That look at the men’s team earlier this week was a bit of a downer, so let’s cleanse the palette a bit by looking under the hood of the women’s team, why don’t we. Despite a couple of significant injury setbacks, Wes Moore’s latest NC State team has established itself as a top-25 squad with upside.
This group is tracking similarly in last year’s, which finished at No. 22 in offensive efficiency and No. 10 in defensive efficiency. The effectiveness of the Pack on the defensive side is noteworthy considering that it is playing smaller in general this season.
The smaller lineups have come at some cost on the boards, as State’s defensive rebounding rate has dipped from 15th last season to 84th—hopefully that gets better but it’s hardly disastrous.
As usual, the Pack’s risk-averse defense isn’t forcing a lot of turnovers but does tend to stifle teams inside the arc while keeping them off the free throw line. Including this season, State’s defensive free throw rate has ranked in the top 10 in four of the last five years (it was 17th in the other). That is very handy.
Opponents have attempted a three on 38% of their shots, which is well above the national average. The perimeter defense has been a problem at times, but State will happily accept teams settling for outside shots this often.
Offensively, NC State is shooting the ball a bit better both inside and out compared to last season, but has been dreadful at the free throw line (64.1%, 320th). Though the picture is not quite so ugly at the stripe if you remove Mallory Collier and Lorena Awou, who are a combined 11-40 (!), from the team total. Everybody else is shooting a combined 70.8%, which is passable, at least.
(You can see the potential that Awou has, as she’s been a menace on the offensive boards in her limited minutes and her free throw rate stands out as a result, but she needs to spend about half the offseason on free throws.)
NC State has been without Zamareya Jones, who was coming off her best game of the year when she got hurt, for five games—State has won four of those, and the offense has held up fine in her absence, which is encouraging. Wes Moore doesn’t have any reason to rush her back, especially given the upcoming schedule.
And let’s talk about that schedule for a minute. State has played the seventh-toughest league slate to this point, per Torvik, but has the softest schedule in the league remaining. The folks at ACC headquarters did us a solid this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if State stays in the regular season title hunt well into February.
The Pack is a double-digit favorite in each of its next five contests and should be in excellent position come February and the tough finishing stretch that includes Duke, FSU, UNC, GT, and Notre Dame with only Miami as a breather in the middle. If the team can utilize the next five to get better and play its best ball down the stretch, it might just have another good March ahead of it.