Tarheel Blog Ranks Pack #6 in ACC, Calls Gott an Underachiever

I know, it’s not a big time media source but the SB Nation Tarheel Blog has come out with their own Power Ranking for the ACC (Full Article) and it’s always interesting to see how other teams view yours coming into the season.

They have Duke at #1 and Carolina at #2 with NC State coming in 6th, which is actually better than what a few of the other media outlets have thought.

Here is what they had written up about the Pack:

6) NC State- The Wolfpack are one of the most talented teams in the ACC, if not the country. Dennis Smith Jr. is on the short list of potential number 1 picks in the NBA draft, and Turkish Center Omer Yurtseven is a supremely talented big man who scored 91 points in a Turkish league game this past season. Mark Gottfried also brings back Malik Abu and BeeJay Anya to solidify their post presence. We would have the Wolfpack higher, but Mark Gottfried seems to always find a way to get his talent to underperform.

Now, wait a second. Gottfried took over a Wolfpack team that hadn’t sniffed the tournament since 2005. He took over a group that finished 15-16 the year prior. He then proceeded to take that team to the Sweet 16. In fact, in his first four season which most coaches would be writing off as ‘building’ years, Gottfried took NC State to the tournament 4 years in a row, two of which ended up being Sweet 16 runs, something NC State has only done once since 1988.

The point of this article is not to pick on a single write-up by some SB Nation blog, but to start the conversation about this idea that is floating around that somehow Gottfried’s teams underachieve. What is expected of Gottfried and the Wolfpack? If the media fails to really even notice them in rankings year after year, and then when they don’t make the elite eight or win a national championship, somehow Gott has underachieived? Sure the the one team he had with Leslie and Brown as juniors had high expectations that weren’t met, but aside from that his teams have always overachieved over the course of a full season.

At the very least, this is another article to hang in the locker room and remind them that there are still a lot of non-believers out there left to convert.