Let’s launch league play the right way
When: Saturday December 7 – 4:00 PM
Where: Lenovo Center (venue formerly known as PNC Arena)
TV: ESPNU
Opponent: Florida State Seminoles (ACC)
Prediction – KenPom (KP) / Bart Torvik (BT): Wolfpack 73-71 / Wolfpack 74 – 70
Wolfpack Snapshot: KP #75 / BT # 71 / NET 120
Wolfpack Season So Far: 5-3
Wolfpack Player Notes:
- Mike James had knee surgery on 10/30. Expected to miss 3-4 weeks.
Opponent Overview:
Coach Leonard Hamilton’s Seminoles were picked to finish 15th in the league this season.
FSU got hit hard with departures, six players started more than one game last season, and only Jamir Watkins returned. Luckily for Coach Hamilton, he was their leading scorer & rebounder. Two other key bench players returned, Jackson and Bol Bowen.
They added four transfers. Guards Bostyn Holt from South Dakota and Jason Simpson from St John’s are expected to be immediate contributors. Forwards Jerry Deng from Hampton and top-rated JUCO Malique Ewin fill out the list of transfers.
Hamilton also brought in five freshmen; the highest profile is CG Daquan Davis (4-star, 247 #91) out of OTE. They also added guard Anastasios Rozakeas from Greece, 6’11” forward Christian Nitu from Canada, plus 3-star forward AJ Swinton, and 3-star 7’0” center Alier Maluk.
Their Season So Far: 7-2 KP #63 / BT #70 / NET 73
FSU has played a decent schedule; one that based on rankings, seems tougher than ours. It’ll be interesting to see if it makes a difference long term. So far, they lost their two tough games.
Their first three games were wins against Northern Kentucky (KP 200) (+12), Rice (KP 164) (+8), and Tarleton State (KP 317) (+20).
They then hosted the Florida Gators (KP 8) and were down 44-31 at the half and played even the rest of the way to lose 87-74. The Gators out shot FSU 52.46% / 35.71% / 76.47% to 38.57% / 35% / 61.9% and out rebounded them by 18. The stat that kept the Seminoles in the game was forcing 19 turnovers.
Next up were wins against Hofstra (KP 163) (+18), Temple (KP 115) (+9), UMass (KP 166) (+33), and Western Carolina (KP 296) (+34).
FSU drew LSU in the ACC / SEC challenge and did well in the first half , leading 35-32 at the break behind 13 points by Ewin. Then after the half, LSU came out and scored 8 straight and never looked back, winning 85-75. The Tigers did it in the second half by shutting down ‘hot hand’ Ewin, holding him to 4 second half points, and forcing 7 turnovers.
Player Notes:
Jamir Watkins is 8th in the ACC in scoring, he scored 30 against Rice
The ‘Noles bring in a couple of big gunners off the bench. 6’7” guard Justin Thomas shoots 41.7% (10/24 – 2.6 attempts per, 7.4 ppg) and 6’9” forward Jerry Deng shoots 37.8% (14/37 – 4.3 attempts per, 6.7 ppg) from 3PT.
Looking Ahead for the Wolfpack
As we watch our dreams of Selection Sunday relevance via OOC wins turning to dust, we shift our focus to the ACC regular season. Our most likely path to the post season is now via ACC wins. We just saw the SEC destroy the ACC this week. Are we all terrible? How does NC State stack up against the ACC in a few key statistical categories so far?
- Scoring – At 74.6 ppg, the Pack ranks 14th in the ACC. But as shown in the table, we struggle to score against better competition.
- Scoring Defense – At 65.5 ppg, we are 5th in the ACC and we seem to be able to do it against better teams. We held Texas 20 points below their season average, their lowest point total of the season so far. BYU averaged 90 ppg, we held them to 18 points below their average, their second lowest point total of the season. But in both cases, we were their first tough competition. Last season our opponents averaged 71.8 ppg. Our defense is ahead of our offense at this point.
- Field Goal Percentage – We currently rank 6th in the ACC. But, we had a tough time the last three games against the grown ups. The average of the last three would rank us near the bottom of the ACC.
- Three point percentage – No surprise here, But it is noteworthy that in the last two games we exceeded our season average.
- Three pointers made per game – No surprise, teams will dare us to shoot all season.
- Free throw percentage – Again, no surprise (and no excuse)
- Rebounds – We’re ranked 15th, but if you used the last three games as our average, we would be ranked 18th.
- Assists – We are sharing the ball well, and that didn’t drop off too much against better competition.
- Turnovers – Our 10.3 turnovers per game ranks us tied for 13th, but we force 14.9. The margin of 4.63 is ranked 1st in the ACC. Our assist/Turnover ratio is 1.41, ranked 8th in the ACC. We seem to be trending in the right direction.
- Steals – We are currently ranked 4th, but against P4 competition we averaged 4.6, near the bottom of the ACC.
What does it mean?
(Caveat: Just a reminder that these ACC statistics are built on wildly varying strengths of schedule, and every ACC team is still a work in progress.)
If you’ve been paying attention, it’s no surprise to learn that the ‘early December’ Wolfpack is not nearly ready for the ACC wars. Lucky for us, we have four games to get better until December 31 when the season starts full time in Charlottesville. We have seen improvements over the first 8 games. We’re going to need more.