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NC State falls to 0-3 in the ACC with the loss last night to Wake Forest, 77-74.

In what was another roller coaster ride of a game, NC State fought hard to come back, but eventually fell short to a Deacon team that used their size and their depth to outpace the Pack.

With Abu and Anya battling foul trouble, NC State was forced to go small, allowing Wake big man Devin Thomas to have a big night. Thomas dropped 20 points and grabbed 11 boards in the win.

 

Barber Becoming a Leader
For State it was another huge game for Cat Barber. The junior PG is getting better and better as the season goes on and this may have been his best overall performance. If you’re watching closely, Cat is becoming a team leader. He’s still scoring at a great clip (26pts) but tonight he started to distribute. His 7 assists were a season high, and honestly, the kid is doing all he can to help this team get an ACC win. He just needs a little help.

 

Where is the help?
State is desperate for some scoring help. They were hoping to get a lot more from Caleb Martin, but he’s been ice cold. Over the last 8 games he is 19-76 (25%) from the field and 12-51 (23.5%) from beyond the arc. That from a guy who is shooting the most 3’s on the team (over 7 per game).

Then there’s the freshman Mav Rowan who has also stepped in to attempt to help with the scoring. He’s also been very streaky, with numbers prior to ACC play that mirrored Martin’s. However, since league play started, Rowan has been a decent option. The 6’7 guard is shooting 10-29 (35%) from the field and 7-19 (37%) from 3 point range.

Outside of those two guys, NC State simply does not have a consistent scorer. Abu has been decent this season, but his offensive game has been nowhere near where many expected it to be coming into the season.

This team is desperately missing Terry Henderson (who was hoping to be back by mid January, is now looking like he wont’ be back for another month.)

 

Time to turn to Cody?
With Cat Barber doing his part and NC State still struggling, it’s time to make some adjustments. The team has some glaring holes. Obviously, scoring is an issue, but shooting more contested 3’s isn’t the answer. NC state needs to start allowing their offense to create opportunity. They also need to start defending better. Both of these issues could be worked out by moving Cody Martin into a starting role.

While Caleb will still see minutes, this team can ill-afford to allow him to work out his shooting kinks in the middle of the ACC season. Cody, meanwhile, has had his intangibles on display since the start of league play. He is 8-16 (50%) from the field has 9 assists and 16 rebounds over the 3 games. Add in the fact that he’s NC State’s best defender and that he’s done all of this while playing only 24 minutes per game. Outside of Cat, Cody has been the most efficient player on the court as of late. He has earned his minutes and allowing him to become a more central figure on this basketball team is definitely warranted and certainly worth experimenting with.

 

Bigs got to produce
Simply put, NC State needs more from their bigs. Abu has been producing with double-digit scoring in all but 3 games this season, but they just need more from him. I know asking a sophomore to carry a scoring load isn’t something you’d love to do, but Freeman and Anya just aren’t build to put up points. This means that Abu needs to attack more and not stop. Foul trouble has hurt him, but when he’s in the game he needs to be in attack mode. He needs to polish his post game and his release and he needs to become the Abu we saw at the end of last season. He has the skills to be a monster on the blocks, and right now State needs him more than ever.

Meanwhile, Freeman has been playing his role. He’s rebounding, playing tough, and putting up solid numbers. The problem is, when Abu gets in foul trouble and he and Anya are on the court together, State really has no option but to try to score with their guards. Freeman is limited by his size, but has still done his job. Anya on the other hand, is struggling. The junior big man just isn’t ready to a scoring force on the blocks. He has 8 points over the last 3 games and while he rebounded the ball well in the first two outings, last nights 3 just won’t cut it for a team that needs to rely on him.

 

Showing Fight…Turning the corner?
While many fans left early when the Pack was down by 14 with just 3 minutes to play against Louisville, the team fought back and had it to a one possession game. Again last night against Wake, they got down big, only to fight back and make this one a one possession game. This team has shown short spurts of being very efficient and very dangerous when they are focused and playing together. Unfortunately, these were games State could have won and they now find themselves 0-3. This might be a big hole to dig out of, but with wins over FSU and an upset over UNC this Saturday, many of the early season woes could be forgiven.

