The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/846301
36 ■ THE WOLFPACKER son is, it didn't happen, and we understand we need a greater number of teams to score.' "We got right down to the spring, and there was tremendous pressure on all the spring sports to deliver. However, we didn't score in outdoor men's track and outdoor women's track, as an example. "We need to spread the responsibility across all the sports and not just go down to the wire to make it work." Another sport that was close to moving on was women's basketball against Texas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. "I sound just like a fan, I know I do, but I am watching, and I can see what I consider officiating errors and it hurts. "We told Wes Moore there were some things we can't control. The best thing you can say to your team was we have to figure out a way to make up the difference for a bad call or two in the last minute of a game. "I loved that team. Those four seniors that graduated were really special. He has significant turnover in his program this year and a tougher schedule for 2017‑18, we'll see how that goes." Was the sixth seed in the NCAA Tournament fair for them after beating four top‑15 teams? "We obviously wanted a higher seed. We have a director of analytics who was a wrestler for us and just finished earning his MBA at State. We went through a lot of this, and it turned out it really wasn't as unfair as I originally thought it was. We need to do better if we want to get that home seed. I am okay with that and looking forward to this upcoming season. "Wes is one of the best X and O coaches I've ever been associated with in any sport. He just understands how to motivate his team, how to win, what system to put them in to win. For him and his staff, it's all about recruiting. He's going to have to re‑ cruit successfully against some of the best programs in the nation, like Notre Dame. "What an incredible win over Notre Dame in Reynolds last winter when they were No. 2 in the nation. I was very proud of that night. The future is bright there." You have calls like those against Texas or when Terry Henderson was ruled to have stepped out of bounds in the basket‑ ball game with Wake Forest when replays showed he didn't. What recourse does ath‑ letics have in those scenarios? "The course of action is limited and fairly specific. The first thing you can do is send the film. We do that religiously. There are lots of times when the league sends back its responses and will agree largely with what we said. "After you do that, the next step is try‑ ing to have conversations as a group of coaches and a group of athletic directors about overall officiating quality and how it can be improved, then meeting with the directors of officiating in our league office. "I will say that the people in place now at the league office in those positions are ex‑ cellent in terms of understanding their own sports and their own experiences as officials. "They do, in fact, make changes in of‑ ficials, and they share the numbers with us every year. They don't list the names, but they'll list something like 35 received ex‑ cellent ratings, 12 got good ratings and six of them won't be back. I think that there are changes that are being made. They are slow to make the changes because everybody complains about officiating. You named a couple of specific instances that are not judgment calls. We have the video. "The third part of this, after the video and discussion among coaches, are the in‑ dividual calls from coaches and ADs to the league office, and we're very aggressive in that regard. That probably doesn't surprise you, but we're always going to express our displeasure because this is really about fair‑ ness to the student‑athletes. "Forget what you think about NC State, this is about the student‑athletes having a fair and equitable opportunity to win the contest." You mentioned volleyball, but what among the non‑revenue sports highlighted the year for you? "A few sports come to mind. What Braden Holloway has done and continues to do in men's and women's swimming is extraordinary. His recruiting continues to go well, including internationally. "Add to that we have the oldest pool in the ACC, but as Braden said to me in his in‑ terview five years ago, 'It's not a problem, Debbie. Water is wet, and we'll be fine.' He was right. That's not going to stop him. "Wrestling had another solid year, and Coach Pop [Pat Popolizio] is committed to excellence every year. "Add to the list getting to the Sweet 16 in women's soccer, winning our bowl game and beating UNC in Chapel Hill in foot‑ ball, winning three ACC championships — the list continues to grow." What is the latest on Case Commons, the dormitory for men's and women's basket‑ ball players and other NC State students? "We hired Kevin and he is now involved in the process. It has been backed up one year. It'll open in August of 2019 instead of August of 2018. The good part about that is he has an opportunity for his own input in the process, and I think that will turn out to be very valuable." What's the latest on the ACC Network studio project? "We've finished the design, and we're ready to go. Originally we were going to break ground in January of 2018, but now we're now planning to do it in November of 2018. "It'll be up and running, and everything will be good. We have to hire four full‑time people. Jerry Wetzel is the first one. He's our new head of video, and he'll run the whole place. He was at the University of Florida and also worked for ESPN. He and senior associate AD Fred Demarest knew one another from their days at UF. "I also knew Jerry 25 years ago, but probably hadn't spoken to him since then, until he showed up for his interview here. He's talented, and he'll hire three addi‑ tional people to run the broadcast studio and production initiatives. "It's expensive to do what we're doing, and there is no advance funding from the network, so we have to figure this out for ourselves. "I understand it's necessary, but I'm a little annoyed that it takes away from some other projects that we would like to pursue for various teams. That said, I won't feel that way the first time we get a check from the network." Swimming and diving head coach Braden Holloway, a 2001 graduate, has returned to NC State to lead the squad to unprec‑ edented heights. In addition to an ACC title sweep in 2016‑17, the men placed fourth nationally, tied for its highest showing ever, while the women finished seventh, the best NCAA performance in program history. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS