Have faith

I just got through reading the article “A Season Lowe” and felt the need to show my full support for Sidney Lowe to have another year. This team is very young — three sophomores and four juniors — and needs another year to develop and mature as a team. I know that our best player, Tracy Smith, will be graduating this year, but I feel that the current roster can use the experience they gain from this year to help offset the production that Tracy Smith brings to this team.

Ryan Harrow, Lorenzo Brown, and CJ Leslie are very talented freshman and have shown flashes of excellence in what could be the future of N.C. State basketball, but they’re freshman and have to take their bumps and bruises to be successful next year. If you want to see how hard it can be for freshman to transition from high school to college basketball just look at the struggles that Harrison Barnes has gone through at that putrid school down the road. Harrison Barnes was suppose to be an All-American as a freshman and be the savior for that school, but as his stats and play so far has suggested that expectations can be too high for freshman. It just isn’t easy for freshman to come into the ACC, despite being down this year, and dominate from day one. Also I am aware that some people expect CJ Leslie to possibly declare for the NBA Draft after the season based on the great athleticism and skill he has, but I feel that he’ll highly consider sticking around for another year because an additional year under his belt could increase his draft stock even higher than if he were to declare now. It could help Sidney Lowe bring back N.C. State’s basketball team to national prominence and become legend for doing so, and the possible lockout that the NBA could face next year is something to be concerned about for him.

Also, Ryan Harrow and Lorenzo Brown are going to be special and could become the best back court duo at N.C. State since Fire and Ice if you give Sidney Lowe the time to develop them. I urge you to read the letter that Ryan Harrow, which he also mentions Lorenzo Brown feeling the same way, wrote to Pack Pride around the middle of February last year. He was basically begging Wolfpack fans to give Sidney Lowe time to help develop this roster and just to be patient so Sidney Lowe can return the basketball team back to the greatness that we expect as fans. This just shows what type of people that Sidney Lowe is recruiting that they’re willing to do such a thing to support their coach even before they get on campus. I can fully support a coach that recruit players that are willing to lay it all on the line like that.

I have not forgotten the rest of team before you begin to think I have. Scott Wood has shown flashes of brilliance with his perimeter play and defensive prowess, but he’s only a sophomore that will show flashes of his youth at times. With another year of development he can learn from these mistakes and use this experience to become even a better player next year. Deshawn Painter, Richard Howell and Jordan Vandenberg are young as well and have shown the potential they have in helping make-up the lose of Tracy Smith next year. It needs to be noted that Deshawn Painter has personally been taken under by legend Julius Hodge’s wing and been trained over this past summer to help him to become a better player. Oh and before I forget CJ Williams has been a spark plug at times this year and could provide that senior leadership that N.C. State will need to be successful next year.

I understand that nobody was necessarily calling for Sidney Lowe’s head in the article, but I feel that this newspaper needs to show more support in Sidney Lowe as he tries to bring N.C. State back to its former glory. If you need to look for an example for what another year of support could possibly mean then don’t look any further than the coach we lost to on Wednesday. After Krzyzewski’s third season he had a 38-47 overall record and 13-29 conference record. There was rumors back then that Coach K was going to be fired due to this dreadful start, but the athletic director Tom Butters decided to give him another year and he was in the NCAA tournament the next year and the rest is history. There are similarities between this 2010-2011 basketball team and Duke’s 1982 class that featured Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins, Jay Bilas and David Henderson, which also had to take their freshman lumpings to help launch them the next year. I’m not saying Sidney Lowe is the next Krzyzewski, but I feel that if we can give Sidney Lowe that additional year of support then we’ll never have to wonder what might have been if we had given him another year.

Michael Flack

junior, political science