. . . I’m petrified! The news released today was all bad: Farnold tore an ACL in that fall Sunday against Cincy.

Perhaps we have a fall semester point guard curse?

I would really like to have more confidence in Gonzalez and Johnson but how can you not worry about a guy Sid has not played much when he’s had plenty of opportunity, and a guy who has been eligible for two games and hasn’t seen one inch of regulation hardwood?

So. Petrified. Concerned.

Get well Farnold. Step up: somebody.

tags: wolfpack basketball, north carolina state, farnold degand, javier gonzalez, marques johnson, sidney lowe

Interesting bit in the N&O today about the Pack’s perceived failure to get butts in seats for games at the RBC Center.

Chip Alexander cites a pretty cool stat: last year the Pack’s average home stand attendance was 13,952. NCSU ranks among the top 20 NCAA men’s basketball programs for attendance.

The. Top. 20. Teams. in. the. Country.

I felt that I had to stutter that to get someone to slow down and shut up. I am rather sick of hearing complaints from Wolfpack Nation about how the RBC Center is not packed for games. The issue in the RBC Center is the perception that the house is not full because of the empty seats in the bowl. We notice the empty seats because the fan cam often lingers on fans surrounded by empty seats early in the game, and the empty seat perception lingers with early entrants.

The fact is, by five minutes into most games, the bowl is usually pretty full and in the nosebleeds where Richard and I sit – where the views are great, just high – there are quite a few folks as well. Those empty seats in the bowl, however, those 6000-some fans who don’t show up, contribute to what some perceive as a deafening echo in the hall.

A perception that Wolfpack Sports Marketing, if they only had a brain, could easily erase. It’s called moving butts into empty seats, and it is not that friggin’ hard. At the last tv timeout before half time, you allow ticket holders from the third tier to take any empty seats in the first tier with the knowledge that if that seat’s occupant shows up, you lose the seat. Movers have to hang on to their seats during the half – price of occupancy, easily fixed when there are two or more people in your party (one person goes for the snacks, how hard is the math here folks?).

The second thing is to be more aggressive with a seat donation program in which lifetime seat holders donate their seats when they are not going to the game, and the Pack re-sells them on game day only. Big cities hire event-day sellers to get rid of those blocks of seats; it is an easy thing to do. More money for the Wolfpack Club, cheap seats for fans, problem solved.

The other quite simple thing that can be done to distract from empty seats is to create more silly promotional games and giveaways that involve people on the third tier, the way the Carolina Hurricans do for every single home game. Again, not so friggin’ hard. If Mr. and Mrs. Wuf are too good for the escalators, I understand that their are seven elevators in the building and lots of dance team members standing around shaking pom-poms. Put those toned butts to work.

And if anyone else bitches about the RBC Center not being full, I’d like to remind them how uncomfortable it is to sit in those third tier seats next to drunk Dukies. Thank you very much, I’ll be here all week.

tags: wolfpack basketball, north carolina state, rbc center

Last night while I was toe-twinkling at the <a href="http://www.theumstead.com/photo_gallery/Umstead Hotel ballroom with the other James Scott Farrin partygoers, the Pack was struggling with the team that would not go away. After we got home, Richard watched our recording of the game, and he told me Davidson just refused to die.

Good for them. And good for the Pack, to tough it out. I know a lot of people wish our games this season weren’t such nailbiters. But I seem to remember another team Sidney Lowe coached, in which every game was a grinder. Maybe that’s part of the Valvano legacy.

Of course, that’s probably Wolfpack-variety smoke I’m blowing up my own ass. But I’m going to give that rationalization a real good workout as long as I can. Go Pack!

tags: wolfpack basketball, north carolina state, sidney lowe