A deep dive into our offensive potential for this season
Season Previews:
This is the fourth in a series of weekly articles leading up to opening night against USC Upstate on November 4. (Banners will go up!)
- Full Schedule Released – Taking a look at new Wolfpack committment Mikey Wilkins; New schedule released; Analyzing the OOC schedule
- Re-introducing the ‘24-’25 players – Breakdown on all 13 players
- What about rebounding? – This team should be much, much better.
- Where’s the offense going to come from? – We’ve got potential.
- The ‘24-’25 Defense
- Who’s going to be the X-Factor this season?
Basketball News & Notes:
- The National Letter Of Intent (LOI) has been eliminated. Players will sign finanacial aid and revenue share documents from the new school. Once signed, recruiting communications from other schools will be prohibited and decommitting will become more difficult.
- Transfer Window changes – The window to officially announce a transfer in basketball will now start the Monday after the second round of the NCAA tournament (a week later), and will last only 30 days. (15 days shorter) The change applies to football as well, but the spring transfer window will be retained. The football transfer portal will be open this year from Dec. 9 to 28 and April 16 to 25
- Bryce Heard can vote! – Bryce, the youngest player on our team, turned 18 on the 8th. Just in time.
- KenPom 2025 is out – NC State (#52) ranks 6th in the ACC behind #2 Duke, #14 UNC, #24 Clem, #38 Pitt, and #44 Wake. Miami, Lou, Syr, ND and GT fall right behind us between #55-#70. A pretty good showing for the ACC. KP has us ranked 66th in expected defensive efficiency and 44th in offensive efficiency. Which perfectly segways into …
Where’s the offense coming from this season?
We lost our DJs and a total of four of our five leading scorers. They accounted for 62.4% of our total team scoring. In Raleigh, this is more the norm than an exception. Every season of Coach Keatts’ tenure at NC State he has had to replace the previous season’s leading scorer. (‘18 – A. Freeman, ‘19 – Dorn, ‘20 – Bryce, ‘21 – Daniels, ‘22 – Seabron, ‘23 – Joiner, and ‘24 – Horne) Who’s going to be THE GUY this season? Will it be transfer Marcus Hill, the top returning scorer in Division 1? Are the new guys going to be able to pick up the scoring slack?
Fast Facts:
Scoring – We have six players that averaged double figures in college ball last season, although one did it in Canada and another at a mid-major. Last season we had four. Just like rebounding, they won’t all get starter minutes so probably won’t replicate these stats. But if the guys on the floor aren’t scoring, there should be alternatives.
Shooting percentages – If you accumulate the ‘23-’24 individual shooting percentages of next season’s Wolfpack lineup, excluding freshmen, and compare it to last season’s team shooting stats, they are weirdly similar. Absolutely meaningless, but interesting on an otherwise slow news day. (FG % / 3PT % / FT %)
- ’23-’24 was 45% / 34.5% / 73.3%
- ’24-’25 is 45.7% / 34.3% / 74.1%
Three-point Shooting – Last season’s team had 4 players that attempted 80 or more, Horne (40.4%), O’Connell (37.5%), Taylor (36.4%), and Morsell (27%). This season we lost Horne & Morsell and added 3 players who attempted at least 90 last season, Styles (36.8%), James (34%), and Hill (28.9%).
Scoring Matters
Last season’s offense was below the ACC median ( 8th, 9th, or 10th) in every offensive category, except margin of victory. This is a problem, because as you might have heard, the team that scores the most points frequently wins games. (science!) It’s no coincidence that the four teams that dominate the offensive statistics (UNC, Duke, UVA, Pitt) were also the top four teams in the ACC rankings at the end of the regular season. (but not after the ACC tournament!!)
How do we increase our scoring and shooting efficiency?
Generally, the expectation is Huntley-Hatfield is replacing Burns, Styles is replacing Diarra, James is replacing Morsell, and Hill is replacing Horne. Obviously, that is a wild oversimplification and will not end up being how it plays out statistically. Those outgoing 4 guys are irreplaceable, each in their own way. But as a basis of comparison when reviewing the table above, it’s a place to start.
When comparing the total shot volume numbers in the table, remember the Pack played 41 games last season. Huntley-Hatfield, James, and Styles played 32, Hill played 34. The incoming guys statistically shoot more field goals and fewer 3PT shots. Higher percentage shots.
If you compare each player with this season’s replacement, the comparisons look pretty good. Obviously, the Horne / Hill comparison shows that they are both high volume scorers, but get it done in different ways. (Note: If Hill had played 41 games at the same number of attempts per game, he would have taken 693 shots on the season.) Quantity versus quality.
