North Carolina State University Athletics
Week Ahead an NCAA Simulation for Pack
12/27/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 27, 2005
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C. - After hosting New Hampshire at the RBC Center on Wednesday night (7:00 p.m.), NC State's 18th ranked basketball team (9-1) will swing right back into action on Friday when it entertains No. 12 George Washington. If that scenario sounds familiar, that's because it's very similar to the type of schedule teams face in the NCAA Tournament. In other words, there will be only one day between games, leaving Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek and his team only one day to prepare for one of the nation's top teams.
But as is the case in the NCAA Tourney, the Pack can't afford to overlook a New Hampshire squad that has struggled in a 2-9 start.
"We're going to have a short turnaround and less time to prepare," Sendek said. "We have to turn that into a positive. Hopefully, it will be good preparation for March when we are in the tournament."
The short turnaround was actually created by NC State when the George Washington game was moved from Saturday to Friday so that it wouldn't conflict with the Wolfpack football team's appearance in the Meineke Car Car Bowl Saturday in Charlotte. It was a schedule switch that Sendek supported, primarily because it will allow more Wolfpack fans to attend the game and provide the Pack with a home court advantage.
"The fact that we moved the game from Saturday to Friday shows how important we think out fans are," said Sendek. "From a preparation standpoint, it would have been a lot better for us to have an extra day, especially considering George Washington comes into our game without a game this week."
The Colonials (8-0), in fact, haven't played since December 17.
But first things first.
New Hampshire is coached by a familiar face: Bill Herrion took over the program last May following a six-year run at East Carolina. Thus far, it's been a rocky start for Herrion and the Wildcats, whose only wins have come over Colgate and Robert Morris. Still, New Hampshire's style of play on offense will be different from anything NC State has seen to this point.
"They run a motion offense with five 3-point shooters on the floor, and they do a good job of spacing and screening," Sendek said. "It will really challenge our guys to get down and guard, and perhaps have to do so for 35 second possessions. A really different type of defensive assignment than what we faced last week against Alabama, which was inside-oriented and spaced a little bit tighter."
New Hampshire's lone double-figure scorer is 6-8 forward Blagoj Janev, a native of Australia who averages 13.3 points per game.
Senior Ilian Evtimov is the Pack's leading scorer, putting up 12.7 points per contest. He's joined in double figures by center Cedric Simmons (11.4), guard Engin Atsur (10.8) and guard Cameron Bennerman (10.7).
NC State will be playing its fifth straight game without freshman forward Brandon Costner, who continues to be held out of practice with a stress fracture condition in his leg.
"We're going to see how Brandon responds after the holidays," said Sendek. "We practiced [Monday afternoon] and he still didn't participate for even a minute. It's been an extended period of time now, and we're just going to monitor it very carefully."
A December to Remember: With two wins this week, NC State will post its first perfect record in the month of December since the 1997-98 season. The Wolfpack is currently 4-0 this month...Engin Atsur has 22 assists and just five turnovers in his last four games...Atsur, Evtimov and Tony Bethel are all shooting better than 40 percent from 3-point range, led by Bethel's accuracy rate of 48.3 percent...The Wolfpack leads the nation in field goal percentage defense, allowing its opponents to shoot only 36 percent from the floor. Alabama (46.9 percent) is the only team that has shot better than 40 percent against NC State this season.
