NC State Forward Mohamed Diarra will not be returning to NC State for his final season of eligibility. Rather, he will give 100% of his focus to pursuing his professional career.
Diarra is declaring for the NBA Draft, and will explore that possibility as far as it goes, but the likelihood of him playing professionally in his home country of France are high.
Diarra was a significant player for NC State all season long, averaging 6.3 points and 7.8 rebounds (team high), but his impact in March was tremendous, recording 10+ rebounds in 7 of the Wolfpack’s 10 postseason games, and five of those performances were double-doubles.
Wolfpack fans will always remember the grit and mental toughness that Diarra put on display in the NCAA Tournament, playing game-after-game while fasting for Ramadan.
The Wolfpack’s frontcourt just got a little bit thinner. In the past two weeks, NC State has lost Diarra and Ernest Ross. Ben Middlebrooks is returning, and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield transferred in from Louisville. Dontrez Styles transferred in from Georgetown, and while he is more of a Small Forward, in certain lineups, he could play the Small 4 position. With all that being said, I fully expect NC State to try to find another post player in the Transfer Portal with Diarra’s exodus now official.
With Diarra not returning in 2024, NC State now has 2 scholarships available for next season.
That sucks. This is not going to end well for the Pack. Needed his size and scoring inside.
We are still very capable of winning this thing.
I agree we should win this thing without question. But the problem is that Gott never has his team ready early in the season. Like the time we were ranked top 10 coming into the season and we went to an early season tourney and got spanked by Marcus Smart and Ok St. So us playing without Kapita is huge. You gonna rely on Anya to step up? You know better.
All I’m saying is that don’t be surprised if we struggle. It’s hard to know with a Gottfried coached team. My guess is that we either blow these games out or we lose games were supposed to win. I will have more confidence once everyone is qualified and the team has more time to gel.