Gottfried strikes again — lands potential starting senior point guard

11-12 Basketball Basketball Recruiting68

NC State may have evolved from 2011-2012 ‘also ran’ to NCAA Tournament material in Mark Gottfried’s one short month on the job.

Earlier this week, the new Wolfpack coaching staff pulled a surprise when they landed European power forward Thomas de Thaey over Washington and Wake Forest. (please click this link) De Thaey is 235 pounds and 6 feet 8 inches; he is expected to bring some toughness and versatility to the Wolfpack’s front court roster. We think his game will fit nicely into (what we expect to see from) the UCLA high-post offense. He averaged 18.4 points for the Belgium under-20 National Team and should be more physically and emotionally mature than most freshmen due to his age.

Today, NC State picked up a player to plug the most glaring hole on NC State’s roster — starting point guard — when Cal State Bakersfield’s starting point guard, Alex Johnson, announced his intentions to transfer to west Raleigh. Because he already has his undergraduate degree, Johnson can play immediately for NC State while he pursues a post-graduate degree.

You can click here for more on Johnson and a video.

Johnson…was the Roadrunners starting point guard last season. He averaged 13 pts and 2.4 assists while only turning the ball over an average 2 times per game (31 min. per game). Forced to take a redshirt season thanks to an unfortunate ACL injury, Johnson took care of all his required school work and received his diploma…

While only standing at 5’10 Johnson has shown the ability to make plays. He’s a heady point guard with ACC quicks and the ability to defend. Most importantly, however, is his experience. Without having to go through the growing pains of a young freshman, NC State could have the luxury of slotting in seasoned point guard who has already proven he can get it done at the college level. The only thing he’d need to get acclimated with would be his new teammates and a different system.

Johnson made a team-high 79 3-pointers and ended his career #2 on the all-time list of made three pointers (165) in school history. PackPride.com tweeted this afternoon that Scott Wood made 72 3-pointers last year (for comparison).

If Johnson can contribute as expected, NC State’s projected starting line-up for the 2011-2012 is adequate to position the Pack for a shot at an NCAA Tournament bubble bid; but inexperienced depth – particularly in the backcourt – could prove a fatal achilles heel unless one of the three freshmen can surprise and provide the roster an unexpected boost.

A starting line-up of Johnson, Lorenzo Brown, Scott Wood, CJ Leslie and Richard Howell talented, versatile and athletic. Supplementing these five with CJ Williams, DeShawn Painter and Jordan Vandenberg gives State at least eight players that have major college experience.

The following is a quick look at NC State’s current and projected roster for the coming years:

Senior Class
(1) CJ Williams (Wing)
(13) Alex Johnson (PG)

Junior Class
(2) Scott Wood (Wing)
(3) Richard Howell (PF)
(4) Jordan Vandenberg (C)
(5) DeShawn Painter (PF/C)

Sophomore Class
(6) Lorenzo Brown (PG/SG)
(7) CJ Leslie (SF/PF)

Freshman Class
(8) Tyler Harris (F)
(9) Jaquan Raymond (G)
(10) Thomas de Thaey (PF)

2012 Commits
(11) Tyler Lewis (PG)
(12) Torian Graham (SG)
(13) Departure of Alex Johnson
(1) Departure of CJ Williams

2013 Commits
(2) Departure of Scott Wood (Wing)
(3) Departure of Richard Howell (PF)
(4) Departure of Jordan Vandenberg (C)
(5) Departure of DeShawn Painter (PF/C)

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11-12 Basketball Basketball Recruiting

68 Responses to Gottfried strikes again — lands potential starting senior point guard

  1. eas 05/23/2011 at 6:06 PM #

    I think we will be going to the NCAA tourney next year. I like grape, strawberry-kiwi and fruit punch kool aid.

