Last season Maverick Rowan was thrown to the fire, with the injury to Terry Henderson he was forced into a much larger role than Gottfried had intended. In fact Rowan started 31 games for the Pack, and averaged 12.9 points per contest. His 426 points was third best in NC State history for a freshman. There is no question that Rowan was a welcome addition and had plenty of memorable scoring games last season.
With the good came the bad though, Rowan was subpar in his shooting percentage, he finished the season at a 36% clip. Although he found a way to score, defensively he left much to be desired. One of his biggest weaknesses was his lateral movement. Maverick was sluggish moving laterally and could not keep anyone in front of him, this put lots of pressure on NC State’s help side defense. Another area where Maverick was weak was rebounding, for someone who is 6-7 and has a decent build, he only yielded 3.1 boards a game.
Where does all of this leave Rowan? NC State has added talent for the upcoming season, and have plenty of options for the wing. Gottfried now has the following options to play the perimeter, Dennis Smith Jr, Terry Henderson, Torin Dorn, and Markell Johnson. It appears that the starting lineup will consist of DSJ, Terry Henderson, Torin Dorn, Malik Abu, and Omer Yurtseven.
That leaves Rowan to come off the bench, but that is not a bad thing. By playing with the second unit Rowan will be able give some instant scoring punch, while facing a teams lesser defender. Also in some situations Rowan could see minutes with a smaller lineup that can provide outside shooting, by pairing with Smith, Henderson, and Dorn. Once again Maverick should be able to take advantage of a favorable matchup as a team’s best defender should be matched on Smith or Henderson.
The best thing Maverick can do is accept his role and fill it. This offseason will be important as Rowan will need to improve his shooting off the catch, and work on his other parts of the game to help improve those around him. If Rowan can improve his handle, conditioning, and quickness then he can have an even bigger impact this season despite not playing as many minutes.
Maverick will be needed next season if State will contend for the ACC and have a deep NCAA run. Also by filling his role this season and getting better at shot selection, and improving his all around game he will be in line to have a great last two seasons at NC State.
What do you think Rowan’s impact will be this coming season?
Wolfpack Steve Wolfer96 wolfpack74 STFU. I have been a fan for almost 50 years, so I don’t need anyone telling me what I should or shouldn’t do. For UNC, I believe they have won many more games than we have, fair weather or not.
Wolfer96 wolfpack74 you guys both need to buy tar heel tickets, they have thousands of fair weather fans, real wolfpack fan’s stick with the team win or lose, heartbreak after heartbreak.
PackJunky Didn’t we recruit for that team, two five stars and a four? Yes IMO, Painter was a big loss. They still didn’t play as a team and looked as if they didn’t care one way or another.
If Rowan can knock down shots at a higher percentage than last year, then there will be a spot on the floor for him for a good amount of minutes. Hes got a quick release and a good pump fake and he should be able to take some better looks this year. Also, I’m not sure if its true or not but did he not grow another inch or so? If so, that ontop of a year of college conditioning should offset at least some of his defensive woo’s. Enough to make him good? No, but enough to make him… Read more »
One word… depth. The reason that 2013 team didn’t meet expectations was bc of a lack of depth. If we had Painter for front court depth, it would’ve gotten us to a S16 IMO. It was basically the same core guys that did it the year before.
wolfpack74 Wolfer96 You know as State fans we have to be bipolar. You know I’m not a huge fan of Gottfried but this is by far the best recruiting class he has ever assembled and possibly one of the top 3 classes in Wolfpack history. We’ve been missing 3 things for the longest time: 1. a great PG 2. a great center 3. depth For this 1st time in I don’t know how long we potentially have all 3. Even the worst coach can win with this group. By the way, for the 1st time in 2 decades I stopped watching… Read more »
Wolfer96 You sound pretty fired up about this team. I on the other hand will wait and see if they can qualify, pass NCAA inspection, and mess together. I also remember the big letdown when the guys didn’t play together in 2013, so I will wait. Remember Gott is good at recruiting but not so much at game time coaching. Maybe the new coaches can help.
Very reasonable assessment. I think the defense and offensive efficiency might be the things that might give Dorn the edge, but I don’t know. I really haven’t seen or heard anything about what kind of defender he is. I do know he reportedly was tearing it up in practice last year. The good thing is they practiced with and against each other last year, so the staff already has plenty of comparative data points to help them make the best decisions
Personally I would not be so quick to relegate Maverick as a bench guy. I think last season was not the best situation for him. He was a freshman on a sub-par team. That meant that he wasn’t always getting clean looks and there was really no one on State’s roster that demanded a double team. And there was a lot of pressure for him to score as a freshman and I don’t think he was ready for that level of pressure. With Dennis running point and with a bevy of talent that could force teams to employ help defense,… Read more »