NC State Basketball
Cam Hayes has entered the transfer portal
Can’t say we didn’t see this one coming.
Cam Hayes has entered the transfer portal today, leaving just Ebe Dowuona as the lone player from the 2020 class on the Wolfpack roster.
Cam Hayes has already heard from Tennessee, Houston and Loyola Chicago since hitting the portal, sources told @247SportsPortal. https://t.co/EXB0iLp7B3
— Travis Branham (@TravisBranham_) March 16, 2022
That’s 2 PGs gone (Hayes and Shakeel Moore), Nick Farrar and Jaylon Gibson gone. To be honest, there’s no dancing around this, this a bad look for Kevin Keatts. Losing Moore was the biggest loss in our eyes. He was a guy you go to war with. Physical, strong and determined, but he and Keatts never saw eye to eye, likely due to his lack of playing time despite showing signs of promise in the minutes he was given.
The Hayes loss was easy to see coming. Cam struggled from the get-go, losing his shot, and becoming turnover prone on offense, while constantly losing his man on defense. The writing was on the wall, in our eyes, a few games after he was benched. When he got back in the game he looked like he was checked out. Smiling after mistakes with body language that wasn’t consistent with a guy who is locked in and focused on killing his opponent.
NC State’s roster is going to look a lot different next season. Gibson is now gone, Hayes is now gone, Hellems is graduating, and Allen is graduating. There are 4 spots open, 2 of which are being filled with incoming freshmen.
You hope that this is the end of the attrition, but it’s 2022, and anything is on the table. Will Bates return? Will Seabron return? Will T.Smith return? If all 3 are back, then NC State may have a chance to add pieces and be competitive next season. If not, then man, it’s going to be tough for Keatts to build a contender in a single off-season.
On one hand, you expect transfers to happen with the new rules in place. On the other hand, Keatts is already on the hot seat with a portion of the fanbase and every transfer is another piece of proof for them that he isn’t the right fit for NC State. The truth is, this was a BAD team and the last thing you wanted to do was bring back all the pieces of this team and hope for a different outcome.
The roster is going to be different and honestly, that’s a good thing. We wish Cam luck wherever he lands, but by no means was this a surprise to anyone paying attention this season.
According to sources, Tennessee, Houston and Loyola have already reached out.
when a player gets worse in his sophomore year, that means he’s not doing the extra work to improve his game… Ernie Meyers was the same way… got worse between his 1st and 2nd years (he was a fulltime starter his 2nd year… the first year he took over for Wittenberg until W. recovered). We used to call him O-fer – because he was zero for N, where N is the number of shots. Years later, I read in an interview that he admitted that he just didn’t have the drive to excel in basketball… he was a 5-star recruit,… Read more »
Sometimes a player’s performance is in part impacted by the players, or lack thereof, around him. PG is tougher job without a big man inside. I guess we’ll never know. I expect Cam will be a pretty good guard by the time he’s a senior. Hope he finds success.
Had Moore stuck around maybe he’d have taken over at PG this year. As much as I hated to see him leave, he was a favorite of mine, his stats this year at MSU were mediocre at best.
I expect both Cam and Shakeel will be very good senior guards.
Interesting comments about Hayes’ body language and “Smiling after mistakes”. I am not surprised at this move, but wasn’t prepared for much action until after the Tournament. I am glad we know where we stand early. Now if we can just avoid another knee jerk reaction like the signing of Gibson….