WOLFERETTI: Everyone is talking about the offense, but it’s the defense that’s underperforming at a higher rate

Ok, for this article we are going to once again look at one of the stats that does it’s best to consolidate all the other stats. It tries to give you an unbiased picture, considering all factors. It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the best you can find.

The stats are Adjusted Offensive Efficiency (AdjO) and Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (AdjD).

Adjusted offensive efficiency is the amount of points a team scores per 100 possessions, or trips down the floor with the basketball. The higher the better with this number.

Adjusted defensive efficiency (AdjD): This is the amount of points a team allows per 100 possessions. The lower the better with this number

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Everyone is pretty frustrated right now and a lot of heat is being directed at Kevin Keatts. But is that heat warranted? I think most would say yes, but can you PROVE it?

I set out to find out what’s going on this season and whether or not it is an outlier or if this is just par for the course during the Keatts tenue.

For now, I am going to leave out the postseason run from last year. You might say that’s unfair, and maybe it is, but I want to isolate that because, as you’ll see, the numbers during that run are drastically different than the averages from over 7 years and I want to point something out about that.

OFFENSE: This Year’s (2024-25) AdjO = 110.6

DEFENSE: This Year’s (2024-25) AdjD = 104.2

So what do these numbers mean and how to they compare to other NC State teams? Right now, as a fan, this team is struggling bad. The offense is bad and the defense is bad, but I think we’re all under the assumption that the defense is better than the offense and maybe that’s why we’re potentially in these games until the end. Well, let’s see how true that is.

Let’s look at the average over the Keatts era, not counting this year, nor the postseason ACCT/Final Four run.

OFFENSE: Kevin Keatts Era (2017-24) AdjO = 112.

DEFENSE: Kevin Keatts Era (2017-24) AdjD = 99.7

Now let’s dig into what those numbers mean.
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Keatts Era Avearge vs. This Season: Offense

What we see here, is that the offense isn’t that far off of the average. Just 2 points difference from the expected Keatts season.— in fact there are a few seasons where it was nearly exactly at the same level as this year’s 110.6.

The ’21-22 team was almost identical with a 109 AdjO. That was the Seabron season, where Terq Smith was a freshman and Bates was lost during the opening game.

It was also identical to the ’20-21 team that had an AdjO of 110. That was the Devon Daniels season. He was averaging 16.5 ppg before he was lost to a knee injury on January 28th, and State was forced to rely on Jericole Hellems and DJ Funderburk (both at 12ppg). Braxton Beverly was also battling a back injury that season.

It was exactly identical to the ’19-20 season where the AdjO was 110.6. This was the CJ Bryce, Markell Johnson, DJ Funderburk, Devon Daniels Jericole Hellems team. Manny Bates was just coming into his own with 2.9 blocks per game. This team was kind of stacked when you look back at it.

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Keatts Era Avearge vs. This Season: Defense

However, the average Keatts defense is usually better than this one. Almost a 5 point swing. Remember, the lower the better for AdjD, and this year it’s at 104.2, while the average Keatts season is much better at 99.7.

The only season where we saw a worse defense was with the 2021-22 season (The Seabron season). While I’m calling that the Seabron season, it’s really the failed Cam Hayes season. He was supposed to be the team’s PG that season but had to be switched out for Seabron at PG because he was struggling so badly. That team had a 104.5 AdjD.

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Are the numbers suggesting that, on average, Kevin Keatts just a rebranded Mark Gottfried?

Offensively, Keatts has been in the Top-25 for AdjO just once during his first season where they came in at 116.0 (25th), but he’s constantly in the 30-50 range, always in the Top-64 outside of last year’s regular season and this year.

Defensively, however, Keatts has never finished better than 66th in AdjD . That’s not great. To give you context, Mark Gottfried’s average AdjD was 101.3, and his best team was ranked 67th during his first season. Just about a 2 point difference from Keatts average of 99.7.

Speaking of Gottfried, his average AdjO was 114.4 over his 6 years. That’s 2 points better than Keatts average of 112.1. However, Gottfried had 3 of his 6 teams in the Top-25 in AdjO, one of which was 10th in the nation.

So at the end of the day, Keatts is 2 points better than Gottfried on defense, and 2 points worse than him on offense. Kind of a wash I guess.

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What’cha gonna do about it?

All of that said, let’s now take a second to level set.

The basic online narrative is that NC State’s offense is the problem, but these numbers suggest that maybe it’s the defense that is the bigger problem.

These numbers are why you’ve seen myself and others on this site constantly begging to see a bigger lineup that controls the boards and protects the rim. This is why we are suggesting limiting minutes for MOC and Breon Pass, guys whose defense has been suspect, moving Hill to the point, putting the 6’9 Diouf at the 4, and moving Styles/Parker Jr to the 3.

With those moves, I’ve suggested and downright begged to see the defense slow down. If you’re going to go big, you can’t play as fast or pressure as much on defense. You get bigger and more athletic, and you condense all of that length and athleticism into the paint.

You can argue that it won’t work and that NC State needs to play fast to be successful. But their defense has NEVER been elite for an entire season under Kevin Keatts. Again, the best it’s ever been for a season was in 20-21 where it was ranked 66th overall in AdjD.

You can argue that their offense, which as been decent nationally, with an average national ranking of 49.75 in AdjD, needs the defense to play fast on both ends to keep their offensive numbers pumped up.

I think this is a flawed theory on top of a flawed theory. And here is why….

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Can someone explain the massive defensive metric improvement during the run and why it regressed even after replacing DJ Burns, one of the biggest liabilities on last year’s defense? No one? 

