The Stretch Run

Just four games remain in the 2008-09 regular season. The older I get, the faster these seasons come and go.

I can't imagine how fast the seasons will fly by once I hit 45 or 50. No wonder our graybeards talk about the titles of '74 and '83 as though they happened just yesteryear. I'm sure it feels that way to them, just as 1996 seems like just a few years ago to me.

Nevertheless, there's the slate ahead. You can see what Ken Pomeroy's computers tell us will happen. It's a relatively safe prediction of 7-9, and one that -- had you offered it to State fans the day after the loss to VT that put State at 2-6 in-conference -- I'm sure most would have taken.

If we assume KenPom's predictions all hold true -- which they won't, but let's assume they do -- then here are your final regular season standings:

(Continues)

Rank	Team	Conference Record
1	UNC	13-3
2	Wake	11-5
3	Clemson	11-5
4	Duke	11-5
5	BC	9-7
6	FSU	9-7
7	Miami	8-8
8	NC State	7-9
9	Va Tech	6-10
10	Maryland	6-10
11	UVa	4-12
12	GT	2-14

If this plays out as predicted, the Virginia Tech loss still hurts but not as much as perhaps some folks felt initially. It would have State at an 8-8 finish, tied for the 7th position in the conference with Miami, a five-spot improvement from last season's debacle.

In terms of the ACC tournament, though, the impact would not be felt. According to the ACC's tiebreaker policy (if I've deciphered it properly), State would have an identical W/L record against UNC, the same number of wins (one) but one more loss against the tied teams in second place (Wake, Clemson, Duke) and therefore be seeded 8th at the ACC tournament regardless.

Again, this all assumes that Ken's predictions all play out as his computers project.

Looking ahead, let's look at some best case/worse case scenarios for the Pack based on these predictions:

Absolute Best Case Scenario: We win out, of course. Doing so would put us at 9-7 in a three-way tie for 5th with BC and FSU, with both schools holding the tiebreaker over us in tourney seeding (BC's win against UNC earns them the nod over us in our tie). It would take a near miracle for this to occur -- Maryland and Boston College at home are loseable games, but defeating both Miami AND Wake Forest on the road is asking a lot of the basketball gods. It can be done, but only if all the pieces fall the right way (turnovers and rebounding numbers would have to improve dramatically). Chance of Success = 1 in 10

Highly Optimistic Scenario: Win three of four to finish 8-8. Win both home games against Maryland and Boston College, and steal one on the road, most likely at Miami. An 8-8 finish with a win over the 'Canes would put the Pack in sole possession of 7th place in the league. Chance of Success = 1 in 3

More Realistic But Given Our Track Record Still Cautiously Optimistic Scenario: Win the home games and lose the road games to finish 7-9 and in sole possession of 8th place in the league. Miami is going to be a really tough out in Jack McClinton's final game at Miami. He'll be so fired up that he'll be making them from the gigantic U. Chance of Success = 2 of 3

Pretty Darn Pessemistic Scenario: State loses three of their final four games. Either Tyrese Rice or Greivis Vasquez explode like they've shown they can do and/or State turns it over 50% of their possessions to lose both of their road games and one of the final two at home. A 6-10 finish would put the Pack either tied with Maryland for 10th (with a loss to BC) or in sole possession of 10th (with a loss to Maryland). Either way, not good. Chance of Failure = 1 in 3

Holy Hell The World Is Crashing Down Around Us, But Hey, We're State, This Is Just What Happens To Us Scenario: State loses all four games in an epic collapse not seen since, well, last year. Both Rice AND Vasquez go off and State never gets the ball past midcourt. State would finish 5-11, just one game ahead of Virginia in 10th place, and the ward drums would start to pound pretty loudly. Chance of The Apocolypse = 1 in 10

I can live with 7-9. I'd love 8-8. To finish 9-7 is asking too much, even for this dyed-in-the-wool fan.

But 6-10 or 5-11 finishes would be major disappointments and put a very sour taste in everyone's mouths at the end of the season, for the second year in a row.

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State 86, Ga. Tech 65

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Stats by StatSheet.com

Twenty one. One for every point in the margin of victory on Saturday. One for every turnover.

When was the last time a team dropped a 20-plus-point beatdown on a team in the ACC, on the road no less, turning the ball over 20 or more times?

