When 6’9 forward Derek Funderburk committed to NC State, he did so without much fanfare.
That’s pretty unusual for a 6’9 guy with this type of skillset. However, it’s understandable based on the circumstances.
Funderburk was a 4-star prospect coming out of high school. He was actually the #56 player in his class that year. He committed to Ohio State and after redshirting a season, he was dismissed by Thad Matta this past summer for “failing to meet team expectations.”
Instead of transferring to another D1 school and sitting out another year, he enrolled at Northwest Florida State College (a junior college) so he could play right away. In early November, he committed to join NC State next year as a part of their 2018 recruiting class. He had played at Hargrave under NC State assistant AW Hamilton, so the relationship was already there.
Meanwhile, as a freshman at Northwest Florida JUCO, it appears he’s doing pretty darn good. It’s hard to track down stats for JUCO teams since they play so many games that aren’t ‘official’ league games, but near the end of January we found this article, stating that:
Derek Funderburk, a freshman forward, contributes 14.3 points per game on 57-percent shooting from the floor and a 39-percent clip from beyond the arc for 2.5 3s a night. He also adds 5.5 rebounds per game.
EDIT: We found his full stats. Check them out here…
Those are some great looking stats, but really what is jaw-dropping is this video. (above)
Funderburk was kind of a mystery because there really aren’t many highlight reels of him floating around. The ones that are out there are just of him dunking. That was until this video surfaced today (found by my brother, and PI contributor Greg Pascucci), which had a total of 3 views on it when we received it.
It’s 7 minutes of Funderburk playing at Northwest Florida State College, and dear lord, it’s amazing. Funderburk is so agile, has a tight handle, he can beat you off the dribble, above the rim or (and this is where we were so surprised) from 3 point range.
NC State fans had constantly questioned what their frontcourt would look like in 2018, but if the Ian Steere video from earlier today, the Manny Bates clips from a few weeks ago and this one above are any indication, the NC State frontcourt might be in a lot better shape than we thought.
