The NC State men’s basketball team (14-5, 5-3 ACC), is riding a three-game win streak that recently culminated in a victory over the defending national champions, the Virginia Cavaliers. With three impressive victories from a short-handed team, here are some takeaways over the last three games for the Pack.

D.J. Funderburk has been relentless in ACC play

Redshirt junior forward D.J. Funderburk has been impressive for the Wolfpack over its three game winning streak, and in ACC games overall. In the last three games, Funderburk has posted 46 total points and 24 rebounds in just 97 minutes of action. In fact, in all ACC games this season, Funderburk is averaging 15 points, 7.6 rebounds, three offensive boards and just 1.6 turnovers per game.

Funderburk has 105 total points in conference games, leading the team, and also leads the team in offensive boards in ACC play, along with free throws made and attempted.

Also on the trip was Funderburk’s first career double-double, and the forward is continuously improving game-by-game. Funderburk ranks top-three on the team in overall play in total points, points per game, blocks per game, defensive and offensive rebounds per game, field goal percentage and offensive rating per 100 possessions, despite missing time and ranking sixth on the team in minutes, averaging less than 25 points a game.

For players with over 100 total minutes, Funderburk also leads the team in conference offensive rating by a significant margin, at 123, with the second highest offensive rating of qualifying players being 109.1, being held by Bates. Funderburk also leads the team in conference net rating.

The team that once was atop the nation in scoring per game, has put up just 113 total points in its last two games

Before the last two wins over UVA and Clemson, the Wolfpack had been averaging around 80 points per game and ranked top 30 in the nation at one point. Seemingly overnight, this kind of offensive production vanished.

The Pack still puts up an impressive 76.2 points per game as a team, but this number ranks just 73 nationally.

This is particularly interesting because the Wolfpack had just gotten back redshirt senior guard C.J. Bryce, the leading scorer for the Pack, but lost redshirt freshman center Manny Bates, who is seemingly the defensive anchor for team. The Pack also lost graduate forward Pat Andree to injury, and the offense suffered as a result.

Bates actually ranks second on the team in terms of players who play meaningful minutes in net rating, behind only Funderburk. Of those same qualifying players, he ranks second on the team in offensive rating, something that might not be expected of a player that only averages 5.7 points per contest. 

However, the offense runs so much more smoothly when Bates is in the game, and the Pack greatly benefitted when Bates and Funderburk started together against Miami, with Funderburk pouncing on the opportunity of being able to mismatch his opponents while Bates covered the interior, finishing with 19 points.

The Pack has kept the turnovers to a minimum in its last three games, but fouls have become an issue

Despite the fact that the Pack has consistently ranked well in terms of total turnovers in the nation, the team went through a stretch earlier in the season where turnovers seemed to be somewhat of an issue.

However, fouls are what is harming the team now, with the team committing 60 fouls in its last three games, to just 26 turnovers. Funderburk fouled out in the game against UVA, and is surprisingly the only player in the last three games to foul out, but the fact that seven players in such games have sat at four fouls is indicative of the conservative play style the Pack has to adapt to late in games, and could be partly to blame for scoreless droughts, as seen near the end of the game against the Cavaliers.

Danny Dixon providing energy for a team that needs it

While Dixon is not playing much, he has been impressive in short stints, at least in terms of his ability to be a physical hound for the Pack. Dixon averages as many fouls as he does points, at 1.1, but in short time he ranks high on the team in box plus/minus and ranks high in win-shares per 40 minutes, a metric that estimates how many wins a player contributes if he were to play 40 minutes a game.

While Dixon has only played in nine games, and 56 minutes total, he has played interestingly enough to warrant a second look, especially considering the fact that he is an absurd plus-35. However, this number is skewed because of his sparse playing time, and should not be included when ranking other players’ net ratings.

Markell Johnson and company still struggling to find shooting groove

In the last three games for the Pack, senior guard Markell Johnson is averaging 10 points on 3-11 shooting from deep and 11-30 from the floor. On the season, Johnson is shooting 40% from the floor and 27% from 3-point range. Johnson is still one of the leading playmakers for the Pack, and one of the most important players for the Pack, but shooting from point guards is an area of concern heading forward.

For example, junior guard Braxton Beverly is shooting great from 3-point land, but is almost shooting better from that range than he is on 2-pointers, which is not a good sign. With both Johnson and Beverly hovering around a 40% shooting mark from the field, the Pack is having to rely on Bryce and redshirt junior Devon Daniels for shooting. 

In the four games that Bryce missed, the Pack shot 38% from the floor and 23% from 3-point range, seemingly not an issue for a team that ranked fairly high in 3-point rankings nationally. However, in the three games since Bryce’s return, the Pack shot 38% from the floor and 25% from 3, hardly an improvement, and the team has just made 36 of its 152 3-point attempts in its last seven games.