After NC State announced it would play tonight in St. Louis, Kevin Keatts held a press conference and let the media know he’d be traveling with only 9 players. Which 9 players would be making the trip was anyone’s guess.
This morning the guys from The Red White Podcast and their followers started to dig through the player’s social media posts to try to figure who was in St. Louis and who had stayed home in Raleigh.
The PodArmy has been doing their research. Confirmed traveled to StL for the game
Shakeel Moore Braxton Beverly Dereon Seabron Thomas Allen Manny Bates Jerricole Hellems
It seemed to imply that NC State was going to be without their 3 most important players. However, only minutes later, Twitter users @NCSU_Hype pointed out what looked to be Devon Daniels grabbing a bite to eat in the background of a photo.
Another user speculated that it may not be Daniels, but instead could be Chase Graham.
That theory was quickly debunked by @NCSU_Hype who noted that Graham posted a story asking who had ESPN+ (the channel carrying the game), which would imply that Graham was going to be watching the game, meaning he was one of the players staying back in Raleigh.
Then just one hour ago, @RedWhitePodcast updated us with another tweet, suggesting that it was, in fact, Daniels and he had traveled with the team and DJ was potentially there as well and could be cleared by game time.
Big shout out to the die-hards who spent their Thursday morning sifting through social media to break this info. We’ll keep you updated when things start to be confirmed by the university, but as of now these are all just educated guesses with no confirmation.
Louisville Transfer Guard Mike James (6’5″/200) is on a visit to NC State currently, according to a source.
Indiana State Transfer Ryan Conwell was on campus last week, but he just committed to Xavier.
From what I hear, the staff preferred James over Connell anyway. A plus with James is he has 2 years of eligibility, whereas Conwell has 1.
News broke about James entering the Transfer Portal back on March 25th, and NC State was quick to reach out. Kevin Keatts and his staff recruited the former 4-star prospect out of high school heavily, but he ultimately chose the Cardinals.
Rivals ranked James as the #71 overall player in the 2021 recruiting class, and ESPN ranked him as the #7 prospect in the state of Florida.
After redshirting his first year in Louisville due to torn achilles, James has been a starter for the Cardinals the past two years. This year, he averaged 12.6 points and 5 rebounds.
For a more extensive look at James’ game, click here.
Rivals ranks James as the #77 overall player in the Transfer Portal.
Louisville Transfer Guard Mike James (6’5″/200) is a priority for NC State, according to a source.
News broke about James entering the Transfer Portal back on March 25th, and NC State was quick to reach out. Kevin Keatts and his staff recruited the former 4-star prospect out of high school heavily, but he ultimately chose the Cardinals.
After redshirting his first year in Louisville due to torn achilles, James has been a starter for the Cardinals the past two years.
This past year, James averaged 12.6 points per game (3rd on the team) and 5 rebounds. He’s extremely physical and aggressive, taking 47% of his field goal attempts at the rim (making 46%). As a result, he draws a lot of fouls, ranking 10th in the ACC in Fouls Drawn, and 4th in Free Throw Rate. James made opponents pay this year when they put him on the line, making 81.8% from the charity stripe, which ranked 15th in the ACC.
James shot the ball better as a Redshirt Freshman, than he did this past season. His Effective Field Goal Percentage in 2022-23 was 55.8%, which ranked 19th in the ACC, and his True Shooting Percentage of 59.6% ranked 14th.
He does have the ability to knock down a three, making 34.8% for his career.
Prior to this season, the record for most games started in a single season in NC State history was 37, with three Wolfpack players doing so: Lorenzo Brown, Richard Howell, CJ Williams.
Morsell now sits atop the list, and a fellow teammate, DJ Burns ranks second, with 40 games started this season.
Styles was the 2nd leading scorer for Georgetown this season, averaging 12.8 points per game, while grabbing 5.8 boards. He shot 36.8% from three.
Originally, Sytles was a consensus 4-Star prospect in UNC’s 2021 recruiting class. 247Sports ranked him as the #62 overall player nationally, and the #2 player in the state of North Carolina, playing for Kinston High School.
After two seasons with the Tar Heels, Styles entered the Portal, and took an Official Visit to NC State and Georgetown, and ultimately chose the Hoyas.
ON3 ranks Styles as the #104 overall player in the Portal.
With his final year of eligibility, Styles’ made the right choice this time.
NC State now has 2 scholarships remaining after Styles’ commitment.