Jason Jennings
Jason Jennings, a sports reporter and anchor for WRAL, grew up in Raleigh and graduated from the University of Missouri.
By Jason Jennings
Jan 27, 2012
Reggie Bullock (35) lays the ball up to the basket during the North Carolina Tar Heels vs. North Carolina State Wolfpack NCAA basketball game in Chapel Hill, N.C. Thursday, January 26, 2012.
Okay, so Thursday night’s NC State-North Carolina game wasn’t exactly Duke-Kentucky 1992 or even State-Carolina 1989. The Heels showed why not to poke a sleeping bear, and the Pack played like a team that, as Mark Gottfried so often says, has “a long way to go.”
John Henson admitted he and his teammates were tired of hearing from Wolfpack players and fans about how this year’s game would be, well, a game. Instead, it was a repeat of the last five years.
Give North Carolina credit, critics have openly asked how good the Heels can be when it plays like they care. Against Florida State, they didn’t. Against State, no question they did. You can usually tell within a few minutes after tipoff if a Roy Williams’ team’s head is in it. And Thursday night UNC was up by nine before the 15:00 mark.
Williams also used the extended time off to work Reggie Bullock into the starting lineup, and Bullock performed admirably, keeping the ball out of Scott Wood’s hands.
The first half was a how-to on defending State: limit Wood’s looks, keep Lorenzo Brown from attacking the rim, force Richard Howell away from his right hand and get him in foul trouble.
This is why Thursday looked like all the recent run-of-the-mill State-Carolina games. The Heels got in State’s head defensively. The Pack nearly airballed more jumpers than they made, and the ones that did go in were often bank shots. As Gottfried kept telling his players throughout, State
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By Jason Jennings
Jul 12, 2011
It’s the bottom of the ninth. A runner takes his lead off second base in a one-run game. The batter and pitcher are locked in a standoff that’s as much mental as it is physical.
One foul ball.
Then another.
The count is now full. Fans spontaneously break into claps and cheers furiously pulling for the man standing in the batter’s box to get that hit to tie the game, or better yet, win it with one swing.
That’s when the stadium audio operator selects that perfect inspirational music to match the tension. The tune starts blaring through the speakers.
It’s…the theme from “Spongebob Squarepants”!?!
I witnessed this very scene at a local college baseball game late this past regular season.
It’s part of an annoying trend that has permeated through live sporting events over the years and shows no sign of leaving: the need to fill every potentially quiet moment with music, noises or contests.
No silence. Apparently, we can no longer trust fans to create a lively atmosphere themselves.
If you’ve read this far (and if so, bless you) you have probably reached the conclusion I can be a cranky 92-year-old man in a 29-year-old’s body, and this is likely one of those cases. My closest friends and family tell me this daily.
I simply yearn for the days when the game itself provided the entertainment. Now, we rely on jumbotrons, pyrotechnics and P.A. announcers to tell us when to cheer.
When did this
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By Jason Jennings
May 7, 2011
If you don’t make a habit of reading internet message boards, don’t start.
If you do, and have happened to meander to the NC State discussion pages, the hate is flowing.
And it is heading in Sean Miller’s direction.
The reports that Miller is taking the Maryland basketball head coaching job are flying faster than the jet planes Miller and/or Maryland athletics director Kevin Anderson are allegedly taking to meet with each other.
The Wolfpack fanbase has suffered some doozies in the past quarter century, but how in the name of Peter Golenbock will those fans accept Miller taking the Terps job after turning down State just weeks ago? Especially when Debbie Yow blamed Gary Williams of “sabotaging” her coaching search?
Initial widespread reaction is how this would be a blow to State’s reputation, deeming Maryland a more desirable job while the Pack would be the stepchild about to apply a new coat of red hair dye. While that may or may not be true, that is the feared perception from Wolfpack camp.
In this particular case, I think Miller’s decision is slightly separate from the “Is Maryland a better job than N.C. State?” question. A source close to Arizona said Maryland is on Miller’s short list of jobs he would be interested in taking because not only is it in the ACC, he could recruit the talent-heavy Washington, D.C. metro area.
If Williams was that close to retiring after the 2009-10 season, as John Feinstein
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By Jason Jennings
Apr 25, 2011
Royal Wedding hype is here! It’s only going to increase and get more annoying.