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wolfpack74
wolfpack74
7 years ago

0-4 and the beat goes on.

thecrowdgoesmoo
thecrowdgoesmoo
7 years ago

Kirk is very talented to be honest. He’s just not showing it due to lack of confidence. His game isn’t shooting 3’s like he’s doing. but since he rarely plays, he’s going to have a lack of confidence and do things he shouldn’t. Play him more and we will have a much more stable 8 man rotation.

wolfpack74
wolfpack74
7 years ago

wormncsu He loaded up on guards because 1) that’s all he knows how to coach or recruit; 2) He doesn’t have any coaches that improve bigs or he has no faith in the coaches he has.  He won’t last past next year, if the team performs like this.  They play hard sometimes but still make silly mistakes.  If we lose the next third or four games, I would go small and play Kirk instead of Anya or Freeman.   Go small and press like hell.  Kirk has no confidence.  Give him some and play him.  Anya and Freeman have peaked or… Read more »

wormncsu
wormncsu
7 years ago

I think we really are seeing how the transfers have hurt us now. Gottfried in his first years try to load up on guards. Now look we only have one when he hope to have a rotation of cat, purvis, and Lewis. Take in Lacey leaving early and Washington’s transfer Gottfried went from a chance to be loaded to basically back to square one. With the outlook so far on next years recruiting class I do not see a lot to be hopefully about in the next couple of years.

wolfpack74
wolfpack74
7 years ago

“This might be a big hole to dig out of, but with wins over FSU and an upset over UNC this Saturday, many of the early season woes could be forgiven.”  What in the world are you smoking?  Plant and sell that stuff, if you really believe they will win those games.

wolfpack74
wolfpack74
7 years ago

Another one bites the dust.  Get this tone in your head, there will be many more examples this year.

NC State Basketball

NC State’s Ebe Dowuona Enters Transfer Portal

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NC State Junior F/C Ebe Dowuona has entered the transfer portal, with two years of eligibility remaining.

This year, Ebe played in 30 games, averaging 1.7 points and 1.9 rebounds in 10.9 minutes per game. As a Sophomore, after the injury to Manny Bates in the first game of the season, Dowuona went on to start in 27 of the 31 games he played in, averaging 4.1 points and 4.1 rebounds per game.

I’m not shocked. I don’t blame Dowuona for wanting to find a place where he would get more playing time.

Nonetheless this is a hit to the Wolfpack’s front court. While he didn’t offer much on the offensive end, he continually altered shots on the defensive end.

Ernest Ross will be a Junior next year, and fans will likely get to see Freshman Isaiah Miranda for the first time after redshirting after arriving to Raleigh midseason. Greg Gantt will be a Redshirt Junior next season as well.

Other questions loom for the Wolfpack front court as well. Will DJ Burns and Jack Clark return for their final year of eligibility? Will Dusan Mahorcic be granted a medical waiver for an additional year of eligibility?

Time will tell.

We wish Ebe all the best!

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NC State Ranked in Top-25 in Men’s Basketball Attendance in 2022-23

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When it was all said and done, the NC State fans represented in 2022-23, ranking 20th amongst Division-1 teams in Men’s Basketball attendance. The Wolfpack ranked 4th in the ACC, behind UNC, Syracuse, and Virginia.

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NC State Basketball

Wolferetti: Feed me my crow. NC State lost to Creighton and I’m here to break it down (and admit I was wrong)

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I was wrong.

I thought this matchup was a good one for NC State. I watched a lot of Creighton this year and to me, they looked like a team that NC State could roll over. Let me explain why.

I knew a few things. I knew Nembhard was a PG that could get a little out of control if sped up. I knew with a little defense and physicality, Sheierman could be made uncomfortable. I knew Kalkbrenner was a good defender but was going to sink on the pick-and-roll to protect the basket.

Joiner’s pull up just wouldn’t fall

I figured that Joiner, the pull-up king would be taking that DJ Burns screen, getting to the middle, and pulling up as Kalkbrenner sank. I figured Smith would exploit this as well. Well, turns out Joiner was off and couldn’t get his pull-up game going and Smith, well yeah Smith did exploit this pretty well.

