Freshman Trey Parker finally stakes claim to the point guard spot in hard fought loss to Duke (with highlights)

NC State may have lost to Duke 74-64, but there were a lot of positives that came out of this game.

We’ll talk about the other positives in our ‘Quick Hits’ piece later this morning, but I want to focus the emergence of Trey Parker.

First off, here are the highlights…

Finally, Parker found his confidence and showed what many of us knew he had in him. I showcased him going to toe-to-toe with Robert Dillingham (now in the NBA)  in high school, and said as a college player, I’d rather have Parker (who was then a 3-star on 247, and a 4-star on Rivals).

This is a guy who was poorly evaluated in high school and labeled as ‘simply a dunker’, but when you watched him it was clear he was going to be a 3-level college scorer. So it was very disappointing when we didn’t see him get worked into the rotation earlier this season.

Sure, he had minutes here and there, but the flashes were there and as a kid new to college basketball, he was going to need to work out his kinks on the court. I’m not Johnny-come-lately with this either. Here is what I said after the loss to Purdue on November 28th.

This never happened and now NC State is out of contention for the NCAA tournament in January. But hey, at least we are finally getting to see Trey Parker do what he’s capable of doing.

Parker was amazing in this game. He had 15 points on 6-9 shooting and 3-4 from long range, but he also got the offense humming. The way he attacks off the pick and role is exactly the reason you run this type of offense. He’s a 3-level scorer, so the defense has to respect everything. He’s knocking down jumpers, he’s getting to the rim, and he whipping around passes when the defense sucks in.

He finished with just 1 assist, but it should have been 3, as Huntley-Hatfield missed 2 bunnies that Parker set up for him.

His defense was very good as well, especially on the ball.

Now, we are going to see a lot more Parker now that it’s obvious he’s ready, and now that NC State is fully out of NCAA contention. And there are going to be bumps in the road. He’s a little loose with the passing, which means, he’ll have some nice assists, but he’ll also have turnovers as we see him get acclimated to running an offense against this level of player. He’ll take some bad shots, but this is part of the process. I just wish the process had started a lot earlier

Parker finished up at -2 on the game, while Mike O’Connell finished at -9. MOC had a good game, and NC State needs him, but on a team that needs scoring and dynamic playmaking, it’s clear that Parker needs to be the guy going forward, with MOC playing a more reserve role.