I know I’ve been slack lately and for that I apologize, but it’s been with good reason. I’ve learned and trying to prepare for the next step in my blogging life, which, for technicalities sake, begins today.

As of today I will be the Managing Editor over at StateFans Nation. That sounds a lot more important than it truly is, but in reality it’s just another step in my journalistic adventure, which is what I’ve decided to call the period since my graduation in May of ’09 until the time I am employed full-time. Part of the goal when I started blogging was to have people see the stuff I was writing and StateFans most certainly can help more than Cardiac Pack. It’s a numbers game, simple as that.

I’m glad I decided to start Cardiac Pack and I appreciate the feedback I’ve gotten from those of you who read my posts. I’m considering keeping this space on WordPress and shifting it to more of a general sports blog where I can rant and rave about random topics across all sports. What do you guys think of that? Would it be worth my time? Would you still visit the site?

Let me know what you think.

But for N.C. State news and discussion and to read my thoughts on N.C. State athletics, head on over to StateFans Nation or to the forums.

Thanks again for the support of Cardiac Pack. For those who want to keep up with me, as always, check Twitter.

I worked with Pack Pride in Charlotte on Tuesday and Wednesday and got to watch a lot of good high school basketball players, including Ryan Harrow and CJ Leslie. Thursday and Friday consisted of way too much food, and, in some cases, too much family. I am kidding of course, sort of. But I’m back in Raleigh and back in action as of this afternoon.

I didn’t post anything after the loss to Arizona the other night for a couple different reasons. First and foremost, I was upset that N.C. State lost. To be that close to a victory on the road, even without our best player, and not get it was tough to swallow. Secondly, I didn’t feel like I would have added much to the conversation based on what I read elsewhere. And I didn’t actually watch the game, so that didn’t help.

There are going to be some changes going on with the blog coming very soon. I’m not quite ready to talk about the specifics yet, but be prepared for some noticeable changes.

Keep checking back.

I know last night’s game was frustrating, I know you were upset with your performance and the outcome of N.C. State’s first conference game. But, at the end of the day, you have to be smarter than that. Be thankful you didn’t have to actually watch the game. I had to watch one to three replays of all the great plays Wake Forest made all night.

A lot of what I’ve read today has centered on the ‘bad officiating’ side of the argument with regard to what Smith said. That’s bull. When is officiating not bad? When do players who foul out of games ever think that the crew did a great job?

This story isn’t about Carl Hess or any other collection of officials with huge egos (which is definitely a problem). It’s about the inability of Tracy Smith to keep his mouth shut, period.

And yes, Sidney Lowe did the right thing in suspending him. It’s a proactive approach and the ACC would have done it anyway so it makes N.C. State ‘the program’ look better if they do it first. That, too, is a whole separate issue.

Like I said before, this is about Tracy Smith and nobody else. He decided he needed/wanted to be selfish enough to speak out in a 30-second clip about officiating and has therefore transformed Wednesday’s game against Arizona from one State had a good chance to win into one State will likely lose. Way to go.

My only other question about this situation is did anyone on the staff talk to Tracy before he talked to the media? Based on the fact that he decided to go the route he did, I would say no. That may be worse than the comments.

"Javi, don't pass it to Julius. Just run the pick and roll and make Chas McFarland look slow."

In a game that never felt as close as the final score, the Wolfpack dropped its first ACC game of the season. Based on how State played last night, it most certainly won’t be the last L.

And it wasn’t like the Wolfpack didn’t have opportunities to get a victory. Wake Forest didn’t put on a beautiful performance by any means. Without Al-Farouq Aminu, who is impressive in almost every facet of the game, the Deacons would be below average.

Here’s the game story and box from Pack Pride and some analysis from Backing the Pack and StateFans Nation.

Here’s some general thoughts based on what I saw.

• Javi Gonzalez is the answer at point guard. When Farnold and Julius have been running things the offense has looked slow, plodding and even disinterested at times. Javi may not be one of the better PG’s in the ACC, but he’s N.C. State’s best option right now. At least he can create mismatches with teams who want to switch the pick and roll. Maybe Julius and Farnold need to start splitting more time at the two and leave the point guard duties to Gonzalez. The only thing that could hold that up is Javi’s hamstring. Hopefully it won’t become a season-long issue.

• CJ Williams needs to step up his play in a hurry. For someone Sidney Lowe promoted as a ‘team leader’ who would have a breakout season, CJ has completely disappointed so far this year. He’s averaging 5.5 points per game and a little more than 3 rebounds. That certainly can’t be what Lowe ‘expected’ from him.