Burns didn’t look like Burns

The other thing I’d figure would happen is that I thought DJ Burns would really frustrate Kalkbrenner. If you’ve looked at games where Kalkbrenner had to face a really good, physical back-to-the-basket big man, those bigs usually had pretty good games in the scoring column.  I honestly don’t understand what happened to Burns in this one. Sure he got a few stupid early fouls, but before he even picked up a foul he looked out of it. With no double teams coming, Burns is usually calculated, slowly backing you down and hitting you with a flurry of head fakes, pump fakes or spins. If the big doesn’t bite, Burns can fade away, go with a contested hook shot, or pass out.

In this game, Burns looked sped up for some reason. The first time he got the ball he quickly backed in and threw up a hook that rattled out. Not awful, but usually you see him probe a little more. Then the next time he didn’t even look for contact, instead, he threw up a little floater that didn’t fall. While neither were awful shots, both were uncharacteristic of Burns. On top of those things, he looked absolutely gassed within minutes of coming in. My guess is that it was the altitude, but either way, it took a toll on him.

Whatever it was, it had him frustrated and he had two really bad fouls where he just shoved Kalkbrenner (he also had a phantom foul that was ridiculous). That said, it just wasn’t his night and this made NC State a lot more one-dimensional.

Casey Morsell came to play, but this NC State roster just wasn’t built to get a guy like him going, which is a shame. Jarkel Joiner was a huge reason why NC State got to where they got. His scoring ability, his speed and his toughness and leadership skill were huge. But Joiner is a scoring guard, and great basketball teams need POINT guards.

What is a point guard, and why can’t we have one?

A point guard isn’t just a guy who dribbles it down. It’s a guy who understands the games within the games. Guys who dictate pace, call plays (sets) and are essentially coaches on the floor. NC State and Kevin Keatts never had that this season, and while you can get a long way with scoring guards and good big men, you’ll never compete for anything of worth until you prioritize the skill set of a true point guard. I think that has been NC State’s problem for years, and I find it kind of insane that coach after coach falls into this idea of having a scoring guard play as a PG for more offense to get on the court.

This is no shot at Jarkel, either. The guy was one of my favorite players to watch on this team, but it just is what it is. He is a scoring guard who happens to be slotting in at PG. When you see Keatts bring in a guy whose priority is getting his guys open and dictating pace, then you can start to believe that this program may be close to arriving. Until then, sneaking into the tournament and hoping guys get hot hands is as good as it gets.

Look at Kihei Clark (Virginia’s PG). I know it’s not a great time to be talking about Clark, whose errant pass ended up losing the game for Virginia on Thursday, but look at Clark’s build.5’10, 170lbs. Look at his stats. Mid-30s shooting % from 3. Hight 70s from the FT line. The guy is nothing special when it comes to the numbers, but he’s a leader and he distributes the basketball to the right guys at the right time. Tony Bennett has started Clark for 4 years despite the fact that he’s coaching a team that is always in the running to win the ACC and won a national championship less than 5 years ago.  He could replace Clark with an elite, tall, athlete at any moment. But he doesn’t. Why? Because he understands what I’m talking about. It’s a puzzle that coaches need to put together, and one piece of that puzzle is a guy like this.

I was wrong about this game. I thought things would play out differently. They didn’t. I’m not blaming anyone in particular, but the makeup of this team vs. the makeup of teams that play deep into March are different. Maybe this is step one to getting there. We’ll have to see how the roster shapes up next season.

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NC State Basketball

VIDEO: NC State falls to Creighton 72-63 in first round of NCAA Tournament | Extended Highlights & Box Score

NC State came out flat, DJ Burns looked gassed, and for the most part, the Pack looked shell-shocked vs. Creighton from the opening tip. However, Terquavion Smith is excluded from all of that. He was amazing and in what was likely his final game at NC State, he kept the Pack afloat, dropping 32 points on 12-25 shooting. In the end, it wasn’t enough as their big man, 7’1 Ryan Kalkbrenner went for 31.

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NC State came out flat, DJ Burns looked gassed, and for the most part, the Pack looked shell-shocked vs. Creighton from the opening tip. However, Terquavion Smith is excluded from all of that. He was amazing and in what was likely his final game at NC State, he kept the Pack afloat, dropping 32 points on 12-25 shooting. In the end, it wasn’t enough as their big man, 7’1 Ryan Kalkbrenner went for 31.

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