  2. Wolfy__79 05/23/2011 at 6:46 PM #

    what makes lorenzo a pg? i think overall that’s the best avenue for him in the nba. add that he’s in the game mentally, he’s shown his dedication and will to win a few times last season. before he came to us, he looked alot like a two.. but in the college game, he looks more like a pg to me. i could be wrong but i like his size at 1 or 2.. but i’d like to see him give it a shot.

    i think we have a crowd of talent on the bench.. but it is RAW talent in most cases. scott wood is the ACC’s best 3pt shooter, lorenzo as compared earlier is n.smith-like, and i like what i see from howell AND painter! i think there is talent there.. so maybe i over shot a little with a crowd but i think we have enough to get a working team out there. cjl has the athletic ability, and by him staying.. i think the desire to learn what he needs to move on to the pros.. so i’m guessing we’ll see alot of improvement there as well.. vandenburg’s size alone will cause problems for alot of teams.. now only if we can get him scoring. cjw is better than people think.. but has alot to work on too, as for the incoming freshman.. who knows.. they will be MG’s projects to work on.. but they look solid to me as well!! hopefully we do see that IMPROVEMENT and atleast the NIT!!

    PACK!

  3. JeremyH 05/23/2011 at 7:15 PM #

    I don’t know about you fellas, but I’m thinking final four.

  4. ClassOf95 05/23/2011 at 7:23 PM #

    I think this turn-around is going to happen but I don’t think we have too much to look forward to next year. I am hoping to see a team play together, work hard, and act they have some basketball sense. If we finish in the middle (maybe a little higher?) in the ACC, I’ll see it as successful. Bad habits are hard to break.

    Also, I am very glad Alex Johnson will be wearing the red & white next year but did I just read he averaged 2.7 assists per game as a PG?

  5. Wolfy__79 05/23/2011 at 8:45 PM #

    i’d say the worst habit we had as a team was no habit at all. it seemed to be un-teamlike in the game. i don’t have too lofty of hopes for next year.. but as someone mentioned before, improvement would be nice. i think we’re on the right track..

  6. choppack1 05/23/2011 at 10:15 PM #

    While I wouldn’t pencil us in as an at-large bid, I do think we have enough talent to get one.

    As it is for most bubble teams in at-large conferences, it won’t just be our conference record (8-8 won’t guarantee us a spot, nor will it keep us out for sure.)

    I think if our team is properly conditioned, execute and doesn’t lose Brown or Leslie for an extended period of the season, we’ll have as much talent as any team we play not named Duke or UNC.

  7. ryebread 05/23/2011 at 11:36 PM #

    choppack: I agree. I’m not saying we’re a tournament team, or even a bubble team. I’m saying we COULD be a tournament team. Take care of business in the non-conference (and that’s 2 losses or less) and go 8-8 and let’s see where the cards fall.

    I don’t think that the ACC will be the #1 RPI league next year, but I’m not sure we’ll be #4 or #5 either. Yes, I agree that WF and BC are going to suck out loud and drag us down. WF looks hopeless to me, but I think Donahue is a pretty decent coach who should at least get BC to “live and die by the 3 pointer” status. Other than that, UNC which will help us at the top. I think Duke will be about the same, because they played last year without Irving and Singler didn’t have a great season. I think UVA is a bit of a sleeper which will offset the fact that MD will be down. FSU and VT are programs that seem to be fairly solid year in and year out despite personnel departures. Miami is looking like a team that will shoot upwards to me and is my favorite to finish 3rd. Clemson was a lot better at the end of the year than the beginning, so we’ll see how much carries over. We’re not going to be as bad as some people might think.

    Also, when I look around college basketball and think about what I expect to happen in the NBA draft, a lot of the top talent in other leagues is leaving while much of it is staying in the ACC. A quick look by conference:
    – Big 12: Texas is decimated. Kansas lost 3 players. KState is losing the soul of their team and their recruiter left. A lot of teams have new coaches.
    – Big 10: Wisconsin is rebuilding — by their own admission. Michigan State lost its backcourt. Purdue is rebuilding after losing its two best players. Illinois lost its 3 best players. OSU and Michigan will carry that league.
    – Big East: UConn is losing their star that won them the championship as well as 3 scholarships for next season. St John’s has a great recruiting class, but they will return only one player from last year’s team. ND loses everyone. I am not sure Pitino has it in him to make Louisville good next year. WV loses 3 out of their top 5.
    – Pac 10: Arizona is losing the two players that carried them to the Elite 8. ASU still has HWSNBN (had to do it). On paper this looks like the league that returns the both.
    – SEC: Kentucky loses everyone, but will just reload. Florida loses its entire starting front court, though with all the new coaching power it may not matter. Arkansas will be breaking in a new system.
    – Mid-majors: Jimmer’s gone from BYU. Butler loses Howard. SDSt lost two starters. VCU loses their best player and also the heart and soul of their NCAA tournament run.

