On Thursday, the NC State men’s basketball team held its annual media day at Dail Basketball Center. Head Coach Mark Gottfried and members of the Wolfpack squad answered questions in anticipation of the upcoming season.
“This is always an exciting time of year for us because everything is getting ready to start,” Gottfried said. “We’re excited about our team.”
After a successful 2014 campaign that saw the Pack reach its third consecutive NCAA appearance, the team underwent a series of massive changes throughout the offseason.
The most notable of these changes was the early departure of forward T.J. Warren. After an outstanding sophomore season in which he averaged 24.9 points per game, good for third-best in the nation, Warren bolted for the NBA Draft, where he was selected 14th overall by the Phoenix Suns.
“We have to replace maybe the best scorer in all of college basketball last year on T.J. Warren,” Gottfried said. “Even though that’s difficult to do, we’ve got some guys that collectively want to step up and show that they can also do some things at this level.”
To counteract the loss of Warren, the Pack will add redshirt junior guard Trevor Lacey to the rotation after the Alabama transfer sat out the 2014 season.
“He’s got a great basketball mind,” Gottfried said. “Because he really understands how to play, it gives the coach a great feeling of trust in him because you really feel like he’s going to make the right decisions.”
Gottfried’s word of the day to describe his squad was “unproven.”
“We’ve got a lot of unproven players that need to take a step forward,” Gottfried said. “I’m excited about our young guys. When you have an unproven team with a lot of guys who have potential, but yet are unproven, that makes it kind of fun because it will be fun to see what this group can become.”
Gottfried said the main question for the team this year will be what kind of steps forward the younger guys can make from last year to this year.
Gottfried later elaborated on the idea of his team being “unproven” despite most of his core players now having a year of experience under their belts.
“You can look at our team piece by piece and for the most part, they had their moments here and there, but now they’re expected to do much more,” Gottfried said. “They’re unproven at the level they need to be at for us to become a really good basketball team.”
The Pack will see its first action of the season on Oct. 17, when the team hosts its annual intrasquad scrimmage. This year, the red and white teams will face off at Reynolds Coliseum, and the event will feature a legends game highlighting former State basketball stars.
