Was NC State coach Herb Sendek on the hot seat going into the 2001-2002 season?

Some of the players all thought so, but each of them learned about the outside pressure at different points of the process. Some learned when they were getting recruited, and others after they arrived on campus in Raleigh.

Sendek and the Wolfpack hadn’t gone to the NCAA Tournament in his first five years. Winning was a must.

Guard Julius Hodge of Bronx (N.Y.) St. Raymond’s, power forward Levi Watkins of Rockville (Md.) Montrose Christian, power forward Josh Powell of Riverdale (Ga.) High, center Jordan Collins of Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha Catholic and forward Ilian Evtimov of Kernersville (N.C.) Bishop McGuinness Catholic each talked about learning about the pressure Sendek was facing in this oral history to The Wolfpack Central.

Forty years of NC State basketball recruiting: 1980-85 | 1986-90 | 1991-95 | 1996-00 | 2001-2005 | 2006-2010 | 2011-2015 | 2016-2020

Oral history on NC State's class of 2001: Part I

Hodge: “With me, and this is something only my brother and mom know — part of people who weren’t supporters of Coach Sendek — I got a call and he told me ‘If you don’t go to NC State, we are going to fire Herb.’ This was after I committed. I won’t say where it was from, but I was like, ‘What do you mean? We are all Wolfpack.’ He was like, ‘No, if you don’t end up coming to NC State, we are going to fire Herb.’ I said, ‘You don’t have to worry about it because I will be going.’ To me, that was always a bit strange and I didn’t think much about it. I knew where it came from, that it was credible. My brother said ‘We don’t have to worry about all that. You are going to go there and do what you do. You are going to win.’ I never told Herb that myself and this is the first time I’ve told anybody outside of my brother and my family. I knew there was pressure, but I knew we were going to win, so it didn’t matter. It wasn’t anything I was going to lose sleep over.”

Powell: “Honestly, I had no idea. I really didn’t know much about what was going on or what was going on with Herb’s job. I felt for me, I’m just a kid coming to school. That’s not really for me to know stuff like that. I don’t remember hearing anything like that.

“I felt after we started practicing, and especially with how we started off the season, and I know a lot of times teams start off against weaker teams. You just grow and go into ACC play, but you could tell the difference with the way we had chemistry and going through things with each other. It felt like something special was brewing.”

Collins: “I’d say it happened when I finally reached campus. The amount of work, you could tell we were going to be a good team. We were practicing hard enough and put in the work in the weight room. We were going to be a very, very good team. You could tell there was a sense of urgency from Coach Sendek. Everything was urgent and done immediately. It was very detailed from the beginning and everything was competitive. I mean everything was competitive. There was not one drill or anything that wasn’t to the max of trying to win. We were trying to turn the program in the right way, and when you have Julius, who is ultra competitive and then Levi is competitive and myself, and Ilian. It was a good group to add to the mix of Marcus [Melvin], Scooter [Sherrill] and Mike Bell, who were all young there too.”

Watkins: “We talked about it once we got there [on campus] and knew that. Julius was so cocky, and I was cocky but not as outspoken as Julius. Within the team, we all talked trash and all kind of went at each other. It all helped us get better. What we didn’t know, we knew Scooter was a McDonald’s All-American and a very good player in the class ahead of us. What we didn’t know was how good Marcus Melvin was and how good Clifford Crawford was. We knew Grundy was very good. Scooter and Marcus were so talented.

“We knew we were going to be a better team, even though we were young. We had great leadership and commend Archie Miller and Anthony Grundy because they were desperate to not end their career on a bad note. You could sense it. Archie and Grundy loved the fact that we came in hungry.”

Evtimov: “During the season actually, probably. I didn’t know what was happening when I went there. I knew they were having a hard time, but didn’t know that side of the business, and I was not interested in knowing more about it. For me, we were playing and Herb always came out with the story on how we were picked 11th [in the ACC] in the preseason polls. He said, ‘I have that written on my shoe.’ I will never forget him saying that. He’d say, ‘I have it written on my shoe and I hope you guys understand it is not going to happen this way. We have to prove ourselves.’ We all bought in what Herb was selling.

“At the end of the day, we were just young, hungry and we worked hard. That was the key to people falling in love with the team. We were mostly freshman, sophomores and two seniors.”

Evtimov: “I absolutely did not know [when he signed], but I was just going there for the school, and what it stood for, plus the coach. I had no idea about the players and didn’t know anybody there. What did happen was when Larry Hunter came [as an assistant coach], and he came and I really got along well with him.

“The other thing that happened, they were promoting a guy, Greg Morland, and he was the guy who actually brought the Princeton offense to the table. He was the archetype behind all of it. I had no idea if I would actually fit in an offense like that. I had high basketball IQ and that offense requires you to have high basketball IQ. It is not just about being talented. That is why teams that run it aren’t necessarily talented, but mostly hard workers and smart players. We were a combination of all of this.

