Duke, Featured stories, The skinny

Wake woes continue as 0-16 ACC season possible

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Wake Forest bottomed out in the ACC Tournament again last year and then in the NCAAs, prompting athletics director Ron Wellman to fire Dino Gaudio and hire Jeff Bzdelik. Given Wellman’s brilliant hiring record, it was easy to assume he saw much beyond the 36-58 record he had as the head coach of Colorado for three years.

Bzdelik did not inherit the ’74 Wolfpack by any means, but the disaster unfolding in Winston-Salem is beyond expectations. Wake fans who saw the team early shook their heads at the talent on the floor, and what has unfolded meets those concerns. The Deacons are now 0-5 in ACC play and 7-13 overall, and the only surprise from their 83-59 loss to Duke Saturday in Winston-Salem is they kept the game as close as they did.

All of this could point to a winless ACC mark for Wake, which has happened only five times in league history. Here are those previous five:

1987: Maryland 0-14, 9-17

1986: Wake Forest 0-14, 8-21

1981: Ga. Tech 0-14, 4-23

1955: Clemson 0-14, 2-21

1954: Clemson 0-14, 5-18

Note team has ever gone 0-16 in conference play, which Wake has a shot at this season.

The question has been raised as to whether Wake could be the worst team ever in the ACC, and the answer to that is a definitive no. Clemson’s lousy records in the league’s early years speak for themselves, and the ’55 squad allowed 73.7 points per game and allowed 93.3. The 1981 Tech team was truly terrible at a time when the league featured giants at UNC and Virginia. Tech scored 55.7 points and allowed 71.5 in an era in which teams often slowed the pace.

The view here is Wake Forest’s Wellman remains the best athletics director in the ACC, and his ability to turn around the football program and develop nonrevenue sports is remarkable. But Wellman rushed the decision to hire Gaudio after the death of Skip Prosser, and so far, the hiring of Bzdelik is off to an ominous start.

UNC

Marvin Austin: ‘I messed up a great situation’

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Marvin Austin admitted he made a mistake in an interview with The News & Observer Friday. “I messed up a great situation,” he told Joe Giglio in an interview in Orlando, Fla. “It was my fault.”

Yes, he did. Carolina fell all the way to the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., in a year when it had the talent to win the ACC title for the first time since 1980.

Now, Austin is playing in the East-West Shrine Game and trying to boost his NFL stock after not playing last season. There were some who thought Austin, a big defensive tackle with a burst up the middle, would be a first-round pick. But despite not playing last season, he looks like he will go no lower than the second round.

NFL teams covet defensive linemen and have a hard time finding players with the size and quickness required for the position. One website, WalterFootball.com, has Austin going in the second round, and 63rd overall, which is a pretty fair guess.

Austin has two strikes against him, which might keep him out of the first round. The obvious one is his off-the-field woes at UNC. NFL teams count character more than fans might think, but Austin’s violations were more along the lines of flouting NCAA rules and showing poor judgment. Nothing he did was criminal.

The second strike is that Austin had a habit of taking plays off. Sometimes you watched him and thought wow, he’s tremendous. Other times you barely noticed him. By comparison, you noticed players like Robert Quinn and Bruce Carter every play. NFL teams hate seeing players loaf, and Austin will have to convince clubs he still has plenty of desire in his tank after a year away from contact.

Featured stories, N.C. State, The skinny

Yow: Wolfpack program will be reviewed

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N.C. State’s loss to Duke Wednesday night highlighted the problems with the basketball program, which was why Thursday’s talk shows were full of discussions about the future of Wolfpack basketball.

Athletics director Debbie Yow, in her first year with the program, told The Fan’s Adam Gold and Joe Ovies that the program would be reviewed at the end of the season.  Yow said “our focus” is to give full support to the team as the season unfolds.

“After the end of the season, when all the games are played, there will be a review, of course,” she said.

Speculation about Lowe’s future is now reaching such proportions that it was a strong topic of conversation Thursday afternoon on Taylor Zarzour’s show, which is now based out of WFNZ in Charlotte. Charlotte is hardly a big N.C. State town, so the fact that this was a center of conversation says how widespread the unhappiness is with Wolfpack fans.

Yow, of course, is an experienced administrator who knows how to say the right thing. But the fact that she is openly saying there will be a review is telling. Do you think Duke athletics director Kevin White is going around saying Mike Krzyzewski “will be reviewed” after the season.

Of course not. As noted here earlier, Lowe could be driving this team toward a losing season, and that won’t wash with Wolfpack fans – or Yow.

Featured stories

Panthers passed on Aaron Rodgers in 2005

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Is Aaron Rodgers on an amazing run for the Green Bay Packers or what? And would he have had an impact on the miserable Carolna Panthers?

