State 84, St. Pauls 42

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So State kicked the pine tar out of a Division II opponent in a game that won't tell us too terribly much about the team. However, there were some notable performances:

• Tracy Smith was his typical badass self. He went 9-for-11 and a perfect 3-for-3 at the free throw line for 21 points. The Macrowave does what The Macrowave wants, especially against teams without a player over 6'-6".
• Scott Wood made his presence known in his first semi-real action...4-4 from three-point range before leaving the game in the second half with back spasms. The Eternal Pessimist in me fears that he'll be this generation's Ishua Benjamin -- peaking in his first game. (Just kidding--he'll be fine. I think.)
• Dennis Horner certainly hoped for a stronger outing. He shot 2-for-10 and missed all six of his three-point attempts.
• As a team, they still have some lingering bugaboos to work out, namely the 19 turnovers and the 14 offensive rebounds they surrendered to an undersized team.
  

Here's the box score:

Official Basketball Box Score
St. Paul's College vs NC State
11/05/09 7 pm at Raleigh, N.C. (Reynolds Coliseum)

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VISITORS: St. Paul's College 0-0
                       TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
00 Lassiter, Roger..... *  1-6    0-1    0-0    4  1  5   0   2  1  0  0  0  27
01 Leseur, George...... *  2-12   1-8    0-0    0  2  2   3   5  2  4  0  2  34
03 Williams, Kedrick... *  5-20   3-8    1-4    0  4  4   2  14  1  2  0  2  30
05 Rasoull, Ibn-Saeed.. *  3-14   0-2    4-6    1  4  5   4  10  0  5  0  0  34
15 McBeth, Quinton..... *  2-5    0-0    1-2    5  0  5   2   5  1  0  0  2  22
10 Johnson, Kwame......    2-4    0-0    0-0    1  0  1   0   4  1  0  0  3  22
11 Church, Andrew......    0-3    0-1    2-2    1  0  1   2   2  1  1  0  0   9
12 Davis, Jason........    0-2    0-0    0-1    2  2  4   2   0  0  1  0  1  10
20 Reed, Johnny........    0-2    0-1    0-0    0  2  2   1   0  0  1  0  0  11
42 Totten, Kendrell....    0-0    0-0    0-0    0  0  0   0   0  0  0  0  0   1
TEAM................                         5     5
Totals..............   15-68   4-21   8-15  19 15 34  16  42  7 14  0 10 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half:  9-34 26.5%   2nd Half:  6-34 17.6%   Game: 22.1%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  1-8  12.5%   2nd Half:  3-13 23.1%   Game: 19.0%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half:  3-4  75.0%   2nd Half:  5-11 45.5%   Game: 53.3%    2


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                       TOT-FG  3-PT         REBOUNDS
## Player Name            FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF  TP  A TO BLK S MIN
10 Gonzalez, Javier.... *  2-3    1-2    0-1    0  5  5   2   5  6  3  0  4  17
15 Wood, Scott......... *  4-4    4-4    0-0    1  1  2   0  12  0  0  0  1  22
21 Williams, C.J....... *  2-4    0-1    0-0    0  1  1   0   4  5  1  0  0  15
23 Smith, Tracy........ *  9-11   0-0    3-3    2  2  4   2  21  0  0  3  1  21
31 Horner, Dennis...... *  2-10   0-6    3-4    1  3  4   1   7  2  1  1  0  23
04 Kufuor, Enrico......    0-1    0-1    2-2    0  5  5   0   2  0  3  0  1   8
05 Painter, DeShawn....    4-6    0-1    0-1    1  5  6   2   8  1  1  0  1  20
12 Degand, Farnold.....    2-3    0-1    2-2    1  5  6   3   6  4  1  0  0  17
14 Vandenberg, Jordan..    3-5    0-0    0-0    1  4  5   1   6  3  5  1  0  13
22 Davis, Josh.........    1-3    0-0    1-2    2  1  3   0   3  1  1  0  0   9
24 Mays, Julius........    1-2    1-2    0-0    0  1  1   1   3  1  0  0  1  23
30 Thomas, Johnny......    2-3    0-1    0-0    1  0  1   0   4  1  3  0  0   9
40 Obi-Gwacham, Kaycee.    1-1    1-1    0-0    0  3  3   1   3  0  0  1  0   3
TEAM................                         1  3  4
Totals..............   33-56   7-20  11-15  11 39 50  13  84 24 19  6  9 200

TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 15-27 55.6%   2nd Half: 18-29 62.1%   Game: 58.9%  DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half:  6-12 50.0%   2nd Half:  1-8  12.5%   Game: 35.0%   REBS
F Throw % 1st Half:  8-10 80.0%   2nd Half:  3-5  60.0%   Game: 73.3%    1

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If You Aren't A Student Or Season Ticket Holder, Don't Bother Heading To Reynolds Tonight

...because you won't be admitted.

For State's only exhibition game of the season, held tonight at Reynolds Colisuem, only season ticket holders with vouchers and students with valid IDs will be admitted.

While not technically the first "real" game of the season, this is the first time folks will be able to see the new-look State take the court. That folks without season tickets will be turned away at the door is equal parts confusing, saddening and frustrating.