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Hey, if any team could deliver a win like that and any team could receive the beating, it would be the Pack and the Yellow Jackets.

The Pack have been doling out turnovers like candy from a parade float all year long, and the Jackets just flat-out suck offensively.

As unconventional as it may be, though, the Pack will take it. The Pack shot lights-out for the game, hitting 66.6% of their twos and 52.9% of their 17 attempted threes. Finishing the game with an effective FG% of 71.6% will do in most any team you face. All the more remarkable when you consider that Georgia Tech was holding their opponents below 45% eFG for the year heading into the game.

Tracy Smith was your stat sheet hero, posting a healthy 18 points and 10 boards, but I think if I were handing out gameballs on this one it would have to go to Javier Gonzalez. Coach Sidney Lowe has been insisting that he's been playing lights-out in practice and I think we saw plenty of glimpses of that against Tech. He was aggressive in pushing the ball up the court and in attacking the basket. His passes were laser crisp, and he did a good job getting the Pack into their halfcourt sets. Smith got more than one easy dunk as a result of some fantastic ball movement.

Yeah, he had two turnovers of the boneheaded variety, but I saw in this game what Lowe has been adamantly preaching last week. Not bad for a guy I was cursing up and down just months ago.

Now we have to see if he can take a strong performance Saturday and parlay it into a strong performance against a much more talented Tar Heels team on Wednesday. The Heels eeked out a win against Miami tonight, which means they'll be more ill than a kicked hornets nest and looking for someone to take it out on. Guess who drew the short straw.

Nevertheless, the Pack is playing its best basketball of the season thusfar, and faces an interesting psychological challenge ahead: A rivalry game on the road against a dominant team. A win would be extremely unlikely but a HUGE boost to the psyche. A blowout loss could be an equally huge blow to the psyche. If the more likely scenario occurs, can this team get back off the mat and fight its way into a strong finish down the stretch? An NIT bid would be a nice consolation prize for a team that looked dead and lost at one point this year.

We shall see as the final games of the conference season wind down.

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A look at Georgia Tech, again

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Rank and Records	NCST		GT
RPI	#101		#156
Strength of Schedule	#82		#72
Overall	13-9		10-13
Conference	3-6		1-9
Home	12-3		8-6
Away	1-6		2-7
Top 25	1-4		1-2
RPI Top 50	2-8		1-5

Recap from the game in Raleigh.

It took Lowe-vertime to seal the deal in Raleigh back in January, but the Pack notched its first ACC victory of the year by staging a late-game rally to get to the bonus period.

Looking at the Four Factors chart above, you can see a Tech team that continues to slide further and further into their own muck. Effective FG percentage has been on a steady two-month decline, as have the offensive rebounding and free throw rates. That, along with an increasing turnover percentage, is just not how you conclude your season.

Without diverting too far from the game preview, it just seems tough to see how Hewitt will keep his employment up after next season. Derrick Favors has bought him one more year, but he'll be gone soon enough and I can't fathom that his presence will improve the Jackets enough to provide a secondary-recruiting bump large enough to further extend Hewitt's employment. Anything's possible, but as we saw how interjecting a star one-and-done-er can sometimes go wrong, the odds are stacked against Hewitt in 2010.

But that's neither here nor there with regards to Saturday's game.

It's this week's version of The Biggest Game Of The Season. The win against Wake Forest on Wednesday (that 10 years from now 35,000 people will claim to have witnessed in person) was a huge shot in the arm for a team looking to bounce back against a horrible loss against Virginia Tech on Sunday. Had State lost against Wake, the Georgia Tech game would be largely inconsequential, and outside of some pockets of extreme optimism, it still only matters in the sense that we could play ourselves into a better ACC Tournament seed and avoid missing out on the Big 10/ACC Challenge Beatdown.*

This game is also huge from a team growth standpoint because it's a conference road game against team State should beat. The Pack seems to have little difficulty getting up for big games at home, but sealing the deal on the road is another matter. It's also an opportunity to avoid playing down to an opponent. If the Pack can get on the gas, stay on it and KEEP on it for 40 minutes, the mental rewards for this team would be immense.

But the very reason State stands to gain so much is the very reason I'm worried. When the chips have been down with something to LOSE, not GAIN (as they were in the Wake game), the Pack has struggled.

