North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: McCauley Questionable For Miami
1/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TONY HAYNES
Last week, when they didn’t have ice wraps on their sprained ankles, guard Courtney Fells and forward Dennis Horner were rehabbing their injuries in a whirlpool. This week, the latest mash unit member has been Ben McCauley.
Since twisting his ankle late in Tuesday night’s game at Clemson, McCauley has been spending more time with Director of Sports Medicine Charlie Rozanski than with his teammates.
McCauley’s status for Saturday’s ACC home opener against
“We’ll see how he feels during tomorrow’s shootaround,” Wolfpack head coach Sidney Lowe said on Friday. “He’s questionable but optimistic. He’s better today than he was yesterday.”
McCauley’s misfortune is another in a long line of injuries that started before preseason practice when freshman wingman Johnny Thomas underwent season-ending reconstructive knee surgery. Point guards Javier Gonzalez (broken hand), Farnold Degand (knee) continued the trend before Fells and Horner joined the party the last few weeks.
With or without McCauley on Saturday, NC State has got to find a way to play better than it did in back-to-back losses to
The Wolfpack followed up last Saturday’s 31-point trouncing at UNC with another humbling 70-54 defeat in
Up next is a
“Hopefully we can take the fact that we’re at home, in front of our crowd in comfortable surroundings and come out and play well,” Lowe said. “Getting a win is a cure for everything. But to do that, we have to do some things well. One, we have to shoot the ball well. Defensively, we really haven’t dropped off that much. We had some sequences where we played well against Clemson early in the ballgame. We got stops, but we couldn’t score. We need to score points and make shots.”
Both
In its first two conference games, NC State was a combined 47-of-117 from the field (40%) and just 9-of-27 (33%) from the 3-point arc. The Wolfpack also averaged 20 turnovers in the two games.
“I’d like to see us being patient with the basketball and really take quality shots,” Lowe said. “We’ve got to be willing to move the ball around, find the open man and give ourselves a chance. The last two games we’ve really taken some forced ones.”
Just as Engin Atsur’s hamstring pull put a dent in Lowe’s offensive plans last year, the same has happened since Degand sustained a season-ending knee injury just before Christmas. Lowe says Marques Johnson, who got his first start of the year at the point on Tuesday, will remain the starter on Saturday.
“Last year without Engin we were a totally difference ballclub,” Lowe said. “Now without Farnold, we’re a different ballclub. We were a different team with Farnold than we were last year. Now we’re even more different because we don’t have that guy to break you down and keep pressure on you.”
“We need a win,” Lowe said. “We started off on the road against two of the top teams in our conference, two nationally ranked teams. That’s tough for anyone. Now we’re at home and we definitely need a win.”
