North Carolina State University Athletics
Behind The Scenes With Tony Haynes: March Musings
3/4/2002 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
March 4, 2002
By Tony Haynes
I congratulate Maryland's Gary Williams on a spectacular coaching job this season. Living up to expectations is sometimes a difficult challenge, especially when those expectations are so lofty. Using the strong returning nucleus of a team that went to the Final Four last year, Williams guided his club to a 15-1 conference record and an ACC regular season title. From start to finish, the Terps were clearly the best team in the conference this season. They were highly ranked in both national polls at the beginning, in the middle and in the end.
Having said all that, I believe NC State's Herb Sendek is the ACC Coach of the Year. While Williams and his Terps did a great job of living up to the hype, Sendek's Wolfpack clearly surpassed expectations more than any other team in the league. Picked to finish seventh at Operation ACC Basketball in October, the Pack wound up in a third place tie with Wake Forest.
The ominous preseason predictions for NC State were completely justified. Not only was Sendek coming off a 13-16 campaign a year ago, he was faced with the prospects of replacing his entire frontline with a group of young, untested players that had virtually no ACC experience. When the Wolfpack opened up against Prairie View A&M last November, sophomore Marcus Melvin was the only frontcourt player that had ever been on the floor for a college game. And how much did Melvin play in his freshman season? A whopping average of 6.8 minutes in conference games.
The media members who vote for Sendek in coach of the year balloting will likely do so because he led his team to a tie for third after it was picked to finish seventh. My reasoning is somewhat different. I believe the biggest reason Sendek should get the nod is because he was forced to completely overhaul his team's offensive system to compensate for the Pack's lack of size, strength and experience up front. No other coach in the league was faced with making such drastic changes during the off-season. What he came up with was a system that did a great job of taking advantage of the Pack's versatility, skill and interchangeability.
"As in every off-season, coach Sendek is relentless in his game-planning for the upcoming season," said NC State assistant Mark Phelps. "It started immediately after last season ended. We saw what kind of personnel we would have and he did a terrific job of implementing a system that would best take advantage of their abilities and skills. He really worked on it during the summer and it would come together in bits and pieces. He would have us coaches out on the floor and we would run through part of it. Then we would come back to the office and he would go to the drawing board again."
Sendek's efforts certainly paid off. A 20-9 season will likely land the Wolfpack its first NCAA Tournament berth since 1991.
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Fowler's Week:As chairman of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, NC State athletics director Lee Fowler will be out of town, out of sight and out of touch this week. Long before the committee locks itself down behind closed doors on Thursday, Fowler will be fulfilling numerous obligations that go with being the committee chairman.
On Monday, March 4, Fowler is in New York for a meeting with CBS, which owns television broadcast rights to the men's tourney. On Tuesday, he heads to Indianapolis, sight of the NCAA offices. On Wednesday, he'll get together with the other committee members before the process of watching games and putting together the field of 65 teams begins on Thursday. At some point during the weekend of course, the committee will discuss NC State's tournament worthiness. When that time comes, Fowler will be forced to leave the meeting room.
"I will have to leave the room and that's going to be a pleasure," Fowler said. "Some people have asked me if Les Robinson will have to leave the room. He will not. Even though he played, coached and was the AD here, he's now at the Citadel. You're only required to leave the room when the school you're currently affiliated with is discussed. It's not only about getting into the tournament, when you get into the seeding process you also have to leave the room when your school is talked about."
Fowler will appear on CBS immediately after the pairing are announced on Sunday night. The pairings show itself airs at 6:00 p.m.
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Good-bye Cole: In the same year that NC State will likely return to the NCAA Tournament, Maryland's Cole Field House hosted its last ACC basketball game. Are you missing the irony? The Wolfpack's last NCAA Tournament game, which ended with a 73-64 loss to Oklahoma State, was played on March 16, 1991 at.......Cole Field House.
