With the NHL All-Star Game arriving, Dana McCall of GoGoRaleigh.com took a long look at his native city. Whether you’re from Raleigh or a recent addition, McCall’s insightful piece is a good reminder of how much there is to do in the city and why it’s a worthy place to host an All-Star Game.
All posts by Dane Huffman
Clemson’s Brownell is off to a strong start
The headlines in the Triangle will focus on how N.C. State blew a 19-point lead at Clemson Tuesday night, and with good reason, but a larger story developing here is the Tigers appear to be in good hands with new coach Brad Brownell.
Clemson had built up its program under Oliver Purnell, a respected hand who brought good prospects to Clemson. But he up and bolted to DePaul, making you wonder if Clemson would ever really win in basketball.
Brownell, though, can coach. He did an admirable job getting the Tigers ready for their game at North Carolina, and Clemson might have broken that phenomenal streak if a few shots had gone down.
Tuesday night, the Tigers were nearly smashed in their own gym, but rallied for a 10-point win that was tougher than it looks.
The ACC is taking plenty of national bashing for its lack of teams in the polls this year, but several programs are in better hands than casual observers might think. Tony Bennett is a rising star in his second year at Virginia, new coach Steve Donahue is doing a great job at Boston College and Brownell might establish something at Clemson. Only Wake Forest, Georgia Tech – and N.C. State – appear to be programs where the coaching appears uncertain.
N&O story remembers how ‘Chopper’ cared about the Canes when few others did
The most amazing story so far as the NHL All-Star Game approaches is Luke DeCock’s read on Chopper Harrison in Tuesday’s News and Observer. Harrison, as longtime Canes fans remember, was a Triangle radio personality who became an unrelenting fan of the team when it first arrived in the state. Harrison, 59, is now battling cancer.
He was known for his wild hair and effusive personality, and the Canes loved being on his show and talking hockey. In 2001, he even slept in a sleeping bag on top of the RBC Center, DeCock recalls, in an effort to promote the market’s push for an All-Star Game.
Harrison could be abrasive, but as DeCock points out, “Whatever one thought of his antics at the time, he cared about the Hurricanes when no one else did, a lone voice in a market all too willing to ignore the team.”
Harrison will even be on 96 Rock once again this week as the game approaches. He’s no longer trying to be a radio personality and but is glad to go by his given name, David Martin, and grateful to be remembered as the game approaches.
“I’m not Chopper Harrison anymore,” he told DeCock. “I’m David Martin. I was so into myself when I was doing radio. God has blessed me. He really has. I may have this stupid disease, but he’s blessed me, he’s made me appreciate – it’s like he opened up a door and said, ‘You did it your way, now let me show you what life is all about.’ “
Krzyzewski says Smith, Singler can handle a heavy load this season
One of the questions that annoys Mike Krzyzewski, and one that has come up in recent seasons, is whether he expects too much of his star players. Krzyzewski used to play J.J. Redick heavy minutes, even in early season games, and that seemed to take a toll on Redick as the season progressed.
Duke often talks of having a deep, balanced roster, but you see Krzyzewski shorten his bench, and lengthen the playing time for stars, once ACC play begins. That trend has accelerated this season with Kyrie Irving now possibly lost for the year.
Senior Nolan Smith is the workhorse this time, as Krzyzewski pointed out. But in answering a question about Smith’s role, Krzyzewski seemed to anticipate, and address, whether Smith is overburdened.
“Nolan is having a great year. He had a great year last year. He has improved even more,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s got a lot on his plate for us – handling the ball, defending the ball, scoring the ball, leading the team. He’s done all those things at the highest level. He’s having an All-American type of year.”
“I’ve never heard of an All-American being given too many responsibilities. As soon as you do that you are playing defense on your All-American player.
“The great players in our league, not just at Duke, have a lot of responsibilities. And they want it; they prepare for it. They thrive on it. And Nolan has to continue to do that.”
Smith is averaging 33.2 minutes, which is fourth in the league, and Duke’s Kyle Singler is fourth at 33.7. Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney leads the ACC at 37.8 minutes per game. Krzyzewski had high praise for Singler, saying,” Kyle is going to be one of the top five stat guys in the history of four program. He just has gone quietly about getting 20 points and 8 rebounds and being the warrior.”
Krzyzewski scoffed at any thought that Duke expects too much from those two.
“If we lose in March, it won’t be because those two guys are tired,” Krzyzewski said. “It’ll be because somebody was better than us on that day.”
N.C. State will go as far as Harrow can take it
There are big games and biggest games and games you simply have to have. Sunday’s contest with Miami was just that for N.C. State at an RBC Center where the disgruntled nature of Wolfpack fans was evident in the swath of open seats downstairs.
State won 72-70 (see box) but had to hang on after coughing up a 17-point lead in the second half. Coach Sidney Lowe is hardly having an impressive effort this year, and a loss Sunday would have been disastrous for Lowe’s tenure. To his credit, his team hung on and played with toughness in the final two minutes.
Miami actually had a 70-69 lead when freshman Ryan Harrow took a tough driving shot that missed badly. But Tracy Smith tipped the ball so hard it ricocheted off the backboard. Then Smith grabbed it, leaned to his right and scooped in a shot with 43.9 seconds left.
Harrow stole the ball at the other end, and C.J. Williams hit one free throw for State with 15.9 seconds left.
State made an impressive defensive stand on the other end. Lowe wisely put Scott Wood on the Canes’ Malcolm Grant, who had hit all five of his three-pointers and had 23 points in the game. Grant tried to shoot but Wood cut him off, so Grant made a wild drive and Smith stepped in. Grant’s only chance was a tough pass inside a teammate could not handle, and the horn went off with the ball loose.
What was interesting about this game was who did play, and who did not. The debate over point guard, where Lowe had stubbornly clung to Javier Gonzalez, is over. Gonzalez, a scrappy kid with marginal skills, got only nine minutes and Harrow played the critical minutes in the stretch. C.J. Leslie, the talented but erratic freshman, played just 14 minutes against the rugged Canes front. And freshman Lorenzo Brown, who had started most of the season, gave way to Williams in the starting five but still played 22 minutes.
The team that finished the game – Smith, Harrow, Williams, Wood, Richard Howell – is probably State’s core five going forward. If the long injury to Smith helped in any way, it is probably that Howell gained critical experience and State saw what Leslie can, and cannot, do.
The official attendance was 15,222, but empty seats are a sure sign of a fan base that is losing faith. N.C. State got a win it coveted against a Miami team that is better than some might think. Harrow learned some hard lessons – like the wild shot he took toward the end – but State has to keep the ball in his hands. He was just 2 of 10 from the floor Saturday but had seven assists. Heck, when Gonzalez played, it seemed like months would go by without him getting seven assists.
When you watch N.C. State, you get the sense that Smith is one of the league’s best players, but that this team will go as far as Harrow can take them, and no further.
Wake woes continue as 0-16 ACC season possible
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.
Marvin Austin: ‘I messed up a great situation’
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.
Yow: Wolfpack program will be reviewed
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.
Panthers passed on Aaron Rodgers in 2005
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?
NCSU, Duke heading two different directions
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.