Four weeks ago, the NC State men’s basketball team was 14-7 coming off a rare away win over Duke with a real opportunity to sneak into the NCAA tournament. Flash forward to now and the Wolfpack has the second-worst record in the league (14-14, 3-12 ACC) and doesn’t know who its head coach will be next season.
On Thursday, the team announced that Mark Gottfried will not return as head coach next season, ending any remaining speculation that a late-season run would save his job. The Wolfpack came into this season with its highest expectations since 2013 and, after completely unraveling in conference play, is likely to finish the season with a losing record.
There is much already speculation about who NC State will hire to replace Gottfried, but that process won’t play out until after the season. What we can do today is review Gottfried’s six years with the program—the ups and downs, the surprises and disappointments—and predict how he will ultimately be remembered by the Wolfpack family.
In 2012, Gottfried took over after Sidney Lowe, who spent five meddling years with the program, was fired. The team was young, but talented. It didn’t have much depth, but the seven who played each game grew tremendously over the course of the season.
Despite losing two highly contributing seniors and adding just one transfer to a team that previously finished 15-16, the Wolfpack reached the Sweet 16 and nearly upset top-seeded Kansas. Gottfried was hailed by many as the program’s savior due to his ability to get the most out of the talent that Sidney Lowe couldn’t.
The following season was likely the team’s best overall body of work under Gottfried; the Pack finished the regular season 24-10 (11-7 ACC) with home wins over Duke and UNC. Despite a first-round exit from the NCAA tournament, most were content with the fourth-place conference finish.
After the season, C.J. Leslie and Lorenzo Brown left for the NBA draft and rookie phenom Rodney Purvis transferred out of the program. Expectations were tempered and the team hit a low after a midseason 35-point loss to Duke, but turned its direction around and snuck back into the tournament.
The Pack reached the NCAA’s second round and sophomore T.J. Warren was selected 14th overall in the NBA draft —Gottfried now had three straight tournament trips to his name and developed a four-star talent into a lottery pick. Things were looking up for State basketball and a down season in 2015 would have been forgiven considering the loss of talent.
However, behind the leadership of junior transfer Trevor Lacey, the Wolfpack once again won games over Duke and UNC before pulling off a NCAA tournament upset over one-seed Villanova—which resulted in a crying Villanova piccolo player and a hilarious viral meme. Once again, Gottfried’s team outperformed expectations by finishing the season strong (loss in the Sweet 16).
Looking back, the following offseason can be looked at as the turning point in Gottfried’s legacy at NC State; the mass exodus that left the program reeling. Lacey announced that he wouldn’t return to school, Ralston Turner graduated and sophomore Kyle Washington transferred, leaving the team without three of its top offensive threats.
There was hope that transfer Terry Henderson would replace the lost scoring, but he went down for the season just as soon as it started and the team came out with a dud, losing 85-68 to William & Mary on opening night. The ACC was as strong as ever and the Pack just couldn’t keep up despite the heartening play of point guard Cat Barber; State missed the postseason for the first time under Gottfried.
In the offseason, Wolfpack fans watched skeptically as Gottfried pulled off a tremendous recruiting haul at the last second; the fourth best in the country according to 247sports. Few had any reservations that this would be the team to turn around the program.
And it’s been Gottfried’s worst-performing team by a solid margin, marred mainly because of poor defensive effort. This facet is one of his coaching signatures; in six seasons under Gottfried, the Pack has finished on average with the 29th most efficient offense and just 124th most efficient defense. In his eight seasons at Alabama, the team was 44 ranks lower in defensive efficiency as well.
Gottfried will also leave behind a legacy of recruiting well, pulling together top-20 classes in four of his five full-season recruiting efforts. Given Dennis Smith Jr.’s projected draft status, he’ll also likely have two NBA lottery picks to his resume, two more than previous coach Sidney Lowe.
Where Gottfried failed was in consistently developing cohesive teams; he brought in pieces, but didn’t get them to fit together quite right. Many may wonder if the departure of associate head coach Bobby Lutz negatively impacted the Pack’s game-day coaching ability, but most will likely focus on blaming Gottfried for simply not working hard enough.
That’s not the right attitude to take, in my opinion, and the former head coach will likely be remembered fondly for turning around a program that toiled in mediocrity for several years under Lowe. Gottfried set a new standard for postseason success that not even Herb Sendek achieved during his string of six-straight tournament trips from 2001 to 2006.
Gottfried couldn’t overcome the current stature of the ACC, which is its best in many years, nor the pressure of competing with neighbor powerhouses Duke and UNC. What he did was give us some surprising postseason feats and frustrating roller-coaster seasons—if, as a State fan, you can’t take that with a light-hearted sense of humility, you’re best off to stop watching now.
