Louisville was just the latest team with a great offense to give NC State trouble. Is more Arceneaux the answer?

The Louisville offense is the best offense NC State has faced all season, according to advanced analytics (BartTorvik.com).

After watching NC State get torched from nearly every angle by Louisville, I needed to go back and look at the metrics and see where they ranked among NC State’s opponents this season.

Turns out, Louisville is the best we’ve faced all season, with an adjusted offensive efficiency of 125.8.

If you look at it, most of the Pack’s losses have come to teams with 120+ offensive efficiency.

NC State’s opponents ranked from best to worst in Offensive Efficiency.

• Louisville: 125.8 LOSS
• Auburn: 125.6 LOSS
• Texas: 125.2 LOSS
• SMU: 124.8 WIN
• Virginia: 123.3 LOSS
• Kansas: 121.1 LOSS
• VCU: 119.0 WIN
• Liberty: 118.2 WIN
• Boise State: 117.7 WIN
• Clemson: 116.5 WIN
• Syracuse: 114.9 WIN
• Wake Forest: 114.9 WIN
• Virginia Tech: 114.3 WIN
• Florida State: 114.0 WIN
• Ole Miss: 113.0 WIN
• Pittsburgh: 112.1 WIN
• UAB: 109.1 WIN
• Georgia Tech: 108.2 LOSS
• Seton Hall: 107.6 LOSS
• UNC Greensboro: 106.3 WIN
• UNC Asheville: 104.1 WIN
• Boston College: 102.1 WIN
• Texas Southern: 102.1 WIN
• North Carolina Central: 99.1 WIN

If you’re wondering why NC State isn’t changing defenses to try to get better results against elite offensive teams, they are.

Against SMU, they played Lubin in total drop coverage a lot (instead of hedging or switching), and against Louisville, they dropped into a 1-3-1 for a few possessions (but it didn’t help).

The roster is built to score, not defend

The truth is, this NC State team simply does not have the roster to just roll out a man-to-man defense and play elite offensive teams straight up.  You are severely undersized at the 4 with Williams, and it’s not like he’s making up for the height difference with quickness or athleticism. Lubin struggles defensively on switches; he’s not a true rim protector, and he too is undersized at the 5.

At the guard positions, NC State is long and tall, but they don’t have a ton of physicality, athleticism or guys who are just savvy position defenders.

But most of these guys can’t be off the floor because they are giving you so much on offense.

Meanwhile, Terrance Arcenaux is by far the best defender NC State has, but he’s only getting 16 minutes per game, which is confusing me a little bit, to be honest.

I mean, I get that State had won 6 in a row with the rotation that was in place, and you ride what’s working. But the truth is, this team has to figure out how to beat elite offenses if they want to reach their true potential. You can’t just outscore everybody, especially when your efficiency on offense is tied so heavily to 3 pointers.

And don’t get me wrong, NC State is an elite shooting team, but there is a reason that at the end of March, the teams with inconsistent defenses are usually watching from home.

NC State is about to enter a tough stretch here with 3 of its next 5 games against teams with offenses grading at 120+. That is the range that has almost been kryptonite for this Wolfpack team (aside from the 1-point win over SMU).

To crack this code, here is the balancing act that Wade and his staff have to deal with…

This stat is Offensive Box +/- and Defensive Box +/-, it’s an advanced metric that estimates how many points per 100 possessions a player adds to (or subtracts from) their team’s offense or defense compared to an average player—using box score stats like points, assists, rebounds, steals, blocks, etc.

In short: Positive numbers = good impact; elite players often hit +4 or higher on either end, adjusted per possession so pace doesn’t skew it.

See the problem?

4 of NC State’s best 5 offensive players are their 4 worst defensive players.

Meanwhile, 4 of their 5 best defensive players are their 4 worst offensive players.

So Wade has to choose. Am I going to try to stop you, or am I going to try to outscore you?

When you look at those numbers, you see you have four guys in the +4.9 and higher range offensively. These guys are grading in the ‘elite’ range.

Defense, you don’t have a guy higher than 3.7. So this stat would tell you it’s a lot safer to lean on your offense than lean on your defense.

But this stat also raises a question.

Is more Terrance Arceneaux the answer?

There are only 2 guys who are in the green, both offensively and defensively. Those guys are Quadir Copeland and Terrance Arceneaux.

Quadir Copeland is getting 28 minutes per game, but Terrance Arceneaux is only getting 15 minutes per game.

I think this is one area where you can buy yourself some possessions, get some stops, and cover up some of the roster flaws on the defensive end.

But I know what Wade is likely thinking. When you take Holloman off the floor, you’re becoming more one-dimensional. You have Copeland creating rim pressure, and that’s it. No one else is really a factor at beating you and creating something off the bounce.

But in these bad performances against elite offenses, we’ve never seen Arceneaux in extended minutes.

Against Louisville, he put up a +2.9 DPBM. Everyone else who played significant minutes wasn’t even close. Matt Able was next with +1.1 and everyone else was in the negatives (aside from DW, who had a +0.01).

Here are Arecenaux’s minutes against those top teams…

• Louisville: 17 Minutes LOSS
• Auburn: 13 Minutes LOSS
• Texas: 13 minutes LOSS
• SMU: 21 minutes WIN
• Virginia: 11 minutes LOSS
• Kansas: 14 minutes LOSS

See a difference? Arcenaux only eclipsed 20 minutes in one of these games, and it happened to be the one we won.

In fact, NC State hasn’t lost a game all season where Terrance Arceneaus has played 20+ minutes.

(Note that I’m not saying Arceneaux playing 20 minutes would have made us beat Louisville. Nothing was beating Louisville on that night. Just saying it would have likely helped.)

As we get into this final stretch, where you are going to face 3 offenses (Duke, UNC, UVA) in the 120+ efficiency range, and NC State is going to have to find ways to get stops, and while the current rotation has gotten you here, I think it’s worth wondering if a simple uptick in minutes for Terrance would help NC State get over the hump against offensively elite teams.