State - BC II

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

O.K. performance by the Pack tonight, came out on fire but, once again, let the opponent get up off the floor, 16 point first-half lead all the way down to 3 before Wood hit a leaning circus 3-pointer at the horn. Good spurt in the second half to break it open, coasted in for an 18-point win.

Brown - Solid again, good defensive effort, off target on a few unnecessary alley-oop passes.

Howell - Quiet, steady workman-like game, not a ton of points, didn't need a ton from him, once again a great job on defense and on the glass (and, I don't believe, he had even one foul called on him).

Leslie - Meh; no real complaints other than he has GOT to quit forcing up shots against multiple defenders and looking for the refs to bail him out, ain't like he's a sure bet from the FT line anyway. O.K. overall.

Wood - Seems to be finding his range, friendly confines probably don't hurt.

Warren - Continues to improve, he's not going to get 31 and 13 every night, doing a better job of playing within himself and within the framework of the team.

Lewis - Once again impressed with his moxie. Guts of a burglar, and tough as a two-dollar steak. Anybody on State's team that even REMOTELY looks like they're headed toward the basket better be ready to catch the ball.

Purvis - Has never been a problem from the effort standpoint, tonight I thought for the first time in a while he didn't try TOO hard. Was patient, let the game come to him, scored 21 and chipped in a handful of rebounds too. Great job by him tonight.

My grade: B+

[Tizu]

I didn't get the chance to watch it, but I heard from several friends on FB they didn't have the "killer instinct" they so badly need. They got the win, which is good.

I can't really comment too much unfortunately. I do know that CJ had better play to his potential if they have any chance for making a deep tourney run.

[Marty Da Hungry Wolf]

It's the same thing I said after the first UNC game - Ken called me on it, said to complain about State not "taking them out" when they had the chance was saying there was no such thing as a comeback. I never said that, and the UNC kids did a great job the first game of not quitting and continuing to play hard, it was obvious that State dropped their intensity and focus. It was the same story against BC last night, it's just that BC isn't as good as UNC this year. Nothing against BC or UNC either one, and no disrespect intended to BC - I think Coach Donahue has good things in store for BC.

My only "demand" has EVER been for State's players to ALWAYS play hard, no matter if they're picked preseason first or dead last, no matter the score, no matter the time on the clock. Play HARD. Period. Score and stats will take care of themselves, so will the wins. I just want to see effort from start to finish, that's all.

[mattncsu02]

Marty nailed it. It's the same story every time this year. Get a big lead......chill for a while.....fire back up and get a lead.....chill for a while.....etc, etc. I'm tickled with an 18 point win, but if the Pack would play as hard and disciplined as they can for the whole 40 minutes, they would be hard to beat. I don't want to sound like I'm downing them, because I'm proud of where they have come in two short years, but with the talent my Pack has, they could go a loooooong way in the tourney.

I still think that Gottfried has the team going in the right direction and with a couple more years of awesome recruiting.....the Pack is going to paint the ACC red!