Wolfpack guards ice cold again, dropped by Vols 67-58

NC State fell to Tennessee in what was another ugly performance, 67-58.

The trip to the Bahamas certainly had it’s highs and lows, but at the end of the day, NC State leaves with a gigantic win and a ton of lessons learned.

The Wolfpack held Tennessee to 38% shooting, out-rebounded them 43-36 and even beat them on the offensive glass 17-15. So what went wrong?

Well, just like against UNI, the NC State guards just didn’t perform. Combined they shot just 12-43 (28%) and only 3-16 (19%). The team as a whole had 21 turnovers. Those stats together are a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, Omer Yurtseven, Lennard Freeman and Malik Abu combined to go 9-12 (75%). Yes, you’re reading this right. The NC State bigs once again played outstanding. This is something this team is going to need to learn. The Wolfpack frontcourt it talented, big and efficient. It’s starting to become obvious that this is a strength that the Pack isn’t cashing in on.

This performance came on the heels of the UNI game where Yurtseven, Freeman, and Abu combined to go 11-19 (58%). That means over the past two games, the NC State frontcourt went 20-31 (65%) while the guards went 23-89 (26%).

NC State is going to head home and will need to evaluate who they are. They want to play at a high speed, but it can’t come at the expense of their post players. They aren’t getting touches. They are getting shots on just 22% of possessions and that just isn’t good enough when the guards are performing so poorly.

It was a sloppy, no flow game from NC State. Tennessee wasn’t necessarily playing great, but it felt like the Wolfpack just didn’t’ have what it took to mount a run. Every time they got close, they shot themselves in the foot with a poor shot or a turnover.

Maybe it was the 3 games in a row. Maybe their legs were tired. That is understandable. What isn’t however, is the fact that when the shots weren’t falling, they refused to change their gameplan and feed the guys who were making things happen.

Keatts has his work cut out for him over the next 4 days, but he has the right pieces to work with. He just needs to get them to figure out who they are before conference play begins.