Loss to UVA Must Signal Change for NC State

The game could have gone completely different. The refs could have looked past Caleb Martin running into a UVA player after a basket and not called a flagrant 1. Trevor Lacey could have hit a near uncontested layup in the closing minute to tie the game. Ralston Turner could have hit just one of his six 3 point attempts. Those things didn’t happen, and the Pack once again fought hard but squandered a chance at solidifying their tournament resume, losing 51-47 on Wednesday night.

This was their latest best chance. UVA’s leading scorer and best defender, Justin Anderson, was out with a broken finger and UVA only shot 37% from the floor, but State couldn’t capitalize.

Really, that’s been the story all season. State plays hard, but lacks the mental toughness to kick it into that final gear and push over the top. That final gear is where winners live. That is that realm where focus, hunger and talent merge. There is no mercy to be found there. It’s a place of unwavering confidence where an unquenchable thirst to watch your opponent suffer exists. When you’re there they can see the obsession in your eyes and the lengths you’ll go to get what you want. It’s a place for takers.

Sound crazy? sick? psychopathic?

It is, but that is what champions are. They’re a  little crazy in the length they’ll go to get what they want. They have a sickness that only winning can cure. They have a narrow, laser-guided focus and won’t let up until the buzzer sounds. They are finishers.

NC State isn’t there yet. Maybe they are too young. Maybe they haven’t been taught or they haven’t bought into this level of insanity. It’s hard to say, but it’s just obvious that this is not a championship caliber team right now and as the season winds down you have to wonder if they are ever going to get there. If that switch is ever going to flip.

Virginia has the NCAA’s best defense, but without Anderson they are certainly not as dangerous. They were not able to make the type of offensive runs that they usually do with Anderson leading the way. They simply played smart, position defense and took NC State’s most dangerous weapons out of the game. It was a good gameplan, but NC State were the ones who allowed them to execute it. The Pack played Virginia basketball last night, and have been allowing opponents to dictate their style of play far too often this season. The Wolfpack needs a change if they are going to come back to life this season. Here is where we hope/expect to see it…

LACEY MUST BECOME EVEN MORE TO THIS TEAM

As we have stated lately and pointed out in our pregame article, Lacey has trouble being an elite level scorer when he can’t pull-up at will. Lacey, who leads the NCAA in isolation scoring is best off the dribble with the ball in his hands. He likes to shake, create space and pull up. His elevation and high release allow him to shoot over smaller guards, even with a hand in his face. However, when you get a bigger, equally as strong guard on him, he really struggles to get going. Lacey still had a productive game (14pts on 6-13 shooting) but right now State needs Lacey to be getting off nearly 20-25 shots per game. I know that sounds like a lot, but if they continue to play this one on one style of basketball and their offense is not going to create any open looks near the bucket, it’s going to have to be Lacey doing some serious volume scoring.

TURNER’S STRUGGLES AREN’T ENDING…TIME TO GO BIG

Gottfried needs that off the ball moving, high energy, spot up shooter in his offense. So many of his plays revolve around getting Turner open on the baseline or on the wing. The problem is that Turner has become way too easy to guard. He’s shooting 21% from 3 over his last four games and he’s taken 28 of them. That is absolutely killing the Pack right now. If Turner isn’t going to knock down the 3, then he’s too one dimensional on offense to be out there. Now look, I know that’s harsh and very ‘what have you done for me lately’ because he’s a senior that has done so much for this team, but this is crunch time.

So what is the alternative? Well, you’d like to have a guy like Caleb Martin in there who can shoot, drive and defend, but that’s not really working out perfectly. Martin did provide 9 boards and made a lot of great hustle plays, but he too is not providing the Pack with everything they need…mainly offense. So what do you do when you have no one to turn to on the bench to fill that gaping hole?

You get creative and solve problems a little differently.

What State could do, and really should do is go big. A lineup of Barber, Lacey, Washington, Abu and Anya. Sure this would slow State down and limit driving lanes, but they’re not exactly killing it in transition and outside of Barber, who even drives? You could also argue that Abu and Washington run the floor as well as Turner.

This lineup would cure a lot of ills. It would help tremendously on the boards, but more importantly it would free up Lacey. Having 3 bigs in the game would mean that you couldn’t switch as easily on ball screens against Lacey. They would also be forced to guard bigs with bigs. They couldn’t interchange Lacey and Turner’s men, going bigger on Lacey to stop the pull up and smaller on Turner to aggravate him and deny him the ball. While opponents might try to take their quickness advantage at the 3, good luck driving into that forest of Washington, Abu and Anya. All that is nice and fine, but the real advantage to this in the end is making them guard Lacey with a normal 2 guard, in most cases this would give Lacey his advantage back.

This would switch State into much more of a attack-first basketball team. It would get them more offensive rebounds which lead to easy put backs, it would get them to the line more and allow them to protect leads better. Look, as a team shooting 36% from 3 (5th best in the ACC) I don’t think you want to live and die from beyond the arc. This team needs to attack, and by playing 3 guards (2 of which don’t like to attack the basket), you are really putting your team in a box.

Adapt or die.

NOW OR NEVER

At 14-11 NC State is on the outside looking in as far as the NCAA Tournament goes. They have 6 regular season games left, 4 of which are on the road and 2 of those are against top 15 ranked teams. To say that things need to change drastically and quickly is not an understatement. Expecting this team to simply start clicking at a level that could run off 6 straight wins and two huge upsets isn’t very smart. They can still improve, and they certainly have the talent to do it, but Gottfried needs to start tinkering more, he needs to get a little gimmicky and start changing things up.

Virginia did not have more talent on the floor than NC State last night (especially with Justin Anderson out), but they were more organized, more focused and just a lot more mentally tough than the Wolfpack. Some of that falls on the players, but at this point, some of that is going to have to be shouldered by Gottfried. State has today and tomorrow to figure out what needs to change as they head to #9 Louisville, but just hoping Ralston Turner starts hitting 3s again is not going to be the correct answer.