North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: Pack Prepares for Murderer's Row
1/22/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 22, 2004
By Tony Haynes
Basketball recruits who eventually sign with NC State usually cite a number of reasons for picking the Pack. Among the attractions, of course, is the opportunity to play in the ACC, a league filled with basketball lore, glamour, talent and plenty of television exposure. The desire to be the best and compete against the best, an innate characteristic among most athletes, always figures into the equation when a player signs with an ACC school. For NC State's current team, that thirst for competition and exposure will certainly be quenched over the next four games when the Wolfpack ventures into one of the most challenging stretches any team in college basketball will face this season.
The Pack's next four opponents - Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Maryland and Wake Forest - are a combined 47-13 heading into Thursday night's action. Three of those teams have already claimed victories over the top ranked team in the country. Connecticut was the top dog in the polls before it was stung by the Yellow Jackets in the preseason NIT. Last week, the Huskies returned to the top of the rankings just in time to get knocked off again, this time by the Tar Heels. And despite some of its youthful inconsistencies this season, Gary Williams' Terrapins quickly ended Florida's one-week reign at No. 1 when it won in Gainesville back on December 10th.
Now 10-4 overall and 3-1 in the ACC, the Wolfpack has truly become this year's basketball version of Jekyll and Hyde, a team that can look great one night and totally lost the next.
Generally speaking, every team plays better at home than it does on the road. And while NC State is no exception to that rule, the disparity in its level of play depending upon what color jerseys are being worn is absolutely stunning. In the home whites, the Wolfpack often looks like a confident well-oil machine that scores with regularity and defends with unwavering passion. In winning all nine of its home games this season, State has averaged nearly 80 points, 47 percent shooting, and just 13.2 turnovers per contest.
But when the Wolfpack ventures outside of the protective cocoon known as the RBC Center and puts on those red uniforms, it becomes a totally different team. Incredibly, NC State's scoring average on the road - 58 - is 20-plus points less than its average output at home. In losing four of five road games, the Pack has shot just 42 percent and has averaged 16 turnovers. To make matters worse, NC State has not been able to call on its prowess at the free throw line on the road. The league's top free throw shooting team at 78 percent, the Wolfpack has only gotten to the line an average of 10 times per game away from home.
Combine the lower shooting percentage, the extra turnovers and the lack of free throw opportunities and you have a recipe for the scoring droughts that have often sabotaged NC State's efforts in road games.
"We don't have a large margin for error," said Wolfpack head coach Herb Sendek. "We have to play with few turnovers, we have to take good shots and we have to play cohesively. In our road losses, those things haven't been there for us over the course of 40 minutes. We need to be better than we've been on the road and our guys know that better than anybody. We have been two different teams; we've been NC State at home and we've been somebody else on the road. We have to turn that around to the best of our ability."
Especially with the "murderers row" line-up of teams that are about to pop up on the schedule. After hosting 13th ranked Georgia Tech on Saturday, the Pack hits the road for back-to-back games at No. 11 North Carolina and unranked Maryland before returning to Raleigh for a meeting with 7th ranked Wake Forest, a game that will end NC State's first cycle through the ACC schedule.
By splitting those four games, the Wolfpack would finish the first half with a respectable 5-3 league mark. But in order to get that split, NC State will have to claim victories over two of the better teams in the nation.
No Perry Mason: Speaking of beating top-25 caliber teams, a caller on Sendek's radio show Wednesday night revealed himself to be less than lawyerly when trying to make a case against the offensive system NC State currently employs. "If we can't beat the teams that are not even in the top 25 with this offense, I don't see how we're going to beat the teams we're going to play that are in the top 10," the caller said.
Of course, the caller probably didn't have a paralegal there to help him run the numbers, meaning he didn't quite have at his disposal factual evidence to back up an assertion that was, to a certain degree, without enlightenment. Since adopting its current offensive style prior to the 2001-02 season, NC State has actually recorded six victories over top 10 teams. Most notably, the Wolfpack became the last team to beat Maryland before its run to the national title two years ago. The Terps were ranked No. 2 when NC State tripped them up in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament in 2002.
Last season, the Wolfpack defeated Duke when it was ranked 3rd and Wake Forest, which was No. 9 when the two teams met in the ACC Tournament Semifinals.
The other wins over top-10 ranked teams involved Syracuse and Virginia. The Orangemen were No. 9 when State knocked them off at the Carrier Dome in December of 2001. The Cavaliers were ranked 4th and 10th, respectively, when they dropped back-to-back games to the Wolfpack during the 2002 ACC regular season.
As it turned out, Syracuse and Virginia would stumble down the stretch and fall completely out of the polls that year.
Of course, it still remains to be seen if this year's NC State team can add to that list. Having already dropped a lopsided decision at Duke, the 2003-04 Wolfpack is 0-1 against top-10 competition. In the coming weeks, however, the Pack will certainly have plenty of chances to prove its mettle.
