NC State scored a season high as they defeated Bucknell 99-86 and improved to 5-3 on the season.

For the first time this season, NC State’s offense looked polished. There were less quick shots, there was more ball movement, and they attacked the basket. I don’t think it’s a coincidence then why they shot 54% and had 3 guys over 20 points on the night. The poise and focus on offense just seemed different yesterday afternoon. Instead of rushing down court and taking a long contested 2, they were working it around, dumping it down, re-locating and finding some really good looks against Bucknell’s matchup zone.

Big numbers from the guards:
The Wolfpack guards really lit it up in this one. Freshman Maverick Rowan showed why Gottfried has had so much confidence in giving him the green light early in the season. He dropped a career high 27 points on 9-14 shooting (4-7 from 3). Rowan was on fire for most of the game, but did not force the issue. Almost all of Rowan’s 14 shots came within the flow of the offense. If the type of play (TYPE of play, not number of points) is what Pack fans can expect from Maverick, then NC State has themselves a real valuable asset for the next few years.

Cat Barber continues to re-evolve back into the last season Cat of last year. He’s playing more aggressive, initiating more contact and running the team like true PG. He finished with 24 points on 8-17 shooting and 8-10 from the line. It was also great to see Cat play with a lot more fire and emotion in this one. He in attack mode and was really going at Bucknell all night long. The type of pressure he puts on teams when he plays with this aggressiveness is massive. There is no rest for the opposing point guard and if Cat is hitting his jumper, as he was yesterday, then he becomes nearly unstoppable.

Caleb Martin is filling probably the most important role that Gottfried wanted to fill coming into this season; versatile and consistent scorer. Martin is getting better game by game as he’s settling into the role of go-to scorer. Early in the season he was forcing shots and taking 3s out of the flow of the offense, but to his credit, he’s gotten better and better each game. Against Bucknell, Martin let the game come to him. He picked his spots and was very effective when he had the ball in his hands. He finished 7-12 (5-9 from 3 pt range) for 21 points.

Bigs were efficient and solid
Abu had a bit of a bounce back game against the Bison. After two games of playing less than 15 minutes, he registered 24, scored 11 and grabbed 9 boards. He really set the tone early by attacking and trying to get to the rim. While Gottfried and company would like to see Abu be an even bigger part of the offense, with the guards hitting on all cylinders and Bucknell throwing a matchup zone at them, there was less of a need for the bigs to be scoring.

Freeman was actually the most impressive big man on this day. His 10 points and 13 boards were all well earned and great to see. Freeman, while always a physical defender and tough rebounder who also runs the offense well, sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. He doesn’t usually fill up the stat sheet, but he certainly is a huge part of this ball club. I think there is definitely untapped potential offensively with Freeman if he can continue to learn how use his body to keep defenders from blocking his shots, he could be doing this night in and night out. We’d love to see Lennard study up on some Richard Howell film to see how big rich used his wide frame to shield defenders and allow him to score on the blocks.

Anya played 21 minutes in this one but failed to register a point, or a shot attempt and only grabbed 2 boards. The refs were a little hard on him though. Anytime he tried to do anything, he was hit with a personal. Beejay fouled out once again.

Defense still an issue

While we’d love to say that NC State has improved in all aspects, we still are seeing some problems defensively, and we’re not alone. “We have to improve defensively in a great way,” Gottfried said. “We’re not going to be able to outscore everybody. It was nice today . 99 was nice, but we didn’t do it the other day against Michigan.”

It’s not talent. NC State has a lot of that. It’s not size. The Wolfpack is big and long. It’s really just focus and awareness. Teams eat up State off screens. Bigs are at times slow to hedge out and other times hedge and extend too far. They just need a defensive discipline that they don’t yet have. This should be the team’s goal going forward. Allowing 86 to Bucknell really shouldn’t happen. Sure they are a bit of a matchup problem for the Pack (since they all can shoot), but you have to be able to slow them down and find ways to make scoring hard for them. The Bison did shoot 51% and 48% from 3, so those are numbers Gottfried’s group should be a little worried about.

Other than defense, this was a huge step forward for the Pack. The younger guys gained confidence and the leaders showed up and led. Next up is South Florida at their place on Dec 12th at 4PM.