TIM PEELER: Towe Anxious to Face Former Players, Team

BY TIM PEELER

 

RALEIGH, N.C. Monte Towe doesn’t want to be the focus of attention when NC State plays its second game of the 2007-08 regular season.

But there is no doubt that he is excited to sees a handful of former players who will visit the RBC Center Sunday evening when the No. 21 Wolfpack (1-0) takes on New Orleans (1-0) in a 6:30 p.m. non-conference contest. The game will be televised by Fox Sports Net South. The game will also be broadcast by the Wolfpack Sports Network, beginning with the pre-game show at 6 p.m.

“It will be great to see them all,” said Towe, who was the head coach at New Orleans from 2002-2006 before joining Sidney Lowe’s staff as associate head coach prior to last season. “There are some players that I still know really well and some people I am real proud of.”

Towe brought his team to the RBC Center on Nov. 17, 2004, to open the season against the Wolfpack. The Privateers went on to finish with a 17-14 record and Towe had his program on the rise, thanks in part to a group of four players who are seniors this season.

But that was before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans in August, 2005, submerging most of the campus and ripping gaping holes in the team’s home at Lakefront Arena. The Privateers relocated to Tyler, Texas for the first semester of the 2005-06 season, with the players enrolling in classes there while New Orleans was still under water.

The Privateers eventually returned home, but it was a difficult season, with the loss of two players who were traumatized by the storm and of guard Bo McCalebb, who suffered a season-ending injury two games into the season. The Privateers, under the most difficult circumstances of any team in recent memory, finished 10-19.

Shortly after the season ended, then-Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek left for Arizona State. Towe, who led NC State to the 1974 NCAA Championship as a player and was a Wolfpack assistant coach under Norm Sloan, expressed an interest in returning to his alma mater. He was hired as associate head coach shortly after Sidney Lowe was hired as Sendek’s replacement.

“I really didn’t foresee all that happened,” Towe said. “I thought I was going to be at New Orleans for a long, long time. I had multiple years left on my contract. But we had the hurricane, Herb Sendek left and Sidney Lowe came here.

“Being in New Orleans was a great time for me. I loved every minute I spent in the city. We had some really good wins there. Maybe we didn’t win every game, but we had some really good moments. And I thought we would continue those good moments.”

Several of the players Towe recruited are still on the Privateer roster, including a quartet of seniors who will graduate after this season is over: McCalebb, Ben Elias, Jacob Manning and James Parlow. McCalebb, who averaged 25 points a game last year, is the reigning Sun Belt Player of the Year and the school’s all-time leading scorer.

But they have endured more transition since Towe left. His replacement, former Texas A&M assistant Buzz Williams, resigned after guiding the Privateers to a 14-17 record to become an assistant for Tom Crean at Marquette, and the team is now coached by 30-year-old New Orleans native Joe Pasternack.

“After all they have been through, all four of those seniors will graduate after this season,” Towe said. “I am really proud of what they have done, and they deserve a lot of credit. They have grown up a lot since they first stepped on that campus.

“It will be nice to see them. I haven’t seen any of them since I left.”

Sunday’s game is the first of three between NC State and New Orleans, as part of the buy-out agreement that allowed Towe to return to NC State. The teams will play once more in Raleigh and once in New Orleans.

“It was all part of my getting my contract relieved to come here, and I give [NC State athletics director] Lee Fowler, [UNO athletics director] Jim Miller and Coach Lowe credit for getting it down,” Towe said. “It allowed me to return here, which is something I really wanted to do.”

Sunday’s game will be the Wolfpack’s last home game until mid-December. Lowe’s team opened with a 66-47 victory over William & Mary, led by freshman J.J. Hickson’s amazing 31-point, seven-rebound debut. It will travel to Orlando this week to play in the Old Spice Classic, then play road games at Michigan State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Nov. 28 and at East Carolina on Dec. 8.

The Wolfpack returns to the RBC Center on Dec. 15 to face South Carolina State.

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

North Carolina State University Athletics

TIM PEELER: Towe Anxious to Face Former Players, Team

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