"We just didn't defend," Lowe told the Associated Press after the game. "We had a three-point lead and I just think we relaxed a little bit. Going in, we talked about limiting their threes, but I think we just suffered from a lack of concentration on the defensive end."
When you break this quote down, you start to see some problems. First, Lowe said, "We talked about limiting their threes," which translates into, "The coaches told them what to do."
However, he concluded, "We just suffered from a lack of concentration on the defensive end." In other words, the players did not do what they were told. So the blame is subtly shifted from coaches to players.Another way of looking at this would be to shift the blame from the players to the coaches. For example, why didn't the coaching staff have them better prepared? Why didn't the coaches have players on the floor who could play the necessary defense?
Ultimately, N.C. State has to play better defense to win in the ACC. And the responsibilty for that rests with Lowe and his staff.
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The defense certainly cost N.C. State but the Pack lost that game in the first few minutes.
ReplyDeleteCoach Lowe had been concerned about slow starts but was impressed over the last few games about the team's better starts.
Unfortunately, they fell back into the old pattern. The Wolfpack missed 18 of their first 23 shots, including some easy ones, while BC hit four threes to get up by 11 early.
The Pack, despite the problems on defense, actually won the rest of the game by two points.