    There just seems to be a lot of turmoil in college basketball and the conferences seem to see cyclic patterns of rising and falling. There’s room for the ACC — and for NC State — to make some noise.

  8. PackMan97 05/24/2011 at 6:30 AM #

    @ClassOf95 – Yes, that number is correct. Keep in mind his teams at CSU-B were pretty putrid. 9 wins this season, sub-300 RPI. Tough to get assists when you teammates don’t finish. He was second on the team in assists (leader was at 3.3) and his team didn’t even average 12 assists/game.

    By comparison, NC State averaged over 14/game and Lorenzo Brown was our leader at 3.7/game. What? The PG didn’t have the highest apg on NC State’s team either? Isn’t that interesting 😉

  9. VaWolf82 05/24/2011 at 8:06 AM #

    I’m not necessarily a great judge of “talent”, but a State team that only won 5 ACC games isn’t overrunning with it. All of the posts about new coaches and instantaneous improvement remind me of the same things that were said when TOB replaced Amato.

    Maybe coaching will make all of the difference. But there is a lot of room between “better than last year” and “NCAAT selection”. I expect the former, but would be surprised at the latter.

  10. packhammer 05/24/2011 at 8:49 AM #

    I don’t mean this in a negative way but he is at least as good as Gonzales. One year deal. Good move.

  11. PackMan97 05/24/2011 at 9:28 AM #

    VaWolf82, I would say that State has a good deal of talent. What we lack is chemistry, fundamentals, toughness and heart.

  12. Gene 05/24/2011 at 9:53 AM #

    I think people over estimate the amount of talent we have.

    Painter is an active big body, but hasn’t shown me anything in terms of developing a low-post / offensive game.

    Howell is a good rebounder, but I’ve never seen a big body like him have so much trouble finishing close to the rim.

    Vandenburg is another active big body, without a discernible skill set that you can count on.

    CJ Leslie has a ton of talent, but just doesn’t use it properly. Hopefully competent coaching will help him.

    What I saw of Brown is someone, who could be very good, but just isn’t aggressive enough. There were several times I’d see him get to the basket only to dump it off to someone, who isn’t as good as him or make a bad pass, instead of trying to score and / or get fouled.

    CJ Williams is a nice back-up player, but so far has not shown anything above being a good locker room guy and nice role player.

    Scott Wood, if you can get him open, can be an effective three-point shooter. He won’t do anything to hurt you defensively, but he can’t create his own shot or create space for himself to get off a shot.

    I don’t know much about the freshmen coming in, but I don’t expect them to contribute more than Brown, Harrow and Leslie did last year, since those three were much more highly ranked coming out of high school.

    De Thaey may give us something quickly because he’s already 20, but we’ll have to wait and see what he does at this level.

    With good coaching, I think next year should be better than last year. Sid didn’t leave the cupboard bare, unlike Herb. There’s enough people to field a basketball team for 2011-2012, without having open try outs.

    Right now we have some players, who may have some potential to become better – Howell, Painter, and Vandenburg – but who haven’t developed yet. Maybe, like Tracy Smith, they’ll have a break out Junior year.

    I think we’ve seen what we can expect from Scott Wood and C.J. Williams. I don’t think they’ll do anything to hurt you, but I don’t see them getting dramatically better either.

    After close to 20 years, I just don’t see a reason for unbridled optimism right now.

  13. Rick 05/24/2011 at 3:50 PM #

    I think we have a lot of potential. It was wasted for the past few years. I hope good coaching could get the most out of what we have.

  14. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 05/24/2011 at 4:01 PM #

    I don’t buy into this “it takes years to rebuild and you have to have a bunch of talent to win”. I say BS, year after year, teams rebuild in a year or two and make decent runs in the NCAA.