All of these numbers are pretty close. There are no drastic outliers, and every season was played with the same style of offense and the same style of defense. All except one small subset.

That small subset just so happened to be the most successful subset in the Kevin Keatts era, and the subset that had the 65th best regular-season offense and the 97th-ranked regular-season defense, knocking on the door of the national championship.

We’ve said it a thousand times, but during that run, NC State slowed down their defense for 2 reasons. They wanted to conserve energy because they had to win 5 games in 5 days, and because their personnel was better off with it slowed down. DJ Burns was your best interior offensive option, but he was a huge liability on defense. The byproduct of the slower pace was the improved play of Mike O’Connell, who was coming off the bench most of the season as the team played at a faster pace, but became a key cog and put up much better numbers when the team slowed it down in the postseason.

Maybe you think I’m making that up. Maybe you don’t believe me that the pace of play changed, or that it was the biggest reason for the change in outcome. But here is Casey Morsell, who, along with MOC, shared the highest on-court IQ, specifically pointing out the pace as a reason for the success.

He didn’t say “Horne and Burns got hot.” He didn’t say “It was luck.” He was directly asked and without hesitation he pointed to the pace.

Now, what did that pace change do to the AdjO and AdjD numbers?

OFFENSE: Final Four Run (2024) AdjO = 116

DEFENSE: Final Four Run (2024) AdjD = 92.9

Yes, the offense got better, and you can point to DJ Burns being more comfortable with the pace and Horne getting hot. You can point to MOC being more comfortable as well as Diarra. And I agree with all of that. But you can’t replicate DJ Horne or DJ Burns on offense. And because you can’t do that,  you can’t reasonably expect an ACC Tournament championship or a Final Four run. And that is fine. No one needs that or expects that with this roster. We just want to see competitive basketball and for this team to win their winnable games.

But I want to focus on the defense… because by all intents and purposes, this team should be a much better defensive team than last year’s team simply having Ben Middlebrooks guarding the pick and roll instead of DJ Burns. They still have MOC at point, Horne and Hill are a wash defensively. I’d argue that Morsell and Taylor are a wash defensively. Middlebrooks is a huge upgrade over Burns on the boards and on defense. So we’re basically looking at Styles vs Diarra.

The defense went from an AdjD of 101 (close to average over Kevin Keatts era) to a never-before-seen 92.9. That number was so good, that had they replicated it over the course of the season, it would have been the 10th best defense in the nation.

Like I said, Keatts has never had a season better than 66th.

You’re telling me Diarra was the difference? Or was it the pace change? Or was it both?

Well, as I showed in a previous article, NC State with Diarra and the faster pace (during the end of the regular season) was a nightmare AdjD of 107.8. That’s even worse than we’re seeing this year, and this year is the 2nd worse defensive output in AdjD during the Keatts’ tenure.

But when the pace slowed and compacted, played less aggressively on the pick and roll, and challenged teams to shoot contested shots over the top of them, AND added size at the 4. They posted a number we’ve never even come close to.

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PULL BACK DEFENSIVELY, GO BIG = AT LEAST ATTEMPT TO REPLICATE THE RUN

As we’ve shown. Defense is your primary problem, and defensively, you can come CLOSE to replicating the Final Four run.

MOC = MOC
Horne = Hill
Morsell = Taylor
Diarra > Diouf
Burns < Middlebrooks

Start with that as your foundation. It’s not like trying this throws away the rest of your season. It’s not like attempting to see what it looks like over a game or two span will wreck team chemistry. You made the transition in one week last year, and you can do it again this year.

If you want to play around with it, play around with it from there. Use this as a foundational lineup based on defensive metrics and learnings from last year, and then explore.

Move Hill to the 1,  Taylor to the 2, and Styles to the 3 for some real size and try to make up for the Diarra/Diouf rebounding differential.

Sub Diouf for Dennis Parker Jr who is putting up great +/- numbers, rebounding and protecting the rim, and pair him with Styles.

NC State is getting killed on the boards night in and night out. How about we try to solve that and see what it does?

If it cripples the offense, then you adjust, but last night MOC played 32 minutes, scored 4 point,s and had zero assists, while Styles played 27 minutes and had no points. So honestly, I don’t think these changes are going to cripple the offense to a point where you’re at a net negative with the added rim protection/rebounding.

The point is, you can NOT prove this WILL work, but you can absolutely prove that the metrics are there to suggest this as a POTENTIAL OPTION to fix some of this team’s fatal flaws.

The fact that we haven’t even seen an attempt at this, despite improved play from Diouf and Parker Jr. over the last few weeks is mind-boggling and the absolute core issue fans are having with this team.

Without changes, this is going to turn from anger to apathy, and while anger is annoying to the administration and the team, it’s nothing compared to apathy. With anger they show up, they talk about fixes,and  they debate how the team can get better. With apathy they just tune out. And when they tune out, the money dries up, and when the money dries up, the ability to change the program/add players/staff dries up.

This isn’t a path we want to go down. Not after hanging 2 banners last season. Not in a climate where money is king. Not after a huge let-down of a Football season.

NC State and Kevin Keatts are playing with fire right now. Maybe that’s hard to hear or maybe it seems overly dramatic, but I believe it to be true.

No one is asking to win the Final Four. No one is asking to even make the NCAA Tournament at this point (you’re nearly statistically eliminated). What NC State fans are asking for is humility, flexibility, and openness to try new things or new lineups.

If nothing else, it adds excitement. It gives people a reason to watch and it may be the difference between an avalanche that you can’t dig out of, and a blip on the radar.