Nearing the end of a disappointing season that began with so much preseason hype and promise, NC State men’s basketball head coach Mark Gottfried will not return for the 2017-18 season, NC State Athletics Director Debbie Yow announced Thursday.
“Mark and I met today to discuss the future direction of our program,” Yow said in a press release from NC State Athletics Thursday. “While it has long been my practice to evaluate the body of work at season’s end, in reviewing the overall direction of our program, we believe a change in leadership is necessary moving forward. Our focus now remains on supporting our student-athletes and staff over the final weeks of our season.”
Following a very successful first four seasons that saw the Wolfpack qualify for the NCAA Tournament in all four after not making it once under his predecessor, Sidney Lowe, including Sweet 16 appearances in 2012 and 2015, things have gone off the rails quickly over the past two years, leading to the decision to dismiss Gottfried.
Last season, simply lacking depth, the Pack finished 16-17 overall and 5-13 in the ACC, missing the tournament for the first time with Gottfried behind the bench. Going into this season, optimism was high that the Pack would be able to bounce back and reach the tournament for a fifth time in six seasons. While Gottfried is disappointed in the lack of recent success and that he won’t get another chance next season, he is proud of what he accomplished in his first four years at NC State and looks to go out fighting.
“I’m a human being, just like you guys,” Gottfried said following the loss to Notre Dame Saturday. “If you guys were told you weren’t coming back in a month, you’d be thinking about what happens next. I’m proud of some things that happened here. Amazing, unbelievable fun things happened here. I’m going to roll on when that time comes, but right now, I want to help these guys somehow, just a little bit more to have some success on the way out.”
With five-star freshman point guard Dennis Smith Jr., a top international recruit in freshman center Omer Yurtseven, redshirt senior guard Terry Henderson finally healthy and able to play, redshirt sophomore guard Torin Dorn eligible after sitting out a year as a transfer, and junior forward Abdul-Malik Abu returning, State appeared loaded, perhaps the most talented team on paper in Gottfried’s tenure.
On the court, it’s been one of the worst NC State teams in recent memory. Sitting at 14-14 overall and 3-12 in the ACC at the time of this writing, this year’s Wolfpack is on pace to finish worse than even last year’s depleted squad. Poor defensive play and a lack of chemistry have doomed the Pack right from the start of conference play. Despite the way things have gone this season, Gottfried will remain head coach through the remainder of the year, something he himself requested.
“It’s difficult,” Gottfried said. “I can disagree with Debbie, but we all work for somebody. Once I got over all that, my job is still to lead my team. Tough things happen in life; it’s hard. I need to be an example in how I respond to tough things happening. My whole focus is our players, I want those guys to have success.”
Aside from a couple bright spots (putting up over 100 against Virginia Tech in the ACC home opener and beating Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time since 1995), it’s been an abysmal conference season for the Pack. The team has suffered five blowout losses to conference opponents, including a 51-point loss at the rival North Carolina Tar Heels, another loss to UNC at home, shellackings at Florida State and Louisville and a 30-point loss at the Wake Forest Demon Deacons last weekend that sparked the start of the Gottfried speculation.
Despite the rough season followed by the decision not to bring Gottfried back, the players fought hard against one of the top teams in the ACC in Notre Dame and appear to be behind Gottfried.
“We were a little disappointed in the decision, but we just have to keep fighting for him and go out on a high note,” sophomore Maverick Rowan said.
With Gottfried’s dismissal made official, Yow can start work on finding a new coach immediately. Speculation has naturally turned to NC State alum and Dayton Flyers head coach Archie Miller. Miller was a point guard for the Wolfpack from 1998-2002 and served as an assistant under former head coach Herb Sendek from 2004-06.
Miller got his first head coaching job with Dayton in 2011 and has done very well with the program. The Flyers have reached the NCAA Tournament in each of the last three seasons under Miller, including a surprise run to the Elite Eight in 2014. The former Wolfpack player and assistant coach denied speculation that he had been contacted by the university regarding its coaching search.
“I haven’t heard anything from anybody,” Miller told Dayton media after the Flyers’ practice on Thursday. “Not very many people talk to me this time of year other than my own family and our coaching staff.”
Although he has not officially heard anything from the university and is currently content at Dayton, he spoke highly of NC State and the job opening.
“It is [close to my heart],” Miller said. “It’s a lot like our guys playing at Dayton, the experience that they have here playing in front of tremendous fans and going to school with all of the great people around them helping them. I’m no different. I went to NC State, played there, had a great experience. So many of those people have helped me along the way. As with everybody else, you get into real life. As you get into real life, you move along your own path. That’s sort of where I’m at now.”
Yow told Pack Pride that the school is likely to hire a coaching firm to help fill the head coaching void next season.
