Can the Pack Hang With the Heels?

I remember sitting at the RBC Center last February and being just stunned at the way that an extremely young Carolina team dominated a veteran N.C. State squad. Looking around at the 19,000 or so fans, just about all of them wearing red, I knew they were equally stunned.

State fans were looking for the huge win, expecting to do something they haven’t done much of, to beat their most hated rival. What they got was a one-sided drubbing.

That game was, of course, the beginning of the end of what at one time looked like Herb Sendek’s best team. It was the start of the basketball upheaval at State that saw Sendek leave for Arizona State. Enter Sidney Lowe.

I will be at Saturday’s game, but if Carolina wins by 24 this time, it won’t surprise me at all. I think it will be closer, hope it will because, frankly, I hate blowouts—but a double figure UNC win is what’s expected.

Carolina comes to Raleigh with a 20-2 record. They’re alone in first place in the ACC, and they have just waves and waves of players, talented players who will want to run State into the ground. That’s what Roy Williams wants. That’s what he expects.

And State knows this.

”They come at you in full force” says Pack coach Sidney Lowe. ” We’re going to have to be ready and be good defensively.”

You bet they will. Carolina just doesn’t beat teams. They dismantle teams. In their recent five-game winning streak, the closest a team has come to the Tar Heels is 16 points. In the Tar Heels 20 wins, only two teams have made it a single-digit game.

“They certainly try to impose their will on you,” Lowe says, “to make you play their game.”

And Carolina’s game is to get up and down the court as fast they can, to force tempo at every opportunity. Roy Williams wants a high-possession game. With their depth Carolina wants to wear down N.C. State, just like they’ve done to just about everybody else. Running with Carolina is like running with the bulls: there’s chance you may be trampled.

State will do their best to not let that happen. I’m not sure they can.

Sidney Lowe knows this is a big game. He played in enough of these State-Carolina games, and now he’s coaching his first game against N.C. State’s most bitter foe.

State will come into the game with some confidence. The upset at Virginia Tech was a huge win for Lowe, his biggest win to date without question.

Engin Atsur’s return from the left hamstring problem has been so key.

“I think having Engin out there is a huge, huge positive for them,” UNC’S Williams said on Friday. “You watch the way they played against Virginia Tech, that’s not what they’ve had those other games.”

Lowe says Atsur is feeling better physically each day, that he’s moving a little quicker is able to move better laterally.

And the first-year State coach knows better than anyone what his presence means.

“Just being on the floor gives us a calmness on both ends of the floor.”

I don’t think many realistic people think that State will upset Carolina, but things can happen and do happen, and State is not without talent. It's just not as much talent as the third-ranked team in the country.

Carolina will come out hard and with the intensity of a spring thunderstorm. State will have to dig deep to be able to match that.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Lowe says. “It’s not so much about the other team as much as it is about us playing our game and sticking to our game plan.”

It will be rowdy and rude at the RBC Center. The Pack fans know its team needs a sixth man.

It’s State-Carolina. State fans hope for the best, but are preparing for the worst. They are well aware of the onslaught that can be the Tar Heels.

Carolina fans are smug. They fully expect to win and to win going away.

State will need their game of the season to pull this upset.

Can it happen? The odds say no.

But there is a reason they play the game. You never really know.

Sidney Lowe knows a little something about that, doesn’t he?