Look back at the 2005 draft, and the Packers took Rodgers, out of California, with the 24th pick. Carolina took linebacker Thomas Davis with the 14th pick, and Davis has been a stud, but he’s not Aaron Rodgers.

By the way, the first pick in the draft that year was Alex Smith of Utah, to San Francisco. And one of the real busts of that draft was receiver Matt Jones of Arkansas, who had tremendous workouts but flopped with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

But Rodgers with Carolina? Wow, wouldn’t that make the Panthers a different franchise?

Duke, N.C. State, The skinny

NCSU, Duke heading two different directions

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N.C. State and Duke were two teams going in separate directions Wednesday at the RBC Center, as the Blue Devils rolled to a 92-78 victory over a Wolfpack team that still struggles to play defense.

Duke’s depth was evident, and the play of sophomore Andre Dawkins was particularly impressive. Dawkins skipped his senior year of high school to enroll a year early last season after Gerald Henderson left for the pros, but he had little impact on the championship year as Duke favored a big lineup. Dawkins averaged just 4.4 points and with Kyrie Irving coming in and Seth Curry eligible, you expected him to get swept aside this season.

Instead, he appears to be solidifying a spot in the starting rotation as Curry’s defensive woes are highlighted in the rugged conference play. Dawkins played 23 minutes and scored eight points at the RBC Center, and as you watched the game, he clearly seemed comfortable on the court. Irving’s situation is hard to predict – and you can’t blame his family for being cautious with an NBA future ahead – and so there are minutes to be had in the backcourt. Dawkins looks like he can hold the job, and that gives Duke real depth there with Curry available for sharp-shooting duties.

Last year, Duke used its loss at N.C. State to redefine itself and become a halfcourt, grind-it-out team. This year, the Devils are heading toward more balance as players like Dawkins exert themselves.

N.C. State is spiraling down a different path. Losing to Duke is no reason for shame, but the Wolfpack now faces a huge game Sunday at the RBC Center against Miami. The Hurricanes are 12-5 overall and 1-2 in the league and a team State should beat. But the Pack can’t take anything for granted.

“There are still a lot of games left,” coach Sidney Lowe said after the game, according to The News & Observer. “But we need a run. We need a nice run. It’s not a panic situation. But too many of those [losses], and yeah, it will be.”

Games at Clemson and UNC follow the Miami game, and State’s 11-7, 1-3 record could soon take a beating.

The skinny

Point guard Chennault returning for Deacons

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Wake Forest is finally catching a break after a miserable start to its basketball season. Freshman point guard  Tony Chennault will make his return from a broken left foot on Wednesday at Georgia Tech, the school announced Wednesday afternoon.

Chennault broke the fifth metatarsal in his left foot in the Demon Deacons’ season opener against Stetson on Nov. 12. He is the only true point guard on the Wake roster and the Deacons have struggled the first half of this season.

Chennault missed much of the preseason with a stress reaction in the foot. After the season-opening injury, Chennault had surgery Nov. 15.

“To his credit, here is a young man who is not in optimum shape who hasn’t even gone through a full week of practice, who hasn’t even run some of the plays we’re running, has gotten zero reps with certain things,” Wake Forest head coach Jeff Bzdelik said in a statement. “But he is so unselfish and so team-oriented that he knows he can just help us in spot minutes as he continues to get in shape and continues to learn.

“He’s put his pride aside for the well-being of this team. And that is a great testimony to his leadership and what he’s going to bring to the future of this program in a huge way.”

Chennault, from Philadelphia, had six points and three assists in 13 minutes in the season opener against Stetson.

Wake Forest is at Georgia Tech Wednesday at 7 p.m.  The Deacons are 0-3 in ACC play and 7-11 overall.

Featured stories, UNC

Roy Williams grumpy about UNC fans, team’s hustle

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Roy Williams used the postgame news conference Tuesday to rip Carolina fans who asked questions about the team. And he used his radio show Monday to rip his players, who he feels doesn’t hustle as much as he would like.

Williams, no question, is a demanding coach with a strong sense of what he wants from his program. But there is little question the team didn’t perform well at Georgia Tech Sunday, and when you read the quotes from the radio program on InsideCarolina.com, it’s jarring how sharp Williams is in his criticism.

When a caller asked about defending shooters and said, “It’s painful watching those guys hit wide open 3-pointers,” Williams shot back, “You think it’s painful for you? What the [heck] do you think about our staff? We don’t enjoy that stuff, either.”

And in discussing the nature of today’s athletes, Williams made a long, and interesting, point.

