With three returning players who started at least one conference game at point guard a year ago, the Pack is excited about its choices at what many consider the most important position in basketball — point guard. The trio of players, who gained experience running the offense last season, consists of redshirt senior Farnold Degand, junior Javier Gonzalez and sophomore Julius Mays.
Coach Sidney Lowe said one player has a current advantage in the competition for the starting job, but said the race was so close it would be inappropriate to name the player that has moved slightly ahead of the others.
“We have to look at all three at this point,” Lowe said. “The guys have been working hard in the workouts we’ve had. There is probably one that’s moved ahead a little, but there’s still time remaining, so at this point, we really don’t know. I don’t want to say [who] because it’s really still up in the air. “
Gonzalez said the team’s depth at point guard will allow the offense to put two ball handlers on the floor at once, which will benefit the team when it chooses to run.
“It will be a lot easier to push tempo with three guys that can handle the ball and bring it down the floor,” Gonzalez said. “Because that way, we can have two [point guards playing] at the same time, and whoever doesn’t get it, he can just run the wing and play the shooting guard position for that possession.”
Down the stretch last season, Gonzalez, who started the final 10 games and averaged 11 points per game over the final eight, gave State the type of reliable point guard play it has not consistently received since Engin Atsur graduated after the 2006-2007 season, Lowe’s first in Raleigh.
Though he has seen his ups and downs throughout his first two seasons, according to Degand, Gonzalez seems poised to have a breakout season in 2009-2010.
“Javi is definitely focused and he looks like a man on a mission,” Degand said. “He is ready to do what he needs to do to help us win.”
In addition to expecting a big season out of Gonzalez, Degand said he expects himself to play better after fighting through a knee injury that forced him to wear a brace and hindered him at times last season.
“As far as my knee is concerned, now that I’m able to look back at it, it was probably like 75 percent,” Degand said. “There were certain times it would loosen up and certain times it would just be torture getting through a game.”
Mays, who led the team with 18 points on seven for 15 shooting in State’s loss to Maryland during the opening round of last season’s ACC Tournament, was the back-up point guard for the majority of last season. In addition to his career-high night against the Terrapins, Mays also made the game-winning three-pointer with 2.6 seconds on the clock in the Pack’s overtime win to defeat Miami.
After a year spent adjusting to the mental pressure of playing in the ACC, Mays said the jitters that plagued him at times last season will not be a factor in his second year.
“It was all just being young and my nerves, really not wanting to mess up,” Mays said. “I feel like I’m over that. At the end of last year, I went out there with nothing on my mind except just playing. I was not worrying about messing up, [I went out there] having a free mind. I feel like coming into this year, I’ll be a lot better.”
The Pack will not only have multiple ball-handlers to choose from, it will also square off with a bit less star power in opposing backcourts with the likes of former Carolina guard Ty Lawson and Toney Douglas of Florida State having gone to the NBA.
Degand, for one, will not miss any of the ACC’s departed scorers.
“When you lose players that get drafted like Lawson and [Jeff] Teague [from Wake Forest] and the Toney Douglas’s of the conference, it’s definitely not going to be somebody that I’m upset is not playing anymore,” Degand said.
