Big Win For Pack Men; Close But No Cigar For The Women

ETHAN HYMAN - ehyman@newsobserver.com

NCAA Basketball Stats

College Basketball

Dennis Horner picked a fine time to get bloody and go off on a team.

After a nasty spill that required stitches above his right eye, Horner came back in the second half to lead State on a 19-5 charge that sealed State's third win in four games.

He finished with 14 points, most of them coming in a flurry at the end on old-fashioned three-point plays and huge long-range shots.

He had the second-highest +/- ratio at 13, second to CJ freaking Williams' 22. When you add in the 10 points scored against the Pack when CJ was off the court, his Roland Rating was an astounding 32. In fact, State didn't score a single point in the five minutes CJ was on the bench. His play down the stretch has been huge and frankly a bit unexpected. It's seems we've been waiting all year for the promise we saw in him last season to bloom into what we've seen the last two weeks.

Farnold Degand didn't have as memorable a senior game as Horner; in fact it was rather forgettable: In 15 minutes, he logged just one point, one assist, one rebound, one steal and a couple of fouls. Still, I'm sure it was sweet for the senior who transferred here from Iowa State to get a win in his final home game as a Wolfpack player.

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As for the women, they started the ACC Championship game strong. They built a seven point lead against Duke at one point, but Duke cranked up their press and forced the Pack into what felt like a baker's dozen straight turnovers. Once the Blue Devils took the lead, they did so for good. The Pack would rally twice to cut it to single digits, but could never get even.

As we've seen from State teams that have made it to the ACC title game recently, usually having played four games in four days, there just wasn't enough left in the tank to make a big enough push against a fresher, not to mention bigger and more athletic, Duke team.

That's not to say they phoned it in. The Pack fought to the bitter end, a quality I think we'll see from here on out from the teams of first-year coach Kellie Harper. Lee, get that checkbook and fancy pen ready...we need to lock up Harper for the long haul.

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All in all, not a bad Sunday. The Pack men will now face Clemson Thursday night at 9:00 in a rematch of State's almost-win-but-still-a-73-30-loss at the RBC Center earlier this year.

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ALERT: Lee Fowler About To Receive Praise From A State Fan

As much grief as Lee Fowler justly deserves, I have to give the man credit for this: He made one hell of a ballsy hire in Kellie Harper.

There were many that would've preferred Stephanie Glance be given the job following the passing of Kay Yow last year, per Kay's wishes. Lee, however, went against the grain and decided to give the keys to the program to a hot up-and-comer from Western Carolina.

And today, as State prepares to take on Duke in the Women's ACC Championship, that decision appears to be paying big dividends.

I think there's something to be said for "resetting" a program from time to time. State's women's basketball program needed a reset, and Kay's passing, while tragic and somber, provided the athletics program them that opportunity. Following through on that opportunity was a difficult choice to make, but Lee did it, and for that, he gets credit.

Now, for the other 98% of his decisions...nevermind. We'll keep it positive in this post. In hiring Harper, he earned it.

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Unbalanced Conference Schedules And Why The Mythical "Regular Season Title" Is A Farce

Ever since the death of the round robin conference basketball schedule, it's become more difficult to objectively look at conference win/loss records to determine which teams are best in the league.

The win/loss column is no doubt a good place to start--no one would argue that State is a better team than Duke, for example, despite the Pack winning the lone head-to-head meeting. But since each team plays more teams only once (6) than it does twice (5), it can lead to some misleading perceptions when looking at the standings.

This post is an attempt to give a clearer picture of which teams have faced tougher competition within the conference this season. Since the validity of the win/loss records are in question, I'm looking at RPI numbers to determine the strength of each team. To come up with a strength rating for each team, I took the total number of Division 1 teams - Team X's RPI, then divided that number by the lowest team's rating to serve as the baseline.

For example, Virginia has the lowest RPI (currently) of 122. Subtracting that from the total number of Div. 1 teams gives us 347-122=225. The divisor for all the team ratings therefore becomes 225. Virgina's strength rating becomes 1 (225/225), and Duke's becomes 1.528 ((347-3)/225).

The next step is to add up all of the combined strength ratings of the teams on a particular schedule. But since away games are typically more difficult than home games, I borrowed the RPI's convention of multiplying home game values by .6 and away game values by 1.4.

So, a team's schedule strength rating becomes: ((Sum of team ratings for home games)*.6) + ((Sum of team ratings for away games)*1.4)

Make sense? Me either. In any event, here's the chart:



What we see:

• Virginia Tech has played the weakest schedule this year of any team in the league. In addition to a crappy non-con schedule, they can't even lean on their in-conference body of work to impress the Tournament Selection Committee.
• Carolina has played the toughest in-conference schedule due mostly to home-and-aways with Duke, Georgia Tech and Wake, and their lone matchup against 2nd-place Maryland was away.
• Clemson's 9-6 conference mark looks disappointing on the surface, but they've played the 2nd-toughest conference schedule of any team: two games each against the 1st, 2nd and 4th teams in the standings.
  
• Being the worst team in the league (in terms of RPI) doesn't guarantee you faced one of the tougher conference schedules. Virginia, despite having a conference schedule entirely full of teams with better RPIs, still wound up with a weak 7th-place schedule rating.

The bigger implication that comes with comparing schedule strength is that it makes it easier to debunk the notion of a "Regular Season Champion." That term gets thrown around so much these days, carelessly, by members of the media and coaches alike. Coaches love any excuse to hang a banner, and the media--for some reason--seems to have a beef with conference tournaments determining the league champion.

