With the 2015 men’s college basketball season just over a month away, excitement is already starting to build for the future of Wolfpack basketball with the signing of Dennis Smith Jr. from Trinity Christian School in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Smith is the No.1 ranked point guard for the 2016 class and the No.4 rated overall prospect according to ESPN’s Top 100 rankings. Nevertheless, perhaps what remains even more exciting for the Wolfpack faithful is that Smith’s decision could just be the start of one of the greatest recruiting classes in NC State basketball history.
Upon Smith’s commitment to NC State, recruiting sites began to speculate that fellow top-10 prospect Edrice “Bam” Adebayo, a power forward from High Point slotted as the No.6 overall prospect in the country, would likely follow Smith to State because of his relationship as a friend and teammate on Team Loaded NC of the AAU circuit. According to an article by The News & Observer’sJoe Giglio, Adebayo was the first person that Smith called after announcing his intentions of attending NC State next fall.
Then there’s Brooklyn native Rawle Alkins, who will play high school basketball in Raleigh this year at Word of God Christian Academy. Alkins, rated as the No. 16 overall prospect in 2016, is a high-flying guard from Brooklyn with loads of pro potential.
According to 247sports.com, a sports statistical site predicts the destinations of college athletes, NC State has a 31 percent chance of landing Alkins with Kentucky leading the list with a 50 percent probability. Nonetheless, these numbers could certainly change after Alkins spends a year in Raleigh, while also witnessing one of the top talents in the country, Dennis Smith Jr., pick the Pack.
If Adebayo and Alkins were to join Smith at NC State next season, Gottfried would have secured the three highest prospects that he has ever successfully recruited to NC State. However, it’s after looking at the previous record holder of this distinction that I am given some cause for concern. Why? Because that prospect is currently attending the University of Connecticut rather than NC State.
After just one season with the Wolfpack in 2012-13, Rodney Purvis, the No. 20 rated prospect in the 2012 recruiting class, decided to transfer to UConn rather than stay with the Wolfpack for his sophomore season. Unfortunately, Purvis is not the only Gottfried recruited prospect that has decided to transfer from NC State. At the conclusion of the 2013-14 season, Tyler Lewis, the No. 5 rated point guard in the 2012 recruiting class, announced that he too would be transferring.
The transfers of Purvis and Lewis coincide with a disturbing tradition that has taken shape within the NC State basketball program. It’s a tradition that was established long before Gottfried’s arrival in 2011, and it says that NC State basketball teams will always perform terribly when they are expected to perform exceptionally.
Who can forget the 2012 season when Purvis and Lewis were featured on an NC State team that was ranked No. 6 overall in the AP Top-25 preseason poll? After advancing to the Sweet 16 in the previous season and putting together the No. 4-rated recruiting class in the offseason, NC State was viewed by many as a legitimate national title contender.
The Wolfpack never lived up to those lofty expectations though, as the Pack finished the year with an eighth seed in the NCAA Tournament followed by a first-round exit at the hands of Temple.
Today, the Wolfpack may very well be heading in the same trajectory as that 2012 team. With a five-star recruit like Dennis Smith Jr. on the way next year, and perhaps more to follow, NC State may well be ranked as one of the best teams in the country in two years. My hope is that by that time next year, NC State will have learned from its past and found a way to eliminate its negative reputation of never being great when expected to be great.