    It is all about the coach and his ability to bring a group of 8 or so young men together for a common purpose. I got sick of hearing Les in year 4 and 5 talking about being ready to turn the corner, Herb always talking about being young and Sid bring up next year’s team.

    Shaka Smart, with little HC experience, took a bunch of BCS rejects to the Final Four. If Gott is a good coach, State will be a bubble team next year and should make the tournament. If Gott is like State’s last coaches he will still be ‘rebuilding’ the program going into 2012-2013.

    BTW the strength of schedule shouldn’t matter in the ACC. If a team wins 2 or 3 out of conference games in the fall against NCAA teams, breaks even in the ACC, and makes it to Saturday in the tournament, the team is in. If a team misses one of the above the team is likely not to make the tournament.

  15. Wolfy__79 05/24/2011 at 7:17 PM #

    ^i agree.. but i still temper my expectations.

    gene, what you described is basically what we’ve seen for the last few years.. i’d only like to add that none of our players have really been properly working together to accomplish our goal of winning.

    as tcthdi has said above, there’s evidence of coach’s/teams reloading every year and making strong runs towards post season play. i’m not trying to reach or sound desperate.. but it happens and i don’t think any of us would shy away from that kind of outcome.

    but, how they get to reload is questionable.. some org’s have years of success that recruits for them.. some have a sleazer head coach that pushes the envelope a bit too far. i’m hoping we can build ourselves to having the recruits line up for us.. eventually. who knows.. enough of my rambling for now..

  16. choppack1 05/24/2011 at 8:12 PM #

    VaWolf – you’re correct that we can definitely still improve. I think our main problem is depth in the backcourt – and skill in the front court.

    The new staff has done what they can to address it.

    Talent-wise – we’re about as good a shape as you can be after missing the tourney 5 straight years.

    Alex Johnson gives us some key depth and a little larger margin for error. Still, we can’t afford to lose Brown, Wood, Williams, or Leslie.

    Regarding Howell – I’m hoping for a breakout year from him. Like everyone else, he should reap some significant benefits from improved strength and conditioning…but unlike everyone else, he’s got great instincts and knows how to use his body. With some more lift and endurance, he can possibly put up Tracy Smith type #s – and he’s already proven to be his equal on the boards.

  17. PoppaJohn 05/25/2011 at 10:57 AM #

    I am amazed at the predictions of an NCAAT appearance, or even the possibility.
    We were terrible last year, just awful. We had no go-to player, Tracy never got his game back. And no one else stepped up. Those same guys are the ones who have to be our go-to guys this year.

    Where are the points coming from? Someone has to create a lot more scoring for us to be competitive.

    1. Brown – Read this post, by consensus Lo is a better distributor than scorer. If he’s at the point most of the season, let’s assume he’ll score the same. He averaged 9.3, let’s call it 10.
    2. Scott – He still can’t create his own shots, but maybe he gets a little better. He averaged 9.7, let’s call it 12.
    3. CJL – I think he’ll improve a lot, just because he has to have realized that just strapping on the sneaks isn’t going to do it in the NCAA. He was 11, let’s give him 15.
    4. Richard – Not a good shooter, can’t get off the ground. That won’t improve much, let’s give him 15 due to doubling his minutes, up from 7.4.
    5. Bench – The bench gave us 12.2 last year.

    That’s 64.2 points. Last year we averaged 70.7, our opponents averaged 70.5. If the incoming guys can average 6.5 per game we’ll be where we were last year. That was good for sixth in the league, but how did that work out?

    Maybe we’ll offset by defense??? Not MG’s track record. And last year these same guys were next to last in scoring defense.

    Am I predicting doom? Nope. I absolutely believe we will be better and will put a higher quality product on the floor. I am excited for the future. But let’s be realistic, we have a ridiculous amount of issues to overcome in one season to be thinking about the NCAAT.

  18. hawk74 07/22/2011 at 9:57 PM #

    Nice job MG….it seems as though we now know who is in charge of the program. That is what we need and expect.

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