This, I don't understand, precisely BECAUSE of the imbalanced schedules. If the round robin format were still in place today, I could stomach the notion of a regular season champion more easily. But because some teams play far more difficult schedules than others, how can we legitimately crown any team "regular season champ?"

Case in point: Virginia, 2007. They finished tied with Carolina in the conference standings, despite playing a weaker conference schedule. Were they legit "regular season champions," along with the Tar Heels? I don't buy it. I'm sure they hung a banner in John Paul Jones, but as far as I'm concerned, it carries far less weight than what the Tar Heels accomplished that season.

So why debate? Let the conference determine its champion like it ALWAYS has--on the court, in a conference tournament. Finishing first in the regular season awards you one prize and one prize only: top seed in the tourney.

Just like Everett Case wanted.

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CJ Leslie: Julius Hodge Has A Message For You (On Twitter)

Lest you ever start to think Julius Hodge's love for N.C. State has waned any in the years following his graduation, he's put that to rest in the last week or so with some timely tweets.

Regarding incoming stud point guard prospect Ryan Harrow:

I just saw the Ryan Harrow youtube mix...WOOOWWW! Yes very fine days ahead Wolfpack Fans! Forreal I still can't jump like that!N I'm 6'7!

His latest Tweet crusade? Landing Raleigh's CJ Leslie at State this spring. The day after his Harrow tweet, he had this to say:

where do "I" have to travel to convince CJ Leslie NC STATE is home?? we gotta get this kid PackNation!

He then followed that up with a flurry of four tweets tonight on what State had that appealed to him (with a nice dig at Matt Doherty thrown in for good measure):

You know what was the deciding point for me to go to State..besides the coaching, warm atmosphere, and Matt Doherty coming in lol..no but

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Seriously..it was being able to start my own LEGACY. I had prestige programs and was offered EVERYTHING! But u can't buy what I wanted..

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Only thing that would have made it icing on da cake is having my family within minutes away(CJ;)and having JP stay his junior year(dammit! )

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Get back on board baby.. Believe me you won't be this loved/appreciated by the "people/fans"anywhr else I promise you that! Am I right?

Jules, I think I speak for Wolfpack Nation when I say this: Whenever you get done banking those Aussie dollars, the Pack has a place for you SOMEWHERE in the organization as a recruiting coordinator. I'm sure Sid would love to put you to work on the recruiting trails.

One final tweet, regarding his daughter:

Today I asked my daughter was she hungry and she replied" when I hungry I eat daddy" HAHAHAHA I couldn't have said it better myself!! lol!

Like father, like daughter...

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Red-Hot Pack On Two-Game Winning Streak

;)

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Basketball

Ok, so the title was a little tongue-in-cheek.

Nevertheless, State wins its second ACC game in a row, the first time State's won back-to-back conference games this season. That brings them to four conference wins, deadlocking the bottom of the conference in a three-way tie for 10th (Miami and UNC).

The win ensures that State, at 16-13, can finish no worse than .500 before postseason bids are handed out, and if the Pack can win one more game between now and the end of the ACC Tournament, a .500 record is guaranteed for the year. Not great, but better than most predicted this team to achieve this season.

As for the game itself, State rallied from a nine-point second-half deficit to claim the victory. CJ Williams played another solid game, Tracy Smith was his normal team-carrying self and despite some bad free throw shooting most of the game, the team hit the ones that counted down the stretch.

The Pack now heads to Cassel to take on an exhausted VT team coming off a double-overtime thriller against Maryland. The Pack may be catching the sagging Hokies at just the right time. VT will be desperate, however, trying to cling to its hopes of making the NCAA tournament.

With Boston College heading to Raleigh to wrap up the season, it's not ENTIRELY out of the question for the Pack to end the regular season on a four-game winning streak. Do that, then make some noise in the ACC Tournament and NIT...suddenly, 2010-2011 wouldn't be able to get here fast enough.

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When Is A Wolf Not A Wolf: When It's State's Live Mascot, Apparently

So the State student government voted on and passed legislation supporting the search of a live wolf mascot.

There's just one problem: the mascot they are looking to get is not a wolf at all, actually. It's a dog. A Tamaskan, to be exact.

Sure, it kinda looks like a wolf. And as the student senator who authored the legislation explained on 99.9 FM today, while a wolf would be preferable, there are legal and animal rights hurdles to getting a REAL wolf. So a dog it is.

I say, if you can't do a WOLF, then don't do it at all. It seems like a half-baked idea from the get-go,

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Misery Loves Company...

So, how bad is it in Tar Heel land? Check out these portions of the opening post on the FSU game thread:



To "Drummy," first off, good call on reminding everyone right off the bat the Heels won the National Title last year. It's a valiant effort on your part. However, I'm guessing by the tone of the following phrase, "* PROFANITY OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING VEILED PROFANITY) WILL NOT BE TOLERATED AND IS GROUNDS FOR BANNING.
* PLAYER ATTACKS OF ANY KIND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED AND ARE GROUNDS FOR BANNING," conjuring happy thoughts of last season isn't getting the job done at the moment.



Remember...positive posts ONLY. And absolutely [...pause...] no meltdowns. After all, the mods are in a banning mood (judging from the all caps) and are just looking to break their backspace key off in someone.

Not trying to pile on, Heels fans, but it's worth reminding everyone outside of the message board world that yes, even Carolina has message board wackos. Apparently, LOTS of them. And they've been very vocal lately. Very, very vocal.

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