Andrew Faye
When coach Sidney Lowe takes the court for the first regular season game of his college coaching career tonight at the RBC Center, the opponent will be a lot different than the opponent in his first college game as a player.
In 1979, Lowe’s freshman year at N.C. State, the Wolfpack opened its season against hated rival North Carolina in the Big Four Tournament in Greensboro, an annual tournament which included Duke, Wake Forest, the Tarheels and State.
Asked if he would like to start this season that way, Lowe said, “That would be a great way to start.”
But perhaps fortunately for State its opponent tonight will not be the No. 2 ranked Tarheels. Instead the Pack will take on Wofford at 7:00 p.m.
The Pack is 8-1 all-time against the Terriers and this year’s team returns only two starters — both guards — off last year’s 11-18 team.
The last meeting between the two schools was played in December of 2002, which State won 86-71 led by Julius Hodge who finished the game with a double-double, 26 points and 11 rebounds.
Lowe said he didn’t know much about this Wofford team, but he had looked at some film from the 2005-2006 season.
“They have good perimeter players,” Lowe said. “I know that they have guys that can shoot the ball. But they’re younger inside. They lost the two big guys. But the big guys, we don’t know, could be good.”
After State’s second exhibition game Lowe said he and the team were ready to get started and yesterday at his weekly press conference the coach analyzed the play of his team so far.
“We played very unselfish basketball,” he said. “Guys like Courtney Fells, who can really go off and make some shots for us, really moved the ball around extremely well. He wasn’t concerned about the first game where he didn’t hit shots — he got rebounds, he got steals and he played defense. And Brandon Costner rebounded and played defense.”
Lowe added the team’s play on defense has been streaky, but that it showed potential.
“We were able to turn it up at times on the defensive end. That impressed me,” he said. “Certainly we would rather have that going all the time where you’re intense on the defensive end because we know that’s something you can do every game. The shots are not going to go all the time, but you can defend.”
Asked about his expectations for his team as his first season officially gets underway, Lowe said he expected his team to “outwork the other team” but said he understood how tough the competition will be, especially right here in the Triangle.
“This is the [college] basketball Mecca,” he said.