North Carolina State University Athletics
Part Three of Q&A with Herb Sendek
10/11/1999 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
TH: NC State Basketball is about to begin a new era with the opening of the Entertainment and Sports Arena. Are you personally excited about the new building?
Sendek: "I think everybody is on the edge of their seats with anxious anticipation with the start of the new season, in particular, starting a new era in the ESA. We're looking forward to bridging the North Carolina State tradition between Reynolds Coliseum and the new arena."
TH: Do you feel the building has already paid some dividends for your program?
Sendek: "When you talk about dividends, you could be talking about recruiting. I think young players want to play in venues like that, but I think equally important are our own players. Those are the guys who are already a part of your family and I think they are eager to go down the road and play in the ESA."
TH: You've managed to keep your entire coaching staff together during your tenure at NC State. How important has that been to the development of the program?
Sendek: "I think keeping our staff together has been critical to our early momentum. We've assembled a talented group of men who compliment each other very well. Anytime you have that type of consistency, I think it has many advantages. We're very pleased that we've been able to do that for the first three years."
TH: Last season, your team probably ended up on the NCAA Tournament bubble. Along with that, the ACC only received three bids into the tourney. Are you concerned that there may be a trend developing there?
Sendek: "I hope from the ACC's standpoint, for NC State's standpoint, that it is more of an anomaly than a trend. We do have some concerns that we expressed in our ACC coaching meetings last spring. Dave Odom (Wake Forest) in particular, I think, has done a great job of generating some sobering statistics that really paint the picture of how challenging it is for an ACC team to get into the NCAA Tournament right now. At one time, obviously, only one team went---the winner of the ACC Tournament. It was understood by everybody just how difficult that task was to get to the NCAA Tournament. However, I think, in some other ways, today, it is similarly difficult, but it doesn't coincide with the same understanding by the fans because they see 64 teams. But when you actually get down to the numbers crunching, unless you're a dominant team, it is very difficult to get into the tournament. I don't know that that is unique to our league, but our league has some unique definition to it right now. I think it's healthy to have that discussion so that everyone understands what the equation is right now. It really fuels everybody to know that the standard is very high. It requires consistently outstanding performances to cross that threshold."
TH: Does that turn scheduling into a science right now?
Sendek: "I think scheduling right now is a crapshoot. I don't that anybody has a recipe that will tell you, 'here's how to schedule.' One of the things that a representative of the RPI shared with us this spring was that you roughly need 18 wins to be on that bubble. The last two years, the fourth place team in our league has had 17 wins. To get to 18 wins with a 7-9-league mark, you have to go 11-0 out of conference. Then you have all of the pundits saying, 'you should schedule this team, and then this team and this team.' But you've got to go 11-0. It's not easy, but at the same time, you do have to play good people, not only to prepare your team, but also to get to the tournament because the committee is going look at whom you beat. It's just one more piece of evidence that the bar is high. In college basketball right now, there's probably approaching somewhere in the neighborhood of 320 division one teams. 64 go to the NCAA Tournament, roughly a third. In a sport like football, you have roughly 60% of the teams going to a bowl game. So everybody is aware of the terrain. The bar is high and I think that will continue to bring the best out of teams in our league. These are conversations that all of the schools in our league participated in this spring. We're the only major conference right now that still plays a complete round-robin schedule and then plays a conference tournament. So teams like us and Wake Forest, who are battling for that last spot, not only played each other twice during the season, but then turned around and played each other in that 4-5 slot in the first round of the ACC Tournament. We're the only league that still does that."
TH: The one thing that could eliminate that round robin format you talked about is expansion. What are your feelings about that issue?
Sendek: "It would be a misinterpretation to take some of my previous comments as a need for necessary change. I think part of the luster of the ACC is our round robin schedule and our tournament, which is the grandfather of them all. That's part of the territory here. My previous comments aren't to be misinterpreted as complaining or whining. That's just the way it is. Part of what makes the ACC special is the round robin scheduling and the ACC Tournament. I don't know how our fans would take to only playing some of our traditional rivals only once a year."
TH: Finally, what has to happen for this years team to be the best team you've had here at NC State?
Sendek: "I'm going to give you a very simplistic answer to that question. We have to work as hard as we can every day to improve and come together. As long as I coach I'd probably offer the same answer. This team doesn't have to be the best we've had at NC State, it has to be the best it can be. Circumstances change each year. You're not dealing with the same competition and you're not dealing with the same landscape. The temptation is always there to compare one year to another. That's part of what makes sports fun. But I think the only accurate barometer is to look in the mirror and know how you've done in any particular year with the circumstances you had with the team that you had."
Note: NC State's first official practice of the pre-season will be on Saturday morning, October 16. Contrary to a popular rumor, there will not be a special midnight madness practice that day.
