The Wolfpack gets to play super-duper hooper Cooper (Flagg)
When: Monday January 27 – 8:30 PM
Where: Cameron Indoor Stadium, Durham NC
TV: ESPN
Opponent: Duke University Blue Devils
Prediction – KenPom (KP) / Bart Torvik (BT): Duke 77-55 / Duke 76-54
Wolfpack Snapshot:
- Record: 9-10, 2-6
- Rankings: KP #101, BT #106, WAB -4.6 ranked 174th *
- NET Ranking: NET 120, 12th in ACC Conf NET rankings
- NET performance: Q1 (0-4), Q2 (1-3), Q3 (1-3), Q4 (7-0)
Wolfpack Season So Far:
NC State is on a 4-game losing streak. The five games since losing to Wake Forest by 16 have been close, but we’ve only ‘finished’ one of them.
A big problem is offense. In ACC play we are averaging 66.5 points per game, ranked 17th in the 18-team ACC. Our field goal percentage in ACC play is 42%, ranked 16th. Our 3PT field goal percentage in ACC play is 29.1%, ranked 17th. (See SM’s article) Not a recipe for success, and not a problem easily solved.
The frustrating thing about the offense is that during transfer season when talking about the transfers we signed, Coach Keatts specifically said they’d brought in 4 double digit scorers to attempt to address the scoring lost – plus he had already added a high school scoring machine.
Wolfpack Player Notes:
- Mike James had arthroscopic knee surgery on 10/30
Opponent Overview:
Duke is Duke, and expectations are high. The last team to win the national championship with a ‘one and done’ roster like this one was … you guessed it, Duke back in 2015. They have been hovering near the top of the rankings all season amidst the SEC teams.
Coach Jon Scheyer’s team finished last season 27-9 with a trip to the Elite Eight. In a crazy, but very satisfying, series of events NC State ended both their ACC and NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Blue Devils return two former starters from last season’s team, Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster.
They brought in transfers Mason Gillis (Purdue), Sion James (Tulane), and Maliq Brown (Syracuse), all former starters at their previous schools.
But all of the talk is about their freshman class. Coach Scheyer signed the #1 recruiting class for 2024, and they are living up to their press clippings. Cooper Flagg 5-star #1 prospect, Khaman Maluach 5-star #3 prospect, Isaiah Evans 5-star #8 prospect, Kon Knueppel 5-star #16 prospect, and Patrick Nqonqba 5-star #19 prospect, and Darren Harris 4-star Top 50 prospect.
You are good if you can sign three D1 starters in the transfer portal. You are spectacular if you can sign five, top 20, 5-star HS players. You are a genius if you can convince a couple of them that they aren’t starting.
Opponent Snapshot:
- Record: 17-2, 9-0
- Rankings: KP #1, BT #3, WAB 4.9 ranked 4th *
- NET Ranking: NET 2, 1st in ACC Conf NET rankings
- NET performance: Q1 (5-2), Q2 (2-0), Q3 (4-0), Q4 (6-0)
Their ACC Rankings of Note – Conference Play: (Source: theacc.com)
- Offense – #1
- Defense – #1
- Team FG % – #1
- Opp FG % – #1
- Team Rebounding – #1
- Opponent Team Rebounding – #1
- Assist / Turnover Ration – #1
- Assists – #1
Their Season So Far:
The Blue Devils are cooking. They currently have the nation’s longest winning streak at 13 games. Their only two losses on the season are to #12 Kansas (72-75) and #9 Kentucky (72-77), a pair of teams you might have heard of, both in November while these youngsters were still learning to play.
As we near the halfway point in the ACC, they are undefeated in league play with an average margin of victory of about 20 points.
Could they run the table in the ACC? It’s only been done 8 times (SC once, Duke & NC State twice each, and UNC 3 times) and not since 1999 when Duke went 16-0. Of those 8, only two (UNC & NC State) have gone on to win the national title, the last time in 1974 when the ACC season was 12 games. Could the Blue Devils go undefeated in the ACC regular season? Could they win it all? It’s possible, but really tough to maintain that level of play for 20 games. But I wouldn’t bet against them.
Just goes to show you, talent makes a difference.
Player Notes
ACC Ranks:
- Cooper Flagg – #1 scoring, #8 rebounding, #3 FG%, #8 assists per game
- Kon Knueppel – #4 3PT %, #4 3PT per game
- Sion James – #1 assist / turnover ratio
Keys To The Game
- Trap Game! – Duke has the Heels coming Saturday, no chance they are paying any attention at all to this game
* Welcome to the WAB – The WAB (wins against bubble) shows how many more, or fewer, wins a team has against its schedule versus what a bubble team would expect to have against the same schedule.