NC State opens the season tonight at 7pm against Georgia Southern, and while there is much anticipation, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. Here are 5 things that we will be watching in tonight’s opener.
1) What does NC State’s frontcourt look like without Yurtseven
Without the 7 foot, 5-star freshman on the floor for the first 9 games (due to NCAA’s ruling), Gottfried will have to figure out how to use his existing frontcourt pieces. What he has to work with is Beejay Anya, Malik Abu and Darius Hicks. Ted Kapita has still not been cleared and it’s looking less and less likely as they continue to hold off on a decision.
So what route will Gottfried take? I think it will go game by game. Sometimes Gott will run out his 4 guard lineup with Abu in the middle, in an attempt to out-athlete his opponents. There will also be times where we see a more traditional lineup with both Anya and Abu in there.
What to pay attention to tonight is how and when he decides to go with certain lineups and how those lineups produce. Is Anya going to slow the team down on the break? Will they get outrebounded with only Abu in the paint? These are things to watch for in the Wolfpack frontcourt.
2) Does team chemistry look good?
The talent is there for this team, and barring injury, the only thing that we feel could stop them is some sort of chemistry issue. Now, we definitely don’t think this team will suffer from that. Smith, Henderson and Dorn spent much of last year on the bench, plotting this upcoming season, and by the early looks of things, this team is clicking unlike any we’ve seen before (this early in the season.) They are sharing the ball, they are on the same page, and they look like they are having a blast out there. Sure, we only saw two exhibition games, but we will be watching if they can transition that type of attitude and teamwork into the regular season.
3) What does Dennis Smith Jr look like at 100%?
We’ve seen Smith in the red and white game and we’ve seen him in these early season exhibition games, but watching him closely, you could tell that he was holding back just a bit. Not yet ready to go all out for games that don’t matter. So, what does Dennis Smith Jr look like when he’s full throttle and taking no prisoners? Tonight we will get our first glimpse.
4) How disciplined is this team defensively?
This is a very fast-paced, athletic team, and they are going to do a lot of their damage on the break. But being a team that dominates on the break means you have to get stops on the defensive end. Is this team able to create turnovers, and if so, can they do it without gambling too much defensively? The one thing you worry about is a team that wants to get out on the break so bad that they become obsessed with reaching for a steal or jumping the passing lane too quickly. Can this team sit and a stance and defend? Can they stay in the passing lanes to disrupt offensively flow without jumping out of position on pass fakes? Can they stay in front of their man without reaching, leading to blowbys and defensive rotations? Will they switch on high screens instead of hedging and recovering, now that they have a more versatile group?
This is a young team, so discipline on defense might still be a work in progress, but if this team is going to contend for any hardware, they are going to need to learn to harness that athleticism into become shut down defenders. Tonight we’ll try to guage where they are and how far they need to go.
5) How many highlight reel dunks will we see?
This is less about scouting the team and more about pure entertainment, but with Smith, Kirk, Dorn, Johnson and Abu, you’re sure to get your fill of highlights. This is one reason that this team is going to be very fun to watch. The athleticism is just off the charts and there could be an ESPN Top 10 moment at any time.
Georgia Southern’s coach threw everything in the book at the Wolfpack. Dude 3/4 court pressed/trapped pretty much the entire game, switched up defenses, and attacked. Our boys seemed to struggle against that zone D. Jacked up a lot of bad jumpers. Should have been busting that zone with dribble penetration the entire game.
Dennis struggled out there against the press and zone. He will learn.
Mav needs to work on his perimeter defense. Guy has concrete in his shoes. He’s so good on offense but a major defensive liability.
Wow! Not the start I had envisioned. Good wake up call for this team to come out focused and stay focused for 40 minutes. The FT shooting was atrocious until the end of the game. Luckily we hit the FTs when we absolutely had to. Anya is a waste. Abu played soft most of game. Dennis took a lot of bad shots. Torin is the man and Terry played well for most of game. This is not HS Dennis.
Lou, you should always have a poll on pregame articles. Who scores the most? The list should include: Dennis, Torin, Terry, Mav
I expect to see some turnovers and sloppy play to start. Then the kids get into a flow and start a run. We win by 35.
As Lou mentioned, we likely play small ball considering the competition is also pretty small. I expect to see a lot of fast breaks and rim rocking dunks. I would be surprised if we don’t go to the line at least 20 times.
Big question for me is how does this team rebound?
#3 – this
I was telling a Wolfpack buddy of mine the other day that Dennis looked like he was going maybe 80% in the 2 exhibition games. I really feel like he’s got at least another gear he hasn’t shown yet.
If the competition isn’t up to his level, he will not go 100%.