GETTING TO KNOW GT: The 1-4 ACC team that took #6 Duke to the wire in Cameron

NC State is set to host the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets tomorrow at noon in Raleigh.

GT is 10-8 overall and 1-4 in ACC play under third-year head coach Damon Stoudamire.

For all you young heads out there, Stoudamire isn’t just any old coach, this guy was a very good NBA PG who averaged 13.4 points and 6 assists per game over his career.

Now he’s looking to bring his basketball knowledge to the college game, where he’s in his 8th year coaching and 3rd year at Georgia Tech.

This year’s squad isn’t doing great, but they’ve had their moments, especially taking #6 Duke to the wire in Cameron Indoor.

Let’s take a look at how good they are…

First, for the nerds in the room…

• Offensive Efficiency 
  ❌ GT: 107.7 (204th)
  ✅ NC State: 122.1 (30th)
• Defensive Efficiency
  ❌ GT: 102 (112th)
  ✅ NC State: : 99.6 (35th)
• eFG% (Offense- What eFG% do you shoot?)
  ❌ GT: 50.4% (204th)
  ✅ NC State: 57.5% (18th)
• eFG% (Defense- What eFG% do you allow?)
  ✅ GT: 46.8%% (33rd)
  ❌ NC State: 50.4% (146th)
• TO% (Offense – How often are you turning the ball over?) 
  ❌ GT: 18.9% (278th)
  ✅ NC State: 14.1% (20th)
• TO% (Defense – How often are you turning over your opponent?) 
  ❌ GT: 16.1% (242nd)
  ✅ NC State: 20.1% (43rd)
• Offensive Rebounding% (Offense – How many offensive boards do you get?) 
  ✅ GT: 32.3% (87th)
  ❌ NC State: 29.8% (217th)
• Offensive Rebounding% (Defense – How many offensive boards do you allow?) 
  ❌ GT: 29.8% (125th)
  ✅ NC State: 26% (27th)Now, let’s translate that for everyone else…NC State is better than Georgia Tech almost everywhere. We didn’t get into shooting percentages, but NC State is better from both 3pt range and inside the arc. But looking at those advanced metrics, you can start to see the storyline take shape.

  Georgia Tech excels eFG% defense, meaning they make it hard for you to shoot a good percentage. Meanwhile, NC State has the 18th-best eFG% in the country, so something has to give here.

  Another area to watch is offensive rebounding. Georgia Tech is the 87th best offensive rebounding team in the country, but somehow NC State is the 27th best team at NOT ALLOWING offensive rebounds. Something has to give here, too.

  Georgia Tech is awful in the ball security department. They turn it over A LOT. And NC State is Top-50 in the nation in taking it away. This will be an area for the Pack to exploit in a big way. Ramp up pressure, speed them up and they should cough it up.

  If NC State can play its game everywhere else and figure out how to win these two battles, then they should win this basketball game.

Players to Watch

• • Kowacie Reeves Jr. (Sr, 6-7 Wing)
    Reeves Jr. is their leading scorer at 16ppg. He’s a former Florida player who is shooting 38.5% from 3pt range, which probably isn’t a fluke, seeing as he shot the same percentage two years ago.He’s what you expect from a guy who played at Florida. He’s good. He’s athletic, and he can shoot. He takes a lot of wild and contested shots, but he makes them. He can also drive to the hoop and finish above the rim with big-time dunks. He’s going to be the guy that NC State game plans around.He went off against Duke, scoring 23pts, with 5 3s. Take a look.

• • Baye Ndongo (Jr, 6-9 Forward)
    Ndongo is good as well. He’s averaging 12pts and 8 boards per game. He’s not going to shoot many 3s, but he’s aggressive around the rim and a good finisher with some bounce. He’s always moving, and gets a lot of garbage buckets. Here he is dropping 20 pts on Wake over a week ago.

This is a big team. They’ll play Ndongo and Mouhamed Sylla together. He’s a 6’10 monster in the middle who takes up a lot of space.

It will be interesting to see how Wade plays this. Lubin and Sagnia match up well here, but he might want to make the bigs move around and guard the perimeter. Play his game, not theirs.