The Wolfpack takes on the Mustangs
When: Saturday January 25 – 12:00 PM
Where: Lenovo Center
TV: The CW
Opponent: SMU Mustangs
Prediction – KenPom (KP) / Bart Torvik (BT): SMU 75-72 / SMU 75-74
Wolfpack Snapshot:
- Record: 9-9, 2-5
- Rankings: KP #97, BT #96, WAB -4.0 ranked 158th *
- NET Ranking: NET 114, 12th in ACC Conf NET rankings
- NET performance: Q1 (0-4), Q2 (1-3), Q3 (1-2), Q4 (7-0)
Wolfpack Season So Far:
NC State is in its second 3 game losing streak of the season, with a rough 3-game stretch starting with SMU (Q2) followed by a trip to Duke (Q1) Monday and Clemson (Q2) at home Saturday, all followed by a two-game road trip to California, and returning home to face Q1 Louisville. Break out ALL your lucky gear, this could turn tragic.
Longest losing streaks of Coach Keatts’ tenure by season:
(2016-17: Gottfried had a 7-game losing streak)
- 2017-18: 2 games
- 2018-19: 3 games
- 2019-20: 3 games
- 2020-21: 4 games
- 2021-22: 6 games, (plus a pair of 5 game streaks)
- 2022-23: 2 games
- 2023-24: 4 games
- 2024-25: 3 games (…)
Wolfpack Player Notes:
- Mike James had arthroscopic knee surgery on 10/30.
Opponent Overview:
SMU was picked by the ACC voters to finish 13th in preseason voting. They are currently ranked 5th in the real world. [take that, sports writers!]
After last season, SMU was one of the first dominos in the most entertaining coaching carousel lately when they let go of Rob Lanier after just two seasons. Andy Enfield had reached his expiration date at USC, so jumped to SMU. Eric Musselman left Arkansas to go to USC, John Calipari left Kentucky to go to Arkansas, and Mark Pope left BYU to go to Kentucky.
The coaching change spurred a heavy roster turnover, the Mustangs retained three players, starters Chuck Harris and BJ Edwards, and high usage bench player Keon Ambrose-Hylton.
Coach Enfield picked up 7 transfers. Starters Boopie Miller (Wake Forest) and Matt Cross (UMass), plus Kario Oquendo (Oregon), AJ George (LB State), Yohan Traore (UCSB), Tibet Garener (SJ State), and Jerrell Colbert (K State).
The freshman class is Mitchell Holmes (3 star), Chance Puryear (3-star) and Turkish big man 7’1” Samet Yigitoglu. Yigitoglu anchors the starting lineup.
Opponent Snapshot:
- Record: 14-5, 5-3
- Rankings: KP #52, BT #58, WAB +0.11 ranked 51th *
- NET Ranking: NET 44, 6th in ACC Conf NET rankings
- NET performance: Q1 (0-4), Q2 (3-1), Q3 (6-0), Q4 (5-0)
Their ACC Rankings of Note : (Source: theacc.com)
- 1st in Offense
- 2nd in Team FG Percentage
- 5th in Opponent FG Percentage
- 2nd in Team 3PT Percentage
- 1st in Team Rebounds
- 1st in Team Offensive Rebounds
- 2nd in Assist / Turnover Ratio
Their Season So Far:
SMU only played one Q1 OOC team, Miss St, losing at home by 5. Their other 3 P4 opponents were a loss at Butler (-11), and home wins against Wash St (+17), and LSU (+10).
In the ACC so far, they’ve only lost at home to Duke (-27), at UNC (-15) and at home to Louisville (-25) Tuesday, and have beaten UVA twice (+12) and (+2), BC (+26), GT (+22), and destroyed Miami (+43) last Saturday.
Player Notes
- Matt Cross 7th in rebounding
- Boopie Miller is 4th in Assists and 3rd in Assist / Turnover Ratio
- BJ Edwards is 2nd in steals, Boopie Miller is 8th
Keys To The Game
- Feed the ball inside – SMU Center Samet Yiğitoğlu is foul prone. He has picked up 4 fouls 10 times this season, including a notable visit to BC in which he only played 7 minutes.
- Guard the 3PT line – The starting 3 guards and forward average 38.47% from 3PT. They made 14 in wins last Saturday against Miami and again against GT the week before. In their 3 ACC losses they’ve made 6, 5, and 4.
* 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.