The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/406183
28 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY JACEY ZEMBAL T he NC State men's basketball team will have to find a new way to win games this season. The Wolfpack geared its offense around the wondrous talents of sophomore small forward T.J. Warren last year, and he thrived in the role. Warren averaged 24.9 points per game en route to ACC Player of the Year honors, and then entered the NBA Draft and went No. 14 overall to the Phoenix Suns. In addition, starting center Jordan Van- denberg graduated and starting point guard Tyler Lewis transferred to Butler, where he'll have two years remaining. The trio represented the last players remaining from former head coach Sidney Lowe's tenure. NCSU head coach Mark Gottfried ex- pects improvements across the board to replace the combined 33.9 points, 13.1 re- bounds and 2.0 assists per game that War- ren, Lewis and Vandenberg produced. The firepower of newcomers such as red- shirt junior transfer Trevor Lacey, freshman wings Caleb and Cody Martin, and fresh- man power forward Abdul-Malik Abu will help offset some of those statistics. Col- lectively, the group can help the Wolfpack improve on last year's 22-14 overall record and 9-9 mark in the ACC. "We should be a team that is pretty bal- anced scoring," Gottfried said. "I don't think this team has to rely on one guy to score. For us last year to be an NCAA Tournament team and win a game in the tournament, we needed T.J. [Warren] to be a 20-plus points-per-game guy because the other guys weren't ready just yet." Gottfried lamented the fact that college basketball is essentially a year-to-year busi- ness model now, or at best every two years. The elite class of 2012 with three McDon- ald's All-American's — Warren, Lewis and current UConn guard Rodney Purvis — is all gone. Purvis, C.J. Leslie and Lorenzo Brown all could have been on last year's team, with the latter two leaving school a REINVENTION NC State Aims For A Fourth Straight NCAA Tournament Appearance WOLFPACK BASKETBALL PREVIEW