CHARLOTTE — Many State fans no doubt breathed a sigh of relief at the end of Thursday’s ACC Tournament loss to Miami. While none may have wanted to lose in the first round, a long and tumultuous season is now over — an end that couldn’t have come fast enough.
In Sidney Lowe’s second season, the team tumbled from preseason No. 3 in the ACC to a season-ending nine-game losing streak, and the confounding ability of the team to lose almost any lead became a puzzle even Lowe couldn’t solve.
Now he has eight months to figure out what went wrong and how to make the program more like he has envisioned it since being hired in 2006. And judging by recent history, the long offseason could serve that purpose well.
After State’s last losing season, a 13-16 mark in 2001, then-coach Herb Sendek brought in a highly-touted recruiting class the next year and started a run of five straight NCAA Tournament appearances. With the talent he has on his team now and the guys he is recruiting, there’s no reason Lowe can’t turn it around too.
At times this season the lineups Lowe used and the effort — more like lack of it — that the players exhibited was baffling. But there were also the shimmers of light — a good first half at Duke, a mostly good first half against Carolina at home, a great first 35 minutes against Duke at the RBC Center.
The key for Lowe is finding a way to sustain such efforts for 40 minutes. Much of that comes down to making the players believe in themselves again. Lowe admitted his players were all too easily frustrated by merely missing a single shot. If they’re going to get better, they will have to have shorter memories.
One major thing that should help in that department is the experience freshman point guard Javier Gonzalez gained this season. He entered the season as the backup, but after starter Farnold Degand’s season-ending injury in December, Gonzalez had both the blessing and curse of getting on-the-job training during ACC play.
Gonzalez has the confidence to lead this team to bigger things, but he has to consistently show it to his opponents. He also needs to become more of a threat to score so that defenses will respect his shot. Otherwise, State will be too easy to defend.
A final thing the team must deal with if freshman J.J. Hickson stays or even if he goes to the NBA Draft is making a smooth adjustment when players of Hickson’s caliber are in the program. Many times this season State’s players didn’t look for anyone other than Hickson, or they couldn’t handle the fact he was taking play time that used to be theirs. Some kind of balance has to be struck.
There’s plenty for Lowe to look at.
And with an extra-long offseason, he has to find some solutions because one thing is certain: neither State nor Lowe can afford to keep posting four- and five-win ACC seasons if they truly have designs on advancing the program.
