Numbers say Terquavion Smith could become the best freshman scorer in the past 20 years for State

So far, this season hasn’t gone the way most NC State fans had expected.

A big part of that is because they lost the guy they were building their team around, Manny Bates. However, there have been some bright spots and reasons to believe the future remains bright.

One of those bright spots has been freshman Terquavion Smith.

Smith has grabbed a starting role and hasn’t looked back. The former 4-star prospect is averaging 13.8 ppg, 3.8 rebounds and 1.7 assists. He’s shooting a respectable 39% (good for 2nd amongst NC State guards) from the field and 34% from long range.

He’s been so impressive that we started to wonder. Is he the best freshman scorer NC State has had over the past 20 years?

We knew there would be some competition. For instance, Dennis Smith Jr. put up massive numbers in his first (and only) season at NC State.  But with the latest ruling on the Adidas recruiting violation case against Gottfried and the University, all of his records are officially wiped from the books.

So what would we find if we dug into the past 20 years? We knew JJ Hickson had a big freshman year, but what did he average again? What about Brandon Costner? Didn’t he put up huge numbers as a freshman? Or what about Julius Hodge. How did his numbers stack up in year one?

So we began the process of going through every roster for the past 20 years, figuring out who the freshman were, and then seeing what their scoring average was at the end of the season.

Here is what we found.

During the 2007-2008 season, JJ Hickson averaged 14.8ppg. With Smith taken out, this is the highest scoring average for an NC State freshman over the past 20 years.

There was also the 2006-2007 season, where redshirt freshman Brandon Costner averaged 16.8ppg. However, that was his second season at NC State. He played 5 games as a true freshman before a stress fracture ended his season. That year he was playing just 13 minutes per game and averaging 2.8ppg.

As for Julius Hodge, he averaged 10.7 ppg during his freshman season.

There were a few others we had overlooked in our initial brainstorm. For instance, Maverick Rowan dropped 12.9 ppg as a freshman during the 2015-16 season, TJ Warren finished with 12.9 ppg as a freshman during the 2012-13 season, and CJ Leslie scored 11 ppg during his first year in 2010-11.

That’s it for the double-digit freshman scorers over the past 20 years. And Smith still has a majority of his season left to play.

Now, Smith could start to drop off as ACC play starts up, but it’s not likely as he’s been a big producer in almost all of the Pack’s games vs. quality opponents. He finished with 14 vs. Miami, 21 vs. #1 Purdue, 17 vs. Louisville.

In fact, your argument would be better for him actually increasing his production as the year goes on. Over the past 6 games, Smith is averaging 18.6ppg and has looked a lot more aggressive over that span.

If Smith keeps up that pace, he will easily surpass JJ Hickson’s 14.8ppg and could approach (and pass) Brandon Costner’s 16.8 ppg he put up during his redshirt freshman season.

Even if he doesn’t eclipse Costner, he’d still be in NC State’s record book as the best TRUE freshman scorer over the past 20 years.

Note that both Dennis Smith Jr and JJ Hickson were both 5-star prospects and both one-and-done lottery picks, putting Terquavion in elite company for true freshmen scorers at NC State. (Brandon Costner was also a 5 star.)

Smith has a ways to go, but if you’re looking at the numbers, it’s easy to see that this kid is a very rare talent and an elite building block for Keatts and the future of his program.