What the Kyle Washington Transfer Means for NC State

For all of those who don’t follow us on twitter of Facebook , Kyle Washington is transferring. We don’t know where and really we don’t know why. Well, we do know why. Washington lost a ton of playing time to Freeman down the stretch and even though NC State was winning, Washington really kind of went from a starter to a guy playing less than 10 minutes per game.

Fans are going to choose sides here. Some will side with Washington and feel like he got a raw deal, others will side with Gottfried and talk about how State started winning when Washington went to the bench. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. Sure Freeman gave State a bigger, stronger, better rebounder in the post and yes that won them some games, but to totally disregard Washington’s value seemed strange to me. There were times when State would go ice cold and you’d be looking for Gottfried to try inserting KW for a spark. Sometime he did but sometimes he didn’t and that was what most likely lead to this decision.

So what now? Well, State now has a thinner front court. They have Anya, Freeman and Abu. Two of those three guys have trouble scoring, but they’ll at least have a backup in case of foul trouble or a guy gets hurt. With both Martins coming back State will have a lot of size and athleticism at the 3, so there is not a worry. The problem is now going to be finding offense in the front court. Abu is fine, but Freeman and Anya have a ways to go. With Abu prone to fouls you could have both guys on the court at the same time which means teams could really key on stopping backcourt scorers. Look for Gottfried to snag a post grad transfer or an under the radar recruit with a big body. State has gone from a deep team with tons of options to a thin group that needs to find their identity.