This was not the easy way out.
Fired five games ago, Mark Gottfried could have taken the easy way out then. He didn’t. Gottfried was here on Tuesday in Brooklyn for the official ending, a 75-61 loss to Clemson in the first round of the ACC tournament.
And he stayed after the team’s 10th loss in 11 games to answer some questions in the postgame press conference and then he answered some more outside the locker rooms of the Barclays Center.
Gottfried, who leaves with a 123-86 record at N.C. State, did take one last look back at the program’s success during his six-year tenure.