The usual areas of concern apply: turnovers, rebounding, guard play, 40 minutes of solid basketball. The record's been skipping so long now that there are divots in the wax. Atlanta's a tough place to play, and this will be State's most challenging -- but potentially most rewarding -- game of the year.

*Thanks to Mike and Zac for keeping this sloppy writer in check.
(Continues)

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State 76, Georgia Tech 71 (OT)

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Stats by StatSheet.com

After all the grief heaped upon the shoulders of the "old guard" (including some from myself) following the loss to FSU, State's veteran duo of Brandon Costner and Ben McCauley were the driving forces of a come-from-behind win in the RBC Center on Saturday.

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McCauley scored 22 points and snagged 10 boards, and Costner poured 18 more to lift the Pack to a 76-71 overtime victory.

The Pack was down 10 with 4:44 to go on a Gani Lawal layup, but the Pack closed the game on a 13-3 run to tie it with :31 to go. Another member of the old guard, Dennis Horner, took over in overtime, scoring six points in the bonus frame including the winning bucket and foul to put the game away.

The guard situation continues to ebb and flow...Julius Mays, starting by virtue of his strong performances of late relative to his backcourt teammates, turned the ball over six times, yielding the floor late in the game to Farnold Degand. Degand came through...it was his bucket and free throw that tied the game at 67-all.

Which only makes one wonder where Sidney goes from here. It's got to be frustrating when--from game to game--you have no idea which of your 10 players will show up to play that day. As a coach you're not afforded the ability to tinker with the lineup for 15 minutes with the scoreboard off to figure out who brought their game that day. Lowe is having to do just that, praying that the team can keep it close long enough to nail down the rotation willing to play that day. It worked against Georgia Tech, but it won't against just about any other team in the conference.

Also, turnovers continue to be a bugaboo. State logged 22 more--nearly 30% of the team's possessions--and were bailed out by GT's 22 turnovers to put the turnover margin at break-even. State's now faced the worst two teams in the league in terms of turnovers (FSU and GT) and won one of two. The teams from here on out will take care of the basketball much better, and State--if they don't take better care of the ball--will consistently find themselves on the wrong end of a pretty nasty turnover margin.

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A look at Georgia Tech

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Steven's preview at SectionSix

For the most part, Georgia Tech would like to play at a faster pace. So far they're ranked 16th nationally in tempo, averaging 72.8 possessions per game. But they can be held to much under that by a team that dictates the pace. Against Maryland they played the fastest-paced game of the year with 82 possessions...four days later they played their slowest with just 66.

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Now, granted, that 66 possession game came against Duke, possibly the best defensive team in the country. Duke's going to take a lot of teams out of their gameplan.

Coach Paul Hewitt landed one of the nation's top prep players this week in Derrick Favors, but Favors can't help the Jackets' thin rotation this season. Only nine players have seen any significant minutes this year, with three players -- Gani Lawal, Iman Shumpert and Alade Aminu -- averaging over 71% of their potential minutes. Conversely, the Pack doesn't have a single player averaging more than 68.7% (Ben McCauley) and goes 12-strong in meaningful minutes played.

The bulk of Georgia Tech's offense will come from inside the arc (64.2% on 2PT shots, 2nd nationally), so State will need to find an answer in the post defensively that it did not have against Florida State. Lawal will be their primary go-to man, as he's scoring over a fifth of Tech's points (22%).

The Jackets are one-point favorites on the road -- not surprising given how down everyone is on the Pack after the blown game against the 'Noles -- but if the Pack can once again limit their turnovers while turning the other team over, they stand a good chance to win this game at home.

(Sidenote: how is it that the Pack has only turned the ball over 20.8% of the time, and is still middle-of-the-road in this category [180th]? I swear it feels like 40.8%)

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Dignity "optional"

Digging around on Brahsome.com, I came across this video from some fired up Georgia Tech fans. It's their ode to Paul Johnson and his triple option, and it's entertainingly horrible.

(Let me just state for the record that the sooner the "White Bread Rap" fad fades out of favor with the kids, the happier I'll be. I know that makes me sound old, but whatever; in 25+ years, the only white rapper to pull it off was Eminem, and all his success has done is span a whole new generation of wannabes that think they can kick it hardcore.

In any event, enjoy:)

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