With the recent announcement of sophomore forwards Caleb and Cody Martin’s decision to transfer from NC State, as well as the loss of junior guard Cat Barber to the NBA draft, the men’s basketball roster is slimming down, and it could get even shorter if sophomore forward Abdul-Malik Abu makes the leap to the NBA as well.
Even if Abu remains with the program, as is expected given his absence from any notable draft board, the roster is slated to have just eight scholarship players for the 2016-2017 season. Coming off the team’s first season missing the NCAA Tournament in head coach Mark Gottfried’s five-year tenure, this isn’t a particularly encouraging fact.
However, success as a basketball team goes far beyond the depth of your rotation, so we’ll have to look at the individual contributions of these players to truly assess how their departures will affect the team’s production.
The loss of Barber is difficult to quantify because he contributed so much on each offensive and defensive possession, rarely if ever coming off the court during the course of a game. Gottfried is fortunate to have the nation’s top point guard recruit, Dennis Smith Jr., waiting in the wings to replace the ACC’s top scorer, but he’ll be careful not to expect too much out of the freshman, regardless of his domination at the high school level.
Sophomore guard Torin Dorn, who had to sit out the 2015-2016 season due to NCAA transfer rules, is also capable of running the point, which will ease the workload on Smith so that he can focus on directing the offense without worrying about conserving enough energy to play the 38.7 minutes per game that Barber did.
The Martin twins provided much-needed versatility to the Wolfpack’s short rotation this season, playing anywhere from point guard to power forward, and for that they will certainly be missed. Expect much less small-ball next season, which was Gottfried’s lineup of choice down the stretch when forward Lennard Freeman was limited due to injury.
Both Cody and Caleb provided intense defensive pressure, ranking first and second on the team in steal rate, but each added something unique when he was in the game. Caleb was the Pack’s most potent 3-point shooter (36.1 percent on 219 attempts), while Cody had a knack for crashing the offensive glass and also ranked second to Barber in assists.
The return from injury of redshirt junior guard Terry Henderson, a career 38.5 percent 3-point shooter, will be a boon to the Pack’s perimeter scoring. Freshman wing Shaun Kirk, who appeared in just 14 of 33 games this season, is expected to develop into an opportunistic defensive player who can score in transition.
Without the flexibility to play either Martin brother at power forward, the departure of Abu could be disastrous. The only other big-men on the roster, BeeJay Anya and Lennard Freeman, primarily play center and rarely play more than 30 minutes in a given game.
Abu was also the second-leading scorer on the team this season and the only true offensive threat from the low post, with Anya and Freeman combining for just 7.9 points per game compared to Abu’s 12.9. There would still be time for Gottfried to find a graduate transfer to replace Abu, but this late in the year it would be tough to find a player of a similar caliber.
After running just seven players deep in the 2015-2016 season, Gottfried is used to working with a short rotation, and the departure of the Martins will give him more practice next season. The loss of the twins’ versatility will hurt, but as long as Abu returns, the program will by no means be in dire shape and should return to NCAA Tournament contention with the progression of its younger players.
