eagle9903 {l Wrote}:CAG is doing a solid job trolling the hoops weirdos.
Your(collective your) view of yesterday and this season all depends on expectations and whether you are predetermined to want to view Donahue as showing signs of success or not. NC State was a team that absolutely destroyed us last year, twice. Richard Howell and CJ Leslie looked like they were playing against a bunch of grade school kids. Scott Wood had nothing but open looks the both nights. It was hideous. This year the best frontcourt player was wearing maroon and gold. The game was competitive throughout. To me I can actually see the tournament as a possibility with this lineup maybe as soon as next year. The team, right now, has obvious depth issues (I would note that the 2000-2005 teams only played 8 players regularly as well). It is no secret that there are at best 8 guys on the team (I'm counting Van Nest as a maybe because of the concussion even though he hasn't played in 4 games) that can play more than absolutely miniscule minutes without causing a swing in game momentum. Next year we will lose none due to normal circumstances (Heck might go euro pro or something) and gain at least 1 in Drage-whatever and maybe 2 or more depending on how the class turns out.
I know some people hate this rebuilding process. They either believe, or pretend to believe that Skinner was going to return to the kind of success he achieved pre-2006. Therefore, they believe that starting from scratch was a waste of two or more seasons of basketball. Personally, I love rebuilds. I despise stagnation. I'm not sure I think Skinner was completely plateaued (or declining) and we will never really know. Right now though, I don't really care because I think the new direction has a pretty high upside and that is interesting to me. I don't discount the possibility of a collapse though as the ACC schedule gets going.
Several points:
1) Agreeing with TWB here. I was sitting there thinking, is this really the preseason best in the ACC? Went to the alumni event pregame and Huckaby said Leslie is a lottery pick. Granted the NBA isn't really basketball but looks like he'll be the 1st rounder that never sees beyond his rookie contract. NC St. is once again incredibly overrated. Edit: Him making excuses for the crowd sucking (it wasn't bad at all) for the reason he got dominated and airballed a FT? Only reaffirmed my thought.
2) I don't mind the short rotation but the 7/8 need to be better than an injured Clifford and Odio going forward. Hence the questions of Donahue recruiting. Let's even say Drago is as good as Donahue said, we still need some size. A 7' with knee issues concerns me going forward and Caudill isn't the answer.
3) Agree with the building process. Isn't and wasn't going to happen overnight. My concern is that the ACC is getting much much better in the next couple of years. 18 games with 2 automatically against Cuse, ND each add in Ville for MD this conf is going to be excellent.