Lowe: Starters Were 'Just Awful'

It was just three weeks back that, on Feb. 5, N.C. State pulled to .500 in the conference with a win over Virginia Tech, the team had the NCAA Tournament on its mind, and most prognosticators placed the Wolfpack (15-13, 4-10 ACC) in the field.

Six games and just as many losses later, the Pack is now closer to going .500 for the regular season as it continues its longest losing streak since the 1999-00 season after a 72-62 loss to Florida State.

The Seminoles (17-12, 6-8 ACC) jumped out first to a 12-0 and then a 25-6 lead in the game’s first 14 minutes and the Pack failed to catch them for the rest of the game.

Coach Sidney Lowe, who usually minces his words when describing his team’s performance after most losses, sounded disgusted with his team – particularly those who started. Courtney Fells was the only member of the Pack’s starting five who finished in double-digit scoring, with 12.

“I thought our starters were just awful, just awful tonight …They came out and missed a couple of wide-open shots and didn’t really pick it up on the defensive end,” Lowe said. “As a group, they were bad. So we had to go to the bench. You got to call it the way you see it and that’s the way it was tonight on both ends, offensively and defensively.”

It was puzzling to Lowe and players like Marques Johnson that a team once fighting for a NCAA bid and looking to end a string of five straight losses, would come out so flat in front of the home crowd.

“No explanation,” Johnson said. “You think we’d be excited to come out and play and we came out slow, sluggish for some reason. I honestly don’t know.”

Johnson said Lowe tried to fire the team up before the game, but his team still fell flat to a team with a similar win-loss record.

“He gave us a little pep talk, just tried to motivate us,” Johnson said. “All I can do is apologize to the fans. I don’t know what it is. We’re not playing hard or something. We just definitely need to get it together before tournament time.”

The only bright spot in the last two games has been the play of reserve guard Trevor Ferguson, who led Pack players in scoring with 17. After averaging 1.5 points per game for his career, Ferguson has scored double figures in back-to-back games.

“It’s all about the team, it’s not about me or what I do … I’d rather sit on the bench and win,” Ferguson said. “We really wanted to come out and play for the fans because I know it’s been frustrating for them just as it’s been frustrating for us. I thought tonight we’d come out a little more ready to go and we just didn’t.”

Tracy Smith also out-performed his surrounding cast, scoring 11 points in 19 minutes and picking up two of the team’s three offensive rebounds.

“The guys who came off the bench came in and picked up the slack,” Lowe said. “Trevor and Tracy came in and did a really nice job for us.”

The Pack shot just over 46 percent from the field and had just 12 turnovers, yet defensive lapses for extended periods of time and a lack of rebounding - offensive rebounds in particular – that doomed the team yet again.

“We do everything we can to have these guys ready to play,” Lowe said. “We can’t rebound, we can’t make the shots, we can’t get in front of a guy to defend them.”

Seminole guards Toney Douglas and Jason Rich had a field day with the Pack’s guards, going for 20 and 21 points respectively.

Lowe said he wouldn’t comment on his team’s pride. That might have to be addressed internally, as Ferguson hinted that there may be a meeting amongst players.

“That’s something we did last year. We got together before the ACC Tournament and were able to kind of rally and go on a little bit of a run and I assume that’s soon to happen,” Ferguson said. “Get everything out there. Any problems anybody has, just being able to go and express that, it brings everybody together a little bit and I think we need that now.”

Last year, the Pack ended the year at 5-11 in the ACC. Because of the team’s season-ending seven-game, five-win stretch, the media picked State to finish third in the conference.

“We’re more down this year because we had such high expectations before the season,” Ferguson said. “If we can come together and play the right way I think we can make a run at the tournament.”

Now the Pack will need to win out against Duke and at Wake Forest to finish just one game better than it finished last season.