ESPN Men's Basketball

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(Information in this team report is as of October 1.)

When Sidney Lowe turned out the lights on his spectacular college basketball career, he couldn't have gone out on a higher note. As the coach-on-the-floor point guard for the 1983 Wolfpack, he had just guided NC State to one of the most improbable runs in the history of the NCAA Tournament, a six-game sweep that culminated with the historic upset of Houston in the title game.

That was nearly a quarter century ago, and when Lowe returned to Raleigh in May to become the 18th head coach in NC State basketball history, the landscape of the old homestead was quite different.

And Lowe, who has spent the last 23 years either playing or coaching in professional basketball, knew that he would face many obstacles if he wanted to repeat what he did as a player -- winning ACC and NCAA championships.

To begin with, Lowe has never coached a college game in his life. He has, however, twice been an NBA head coach with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies. His overall record of 79-228 wasn't impressive, but neither was what he had to work with during his tenure with those expansion franchises. Most recently, Lowe was Flip Saunders' top assistant with the Detroit Pistons and, because he was still considered one of the top young coaching prospects in the league, was certain to get another head position in coming years.

Secondly, he'll be entering the toughest neighborhood in college basketball, where Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina's Roy Williams and Wake Forest's Skip Prosser are used to taking the lunch money of every other kid on college basketball's playground.

Finally, the team Lowe inherited is in no way similar to the one Herb Sendek, who left in early April for Arizona State after 10 years of leading the Wolfpack, would have put on the court this fall, because some players left early, recruits never showed up and there's a disturbing lack of ball-handlers other than three-year starter Engin Atsur (10.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg). The loss of seniors Ilian Evtimov, Tony Bethel and Cameron Bennerman, who accounted for nearly 34 points and 11 rebounds per game last year, will be felt, too.

Yet on the day he was hired, Lowe was treated like the returning hero he is viewed to be among the Wolfpack faithful. Because of his connection to the glory days of Wolfpack basketball -- Lowe was recruited by Norm Sloan and played three years for Jim Valvano, the two coaches that brought national championships to Raleigh -- Lowe made an immediate connection to fans, about 1,000 of which gathered on campus the day he was hired to welcome him back.

It was a connection that Sendek never seemed to make, despite leading the Wolfpack to three ACC Tournament championship games and five consecutive NCAA appearances. He never seemed to gain acceptance from some of the school's loudest fans. Even averaging 21 wins over the last five seasons wasn't enough to quell the criticism when his team seemed to fall apart at the end of the year, beginning with an embarrassing 95-71 home loss to a North Carolina team that had lost its top seven players from the year before.

Those boo-birds got louder as the Wolfpack lost in overtime to Boston College and back-to-back games against last place Wake Forest, first in the regular-season finale and then in the ACC Tournament.

A first-round win over California in the NCAA Tournament ended a four-game losing streak, but a second-half collapse against Texas left many State fans feeling empty about a season that had begun with such promise and ended without a championship -- again.

State, which has won 10 ACC championships and two national titles, hasn't brought home a trophy to speak of since the Valvano-led 1987 team won the ACC Tournament in Landover, Md.

Some of the more outspoken detractors pointed to Sendek's 17-54 record against the other Big Four schools in North Carolina and the fact that he led the team to the Sweet 16 only once in his 10 years. As those fans became more vocal, Sendek looked to find a place where his impressive credentials in building a program, in running a clean show, in recruiting top talent would be more appreciated.

NC State athletics director Lee Fowler began a well-chronicled 35-day coaching search that started with some familiar names in college basketball -- Texas' Rick Barnes, Memphis' John Calipari, former UCLA coach Steve Lavin and West Virginia's John Beilein.

None of those possibilities worked out, despite some of the most lucrative contract terms of any college coach. So Fowler opted to reconnect with the Wolfpack's storied basketball tradition, and all roads led to the former point guard who had been called a coach-on-the-floor since his days in grade school.

He immediately felt at home -- not surprising because Lowe has maintained a residence in Raleigh since signing his first professional basketball contract in 1984.

"I have played this game on the college level, the highest [professional] level and in the biggest game ever," Lowe said. "That is something I can pass on to our players, in terms of just being able to compete in games like that and keeping your composure. I can speak from experience. When you are talking to kids, they know you have been through it and been through the wars."

There was much work for Lowe to do over the summer, including finishing the Pistons' run in the NBA playoffs and completing his course work for his degree in Business Administration from St. Paul's College, because a college degree was a requirement for getting the head-coaching position.

So he put together a strong coaching staff that includes former NC State point guard Monte Towe, who left his position as the head coach at New Orleans; Larry Harris, who spent all 10 years on Sendek's staff at NC State; and former Coastal Carolina head coach Pete Strickland, who played at Pittsburgh with Harris and was a couple of years ahead of Lowe at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md. He left those guys in charge while he finished up his other duties.

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