NC State Basketball
The Awkwardness that is NC State Men’s Basketball
Bowling Green Transfer Guard Marcus Hill (6’4″/185) has committed to NC State!
Hill took an Official Visit to NC State this past weekend.
This past season, Hill averaged 20.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game for the Falcons. He earned 1st Team All-MAC honors. Even though he was only at Bowling Green one season, he had one of the best seasons in school history, scoring 698 points, which ranks 5th all-time in program history for a single season.
For his first two years of collegiate ball, Hill played for Southern Union State College (JUCO) in Alabama. In 2022-23, Hill earned 3rd Team NJCAA All-American honors, and ranked as the #32 overall Junior College prospect.
247Sports ranks Hill as a 4-Star Transfer Prospect, and the #81 overall player in the Transfer Portal, and the #11 Shooting Guard.
Even though 247Sports and ON3 consider Hill a Shooting Guard, NC State is recruiting him as a Point Guard.
Hill is the 4th player to transfer to NC State this offseason, joining Louisville’s Brandon Huntley-Hatfield & Mike James, and Georgetown’s Dontrez Styles.
With the addition of Hill, NC State now has 1 scholarship remaining for next season.
NC State Forward Mohamed Diarra will not be returning to NC State for his final season of eligibility. Rather, he will give 100% of his focus to pursuing his professional career.
Diarra is declaring for the NBA Draft, and will explore that possibility as far as it goes, but the likelihood of him playing professionally in his home country of France are high.
Diarra was a significant player for NC State all season long, averaging 6.3 points and 7.8 rebounds (team high), but his impact in March was tremendous, recording 10+ rebounds in 7 of the Wolfpack’s 10 postseason games, and five of those performances were double-doubles.
Wolfpack fans will always remember the grit and mental toughness that Diarra put on display in the NCAA Tournament, playing game-after-game while fasting for Ramadan.
The Wolfpack’s frontcourt just got a little bit thinner. In the past two weeks, NC State has lost Diarra and Ernest Ross. Ben Middlebrooks is returning, and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield transferred in from Louisville. Dontrez Styles transferred in from Georgetown, and while he is more of a Small Forward, in certain lineups, he could play the Small 4 position. With all that being said, I fully expect NC State to try to find another post player in the Transfer Portal with Diarra’s exodus now official.
With Diarra not returning in 2024, NC State now has 2 scholarships available for next season.
Louisville Transfer Guard Mike James (6’5″/200) has announced his commitment to NC State!
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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.
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.
He does have the ability to knock down a three, making 34.8% for his career.
James has 2 years of eligibility remaining. With James’ commitment, NC State currently has 1 scholarship available for next season.
Bowling Green Transfer Guard Marcus Hill (6’4″/185) confirmed with me that he is currently on a visit at NC State.
Hill averaged 20.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game for the Falcons this season. He earned 1st Team All-MAC honors. Even though he was only at Bowling Green one season, he had one of the best seasons in school history, scoring 698 points, which ranks 5th all-time in program history for a single season.
For his first two years of collegiate ball, Hill played for Southern Union State College (JUCO) in Alabama. In 2022-23, Hill earned 3rd Team NJCAA All-American honors, and ranked as the #32 overall Junior College prospect.
247Sports ranks Hill as a 4-Star Transfer Prospect, and the #78 overall player in the Transfer Portal, and the #11 Shooting Guard.
According to a source, the NC State Coaching Staff is extremely high on Hill, and they are recruiting him as a Point Guard.
Bates still may go pro, entering the portal does not preclude putting name in for evaluation. Entering the portal just gives him another option to get paid well if he decides to not stay in draft.
Bates leaving totally sucks, make no mistake, and is a setback. But at least we don’t have to sit and wait on him to make a decision on going pro or not and possibly having to fill his spot over the summer.
You know we forget that KK really didn’t play Seabron until he had to last year. And thats when Seabron showed he belonged in the starting line up. Before then he rarely played.I remember hearing Seabron was upset about his playing time also.
This was absolutely the worst year since I’ve been following State (1972). Les had recruiting restrictions and stiff academic requirements which limited the number and types of players he could recruit. Les was mostly playing with a lot of players that had zero or only 1-2 P5 type offers. He fell on his sword and did us a favor by taking the job when no one else wanted it. I realize I’m in the minority, but I think Keatts can coach. His winning percentage at Hargrave and UNC-W was outstanding. Just wasn’t the case this year or really the past… Read more »
WE CAN ASPIRE TO BE ONE THOSE HIGH-OCTANE NIL TEAMS!!! So, my question is, how do we become a team other players will flock to? Maybe that’s too simplistic in thinking, but why not. Yeah, yeah, yeah… Keats isn’t our guy (which I still don’t believe), or, NC State has been constantly digging out of the hole left behind by the Jimmy V “scandal”… which please! would have been a fart in the wind by today’s standards. Or, I got another excuse, we’re cursed, or no way we’re going to win against teams like Duke and UNC and no way we’ll ever… Read more »
Can fans organize a fund to pay NIL bucks to players?
We’d be better setting up a buy out lol
“ But they got their because everyone was on board, from the first moment they broke dirt with the golden shovel on university grounds, to now.” I totally agree. The problem is we all were not on board after the firing of Jimmy V and we have not recovered since. Many of the restrictions on Les mentioned in a previous comment were self imposed by the university. The priority of the administration was not to rebuild the basketball program. Instead, the priority was to rebuild the integrity of the university. Right or wrong, this ‘integrity decision’ initiated the demise of… Read more »
edit – change ‘established program’ to ‘elite program’
This is all too true NCSU84. Its a tremendously difficult job to elevate the program and keep it there, with almost no margin for error. At this point I think all any NCSU coach will be able to do is keep moving parts and try to catch lightning in bottle to get a deep tourney run, then hopefully build on that.
There is a reason that elite proven coaches don’t even consider coming to NCSU.