The most dramatic difference is the free throws. We struggled to take the ball to the rim last season, and DJ Burns could not get fouls called on his defenders. Both Hill and James are very good at driving the ball inside and either scoring or drawing fouls, and they both shoot free throws well. While Huntley-Hatfield’s FT shooting percentage needs work, he attempted more FT than any of our starters last season. More inside scoring and trips to the FT line should elevate our overall team shooting percentage and points per possession.
Where’s the 3PT shooting going to come from?
As you can see in the shooting detail table above, we don’t have anyone like the phenomenal DJ Horne this season.
However, last season we had six players in the regular rotation that shot 30+%, this season we will have eight. And historically, our transfers have improved their shooting here. Hopefully somebody can be ‘on’ every night.
What can we actually count on? (the rest is just speculation)
We are returning our overall second best 3PT shooter from last season, Jayden Taylor. He shot 36.4% and took and made the second most on the team behind DJ Horne. That was the best season of his career, both in volume and efficiency. We should expect more of the same. (hopefully Casey Morsell’s senior season shooting nose dive was an abberation)
Michael O’Connell shot the second highest 3PT percentage (37.5%) on the team for the season but was a little shy from distance during the regular season, shooting only 14/48 (29.2%). But then the light came on and he shot 16/32 (50%) in the final ten games. I expect that volume to go up significantly this season. He is going to be a threat from the arc. In his summer press conference Coach Keatts said, “Michael is shooting from everywhere.”
Dontrez Styles is a really good shooter and shooting from distance is a big part of his game. He took 133 3PT shots last season, about the same as Casey Morsell who had the 3rd most attempts on the Wolfpack. However, Styles shot 36.8%, about 10 percentage points better than Morsell.
Our ‘designated drivers’ put the excitement back in 3PT shooting
Marcus Hill and Mike James do a lot of their damage taking the ball to the rim, either by scoring close to the rim or converting free throws.
Scoring breakdown by shot for the ‘23-’24 season
- Hill – 2PT 65.6%, 3PT 11.2%, free throw 23.2%
- James – 2PT 41.8%, 3PT 26.9%, free throw 31.3%
Hill probably will not be leaning heavily on his 3PT shot this season. Last season he was Bowling Green’s scoring workhorse but still averaged only 2.6 3PT attempts per game. (For comparison, DJ Horne averaged 6.5 pg) But he is a solid (74%) free throw shooter.
James is a textbook hot/cold 3PT shooter. Last season he shot 34% in 32 games and hit 5-6 and 5-7 in back to back ACC games and 4 in another, but he shot 0-fer in 15 games, The previous season was a similar story. He shot 35.7% for the 32 game season and went for 5-9 and 4-6 in back to back ACC games but shot 0-fer in 16 games. (Close your eyes when he puts it up!) However, he’s an excellent (81.8%) free throw shooter.
Other reasons for optimism:
Dennis Parker Jr was a 37.5% 3PT shooter his senior season in HS with 120 attempts. He only attempted 39 last season (30.8%), but word from practice is he is shooting better and getting some coaching from Coach Nelson, our new assistant coach who was a 3PT wizard when in school at Univ of Florida. DPJ’s not going to attempt 100+ like he did in HS, but it would be great to see him increase his percentage and take 2-3 a game. Not an unreasonable expectation.
Paul McNeil has already been identified by Coach Keatts as “possibly the best shooter on the team.” Wolfpack 3PT legend Scott Woods has said, “That guy can really shoot!” Paul is a high-volume, high-quality shooter. For his HS career, he attempted 728 3PT shots and hit 37%.
In one of the ACC Tipoff pressers, Coach Keatts said Huntley-Hatfield is a “much better 3PT shooter than he’s given credit for.” (he shot 9/21 last season) So we might see the big man taking a few more deep shots this season.
CONCLUSION
The potential to be a good offensive team is there. Can we put it together on the court? TBD
- Shooting percentage – We will shoot more short range, higher percentage shots which should translate to an overall higher team shooting percentage.
- Points per possession – We will shoot more free throws. The four primary transfers (BHH, Hill, James, Styles) took and made 50% more free throws than the four outgoing starters (DJB, DJH, Morsell, Diarra) they replace. This should mean we more consistently score points on possessions.
- 3PT shooting – We’ll have four solid 3PT shooters, rather than three. We return our 2nd and 3rd best 3PT shooters (O’Connell 37.5% & Taylor 36.4% ), and add Styles (36.8%) and James (34%) who both shot better than any other player in the Wolfpack’s regular rotation last season, excluding Horne.