an elbow that opened up a gash under his eye.

After nearly knocking Paulus’ lights out, Gonzalez began shooting lights out:
4/4 from the 3pt line
6/7 from the field
Career high 18 points.

Ben McCauley played tough all day inside. He lead the way for State with 19 points. At one point the big man showed his range when he landed a surprise shot from one step inside the three point line.

Trevor Ferguson was the usual spark off the bench (many are wondering why he’s still not starting?), scoring 9 on 3-6 shooting and doing a great job bringing the ball up the court on a few possessions for State.

The guys you typically would think might lead the way in scoring, J.J. Hickson or last year’s Brandon Costner were barely involved in the game. Hickson played only 18 minutes, scoring 8 points and notching 5 rebounds (…and he tossed in an impressive block on Singler).

Costner was on the floor for 22 minutes and was held scoreless on 0-3 shooting.

Courtney Fells shot a dismal 1-4, but was 6-6 from the free throw line and ended up with 9 points.

Gavin Grant, the only Wolfpack senior on Senior Day turned in a sub-par performance, shooting 2 out of 5 for 6 points and fouled out with 2.5 minutes to go with the Wolfpack up by four.

It would seem that State was going to ruin the day for Coach K. Up by as much as 13 in the 2nd half, the Wolfpack actually out-shot Duke 38% to 54% from the field; 46% to 53% from 3-point-land; and 81 to 86% from the free throw line.

But the turnovers kept Duke in the game. Duke had 8. State had 17. This kept the door open for Duke, despite the Wolfpack outplaying them in pretty much every aspect throughout the game…

Except for the last two minutes.

Duke went on a 14-5 run. An awful call sent Demarcus Nelson to the line and he sank his two free throws with a minute to go gave Duke the lead. McCauley then turned it over with 40 seconds left on the clock. Duke pretty much ran out the clock as State tried to use defense to force a turnover Scheyer threw up a 3 with 4 seconds to go that missed. Fells with the rebound, passes it up to McCauley who threw one up in desperation from the 3 point line as time expired. A brick off the backboard later and Duke steals one, 87-86.

Despite the loss, this one was at least a different, and better effort put forth by State.

Final game next week vs. Wake Forest.

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Well, it’s been almost a full 24 hours since the State loss to FSU. Even though I know that if you are going to try and run a blog like this, it’s probably pretty important to put something together pretty soon after the game. But what could I say?

Pretty much the same thing that’s been put up over the last what, six games now?

Turnovers
Lack of Energy
State going long periods of time without scoring (like the first 5 minutes of the game where FSU was up 10-0)
Undisciplined play
No defense

So I guess I really didn’t have anything new to say.

I was at the game last night, and pretty much had the same reaction BJD95 (and a lot of other fans) over at StateFansNation:

..Even so, I managed to watch last night’s game with a relaxed and calm demeanor. I don’t remember so much as a “damn it” coming from my mouth, or a scowl on my face. –StateFansNation.com

So I guess I’m pretty much at acceptance too.

The only thing I guess I can put forth that it would be nice for Coach Lowe to do something to get these guy’s attention. Benching them would be a start. But I’d be fine if he threw a chair too. Hell.. maybe even draw a technical foul every once in a while? There were some opportunities last night with the officiating. But I guess there was no use. Towards the last 5-6 minutes ago it got a little better. Like when FSU guard Ralph Mims took the in-bounds pass and walked not once, not twice, but a third time …the refs finally caught on.

Pretty much the only bright spot last night was Trevor Ferguson. He’s the only guy who showed up to play and the State crowd recognized every time he got up to check in and at one point chants of “Fergie” broke out after a trifecta of threes. But it didn’t take long for FSU to key in on our only guy on the court and Ferguson was slowed down quite a bit in the 2nd half being pressed pretty hard by the FSU defense. Even so, he pulled off two impressive passes that lead to State baskets to again try and spark an otherwise lifeless Wolfpack crew.

Once the game was over, Ferguson got it right again:

“We need to come out ready to play, there’s no excuses now. The season is almost over. We should be ready to play.” –RedAndWhiteFromState.com

State takes on Duke Saturday at noon on CBS. The season (mercifully) ends a week later @ Wake Forest.

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Zero from NC State.

UNC has 3.

Wake Forest, Duke, Virginia, Florida State each had one.

ESPN will carry the event on March 26th at 9:30pm.

More on the players here.

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NC State football will start spring practices on March 18th, 3 weeks from today.

The Wilmington paper talks about what to watch for:

Competition is expected at quarterback between Daniel Evans and Russell Wilson, plus the Wolfpack will have tight end Anthony Hill and tailback Toney Baker back at practice after each suffered season-ending knee injuries. Hill missed the entire season. –StarNewsOnline.com

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Great article today at RedandWhitefromState.com about where Hickson would be taken in the NBA draft if he declared:

Hickson was widely thought to be a one year player, and after this season, he was thought to be headed to the pro ranks. That was before he came to Raleigh. –RedandWhiteFromState.com

ESPN.com calls him a potential sleeper for the draft.

Hickson got off to a phenomenal start, but I definitely think there’s some things he could learn with another season or two at State. (..and I’m hoping he sticks around to rub off on the other guys on the team as well.) Most of Hickson’s game is very close to the basket, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, he’s not going to be as effective in the NBA as he is in college ball with rebounding and put backs. While I don’t think he’s ever going to be any sort of consistent mid-range shooter, it wouldn’t hurt to expand that a bit and work on free throws (67%).

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As debuted on Sunday:

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