• Josh Davis shouldn’t dribble or have the ball long enough to get fouled, ever. I am as big a fan of Davis’ effort and hustle as anyone, but when he’s forced to make offensive plays on his own of free throws, he’s bad. He needs to stick to the defensive effort and rebounding gig and get some offensive production by getting offensive boards, not by trying dribble drives of jump shots.

There are two main issues I see with this team right now. The most important one at this point is some inexperience off the bench. Scott Wood, Josh Davis, Jordan Vandenberg, Deshawn Painter and Richard Howell have all played quite a bit and have looked quite lost at times. Wood finally showed a couple flashes last night against the Deacons. He’ll have to continue that during the next few games to try to build some confidence before getting into the hear of the ACC schedule.

The second issue is the complete lack of an offensive player who can create his own shot. Tracy Smith can create looks in the post, but he only has the ball in his hand so much. There is nobody who, with the game on the line, I want with the ball.

The experience issue will become less and less of a factor as the year goes on simply because the freshmen will get more minutes and take those ‘lumps’ in the ACC. The second issue, unfortunately, I don’t see changing. What that means is that there will probably a ton of times this season when Wolfpack fans want to pull their hair out when watching State on offense.

Both teams come in looking for a big early season victory and the first of hopefully many ACC wins. Wake Forest is sort of a mystery at this point in the year. The Deacons are 7-2 with losses to William & Mary and Purdue, but they also have a road victory over Gonzaga, which is big in my eyes. Gonzaga is a tough place to play regardless of when the game is played so to travel there and come out with a win is noteworthy.

As much as Wake Forest may be a mystery, N.C. State is still more of one. The 8-1 Pack have not beaten anyone other than a Marquette team which could be in the middle to bottom half of the Big East. The only “quality” opponent State has played, Northwestern, made the Wolfpack look pretty average.

I was reading PackInsider’s by the numbers preview and one of the interesting stats they noted was the production of current N.C. State players against WF. Only Farnold Degand and Tracy Smith have averaged double digits against the Deacons in their career meetings, so some guys who haven’t necessarily gotten it done against Wake in the past are going to need to step up tonight. The most important one will be Dennis Horner. He’s only averaged a little more than 5 points against Wake in five career games.

The other key tonight will be how the Wolfpack handles Al-Farouq Aminu on the defensive end. Aminu has averaged a double double thus far so it will be interesting to see how the Wolfpack approaches that matchup. To me Tracy Smith is too slow to cover Aminu off the block and Dennis Horner is not physical enough to cover him down low. That could spell trouble. We’ll see what Sidney and Co. come up with.

Check back later on for more and check out Yet Another’s live blog during the game.

Thursday’s performance against Elon was obviously not what Sidney Lowe or the few thousand in attendance at the RBC Center wanted to see, but it is surely what they were forced to watch. A back and forth affair that saw the Wolfpack down six at halftime.

But the Wolfpack rallied, hitting some key shots late and making its free throws down the stretch to keep Elon just far enough from striking distance. Tracy Smith and Dennis Horner led the Pack once again, with 21 and 23 points respectively. The Horner/Smith show is fast becoming a trend, and I’m fine with that. I’d rather the N.C. State work from the inside-out anyway so getting both of those guys multiple touches is huge. Another difference in Thursday night’s game was rebounding as the Wolfpack used its size advantage to take home a seven rebound advantage.

It’s obvious that N.C. State played like complete crap Thursday night, but the facts remain. A win is a win. I would rather see the Wolfpack play like crap and win against a mediocre team like Elon than play like crap against Wake Forest or Arizona and get beat by 20. It’s a completely different feeling to play like crap and still win the game. Hopefully Coach Lowe can use what happened last night in preparation for this weekend’s matchup with Wake Forest in Winston-Salem.

Here’s the box.

Not that I expected any different, at least with the whole club of women who have now come out and said they had a relationship with Mr. Woods adding such a wholesome piece to the story. I tend not to believe most of it because when a person of Tiger’s stature and wealth starts to bleed, the sharks come out. I’d be willing to bet half of those women are liars looking for money. But at this point it doesn’t seem to matter. The snow ball has way too much steam to stop now and the allegations of PED use won’t help. I don’t know what to think about that development yet, only time will tell.

Things are different from when I wrote my initial post on the situation. Tiger’s image has most certainly been hurt, probably more than I thought it would at first. That’s mostly due to the fact that news of this whole thing has been completely non-stop for two weeks. There hasn’t been any time for people to forget about it because every day seems to bring up some new revelation.