“Guys talk about it but we did have a guy make the NBA after two years [Josh Powell] and Levi adapted pretty well to the offense. All of our class, we all played, and on top of that, we played in a league [ACC] and was one of the best in that league. You think about the teams that we were facing with Duke from 2001-2002 and then Maryland. Clemson was real tough and Wake Forest with Josh Howard. UNC after Matt Doherty got fired [as coach], had a crazy group as well with very good players.

“You look at the late 1990s and early 2000s, I feel like the ACC was different than today.”

Hodge: “Depending on the players that you have, someone like myself, and I scored over 2,000 points in it [2,040 career points], but I always felt like if I had played in a ball-screen offense where we just set ball screens and I was able to use all of my tools all of the time, I could have scored 3,000 points in college. Now, I know that isn’t true today [getting 3,000 points], but that is how I felt back then.”

Collins: “I had no idea about the offense [change]. I was coming in at 6-10 and 265-270 pounds and a big man. I had no idea we’d be out there doing dribble hand offs and shooting threes. It was completely the opposite of my game. I just had to whip myself into it by my senior year. I had no idea we were going to do it.”

Hodge: “I remember when Herb’s back was injured my freshman year. We were practicing at Reynolds Coliseum right before the renovations. It was hot in there. Coach is up in the stands coaching because he couldn’t be on the court due to not being able to move. He was watching the entire scrimmage.

“We were playing back and forth, and my man [Anthony] Grundy, rest in peace, he’s out there just messing around and breaking the offense. Coach had just put in the Princeton offense. A side note on that, he told me in recruiting that they’d be playing a motion offense, so he didn’t technically lie. If he had told me they were playing this offense, there is no way I end up at NC State. He did what he had to do to get the recruit.

“So, Grundy is going and doing whatever he wants in the practice and messing around. He is breaking offense and we were full-on, ‘This offense sucks and not for us. Lets rebel.’ No one liked the Princeton. To this day, I know every fabric of the Princeton offense. I will never run the Princeton offense. It isn’t because I don’t think it is a good offense, I think it is.

“Grundy is just going off and coach stands up from the stands and is like, ‘Grundy, what the [heck] are you doing?’ In the middle of his yell, his back goes out and his is like, ‘Awwwwww.’ The entire team just busted out laughing and coach is in pain. We had managers running up there. We just busted out laughing, full out on the floor, just dying. Archie [Miller] was in tears and I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’

“You’d get that part of coach and then if we had a bad practice, he’d just kick us out. We’d be back watching film for like three hours. If we had a bad game, we’d be watching three hours of film. It was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we get it coach, OK.’”

Evtimov: “We were in the locker room in the middle of the game, and it’s halftime. I can’t remember who we were playing, but it was a team we should have been beating by much more than we were. Herb was like ‘Guys, I don’t understand. What do you want me to do? You want me to get on the court for you? What do you want me to do? I am telling you what to do on the court and you aren’t doing it. You want me to get in this trash can right now? I should get in this trash can and prove it.’ He just started getting into the trash can and opened up the top. He goes, ‘If I can get in, I will. Can you give me that kind of commitment?’ I was just looking at him and was like, ‘Wow, this is serious.’ It was fun.

“There was another instance freshman year and we were in the locker room at Reynolds with a video room. We were watching film and had just lost a tough game. It was stressful in the video session. Something happened and I don’t know the exact details. Julius said something to me about passing him the ball because he was open during the film session. I got really pissed off, but I didn’t say anything. Five minutes later, there was another situation where I was open and Julius didn’t pass me the ball. Obviously, the problem in this game is that we didn’t pass the ball enough. We were playing selfish. I stood up and said, ‘You see this [bleep], you pass me the [bleeping] ball.’ Herb and everybody just froze and was like ‘What is happening here?’ So Julius and I were at it for a bit and then everything was cool.

“Nobody was scared to say something to the other guy. The bigger players, the older players, the better players, we would never back down. That is why when we beat Maryland in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, we never backed down.

“The only team we couldn’t face was Duke. Every time we played them, we’d take a ‘25L’ meaning a 25-point loss. It was just automatic. They were too big, too fast, too strong and just too good. It was Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy and Chris Duhon. Every time we played them, we’d lose by 25. We just couldn’t face them. They’d hit a three and then we’d find a solution for the three, and Boozer would get a dunk. We’d stop the dunk or the three, and Jason Williams would get a layup. We’d change again and Mike Dunleavy would hit a three. Dunleavy had more points than we did at halftime as a team in a game [22-to-21]. You can’t forget that.

“I remember in the pregame, you had 10-12 blue jerseys shooting on one side. We had our white jerseys on the other side. Julius out of nowhere, he decides to warm up between the Duke players to rattle them. He went there and just started shooting and doing his whole routine. I remember looking at him and the other team, and they were like, ‘What the heck is this guy doing?’ Nobody would say anything and five minutes later, Julius would come back and just smile with his big teeth. Next thing you know, Dunleavy had more points than our whole team at halftime. I had never seen a player do this in my whole career.

“My favorite Herb story though, was when he tried to get into the trash can to prove a point. That was a highlight.”

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