Friday morning, millions will turn on their TV sets to watch live coverage of Prince What’s-His-Face and Kate Middlesomething expressing their love and yadda yadda yadda.
Needless to say, I’m going to sleep in and watch the NFL Draft.
But it got me thinking.
In sports, we love royalty. From player nicknames like “Sir” Charles Barkley and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez to team monikers like the Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles/Sacramento Kings, if we want to crown them, we crown them.
So with apologies to Tayshaun Prince, Prince Fielder, Prince Akumara, Donald Royal, Royal Ivey, Bernard King and every winner of the WWE King of the Ring, here are some of my favorite moments of royalty in sports.
5) The King Rice era at UNC
Before the point guard led the Heels to the Final Four in his 1991 senior season, the UNC faithful had the same feelings for Rice that they did Larry Drew (before his midnight exit).
While Rice’s detractors will point to his missed free throw against Duke in 1990, his legacy will also go down as a major piece on Dean Smith’s first teams that really played with an edge. Rice, J.R. Reid and Steve Bucknall’s style resembled the Bad Boy Pistons more than the high-flying squads of James Worthy and Michael Jordan.
Limited in talent, Rice left UNC third
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By Jason Jennings
Apr 4, 2011
(UPDATE: Since this column was posted, reports out of Columbia, Mo. are Missouri has hired Frank Haith as its next head coach.)
The calls and questions keep coming my way.
NC State or Missouri? Which is the better basketball head coaching job?
As someone who attended Missouri and grew up watching NC State basketball (and covers it today), I suppose my opinion comes from some unique position of authority.
So even though I might tick off all my friends from both fan bases, let’s break this down with a few categories.
History: NC State has more impressive banners (two NCAA titles), but that history is almost becoming ancient. No high school recruit was born when Jim Valvano was running around the floor of The Pit in Albuquerque after Lorenzo Charles’ dunk in 1983.
Missouri has been much more prominent in recent years as a perennial NCAA Tournament team and an Elite Eight run in 2009. Then again, no school has more NCAA Tournament victories (22) or Elite Eight appearance (4) without reaching a single Final Four.
Advantage: State…with reservations.
Fan base: Both sets of fans claim to be cursed. The name of Tyus Edney, Ricky Clemons and Quin Snyder make even the most casual Mizzou fan’s blood boil. State has…well, 22 years of hard luck following the publishing of Personal Fouls and the NCAA probation that followed.
Deep down, Missouri is a football school in a football
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By Jason Jennings
Mar 12, 2011
The Atlantic Coast Conference honored another set of basketball "Legends" on Saturday, and it's becoming obvious this tradition is running its course.
Every ACC Tournament since 1999, the league honors a former player from each team in the conference, trots them out to mid-court, and bestows them the title of “Legend.” They should probably change it to, “Pretty Good Basketball Player Who Was Available This Weekend.”
For example, Michael Jordan is not a "Legend."
Ralph Sampson is. Twice (1999, 2002).
When the ritual started twelve years ago, who do you think was Duke's "Legend?" Christian Laettner? Grant Hill? Maybe dip back in history and bring in Art Heyman or Jeff Mullins?
Nope. Your first Duke "Legend" was (wait for it)...Steve Wojciechowski.
If the arbitrary selection of players from storied programs didn't make for enough head-scratching moments, expansion has only made the event more awkward.
In this “Everybody Gets a Trophy” era in which we live, the ACC honors past players from Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College even though none of the players selected from those schools so far have even played in the conference.
Not only that, most of those programs have zero basketball history.
Here's a true story. I was on the elevator this weekend and saw a guy with a pass that said “VIP All-Access, ACC Legend.” I didn't recognize him at all.
It turns out, the man was Eric Brown who played at
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By Jason Jennings
Mar 6, 2011
Society has a tendency to inflate the accomplishments of something that just happened and quickly forget about the past. Just type “Greatest Ever” into a YouTube search and you would think the world’s most significant dunks, soccer goals, knockouts, trick shots and crotch shots all happened in the last 18 months and were caught on video.
With that in mind, the Duke careers of Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith are coming to a close. The Blue Devil faithful will point to their accomplishments and claim, without question, their numbers deserve to be retired.
It’s a goal both players admitted Friday that they want, and the fact Duke has already retired 13 jerseys shows the goal is not impossible to reach.
