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Pack's Lowe: Players Need to Produce

By Dane Huffman

Feb 20, 2008

Raleigh, N.C. — Twenty-five years ago Tuesday, N.C. State scored one of its most remarkable wins over North Carolina.

Wolfpack point guard Sidney Lowe made a bounce pass between his legs for a dunk as State held off Michael Jordan and the Tar Heels, 70-63, in Reynolds Coliseum.

On Tuesday, though, Lowe wasn’t one to look back to a win that sparked State’s 1983 national title. The UNC basketball system, now run by Roy Williams instead of Dean Smith, still looks familiar to him, with its defensive traps and overall philosophy.

But what he is looking for, in his second Wolfpack team, is one where his players, simply, learn to make plays. He'd like that Wednesday night, when Carolina returns to Raleigh.

“The job of a coach is to put the team in position to win. And the players take over from there,” Lowe said.

“We need players to make plays now. It’s real simple.”

He repeated that same point several times. And he said, again, that State needs more than just a handful of players doing well in a given game.

“It’s something that hasn’t happened for us. We’ve had two or sometimes three guys going, occasionally four. …,” Lowe said. “We haven’t had consistent play from at least four guys.”

In elaborating on that, he made an intriguing point about his freshmen.

“I don’t think Javi Gonzalez is the issue,” Lowe said, defending his freshman point guard. “I know he’s not the issue. Javi is not the problem.

“We need to have more guys rebounding and helping J.J. [Hickson]. And we need to have more guys scoring and making plays to help J.J. inside. … “We have other guys who have been here for a while. And they need to step up and play.”

Those other guys include players who played heavy minutes a year ago and helped State reach the ACC Tournament final.

“We need to have people come in and produce for us,” Lowe said. “We need to have people who are starting produce for us.”

And as for any thoughts back to what happened 25 years ago Tuesday, Lowe said that’s a conversation for another time. His current team doesn’t need that speech – after all, they beat Carolina in the RBC Center last season.

“They did it last year,” he said. “So there’s no need to go back and talk about when we did it. They’re probably tired of hearing about what we did when I played.

"It’s not important now. It’s these guys.”

These guys, to Lowe, have more to worry about. Like producing when Carolina is back Wednesday night.