Dave Sez: Air Tight Compartment

May 12, 2006

Air Tight Compartment

Herb Sendek had several quirks and one of them was repeating a few phrases over and over (repeatedly and redundantly. Again and again). One of those was his talk about creating an air-tight compartment. Well, what if old Herb had created one of those lock boxes (to quote another dazzling personality) around the local basketball talent?

StateFans Nation does the work I've meant to do in looking at all of the local players who have left to play at schools other than NC State. Now obviously, no school gets all of the local (and in-state) talent, but check out these recent names from SFN's post (and a Caulton Tudor article) - Shavlik Randolph (Duke, NBA), Eric Williams (Wake Forest), Chris Paul (WF, NBA), Anthony Morrow (Georgia Tech), Anthony King (Miami), David Noel (UNC), Reyshawn Terry (UNC), Chris Wilcox (Maryland, NBA), David West (Xavier, NBA), PJ Tucker (Texas, headed to NBA), Craig Dawson (WF), Justin Gray (WF), Josh Howard (WF, NBA).

A few other players they missed - Shawan Robinson (Clemson), Anthony Richardson (McDonald's All-American, Florida State) and Trent Strickland (WF).

Again, obviously no program can land all of the in-state or even local players, especially when you consider that both two other major programs focus on the area, but there's no question that NC State has missed out on a TON of local talent. Adding just one or two of those guys per team could have made a huge difference in recent years.

Comments

(1) by devilbythesea (unregistered) on 05/12/2006 06:23 pm

One oft repeated theme by many State fans- primarily the Sendek apologists, but I've also seen it from others on their boards during their coaching search- is the "We Can't Compete for Local Talent With Duke and Carolina in Our Backyard" mantra. Yet those two schools only managed to collect a total of three out of fifteen local players between them, while lowly Wake (whose name is never, ever mentioned by the State crowd as an obstacle for their recruiting efforts) managed to reel in six of them. Heck, basketball powerhouse CLEMSON even managed to get one! To hear and read what the Pack folks have been saying, you would thing that Duke and UNC had gotten at least ten of the fifteen listed. I guess you could add Felton to the list for Carolina, since he grew up within a hundred miles of the NC state line, but Wake has clearly been the big winner in recruiting within the state while Duke and Carolina's effect has been close to negligible.

Dave, I guess my point here is kind of a reflection of what you were voicing in your previous piece ..."Doggone It"...It's like the State fans don't want to admit that lowly little Wake's program of late is as good- meaning successful- as their own.

State fans, please understand, I'm no Wake fan and I think Skip and Herb both possibly attended the same "End of Game Plays" seminar; just don't try to pin all your lack of recruiting success on the presence of the Big Two. They're not the ones who keep taking your biscuits and eating them.

(2) by Dave on 05/13/2006 11:38 am

Yeah, the SFN guys made good points about Wake really being their main rival, at least right now, and I should have reiterated that. Skip Prosser has really done a great job pulling in in-state talent, and Dave Odom did the same.

If you are going to add Felton to the region, and that's reasonable, then you could probably include the Tidewater area of Virginia as well. That are has long had ties just as close to North Carolina (more the university than the state) as Virginia. You could build a powerhouse program pretty much just with players from that area!

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Posted by Dave at May 12, 2006 09:37 AM | TrackBack

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