Scottie Ebube breaks into the rotation, Wade ready to “Let him go in there and wreck things up.”

One question many State fans, including myself, have been asking is “Why doesn’t Scottie Ebube get any minutes?”

No one thinks he should be eating into Ven-Allen Lubin’s minutes, but in a recent press conference, Wade suggested that they need to find ways to reduce the load on State’s starting big man. Lubin has played over 30 minutes in 4 of NC State’s 6 games against Top-50 opponents. The guy is an absolute soldier and hasn’t looked gassed, hasn’t asked to be taken out, just stays in there competes and does his job.

But over the course of a seaosn, it wears you down and Wade is making a smart move now by seeing what he has in Scottie Ebube.

Ebube is a 6’10 beast, and for those of you who have played basketball, he’s the type of guy you hate to play against. He’s huge, overly physical, seems kinda mean. This is a guy who throws his body around with reckless abandon. Someone who has probably heard the phrase “Chill out, you’re going to hurt somebody” more times than one.

He comes to NC State from Wyoming, where he played 10 minutes per game, averaging 5 points, 3 boards, and 2 fouls.

I’m not sure early in the season you’d look at this guy and say “Yeah, that’s exactly what Will Wade is looking for.” But here we are on December 18th, and Ebube is exactly what Will Wade is looking for.

Last night, in his first real significant minutes, Ebube played 14 minutes, had 5 points, 3 boards, and 3 blocks. He also fouled out.

Here is what Wade had to say…

Yeah, Scottie plays with an edge. I’m the dumb ass for not playing him. I should play him more.

I mean, hey, when he’s in there, we got a lot of guys that go in there and are neutral. They’re like, they’re walking around on eggshells, trying not to do something or whatever. Hey, when he’s in there, something’s gonna happen.

Somebody’s band’s playing. Ours or theirs, but somebody’s playing. Something is going to happen. And that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing when he’s in there.

We got to put him in around the medias. We need to put him in around the medias. 4-5-minute spurts. Let him go in there and wreck things up. But he, I mean, shoot, he played 13 minutes, fouled out tonight. That’s what he does, that’s what he does, right? Made a free throw. That’s what he does. He brings a physicality to us.

I mean, hey, in the first half, that weak side block he had, that’s the first weak side block we’ve had all year. We just watch them lay it in. Talk about Kansas, the Kansas game, we got out of the way in the last six minutes of the game, we got out of the way of three shields that should have been blocks. That’s what lost us the game, not all the other stuff.

And Scottie’s the only guy we got that can come from the weak side and make the block off of a shield. We haven’t done that all year long. 11 games into the year, haven’t done it.

Scottie comes in, boom, like volleyball. Bats that thing all over the place.

With ACC play just around the corner, this Texas Southern game was a final audition for NC State players to break into the rotation. It looks like Ebube did just that.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NC State Basketball (@packmensbball)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NC State Basketball (@packmensbball)