I’m not here to say they do not deserve the honor. Let’s just look at this logically.
First of all, they are both key players on a national championship team. You can’t take that away from them. If Gordon Heyward’s shot goes in…ok, it didn’t. End of discussion there.
As for their individual accomplishments, their cases for jersey retirement are almost the opposite. Singler’s is based on an entire steady career. Smith is capitalizing on a phenomenal final 14 months.
Has any player benefited from staying in college four years more than Nolan Smith? (Again, there probably was. See, I too can be guilty of inflating recent history.)
Smith is a guy who backed up Greg Paulus, got concussed on a hard screen at Maryland,
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By Jason Jennings
Feb 20, 2011
Roy Williams often says he would rather his team play games with scores in the 90s than the 50s, but he would take a win regardless.
What about a game in the 40s?
“Not a lot to say,” Williams said Saturday after beating Boston College. “We won. That’s the bottom line.”
Against BC, Williams’ Tar Heels couldn’t reach half a hundred on the scoreboard, but they managed a 48-46 victory, their 20th this season. They also improve to 10-2 in ACC play to stay a game behind Duke.
The Heels’ 48 points were the fewest for any UNC team in the history of the Dean Smith Center and the fewest for Carolina under Williams.
“Not a bad record to be set, as long as we win,” said a smiling Tyler Zeller, who led Carolina with 16 points.
For a program that focuses on fast breaks and increasing number of possessions, UNC has gotten downright defensive recently.
In their last three games, both the Tar Heels and their opponents have shot below 40 percent.
Carolina won all three of those contests.
Who would have thought any Roy Williams team—even the 2009 championship squad—could come out victorious in low-scoring games like this?
The fact the Heels can win these grind-it-out battles could be a positive sign for March. In tournament time, opponents will try to slow Carolina down like BC did Saturday and each possession will become more precious.
However, the UNC offense needs to come around before making any
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By Jason Jennings
Sep 5, 2010
Points After
N.C. State 48 Western Carolina 7
Pros: In a season opener with a high disparity in talent, the most important key for the Wolfpack was to make sure quarterback Russell Wilson didn’t get hurt.
Wilson said he felt comfortable in the win, and it showed. He completed four touchdown passes before halftime and finished with 306 yards in two and half quarters of play. Wilson ran when he had to but did get sacked twice in the second half.
Tom O’Brien, however, believed Wilson is still shaking off the baseball rust and said after the game his quarterback is nowhere near where he was at the end of last year. In particular, O’Brien cited an illegal substitution penalty when Wilson didn’t recognize twelve players were in the huddle.
It’s all small stuff, but such is life after a game against Western Carolina.
Cons: Any coach could live with the final stats the State defense allowed (189 total yards), but rarely did the D look like it had made huge strides from a year ago.
Western Carolina owned the line of scrimmage in the game’s first series and ran the ball with ease during the drive.
State’s defense also didn’t force a turnover all game, an Achilles’ heel for the Pack in recent years.
Turning point: With Western Carolina leading 7-0 midway through the first quarter, the
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By Jason Jennings
Nov 6, 2009
Points After
Virginia Tech 16 East Carolina 3
Pros: From the East Carolina perspective, the pregame atmosphere had all the feel of a big-time matchup. If you give Pirate fans a few more hours in a day to get…um, excited…for a high-profile opponent, the Dowdy-Ficklen faithful will show up with a “tastes great, less filling” energy.
Skip Holtz wanted to keep the game low-scoring like in previous contests against Virginia Tech. The ECU coach kind of got his wish. The 19 total points was the lowest scored in his three games against the Hokies. But not tallying a single touchdown wasn’t what he had in mind. The strategy also played into Virginia Tech’s style. The Hokies controlled the tempo.
The Pirates’ defense did a nice job of playing “bend but don’t break” in the first half. The score could have been much worse than 6-0 late in the second quarter after the Hokies marched inside the 25 yard line three different times.
Cons: As quarterback Patrick Pinkney said, the ECU offense “let our defense down.” Pinkney completed only 16 of 35 throws with one interception. If you ask Skip Holtz, the passing game looked embarrassing at times. Receivers ran wrong routes. The timing was constantly off. Anytime the Pirates’ O gained any momentum, it was wiped out with a turnover or a penalty.
Three
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