PRESS CONFERENCE TAKEAWAYS: Gainey gives insight into the frontcourt newcomers Jurkovic and Hall

Yesterday, new NC State head coach Justin Gainey met with the media to talk about the team’s summer workouts, his roster, and his expectations for the coming season.

The press conference ran over 20 minutes, and there were some questions that Gainey had pretty much answered before, but there were also some pretty interesting nuggets that jumped out at us. We wanted to highlight those and give a little context to them.  Over the next couple of days, we’ll be dissecting his quotes and giving your our take.

Let’s start with Gainey’s quotes on the two frontcourt newcomers, Robert Jurkovic and Shah Hall.

Robert Jurkovic is the 6’9, 24-year-old Slovenian big man, and Shah Hall is the 6’11 JUCO super-athlete they added towards the end of the portal season. These are two guys who look real good on paper, but they’re both kind of wild cards. Jurkovic less so, because he’s coming from one of the top leagues overseas, but Hall only has JUCO experience despite having a D-1 body and athleticism.

How will these guys acclimate to the highest level of college basketball? What is Gainey seeing in them and what can we expect their roles to be?

Well, he had a couple of quotes in there giving us a little insight into those two areas.

“I feel a lot better about (our frontcourt), obviously, adding two more pieces, adding depth to it. And both of those guys bring something that we didn’t have. Shah’s athleticism and size and, you know, how he moves is completely different than anybody else. And then Robert just brings you that veteran, older piece that’s versatile, can play both spots, can play inside, can also stretch the floor and shoot it outside. And so adding those two gives us five guys that we can play with down there. And so that makes me feel a lot better than I did before.”

“Shah is a guy that’s still developing. He’s raw, but really, really athletic. And, you know, his physicality and the way he moves, I didn’t see that, right? I didn’t see that coming. And, you know, he is further along than I thought he would be coming in. So, and those guys, I mean, Robert, you know, just his feel, his IQ. You know, you can watch him on film. You can talk to those guys over there. But until you have them and you’ve got them in your system, then you can, you know, you won’t really have a great feel for it. But being able to see him and how he executes and how he moves the ball and keeps the offense flowing and just have that European savvy about him.”

Let’s dig into these quotes for a second.

NC State landed Eemeli Yalaho (Texas Tech/Washington State) and Kyle Evans (UC Irvine) as their first two frontcourt pieces, and while both of these guys were huge gets, NC State needed more depth. Yalaho is a guy whose most cited attribute was his 40% shooting from 3-point range at 6’8. Kyle Evans, a 6’10 center, was the nation’s leader in blocked shots per game at Irvine. It was clear that State needed a physical presence or enforcer type behind Evans, who at 210lbs would be one of the lighter centers in the ACC.

They swung at a few 7-footers, but ended up missing for one reason or another, which led to them taking a flyer on the 6’11 specimen, Shah Hall.

Shah Hall: roll the tape 🎥 pic.twitter.com/7riKxZCe3q

— NC State Men’s Basketball (@PackMensBball) June 22, 2026

Hall is massive. He’s 24olbs of pure muscle and athleticism. He blocked 2.2 shots per game (Evans led the nation at 3.3 per game), but the fact that he was a late add and coming from JUCO, we don’t know much about him, which is why hearing Gainey talk about him was interesting.

“Shah’s athleticism and size and how he moves is completely different than anybody else”

“He’s raw, but really, really athletic.”

“He’s further along than I thought he would be coming in.”

Now, piece that together with what NC State basketball GM Patrick Stacy had to say about him on our podcast a few weeks back…

“Shah is someone who sticks out. He’s a guy that gets off the bus, and you’re like, ‘Wow, that guy’s a stud.’ He’s really physical. Really, really athletic. Last year we had Scottie (Ebube), who is a freak athlete for his size. Shah is the same way. He’s a really good athlete; he’s got really good feet on the perimeter and can move. He can get into all those ball screen coverages we’re going to ask him to be in. Someone that is going to finish at a high clip around the basket. He sent back 2 and a half shots per game in JUCO last year, so he’s a guy you can put in there and not lose a step physicality-wise against (large ACC bigs). He’s going to be a crucial piece of what we do and our ability to match up against everyone.”

Based on the roster itself and these quotes, I think it’s clear that Gainey and his staff see Shah Hall as someone who is going to play a role this season. Stacy’s quotes about how they will use him and Gainey’s comment on how he’s more advanced than he thought he’d be hint at that. And while Stacy mentioned him as a comp to Ebube, I think they’ll ask more from Shah Hall than they asked from Ebube.

If you look at the roster, they don’t really have a big, thick bruiser at the 5 other than Hall. Sure, they’ll run out Evans, and there will be times where they move over Jurkovic to the 5, but neither of those guys can give you what Hall can give you physicality and size-wise. Meanwhile, last year you had Ven-Allen Lubin, who gave you big-time physicality at the 5  (even though he was only 6’8), which made Ebube more expendable.

I believe Hall’s role is partly dictated by the play of Kyle Evans, but mostly dictated by the matchups. If NC State’s opponent has a big who is just eating on the blocks and strong enough to simply move Evans or Jurkovic, then Hall will be relied upon defensively.

Now, onto Robert Jurkovic, who we just recently talked about…

𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇: 𝐉𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐜 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 ‘𝐀𝐬 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝’ 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞

The 6’10 Slovenian big man flew into Raleigh 2 days ago to join the team.

Here is the video + a breakdown from GM Patrick Stacy on his game. https://t.co/0t65k2H1ms

— PackPride.com (@PackPride) July 3, 2026

Gainey had a lot of great things to say about the 6’9 late addition from Slovenia.

“Robert just brings you that veteran, older piece that’s versatile, can play both spots, can play inside, can also stretch the floor and shoot it outside. And so adding those two gives us five guys that we can play with down there. And so that makes me feel a lot better than I did before.”

“Robert, you know, just his feel, his IQ. You know, you can watch him on film. You can talk to those guys over there. But until you have them and you’ve got them in your system, then you can, you know, you won’t really have a great feel for it. But being able to see him and how he executes and how he moves the ball and keeps the offense flowing and just have that European savvy about him.”

These quotes kind of confirm the hope.

First off, what stands out is the talk of his age and savvy. He’s 24 years old, and he’s played in these high-level Euro leagues. He’s experienced, and he’s a high-IQ guy. so I don’t think any of that is surprising.

What stood out to me was the fact that Gainey went out of his way to say he “can play both spots.”

This was something we thought might be the case, but we were not totally sure how it would play out.

Jurkovic will likely start out at the 4, competing for minutes with Yalaho, but the more I hear about him and the more I see him, I think the real competition will end up being between Yalaho and Evans. Now, I don’t mean directly competing for minutes.

What I mean is that if Yalaho can give NC State good defense at the 4, while producing on the blocks (we already know he can shoot it from deep), then you may see Gainey lock him into the 4 and lean on Jurkovic at the 5 more than originally thought. Think about that, with him out there, every single guy in your starting 5 would be close to a 40% 3pt shooter. That’s absolutely deadly. In fact, I’m not sure there’s been many (if any) starting 5s that can say that. This, of course, would be matchup-dependent.

However, if Yalaho isn’t producing on the block or defensively, then State will need to keep Evans on the floor at all costs, creating a situation where Jurkovic and Yalaho are competing for time.

Either way, the quotes from Gainey should tell you one thing: he believes he has a lot of chess pieces in the frontcourt, and no matter what a team throws at him, he thinks he has the guys to matchup.