LOVED IT, HATED IT: From NC State’s embarrassing 72-52 loss to Ole Miss

These late games are starting to wear on me. So forgive me if I’m not my usual rosey self today, but I’m not going to beat around the bush on this one. The Pack looked downright apathetic, undisciplined, and unprepared in their 72-52 loss at Ole Miss.
Let’s jump right in.

LOVED IT

Ben Middlebrooks showed NC State fans his value, notching 13 points and 12 boards.
It was nice to see someone come to play. Middlebrooks played a season-high 22 minutes, thanks in part to DJ Burns showing up soft for some reason against a 7’5″ twig that he’d usually bury underneath the basket (but I’ll get to that later). Middlebrooks matched the Ole Miss energy and physicality, and if the rest of the team had followed his lead, we would have had a ball game. For Middlebrooks, this was his coming out party for the Pack. NC State is going to need a bruiser this year at times, and Big Ben showed us he’s willing to be that guy.

LJ Thomas, nice to see you!
Tonight we saw signs that DJ Horne doesn’t have the intangibles of a true point guard (nor should he, he’s always been a SG) and Mike O’Connell is going to struggle all year against aggressive, athletic defenders (again, we’ll get to this later), so Keatts finally gave his sophomore PG some run.

LJ Thomas played his first meaningful minutes of the season, and while he didn’t light the world on fire, he provided some physicality and stability at the lead guard position. He played 22 minutes, scored 7 points, dished out 4 assists, and only turned the ball over 1 time (he also hit the only 3 he took).

It’s obvious this team is going to need a PG, so why LJ Thomas hasn’t been worked into the mix is beyond me. He’s in his second season, he has a good frame, decent vision, nice shot, and honestly has been pretty effective in the limited minutes he’s played in his career. How does anyone suppose the kid will reach his potential when he barely sees the floor? I know Keatts is in ‘win-now’ mode, but slowly working in Thomas when it’s clear you have no true PG is probably the real ‘win-now’ move if we’re being honest.

HATED IT

(Kids, close your eyes this isn’t going to be pretty)

Ok, I’ll admit it. It’s time to start pointing the finger at Kevin Keatts
I’ve been a Keatts apologist for a long time. I like Kevin Keatts. I think he gets player to buy-in. I think he’s a good talent evaluator. I think his teams are always in shape and always giving a ton of effort. I think NC State could be in a much worse spot coaching-wise, but we’re 7 years in now and there are a few patterns that we’ve all seen that we’ve hoped would work themselves out. However, it’s looking like that’s not happening yet again.

Yes, this was one game, but I can’t make excuses for this any longer. Keatts teams lack discipline in a lot of places.

Sure, they play hard as heck, but they are constantly gambling on passes, trying to get deflections and they are always out of position on defense. Watch NC State play defense against a disciplined team that moves the basketball and understands spacing. They always look like they’re playing catch-up. They’re always a step late, having to rely on constant communication for switches, constantly late on rotations, and always in panic mode on the close-outs. Keatts may look at that type of ‘chaos’ on defense as a feature, not a bug. But it’s been 7 years and guys, it’s a bug. A well-laid-out and executed game plan against NC State almost always throws us for a loop.

Look, this type of defense isn’t bad. In fact, there are a lot of matchups where this defense is going to rattle your opponent, fluster opposing guards and win you basketball games. But there are also matchups where you can learn pretty fast that this type of defense is going to get chewed up by your opponent, and you HAVE to read that early before things get out of hand. Your team has got to be disciplined enough to be able to turn it off and on over the course of a basketball game.

Meanwhile, when real defensive pressure is applied to NC State, Keatts’ teams never seem to step back, collect themselves, and focus on running their offense. Instead, they revert to one-on-one isolation.

It happens EVERY SINGLE YEAR and it doesn’t seem like anyone does anything to stop it. That is not how you consistently win basketball games. It happened with Al Freeman in Keatts’ first season, it happened with CJ Bryce, Torin Dorn, Terquavion Smith, and Jarkel Joiner. Every year there is a guy that Keatts’ relies on to bail out his team with isolation and one-on-one basketball. ENOUGH!

