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.
Drop in NET probably has more to do with other teams picking up some good wins vs us playing ND. Its an up and down thing that evens out in the end.
Just keep TCOB and we can have a decent tourney seed.
Five road games left, WF, UVA, BC, SYR, Duke.
We need to win at least 3 of those 5 which would put us at 5-5 in away games, so that means win BC & SYR which won’t be easy, and one of the other three, which should all be Q1.
We need Terquavion’s shooting arm back for Saturday, WF will be rough, but should definitely be less challenging than winning in Cameron or Charlottesville.
No story here, we knew this was coming for our Q4 games. And it will happen again the first week in Feb when we play FSU and GT back to back at home. The following week BC is an away game, so a win there might not have as much impact.