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.
Gott was taking the high road until that interview recently where he was in disbelief that he was fired. We gave that idiot a chance when no one else would and made him the highest paid employee in the state and this is how he thanks us? Back to back losing seasons and he’s in disbelief? Unbelievable.
Next season’s roster will be interesting to see. Obviously we will have a few leave early, at least one graduate, and possibly transfers. I wouldn’t be mad if we were able to start with this lineup next season: Markell, Maverick, Kirk, Kapita, Freeman. With CorchJr, Newman, Hicks, Yurt7 coming off the bench.
What about Dorn?
Not sure he’s coming back. But then he already transferred once so likely won’t want to sit out another year. Just didn’t like the decision making from him this season. Not sure if it was just how he plays or poor coaching? New coach will have to figure out who he wants and doesn’t want coming back.
One guy goes 5-15 and the other 3-12. Guess it was a poor attempt at raising their draft stock. Maybe distributing the ball and trying to play the right way would have been more beneficial?
I’m old but I play better defense than DSJ. Glad he is gone.
I still struggle with that. I’ve seen him early in the season play high level defense. So I know he is capable. It could be that at a certain point he knew the team wasn’t going anywhere so he packed it in. In his defense there’s no need to injure yourself and ruin your draft stock if the team isn’t very good.
The very reason State should stay away from one and dones.
I think the right coach could integrate a one and done into a veteran lineup but on a poorly coached team like this it was always going to end this way.
This is unrelated but we are already out of the ACC tourney. Why oh why did Debbie allow him to stay the rest of the season? What did that accomplish? I mean I was reading a couple of days ago about Terry H. just ignoring Gott during a timeout and Gott standing in disbelief. He lost this team half way into the season, what kind of moron would allow him to finish as coach after firing him?
Why worry about the OSU position? I mean it will open up at some point in the future. If that job is so attractive wouldn’t Archie take it later on down the road? Whomever becomes the coach at State that guy needs to be fully invested. We need someone with Jimmy V’s passion for this job again.
Bruce Pearl.
Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a really good coach and on the passion front there are few who can match him. But do we really want a coach that likes to party with college kids with his shirt off? That’s just asking for trouble.
You want kids to play hard for you? Join them, he did.
🙂