The State fans blame the players for being selfish, but the pattern suggests it’s not the players, but the lack of an offensive system they trust. They just want to win so they’re doing it the best way they know how. And with the way the last 3 halves have gone, it looks like Casey Morsell is going to be forced into this year’s volume-scoring iso guy…and that’s not how you get the best out of Casey Morsell.

Hey NC State, your lack of a point guard is showing!
We all knew when NC State didn’t land a PG in the portal that things might be dicey this season. Sure, DJ Horne can bring the ball up the floor and has a real nice handle, and while you did land Mike O’Connell and brought back Breon Pass and LJ Thomas, none of those guys are ready to be an elite PG at the ACC level.

Horne is a scoring guard (style-wise), O’Connell is a PG, but doesn’t have the athleticism needed to be the main guy for a top tier ACC team. Breon Pass, despite his size, is more of a scoring guard (style-wise), and LJ Thomas looks like a scoring guard but is actually the one guy who resembles a PG out there (however, he certainly lacks experience).

Last night, NC State got punched in the mouth, right out of the gate. And instead of collecting themselves and steadying themselves, they short-circuited, panicked, and fell apart.

If you think that a PG is only good for dribbling up the floor or for piling up assists, then that right there will be. your fatal flaw as you put together a basketball team. A PG’s main role is pace control, emotional stability in the face of adversity and situational awareness. People put all those things in the bucket and call it “leadership” or “coach on the floor”, but it’s a set of skills that make an elite PG, which in turn, can help make an elite basketball team.

NC State doesn’t have that. They haven’t had nor prioritized a player like that in years, and that is one reason you see games like this take place year after year.

What was up with DJ Burns?
DJ is one of my favorite State players in years, but no one gets a pass in these articles. Burns turned in one of those rare performances we haven’t seen since his outing against Creighton in the NCAA tournament, which coincidentally was against another skilled 7-footer.

I know DJ is undersized in matchups like this, but the 7’5″ Jamarion Sharpe is kind of a twig. Burns at times buried him under the hoop, but missed the shot. I’m not really sure what was going on here. Burns was in pass-first mode, in a matchup I felt he would try to exploit.

I was expecting NC State to clear out, and let Burns back down Sharpe (Burns has a 40lb advantage). Once he’s down deep enough, I felt like he’d have to throw a few pump fakes and get creative due to Sharpe’s reach. Burns is a great passer, and certainly more dangerous when he gets deep since he has more options, but it just seemed like DJ didn’t want any part of Sharpe last night. This team is going to need the offense to run through him if they’re going to be successful. Again, void of a PG, Burns is going to have to play that role for this squad and last night he didn’t.

Diarra, our 6’10” stretch-forward, only getting 4 minutes? 
I know Diarra has been getting out of position a lot on defense and it’s bothering Keatts, but the guy is 6’10”, probably your best rebounder and you really needed to match Ole Miss’ ability to be big, agile, and physical. I was hoping to see a front court of Middlebrooks and Diarra for a bit, but never really got that chance.

Now look, Dennis Parker Jr. deserved the start. The kid has been playing great, but in the 2nd half of the BYU game and all last night, he looked a little shaken. And that’s fine for a Freshman, but 16 minutes, no points, and only 2 boards from your 4 man just ain’t gonna cut it. Especially, when your former starting PF logs just 4 minutes.

I know Keatts probably saw something different, but you were down 20 most of the night. I think a little more tinkering with your 6’10” guy might have been worth a shot, unless he’s still hurt, in which case all of this is moot.

——

We could keep going here and dive into the details, but I think we’re better off moving on. This was only one game, and I’m going to get criticized for overreacting, but that’s what this column is all about. And to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m overreacting. I feel like I’m witnessing this team, with all new players, fall into the same pattern that all of Keatts’ teams have fallen into over the years and I’m terrified of that. I want Keatts to succeed. I think he has the coaching intangibles that could make him a very successful coach here at NC State, but things need to change. Foundational, core principles need to be adjusted or we’ll see another NC State team that is streaky, matchup-reliant, and limps into the post-season.

I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love for this team and this coach to make me eat these words. But these patterns I’ve glossed over or ignored over the Keatts era aren’t going away and it’s making me pretty nervous.