North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Pack Faces Marquette Saturday Afternoon
12/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
RALEIGH, N.C. – A half dozen games into the 2009-10 men's basketball season, NC State coach Sidney Lowe has been impressed with several aspects of his young team's development.
Heading into the first game on an opponent's home court – the Pack (5-1) plays Marquette in Milwaukee at 3 p.m. – Lowe likes how junior point guard Javi Gonzalez (9.7 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 6.5 apg) runs the more up-tempo offense.
He likes the way junior Tracy Smith (17.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg) scores and rebounds. And the 6-8, 247-pound forward will likely be the center of attention against the undersized Golden Eagles (6-1), who have no starters taller than 6-6.
He likes the leadership and shooting of senior Dennis Horner (13.8 ppg, 4.5 rpg), who is second to Smith on the team in scoring.
And he likes the development of the four freshmen who have seen regular action: Scott Wood, DeShawn Painter, Jordan Vandenberg and Josh Davis. And he expects to see more out of highly touted recruit Richard Howell, who has played in only one game so far after suffering a preseason knee injury.
But the Pack is also coming off its first loss of the season, a 65-53 setback to Northwestern in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge on Tuesday night in which Lowe was not happy with the way his team played in the first half.
"We are still finding some things out with this team," Lowe said Friday morning before leaving for Milwaukee. "What we have found out, I think, is that we are going to play together, we are going to play hard.
"Our last game was the only one where we didn't come out aggressive. Unfortunately, you are going to have some of those days. For the most part, we are going to come out and play together and play hard. That I don't worry about right now."
Lowe's team has motivation against the Golden Eagles, which came into the RBC Center last December and took a 68-65 victory, thanks to a last-second 3-pointer by departed guard Dominic James. The Eagles still rely on a three-guard offense, but are much more dependent on forwards Lazar Hayward (19.9, 6.9) and Jimmy Butler (15.7, 7.6).
"The thing I know for a fact about them is that they are going to play extremely hard," Lowe said. "They will try to utilize their strengths, mismatch situations where they can use their quickness and put it on the floor. Haywood can bounce inside and outside. He can put it on the floor. Butler can put it on the floor. They are not big, but they really go after the boards.
"It goes back to their effort and toughness. They play hard."
Lowe expects Marquette's interior players to harass Smith in the paint, to try to prevent him from catching the ball to offset his height advantage.
"They will surely double-team him in the post," Lowe said. "One one hand, you like that, because of the mismatch situation. On the other hand, you have to play smart. We have to be prepared to make the right plays.
"Tracy has to be very aggressive in his ducking in and pinning that guy in there. He can't just be satisfied with catching that guy on the block. If you catch it on the block, then you allow double teams to come. You have to catch it deep in the paint and score. While that might seem like it is an easy thing, he is going to have to really work."
Lowe also wants Gonzalez to keep pushing the offense, but cut down on his turnovers. It's a fine line between being aggressive on offense and careless with the ball.
"I think he still needs to cut down on his turnovers," Lowe said. "At times, he still wants to create things that are not really there. That's his mentality. We are trying to get him to be satisfied take it back out, reset the offense and get a good play, as opposed to create something that is not there.
"Other than that, he has been great with his effort, with his communication with the guys, in terms of running the show, pushing the ball, defense, rebounding. He is second-leading rebounder on the team."
Wood, a freshman forward who has started every game this season, is coming off an 0-for-6 shooting performance against Northwestern and is still looking to find his shooting touch. But Lowe said the freshman from Marion, Ind., has not lost confidence in his shot.
Painter, Davis and Vandenberg have all given the Wolfpack a lift off the bench.
Lowe anticipates that Howell, who did not play against Northwestern and played just seven minutes two games ago against New Orleans, will see more action on Saturday.
"Richard will play more," Lowe said. "He has had a few more practices to catch up. The thing you miss is conditioning and the mental part of knowing what we are doing, even though you can sit and watch it is different than being out there running and executing it.
"He is a good basketball player. He is a very good passer. With what we run and what we want to do, we need big guys who can handle the ball and make passes. When he gets in game shape, he is really going to help us out."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
