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.
Here’s some things I’ve noticed.
1. Lack of leadership: Dennis smith has done his best, but realistically you can only expect so much from an 18 year old freshman.
2. Torin Dorn’s Devolution: This one is partially not Dorn’s fault as his minutes have fallen drastically since Yurtseven and rowan were inserted in the mix, even getting a season low of 9 minutes in the Pittsburgh game.
Continued from above.
3. Yurtseven (unfortunately) being overrated: This is not saying he’s bad, not by any means. But his transition from the European style of play has been more turbulent than we as fans envisioned.
4. Strength of Acc : This may sound like a cop-out, but the ACC is slowly becoming like the NBA in the sense that if your team has a bad night, standings go out the door.
List of ACC coaches Mike K. , Roy W., Rick Pitino, Jim Boeheim, Jim Larrañaga, Leonard Hamilton, Danny Manning,Mike Brey, Tony Bennett (Va.) just in case you didn’t know and this is to name a few. We lost to other programs with less “notable” coaches if Im not mistaken. If we want to win be able to compete and not lose players. FIRE GOTT HE GOTT TO GO. This will be my last post waste of time!
I haven’t posted in awhile because there really isn’t a reason to. But I do want to ask Packinsider this. Is this comedy show (like the rest of the games) still the players fault, lack of leadership on the court etc etc. Or is Mark just a bad coach and not ACC ready? Lets be honest.. If you have in past post I apologize I haven’t been back to your site in awhile.
List of ACC coaches Mike K. , Roy W., Rick Pitino, Jim Boeheim, Jim Larrañaga, Leonard Hamilton, Danny Manning,Mike Brey, Tony Bennett (Va.) just in case you didn’t know and this is to name a few. We lost to other programs with less “notable” coaches if Im not mistaken. If we want to win be able to compete and not lose players. FIRE GOTT HE GOTT TO GO. This will be my last post waste of time!