A good friend of mine debated me on the matter last night. His argument (a sound one) is that if a sizable percentage of season ticket holders and a sizable number of students show up for the game and you sell general admission tickets on top of that, you could run the risk of exceeding Reynolds' reduced capacity of ~9,500 and open the school up to all sorts of fire code and liability issues.

I get that. But couldn't that STILL occur if nearly all season ticket holders and a very large contingent of students decided to attend? It's not likely, but eliminating GA ticket sales DOESN'T do away with the potential for fire code and liability issues...it merely diminishes the likelihood.

So if the Wolfpack Club is banking on a less-than-capacity crowd comprised of season ticket holders and students, could they not come up with an effective way to allow entrance to those locals without season tickets that'd like to go? Surely the numbers of folks looking for GA tickets won't be that large...not so large as to prevent all three groups from attending. Why not charge $10 for GA tickets for the first 1,000 non-season ticket holders? I doubt more than 1,000 would be necessary, and that total would only consume a little over a 1/10th of the available space.

Personally, I can't afford season ticket but always I've enjoyed exhibition games in the past because the GA tickets allow someone like myself to take my son to a game fairly cheaply in better-than-I'll-ever-have seats. Tonight's ticketing scenario eliminates that possibility for folks like me.

And what message does it send that this exhibition is ONLY available to those of you willing to pony up cash for a year's worth of tickets? The ticket office may spin it as an "added benefit" to those season ticket holders, but for some folks out there, the execution feels more like neglecting the everyday fan to pander to the folks that can afford the special treatment.

In my opinion, NO game -- sans those games scheduled as closed scrimmages -- should be off-limits to ANY State fan for ANY reason. Wolfpack Nation -- by virtue of decades of mediocrity -- needs to value EVERY fan within its fanbase, not just the season ticket holders. If you want to give the season ticket holders a perk for ponying up a large sum of cash, great, give them a free cooler or t-shirt or ticket for a free pint of N.C. State ice cream. But DON'T let one man's perk become another man's punishment when he (or she) may want nothing more than to drop by Reynolds tonight after work and spend a few bucks to sit in Reynolds and remember the good times or just see his or her favorite team play on the cheap.

Building a "fence" to keep the non-season ticket holders "out" is just a bad idea...another in a long, long line.

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Coach K: Fan Of The Jerk Out?

H/T to SFN for posting this video this morning, in which Coach K reveals that he's got a little Morris Day and The Time on his iPod:

Hmmm... Reckon K has a dude run up to him with a big mirror before each practice?


Can't blame the man for getting down with Morris Day. They brought it back in the day, and would be better than 99% of the sh*t that gets released today. Morris Day + Arsenio Hall Show = Early 90s YouTube goodness:

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Nerding Out At The Free Throw Line

What happens when you have one of the world's best engineering schools in the heart of Tobacco Road? You get studies like this: The Physics Of Free Throw Shooting.

Drs. Chau Tran and Larry Silverberg, mechanical and aerospace engineers at State, put together a study involving hundreds of thousands of three-dimensional computer simulations to determine the following:

1. "...you should aim for the back of the rim, leaving close to 5 centimeters – about 2 inches – between the ball and the back of the rim. According to the simulations, aiming for the center of the basket decreases the probabilities of a successful shot by almost 3 percent."

2. "...shooters should launch the shot with about three hertz of back spin. That translates to the ball making three complete backspinning revolutions before reaching the hoop."

3. "...the ball should be launched at 52 degrees to the horizontal. ...the shot should, at the highest point in its arc to the basket, be less than 2 inches below the top of the backboard."

Good stuff.

The interesting thing to me is that I seem to recall (perhaps it was an urban legend) that Everett Case once published a paper on free throw shooting that suggested the two-handed underhand technique employed by Rick Barry was the most effective method for shooting consistent free throws. If that's the case (and I couldn't find anything online to support it), it's interesting to see that all these many years later, folks at State are still trying to find the most effective way to score points at the charity stripe.

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ACC Roundtable: Week 10

Winfield Tufts (what, no Esquire?) of "From The Rumble Seat," Georgia Tech's representative of the SB Nation, is hosting this week's ACC Roundtable. Master Tufts unloaded on us with seven questions this week so he's going to make us work for the pageviews.

His questions and my answers follow.

1. Alright fellas, this is your turn to apologize to the Boston College Eagles who went to Hell and back and have now arrived as the 3rd team for the ACC (and only team in the Atlantic) to be bowl eligible. You know you were snickering in the preseason. Also, give a high five to Mark Herzlich for finishing his last treatment of chemo.

I will most definitely give Frank Spaziani and the folks at BC their due for keeping the ship afloat with nothing more than bubble gum, duct tape and spit. Like Dean Smith, I keep waiting for them to die but they just...won't...DIE. Kudos to them. And yes, Mark Herzlich deserves a big high five, some hugs and a gift basket of fruit for completing his cancer treatment. With any luck he'll be back on the field next season terrorizing the rest of the Atlantic and proving me wrong for a fourth year in a row.

