NC State Football Post Season and NC State Basketball Updates

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!!!

Its been a couple of months since I last posted about football, honestly because I lost hope. I know it's bad when I lose hope but I didn't see the Pack coming back from a four straight conference lost. But, to my surprise, we won at Syracuse, beat Wake Forest and dominated UNC to make it to the Bitcoin Bowl. Now, us Pack fans were hoping for a better bowl, but come on folks, at least we made it to one. Especially after going 3-9 last season. Plus UCF beat Baylor last season in the Fiesta Bowl, so they are very good. One of the talented teams we will face this season. I just want to reiterate on our dominating performance against UNC, how we showed we wanted respect and wanted to get revenge on last season beat down. BEAT UCF!!!! GO PACK!!!!

Now on to basketball. We currently are 10-3, 1-0 in conference play. Tied with first place (yay!). The three losses were against @Purdue, Wofford and West Virginia. We played decent against Purdue, so I am not as mad about that loss. The losses against Wofford and WVU is what I am more concerned about. From what I read, we played like complete crap in those two games. Hardly any help from the bigs. Relied primarily on the guards and perimeter shooting. There is one thing that I have noticed in the games that I seen, and that is we suck against good press and zone defense. We keep passing around the perimeter and hardly go inside to score. The WolfPack needs to figure how to drive it to the basket if they want to go to the tourney and make a good run in it. We still need Trevor and Ralston to do their thing.

Let me just say that Trevor Lacey has been a blessing. He is consistent with his scoring and he became our "go to" guy almost instantly. Transferring from Alabama, he was a double digit scorer in his sophomore season. We are lucky to have him on our squad.

Shout out Cat Barber, Ralston Turner, Trevor Lacey, Kyle Washington, The Martin Twins, Beejay Anya, Abu, and Leonard Freeman. Merry Christmas guys!! Go Pack!!

NC State's Continued Conference Troubles

So, NC State is currently 4-4 (0-4 in the ACC). Not what NC State fans would want after a grueling 2013 year under then 1st coach Dave Doeren. But hey, it's 1 more win than last year right? Right?....Let's back track and talk a little bit about those 4 conference losses shall we?


Florida State (home game):

This game was huge, I mean HUGE for NC State. FSU was ranked #1 at the time and NC State was coming into the game 4-0 (2 newly FBS teams, 1 cupcake FBS team, and a FCS team). NC State had the momentum from winning 4 games, already surpassing last year's wins. In the first quarter, NC State managed to jump ahead 24-7. Before the end of the first half, FSU closed the gap 24-21. Now, NC State still had momentum going into the 2nd half, or so we thought... FSU went on a 35-17 run in the 2nd half. FSU won 56-41, crushing the Wolfpack's chance to win it's first ACC win. The nation gave NC State some respect after almost defeating then #1 Florida State and fans thought the football program was heading in the right direction.

Clemson (Textile Bowl - away game):

Clemson almost beat Florida State as well and NC State had the respect that it wanted after a pretty good performance against them the week prior. NC State fans weren't expecting a win, but they were expecting a good game against the two textile schools. In the first half of the game, Clemson went ahead 31-0. NC State could not get a rhythm going at all. They were constantly going 3rd and long, every possession. Clemson did have one of the top defenses in the country, but who knew their freshman quarterback would walk the dogs on us? I mean really? Clemson went on to score 10 more points while NC State never manage to get on the board. The worse thing about this game was that NC State never managed to get more than 8 offensive yards. Now, this is when us fans began to tell themselves that NC State used up all their energy against Florida State. That may have been the case then, until the next game.

Boston College (home game:

This was the chance for the Wolfpack to redeem themselves and prove that they were better than last year. Their chance was against a pretty good Boston College team. They already beat USC when they were ranked #9 at the time. If we couldn't beat FSU and Clemson (no one ever thought we would), then we would settle with a win against BC. Throughout the first half, NC State and BC were good offensively, but not defensively. They went into halftime trailing 21-14. Then the storm came and pretty much washed away our hopes in beating them. After a 30-45 minute lightening storm delay, BC came out and put up 9 more points to secure the win for the Eagles and the Wolfpacks 3rd conference loss and a 4-3 overall record.

Louisville (away game):

Recently, Louisville has been an above average football team. They are playing under a new coach this year, since their previous coach took the Texas job. So far, they have been playing well. They have not allowed a touchdown in 17 quarters since meeting the Wolfpack in ACC play (please correct me if I am wrong). But NC State is known for surprising people. In the first quarter, Louisville got on the board first and soon followed by an NC State touchdown. Unfortunately, Sade missed the extra point to leave Louisville ahead 7-6.  Louisville added 10 points before halftime. In the 4th quarter, the Wolfpack got within 8 points trailing 20-12. The rest of the 4th quarter, Louisville added 10 more points compared to NC State's 6, defeating NC State 30-18.

It looks like NC State is on it's way to another winless conference record. Their remaining schedule is @Syracuse, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and @UNC. In order for a bowl game, the Wolfpack needs to beat 2 out of the remaining 4 teams. Wake Forest might be win. The remaining 3, not so sure. NC State had it's bye week so fans expect a well rested, healed up Wolfpack team traveling to Syracuse. Hopefully that is what they needed, especially after playing two top 25 teams in a row, and beefed up BC and Louisville teams. We will see what Doeren is all about during the Syracuse game and see what he is capable of.

As always, Go Pack!!!

Thoughts On TJ Warren and Tyler Lewis

Hey again! I'm back!

So recently, many college players made their decision to either stay at their school or go pro. At NC State, TJ Warren did what many expected him to do. In the 2012-2013 season, he did well as a freshman and even then, fans thought he was going to leave. He surprised us and came back for another season. Now, this past season, he was a beast. Literally a beast. Averaging 23+ points per game, two back to back 40+ point games, leading rebounder, and he slimmed down to be more agile. That screams NBA material. I wish him luck and will be following his career in the NBA. But as we know, players who leave early at NC State, typically do not get drafted. Let's hope TJ can change that.

On to Tyler Lewis. Him transferring to Butler came as a surprise to me. Considering him getting more playing time and more starts in the last 14-15 games. One might assume he would continue to be a big contributor as an NC State point guard. I guess he really didn't like it here. I believe he was recruited  by Sidney Lowe when he was coach. At least he kept his commitment. After thinking about it, him being at Butler might be the best fit for him. I'll be wishing him the best.

As Always,
GO PACK!!