NC State Forward Mohamed Diarra will not be returning to NC State for his final season of eligibility. Rather, he will give 100% of his focus to pursuing his professional career.
Diarra is declaring for the NBA Draft, and will explore that possibility as far as it goes, but the likelihood of him playing professionally in his home country of France are high.
Diarra was a significant player for NC State all season long, averaging 6.3 points and 7.8 rebounds (team high), but his impact in March was tremendous, recording 10+ rebounds in 7 of the Wolfpack’s 10 postseason games, and five of those performances were double-doubles.
Wolfpack fans will always remember the grit and mental toughness that Diarra put on display in the NCAA Tournament, playing game-after-game while fasting for Ramadan.
The Wolfpack’s frontcourt just got a little bit thinner. In the past two weeks, NC State has lost Diarra and Ernest Ross. Ben Middlebrooks is returning, and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield transferred in from Louisville. Dontrez Styles transferred in from Georgetown, and while he is more of a Small Forward, in certain lineups, he could play the Small 4 position. With all that being said, I fully expect NC State to try to find another post player in the Transfer Portal with Diarra’s exodus now official.
With Diarra not returning in 2024, NC State now has 2 scholarships available for next season.
I agree with Afterglow… Smith played a sloppy game. EIGHT turnovers!
Thomas played a good game. Glad to see him come on.
Boy was I glad to see Mahoric return. Burns played well but he really needed a breather and Mahoric came back in with a vengeance.
Joiner is special. What a portal prize he has turned out to be.
Agree Joiner is special. He’s also doing a great job taking advantage when Smith is commanding of a lot of the defense’ attention. And Morsell as well. Joiners mid range pull up is deadly.
All three guards are playing really good defense and being disruptive.
It was nice to see LJ be solid when spelling Joiner. He’s really strong with the ball and not phased at all at the task.
Clark is finding his special place on the team as well.
We have so much good stuff to talk about this team, its really fun.
I am glad Smith came back so don’t take this negatively. Like I’ve said before, in the games I’ve seen this year, it often feels like he tries to do too much. But moreover, he seems to be playing sloppy. Some of the mistakes he made today were headscratchers, like dangerous cross court passes, not taking care of the ball, or over dribbling. I know it’s early but thought I’d just mention it. I know with Seabron I thought the same thing but that was more a function of him catching up with his own speed. Maybe it’s some of… Read more »
Smith is asked to make plays, and he is certainly doing that. I’m not sure where the right balance for him is between carefulness and fearlessness, but it seems the latter is what makes him a great player. 8 turnovers is too many, but 6 assists is pretty awesome against that defense, in a game where Joiner had no assists. We were trying to play fast on offense to keep them from bogging us down, and that means multiple attempts at beating your defender on drives. I thought all our guards including Smith played really good defense overall. If our… Read more »
Playing Butler means playing Manny. Not sure I want to do that. Tired legs makes it difficult to hit threes.