State's Lowe Covets Up-Tempo Team

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State's Lowe Covets Up-Tempo Team

N.C. State head coach Sidney Lowe points out a defensive play to his team during their game against Wake Forest on February 3, 2008.

Feb 25, 2008

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N.C. State, yet again, lost to a quicker team on Sunday that disrupted the Wolfpack’s set offense.

This time, it was Virginia – last in the ACC – romping to a 78-60 victory in Charlottesville, Va.

If State coach Sidney Lowe has his way, though, the Wolfpack eventually will be faster, quicker and more up-tempo than currently structured.

“We have to execute well and make simple plays,” Lowe said Monday on the ACC teleconference. “We don’t have a team that can run up and down the floor, even though people think we can. We don’t have a fast-breaking team.”

State, in Lowe’s two seasons, has depended on set plays, with Lowe often calling the plays from the bench.

But Lowe gave an interesting answer Monday when pushed on whether he prefers a halfcourt team to a fastbreaking one

“You’d like to have a team that could do both and players that could do both,” he said

“If I had a choice, I’d rather have a team that could go up and down and play the game and play basketball and execute when you have to down the stretch
“That’s what the good teams do. They seem to do both.”

But in discussing that style further, Lowe clearly indicated he'd like a more fluid style. For example, he raved about watching Tennessee and Memphis on Saturday.

“Very seldom did you see them run a set. They just played basketball,” he said.

Lowe pointed out that ACC rivals North Carolina and Duke push the basketball up the floor but can play in a halfcourt set as needed.

“You’ve got to have the personnel to do those things,” Lowe said. “Our team is not structured that way.”

Lowe said State succeeded with its structured offense last year because senior Engin Atsur was an experienced guard who could run the offense. This year, State has lacked experience at point guard, and Lowe again brought up the early season loss of Farnold Degand to a knee injury.

Lowe said State “ had a point guard who was playing pretty good for us. He had the ability to get by and create and control the game.

“That set us back more than anything.”

Eventually, Lowe expects NCSU to become more of a fast-breaking team.
“That’s what we’d’d like to go,” he said.

And that, he said, will involve recruiting players to fit that style.

“We want to try to evolve more to that direction. That takes time,” Lowe said. “You can’t just bring in one or guy or two guys and change right way. That’s eventually where we want to go.

“We want to be able to go up and down and really just play. Its more difficult to prepare for a team from a defensive standpoint when you really don’t know what they will do. …

“It’s easy to prepare for a team that runs sets and you know what they are running. We want to be more unpredictable as we go forward.”

Most Recent Comments

I agree robster. First it was he needed to find the right combo, then it was the players need to step up, now it's "oh, well, I want to run this kind of offense, but can't. Sounds like too many excuses, go out and coach. It's basketball, not rocket science. It is bad when you see a coach who cannot motivate his players. He sure seems to be putting his current players under the bus.

..too much time talking to the media and making excuses and not enough time coaching and motivating his players...just my opinion...

Hey I covet a team that can play.

"When did Lowe get a commitment from the #1 PG in 2010 class? That would be Kendall Marshall and he's already committed to Carolina. Are you talking about John Wall in the class of 2009? Wall has NOT committed to anyone and he's also not the #1 PG in the class. "

Ol Roy the Choker....looks like you need to get your facts straight before you post.

And the only choking that's been going on this season is by your Pack team.

"Outside of an excellent job in getting Hickson, Lowe has not done well on the recruiting front either. He's getting marginal top 75 to top 100 players and not many of them."

Tracey Smith is going to be a pretty formiable opponent next year, wait and see. he's already shown in some of the few minutes he's played. and degand was shaping into a good point guard. he improved every game, and i feel confident that at this point, he would have been an above average PG. not saying he'd be near ty lawson's level, but he'd definitely be doing better than javi. and even javi has some talent, give him another year or two.

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