For the first time since Mark Gottfried arrived at NC State, the high-post offense is legitimately struggling to generate efficient output. Counting only league games, the Wolfpack finished his first two seasons with an offensive efficiency ranked fourth or higher in the ACC, but they're all the way down in 12th this season. There is reason to believe this will get better, mainly because some of these shooting numbers are so bad that there's no way they'll stay that way (yay!):
ACC Games Only | ORTG | %Poss | %Shots | eFG% | TO% | FT% | 2FG% | 3FG% |
T.J. Warren | 89.4 | 33.7 | 38.2 | 38.2 | 17.1 | 77.3 | 41.8 | 11.1 |
Cat Barber |
84.9 | 23.7 | 25.5 | 26.2 | 15.2 | 84.2 | 25.7 | 20.0 |
Ralston Turner | 109.0 | 21.3 | 26.4 | 50.0 | 11.7 | 71.4 | 41.7 | 36.4 |
Dez Lee | 88.3 | 19.9 | 16.0 | 29.1 | 21.6 | 73.1 | 26.7 | 22.2 |
BeeJay Anya | 95.7 | 16.2 | 10.0 | 57.1 | 35.7 | 57.1 | 57.1 | n/a |
Kyle Washington | 99.5 | 14.8 | 16.2 | 53.3 | 29.4 | 100.0 | 53.3 | n/a |
Tyler Lewis | 74.5 | 14.4 | 11.3 | 28.5 | 36.3 | 100.0 | 40.0 | 0.0 |
Jordan Vandenberg | 110.6 | 10.6 | 10.1 | 61.5 | 29.4 | 100.0 | 61.5 | n/a |
Lennard Freeman | 143.0 | 8.4 | 8.6 | 70.0 | 8.3 | 71.4 | 70.0 | n/a |
Warren is running into better athletes, and without any help elsewhere, opponents can put more focus on stopping him, which is only making things worse. The other thing is his massive workload--when he's on the floor, Warren is taking about four out of every 10 shots, and that is crazy. Anybody's efficiency would slip under that sort of pressure.
State simply cannot continue this way. Barber and Lee have got to find some semblance of a shooting touch and improve to something at least in the neighborhood of passable. How much those two can improve should to a large extent determine how much better the team can be, because the zone defenses opponents toss our way aren't going anywhere. Their ice-cold shooting efforts combined with a green frontcourt is a recipe for disaster, and that's what we're seeing.
But they will get better! I suppose it doesn't hurt to set the bar low early. Now they can more quickly transition to team heroes as we reel off five straight conference wins and okay I'll stop there.