NC State Basketball Preview: Cat Barber

As basketball season quickly approaches we will be breaking down each member of the NC State Basketball team. In this installment, we cover Anthony “Cat” Barber. He was recently ranked a top 100 player in college basketball by CBS sports. Below is our opinion on what to expect from his this coming season, but first let’s recap his career so far.

How He Got To NC State

Cat was a highly recruited PG out of Hampton, Virginia. He was a speed demon with a penchant for scoring, averaging over 20 ppg for three years. He was often compared to Allen Iverson in high school mostly due to them being from the same area. He was a McDonald’s All-American, and commited to NC State over offers from Kansas, Louisville, and Alabama.

What He’s Done So Far

Barber was asked to play a lot his freshman season, splitting time for Tyler Lewis. He had a solid first season, 8.5 points and 3.5 Assists per game, but struggled to find his shot,  shooting just 40% overall and 26% from the three point line.

After the transfer of Tyler Lewis,  Barber was the unquestioned starter at point guard going into his sophomore season. To put it bluntly, Cat didn’t live up to expectations until very late into the season. But starting with the game at Georgia Tech, something clicked for him. He turned into a completely different player, which can mostly be attributed to his 3-point shot becoming a reliable weapon. He finished the year averaging 12.1 points with 3.7 assists, while upping his 3-point percentage to 38% while leading NC State to the sweet 16.

What Will He Do This Season?

Cat has been working hard on become an even better three point shooter. And by all accounts he has done just that. In the exhibition against Cal State LA he hit 2-4 behind the arc. If his improved three point stroke holds up he is going to have a monster year scoring wise simply because defenders already have to respect his speed. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Cat net a high volume of threes to start the year, then start to score a bunch off of “blow-bys” as defenders start to aggressively close out on the shot.

Cat is going to have to be an iron man for this team. He will play 35+ minutes a game as long as he is healthy so the opportunity is there for him to put up the numbers. Furthermore, this is going to be the first year where Cat is going to be the team’s go to scorer.

Also, the first exhibition showed a new wrinkle to this year’s offense. Off an opponents miss, Cat isn’t going to wait around for the outlet. Instead another capable ball handler (Henderson, Martin, etc) will get it and Barber is going to fly down the court and fill the wing. Because of this he is going to get more looks as a scorer on the break instead of facilitating the offense.

It will be interesting to see how Cat is used in crunch time. For instance if State is down 2 with 20 seconds left, where is Cat on the court? Does he initiate the set out of a pick and roll? Get an Iso look? Maybe he even gets the ball to another creator like Cody Martin and moves out to the wing? With the departure of Trevor Lacey, State is going to need someone to look to when they need a bucket, and personally I’m not sure Cat is that guy. Perhaps his pull up game has progressed, and he can get enough separation and lift on his shot, but that has yet to be seen.

Overall Pack fans should be very high on Cat going into this season. He has the ability to progress in nearly every statistical category, and is in a position to be a leader for this team. All signs point to this being a big year if he can embrace and handle his role on the team.