But I still don’t think it’s damaged beyond repair. Need proof? The Associated Press voted Tiger Woods the athlete of the decade today, and it wasn’t even close. Need more proof? More than half of the votes he received were cast after his Nov. 27 car crash.

And perhaps the voters for the award separated Woods’ “accomplishments” off the course with his accomplishments on it, but I would have to think that would be very hard to do with the incident still being so fresh. What I tend to believe is that those writers, at the end of the day, just don’t care.

Now Tiger is going to lose plenty in this whole thing, and he probably should. But I still believe that in the long run this will be forgotten by the media, the majority of the fans and the general public that just doesn’t care. Of course there will be a certain group that will always hate Tiger from now on, but I’d be willing to bet they will be in the minority.

Thursday’s game will be the first of three games in a seven-day stretch for N.C. State. The second game, Sunday against Wake Forest, will serve as the ACC season opener. The third and final game will be against the Wildcats of Arizona in Arizona on Christmas Eve eve.

Rather than commenting on all the different things going on with the basketball team and N.C. State in general right now, I’ll just get everyone linked up. GoPack’s game preview is here. For those wanting to go to the RBC Center Thursday night for the game, all you need is a toy. Has the attendance issue gotten that bad? Anyway, here’s more info on that. WRAL did a nice update on Javi’s injury situation earlier today. In some football news, freshman safety Brandan Bishop was named to the Sporting News ACC All-Freshman team Wednesday.

For an in-depth look at Elon, check out Backing the Pack. Good stuff, as usual.

Check back soon. I’ll have my Tiger Woods update up later on.

Seeing the team in person was most certainly different today. I didn’t see anything I didn’t expect to see, but it was nice to be in Reynolds with the other 4,000 or so Wolfpack fans.

On that note, what was up with the crowd? It was pitiful considering the fact that the game was on a Saturday afternoon and in Reynolds Coliseum. The group that showed up was loud and into the action, but I guess I just expected better.

As far as the actual game, N.C. State looked OK. Not great, but OK. Considering the fact that Javi Gonzalez didn’t play things actually went pretty well. Without Javi the offense gets extremely stagnant as Julius and Farnold just seem to have issue getting the Pack into its sets. Ga. Southern made it somewhat difficult by putting on some full court pressure, but still. It’s freaking Georgia Southern, not Duke.

Despite Mays and Degand, the rest of the team played well. Dennis Horner finished with a career-high in points, rebounds and assists. His 16-point, nine rebound and six assist effort led the way. Tracy Smith was, as usual, dominant. He finished with a game-high 21 points. Smith and Horner shot 17 of 20 from the field combined and the team shot a blistering 64.7 percent (33-51).

The other thing I noticed today was Josh Davis. He was all over the place when he was in there. He’s a fun guy to watch for sure.

This team is about what I expected, at least at this point in the season. There will be games, probably soon, when N.C. State will look terrible and fans will want to jump off bridges. Don’t do that. Just realize that this team isn’t a bunch of world beaters. Be content with small steps forward and consistent defensive effort. I know I will.

Check back later for more.

It will be nice to see how Degand and Gonzalez (assuming Javi plays) work together in person. I've heard good things based on the Marquette game.

Since I’m actually going to today’s game against Georgia Southern I will be much more prepared to evaluate the basketball team following today’s game. Like I said in my last post, I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit already, but I’m looking forward to watching the guys in person for the first time.

Obviously the whole “we’re playing Georgia Southern” thing won’t make it a completely accurate assessment of the team, but something is better than nothing. Who knows, maybe Georgia Southern will be good. The other thing that actually going to the game will allow for is a little bit of expanded coverage. Provided Reynolds Coliseum doesn’t demolish my 3G signal I will be able to post updates to Twitter and potentially even get up a post at halftime (no promises on this one).

For a statistical preview of Georgia Southern, check out Backing the Pack.

It’s been an interesting week in sports. Tiger Woods has fallen off the face of the earth, the college coaching carousel has gotten going and the college football awards season is in full swing (Heisman ceremony tonight for those who have been under a rock the last few days). I plan on putting together some thoughts on all of it during the next 24-36 hours. I’m even going to take another look at the Tiger Woods situation. My original thoughts, which I first posted a couple of days after the news originally broke, haven’t quite stayed the same during the last 10 days.

Oh yeah, Toby Gerhart should win the Heisman. Key word here is should.

But he won’t, mainly because he is a white running back. Kinda sad if you think about it.

Check back during the game for updates and check Twitter. If you don’t have an account, make one. Go here.