“And you know the old stories about people shoveling snow so that they could play on an asphalt court? I did that. You’ve heard the story – I used to break into the gym so much and the policeman got so concerned that I was going to break my neck, he got the principal to give me the dadgum key. I get frustrated when I feel like my team doesn’t invest enough or cares about it enough or loses itself in the team,” he said, according to the InsideCarolina.com transcript. “And in today’s culture, it’s hard. I’ve got half of the guys on my team that their mom and dad and their friends and everything think that they’re going to make $88 million. They could give a flip whether we win a game or not. They want their guy to get 37 shots and play 50 minutes in a 40-minute game. The culture is hard on kids nowadays, and I understand that, but it makes coaching harder…

“It’s something that I’ve told many teams – if you cared one-tenth about it as much as I do, [gosh] it would be a lot of fun.”

After the Clemson win, he was still miffed about those radio questions.

“My radio call in show last night stunk,” Williams told reporters. “Everybody’s talking about there being Carolina fans for nine million years and how bad we were. I don’t give a damn how long they’ve been Carolina fans. …

“So don’t call me next week saying how good we are. Keep your damn phone calls to yourself.”

Needless to say, we can’t wait for next week’s radio show. But all those comments continue a trend in which Williams is rarely wrong. Fans are wrong to question the program … players don’t show the hustle of the past.

This prompted Mark Armstrong of WTVD to make a smart comment on his Twitter account: “The meta-question re Roy’s annoyance is whether it drives him into early retirement. Wonder if he’s getting much joy out of his job.”

Interesting point.

Featured stories, N.C. State, The skinny

N.C. State could be facing losing season

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N.C. State’s basketball season could quickly spiral downward if Saturday’s 84-71 loss at Florida State was any indication. The Wolfpack was picked for fourth in the ACC this year in preseason, but that looks like a vast misjudgment by the media based on early results. It is now conceivable that State could have a losing season, and you can’t imagine that athletics director Debbie Yow would judge Sidney Lowe favorably in that situation.

The Pack was never in the game at Tallahassee as a season-long indifference toward defense continued. “That was probably the worst defense I’ve seen us play in a long time,” Lowe told The News & Observer. “It really hurt us.”

Florida State shot 69 percent from the floor in the second half. For the game, the Seminoles never trailed, outscored State 20-8 on points off turnovers and held the Wolfpack to 19 first-half points.

Even more amazing was that State did not score a single point on a fast break, while FSU scored 11.

The stretch ahead could be gruesome for the Wolfpack. Duke visits the 19th, followed by Miami, at Clemson, at UNC, Virginia Tech and at Duke. State has some young talent, but this season could get even uglier fast.

N.C. State, The skinny

Coaches responsible for State’s defensive lapses

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It’s only the first ACC game, but N.C. State’s efforts Tuesday night in a 75-66 loss at Boston College continued what has been a recurring theme with the program in recent seasons.


“We just didn’t defend,” Lowe told the Associated Press after the game. “We had a three-point lead and I just think we relaxed a little bit. Going in, we talked about limiting their threes, but I think we just suffered from a lack of concentration on the defensive end.”


When you break this quote down, you start to see some problems. First, Lowe said, “We talked about limiting their threes,” which translates into, “The coaches told them what to do.”


However, he concluded, “We just suffered from a lack of concentration on the defensive end.” In other words, the players did not do what they were told. So the blame is subtly shifted from coaches to players.


Another way of looking at this would be to shift the blame from the players to the coaches. For example, why didn’t the coaching staff have them better prepared? Why didn’t the coaches have players on the floor who could play the necessary defense?


Ultimately, N.C. State has to play better defense to win in the ACC. And the responsibilty for that rests with Lowe and his staff.

The skinny

Rivera, another defensive-minded coach, a bit of an unknown quantity

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Ron Rivera, the new coach of Charlotte’s Panthers, is confusing to me. I’ve heard that he doesn’t interview well for jobs and that’s why he hasn’t gotten a head coaching job until now. By all accounts, he did well at his press conference and by all accounts, former players like him and see him as a great motivator.

He supposedly didn’t get along with Bears coach Lovie Smith. In fact, there were reports that the two had to be separated from a physical altercation. Rivera, despite many Bears fans preferring him over Smith, got the ax in Chicago a few years ago.

Rivera is certainly a solid defensive coach but, as Redskins fans know, Jim Zorn was a solid offensive coach too. It doesn’t always translate to being a good head coach.

Rivera may turn out to be a solid pick but many Panther fans (after four straight defensive-minded coaches hired as the head man) understandably would have liked a higher-profile, offensive-minded guy like Harbaugh (who wasn’t considered).

Perhaps Rivera can put together a good staff to get the offense moving again. (Names floating around for offensive coordinator are Rob Chudzinski, Marc Trestman and Ron Turner.)

While I would like to see Russ Grimm get a head coaching job somewhere, insiders speak highly of Rivera and he’ll have a young team to mold. It doesn’t take as long to turn NFL teams around anymore so anything is possible. And, remember, the Panthers have the first pick.