2. An Orange Bowl victory over a Boise/TCU or an Orange Bowl victory over a Penn State/Cincy team - which means more for the conference? Is there even a difference?

I guess I'll rank the potential victories in order of most important to least:

1. Boise St.
2. TCU
3. Penn St.
4. Cincy

Boise St. and TCU were a toss up for the top spot. Both are highly ranked and media darlings. I went with Boise St. over TCU just because they have built more of a name over the last few years (beating OK on the last play of the game was a huge boost for their program) than has TCU, but to play spoiler to either of these teams would be huge.

I put Penn St. third because they're a traditional power and pretty highly ranked, but playing an ACC team in the Orange Bowl is a downgrade for them based on where they were projected to start the season. Penn St. making the Orange Bowl would almost be like a consolation BCS berth.

I put Cincy fourth because they don't have either the name or the track record to qualify as a "bump" for the league. Until Cincy wins a BCS bowl they're still a lesser commodity without tradition. Further, they lost to the ACC last season in the Orange Bowl. I don't see the ACC getting any brownie points for beating the same team in the same bowl in back-to-back years.

But let's hold our horses on Cincy even MAKING the Orange Bowl...they've still got Pitt sitting there at 4-0 in the league. If both teams make it through the rest of the conference slate undefeated, Pitt hosts Cincy on Dec. 5th for all the Big East marbles. And with Cincy quarterback Tony Pike nursing a bum arm, we could be asking if the ACC would get a boost defeating the Big East champion whose one loss came at the hands of one of the worst ACC teams (yeah, that would be N.C. State).

3. Enough with the CJ Spillers, the Christian Ponders, and the Jacory Harrises. We wanna talk defense. Who is the defensive POTY thus far in the ACC?

I think Vince Oghobaase from Duke deserves some serious consideration here. I know the higher profile teams like Virginia Techs and Miamis have rosters loaded with speed and nastiness, but Duke's won three games in a row in conference due in large part to the play of their defense. Yeah, Duke can score some points and Thad Lewis is a great quarterback and David Cutcliffe coached the Manning brothers (if only I had a nickel for everytime that's been said locally), but ever since the second half of the State game where Duke's defense shut down an offense that just posted 500+ yards and 42 points in Tallahassee, Duke has played very solid defensively. Oghobaase is 15th in the league in tackles for loss (Jason Worilds at VT is 21st), which is pretty solid for a defensive tackle. I'm a believer in winning the battles up front, and Vince has been getting it done of late. If we want to crown Duke as the surprise team thus far this season, he -- and the rest of the defense behind him -- deserves a great deal of credit. You can't win with just offense...lord knows State's tried.

4. Recently, Bird compared the Atlantic to the Big 12 North. Is this a fair comparison? The Coastal is currently 8-2 against the Atlantic. There are still 8 interdivision games left. Can the Atlantic redeem itself this season?

I can live with that comparison (kudos to Bill Snyder, by the way, returning to KSU and getting them to the top of the Big 12 North scrap heap for the time being in just one season). To answer the second question, a flat "No" should suffice.

5. Tailgating is essential to all things football. In Atlanta, the tailgating game of choice is cornhole. What is your game of choice to pass the time?

As the N.C. State representative, I feel obligated to speak out on the issue of tailgating restrictions, specifically those placed on our fanbase by the school's administration. For those unaware, a tragic shooting occurred in one of the parking lots adjacent to the stadium involving two persons who never had tickets nor planned on attending the game. In response, our administration instituted a four-hour tailgating restriction, a knee-jerk reaction if there ever was one given that it didn't address the core issue -- folks without tickets with no intention of going to the game showing up just to party. The way it should've been addressed is increased security patrolling the lots. But no, the administration took the easy, cheaper way out by punishing ALL game-goers by limiting the tailgating time. This response, of course, does NOTHING to limit binge drinking BEFORE folks hit the parking lots, nor does it improve the security presence in the parking lots.

The limiting of tailgating time as a response to incidents of drunken rowdiness seems to be a growing trend at schools and pro sports alike, given it was recently addressed in this column by Rick Reilly. Like most decisions made by administrators these days -- particularly here at dysfunctional N.C. State -- the easy way out is preferred to actually WORKING the problem to find a solution that benefits the greater good. (*middle finger to State's administration*)

But yeah, cornhole rocks (when we have time to play it).

6. Let's cut to the chase. There are two kinds of people: sheep and sharks. Sharks are winners and they don't look back 'cause they don't have necks. Necks are for sheep. Is your team full of sharks or is your team full of sheep?

What about swimming sheep with kickass fangs and their necks in traction? Nevermind. We're sheep, particularly on the defensive side. I direct you to this post by fellow State blogger Steven who hosted a clip of a State defender PULLING UP on a ballcarrier to AVOID making a tackle. That's as sheepish as it gets.

7. Create a cocktail in the spirit of your school and explain it to us. Non-edible ingredients are allowed and encouraged.

I gotta go with the Bloody Mary. They're red and nine times out of 10, they look like shit, taste like shit and smell like shit...but that 10th time, boy, everything comes together perfectly and it's the best tasting shit you've ever had. (41-10!)

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