NC State men’s basketball redshirt junior Torin Dorn will be returning after last season’s 15-17 overall and 4-14 ACC record.

Head coach Kevin Keatts is looking forward to this season and the team that he has along with Dorn.

“This group is fun because they’re giving me tremendous effort but we have a lot of work ahead of us,” Keatts said. “We’re learning how to compete and that’s the biggest thing. Everything we’re doing in practice is more of a competition. I think we’re getting in a lot better shape.”

This season, the versatile player may be playing as a guard and a small forward. But Dorn seems comfortable with the transition.

“I think I can use my quickness against bigger guys and drive toward the basket,” Dorn said. “I can do a little bit of everything. I can do outside, inside. … It’s doing all the things that make me who I am and help our team win.”

Last season, Dorn started over half of the games that he played in, 18 out of 32 in his first year as part of the Wolfpack. Dorn shot 50 percent from the field, .679 for free throws and .364 for 3-point shots.

On top of that, he had 29 offensive rebounds and 119 defensive rebounds for a total of 148 rebounds. It appears that defense is considered the most challenging but vital skill for a small team.

“It’s tough,” Dorn said. “Everyone has to get the rebound and do it as a team because we’re smaller. That’s probably the only thing that gives us trouble with rebounding [when] guarding bigger guys. We’re just smaller; that’s rebounds, so everybody will have to pick up that slack. Rebound the ball and defend.”

Dorn’s teammate, graduate transfer Sam Hunt, echoed those sentiments.

“We dive on the floor,” Hunt said. “We get after it as much as we can on defense. If there’s a loose ball we have to get it. We keep track if you get loose balls. It’s a lot of floor burns, a lot of diving, a lot of scratches and calling for the ball.

The team will be using its experience for its exhibition game this Friday against Mars Hill University. 

“I feel good about it,” Dorn said. “We had spurts where we played really well and we saw some things we need to shore up and I think these last couple days of practice before the season will help us a lot in terms of clearing those things up that we didn’t do so well against Campbell. We’ll be ready to go. [We’re a] high intensity, high energy team. We’re going to play extremely hard and show all the work we’ve been doing this summer and all [of] fall.”

Hunt agreed with Dorn about the team playing hard. But he also voiced concern over the different atmosphere that will come with games.

“We play hard,” Hunt said. “We defend. We depend on our defense. So if we’re not making shots, defense should be able to carry us throughout the game Friday. It’s a big difference from playing in our private facility and the PNC; the backdrop is different. Playing with actual fans there will be a little different but I feel like we’re ready. We practice a couple times in the PNC. I think we’ll be fine.”

Keatts gave insight into the team’s previous practice with Campbell and looking forward to the exhibition match.

“We work extremely hard; I like where we’re at,” Keatts said. “I wouldn’t want to play a real game today and we don’t have to but I’ve got a few more practices [before the exhibition]. We went a little bit smaller and you may see that in our exhibition on Friday, where you may see more guards line up. We were able to use Torin Dorn more as a stretch forward.”

Dorn ended with sharing a piece of advice that he gave to his fellow teammate, freshman guard Braxton Beverly.

“Every day’s your game,” Dorn said. “Use every day to get better.”