Wendell Murphy can’t tell if that was his favorite basketball team or one of his hog farms that he smelled this afternoon.

State scored seventeen (17) points in the first half against Miami. For the game, everyone not named J.J. Hickson combined to shoot 8 for 33 (24%) from the field and commit 14 turnovers. P.U.

State returned 4 starters from last years team that made it to the title game. They added Hickson, who scored over half of their points today. What the heck happened to Fells, Grant, Costner and McCauley?

What is the difference here:

1. Carolina loses Ty Lawson (and Bobby Frasor) for a huge chunk of ACC play. They finish the year with only 2 losses and ranked #1 in the country.
2. State loses Ingin Atsur. They add J.J. Hickson, one of the most talented players in the league this year. And they stink it up, scoring only 50 points in their last game of the year.

Apparently when State shut down in the second half against UNC, they were Packing it in for the year. State committed 25 turnovers and got beat by 18 points by last place Virginia.

First off, this site bleeds Carolina blue. That means we also bear an inherent loathing for all things Dook or State related.

That said, BBE is vehemently in favor of intellectual honesty and free speech. We hate hypocrites. This kerfuffle over a classless move by a State baseball player during the UNC-State basketball game has brought these issues to the fore.

Resident Carolina homer Eddy Landreth published a viewpoint piece in today’s Chapel Hill News in which he states:

The N.C. State baseball player who walked on the court with a poster of Tyler Hansbrough bleeding after Gerald Henderson of Duke broke his nose should be suspended for a game.

So should Wolfpack baseball coach Elliott Avent for allowing it.

This is over a poster that supposedly showed “Bloody Tyler” and said something to the effect of: Tyler wears red, too. Or something. I am lead to understand by posts elsewhere that this classless poster was given to the baseball player as he was about to take the floor.

Keep in mind: Gerald Henderson, of Duke, caused that injury, and was punished for it. Tyler and Roy have both put the injury and the incident that caused it behind them. The poster was a classless move that we have come to expect from State fans, the majority of whom hate Carolina more than they like their own team.

The point is, free speech is the hallmark of a free society. It allows for the display and dissection of ideas. All ideas, even bad ones. One of the benefits of free speech is it allows me and Mr. Landreth to excoriate the idiots that came up with that poster as classless, tactless, crotchless, in-bred hicks with the intellectual capacity of the average American Idol contestant. On the flip side, State fans get to have their opinions of us when some idiot Smith Center attendee starts shouting about “the ghetto.”

In the crucible of free speech, the cream rises to the top and Ms. South Carolina gets posted on YouTube.

So lets quit calling for suspensions and sanctions and just point out idiocy where we see it.

From this morning’s N&O:

It’s called the ”Free Expression Tunnel” at N.C. State, and some North Carolina fans used it to freely express their pleasure over the Tar Heels’ 84-70 victory Wednesday night over the Pack.The 150-foot underground tunnel on campus was painted Carolina blue hours after the Heels’ victory at the RBC Center. The final score was highlighted in black paint while the Carolina logo and UNC’s Old Well — the campus landmark smeared with red paint before the game — were painted in white.

The ”expressions” included: ”Rednecks!” and ”Go Blue!” and ”Roy doesn’t need a red suit.”

NCSU students quickly added their own ”expressions,” such as: ”Look, mommy, we beat an unranked team, let’s drive 30 miles to rub it in because we have no class.” Another read: ”I knew there was a reason I hated Carolina.”

There were other State comebacks such as … let’s just say they did not fit in well with the directive to refrain from offensive or hateful messages.

Many State students silently shook their heads Thursday afternoon as they walked through the tunnel, which usually is filled with colorful murals.

”I think it’s way over the top,” said Josh Price, a junior from Blacksburg, Va., who attended the game. ”It’s not like it was a big game for [Carolina]. It’s probably revenge for the paint on the Old Well.” [DUH. YA THINK? - BBE]

Price also had a parting shot: ”We’ll get ‘em again. Soon.”

I love how State fan talks junk on local sports radio and in the blogosphere, defaces the sacred shrine that is the Old Well, and then whines like a four year old who didn’t get the pony she wanted for Christmas when some motivated Tar Heels paint the concrete wall of an overgrown sewer pipe running through their campus*. Kudos to the painters, whoever you are.

*If by campus you mean an industrial/penitentiary-style wasteland.