First of all my congratulations go out to the entire wolfpack team who had a really great year with 22-10 record and a fifth straight trip to the NCAA tourny. It was not till injuries down the stretch that NCSU slipped. It was very exciting when we were 21-5 and second only to Duke in the ACC.

The real question though is Herb Sendek. Year after year State has done reasonably well, but it seems that every time we get a good winning streak going, and our national ranking moves up, we falter. We might be doing really well against every other team, and then we will lose to a Carolina team that is young and inexperienced.

I have to admit that over the past 5 or 6 years I have gone back and forth loving Sendek and then hating him. Of late I have grown to really admire the team he put together that fit his offense so well, and I enjoyed the success that the team had for most of the season.

On one side here is Dick Vitale who I have heard on many occasions sing his praise. Mike Krzyzewski also had good things to say about him very recently. On the other hand there are the many wolfpack fans who want him gone. I think that this article has a very interesting insight into the real problem with Herb Sendek:

Anyone who ever takes a job coaching basketball on Tobacco Road has to understand first and foremost the lay of the land, then work within that framework as best he can to produce positive results.

Coaching at State is about Xs and Os and recruiting and emphasizing academics and dozens of other issues. It is also about giving the fan base a sense of hope, in good times and bad. It is also about putting your best foot forward at all times so that when there is adversity, the support, the hope, is intact.

It is not about being all things to all people, but it is about cultivating assets, especially when the biggest potential asset is a passionate support system of followers desperately wanting to feel good about the program.

Sendek has failed miserably on that front. It’s the biggest flaw on his resume. If he could project and instill a sense of hope, then a four-game losing streak wouldn’t drag the program down the way this one did. If he could instill a sense of hope, there wouldn’t be this uneasy truce that exists with an element of the fan base even when he’s winning.

He has been very good, for the most part, at getting his players to buy in to what he’s doing. Most of them are passionately loyal, as are Sendek’s close friends and those who see a side of him that he rarely shows the public. If he can inspire those people, he clearly has the ability to inspire the fan base.

Instead, he has gone the opposite route, especially whenever adversity hits. This is not about one-liners to the media. It’s about putting his best foot forward, showing his human side, explaining why he does the things he does instead of clinging stubbornly to his way and leaving it at that. It’s about giving people something to latch onto as they search for anything to pin their hopes on.

Is it counterproductive? You bet. The atmosphere surrounding the team this past week was surreal, so surreal that it’s a wonder State beat California. There was an us-against-the-world mentality, to the point that Ilian Evtimov, one of the most-endearing players ever to wear a State uniform, lashed out at Sendek’s critics as “idiots.”

An us-against-the-world mentality might produce a win over the Cal Bears every other time you play them, but it’s ultimately fatal. There’s nothing positive to come out of antagonizing the fan base, or the media, or anyone else. It’s a drain on everyone.

Again, Sendek has brought it all on himself with his refusal to cultivate the fan base, and to show his best side to the media, which is in truth his direct connection to the fan base, and to allow his players the opportunity to show their best sides, too.

And since he has brought it all on himself, it’s up to him to either change something or to continue to live in this theater of the absurd. Change doesn’t have to mean leaving, but it probably does mean making the commitment to addressing the issues that are dragging the program down. It probably does mean coming up with a new game plan for cultivating the assets, for instilling more of a sense of hope in the program.

Will Sendek change? Or will he bolt? Or will he remain stubborn and try to ride it out, knowing full well that it will be difficult to match this 22-win season next year?

I think John Delong might have hit the nail on the head with this one. Sendek knows that his offense and his strategy is good, and he knows his team is capable of executing it very well. The problem is, is it really the best strategy against the ACC? I am positive that if he took those players and that strategy to another league he would do fabulously. I dont think it is working out in the ACC though, and I think there needs to be a change.

If Herb Sendek is willing to change his strategy, then I will be very willing to see him come back and coach more seasons at NC State. If he can execute any other stategy as well as he executed the princeton offense with a healthy team this year, then he will be awesome. However if Sendek is not willing to change then it very well might be time for a new coach who will bring an offense to Raleigh which can be more successful in the ACC. There you have it, that is my official position on Herb Sendek.