Noting Morehead State

I didn't get around to a full-blown preview of NC State's second basketball opponent, what with all that distracting sadness hanging around yesterday afternoon. So here are some bullet points intstead.

-- The Eagles lost their top two scorers from a year ago, Demonte Harper and Kenneth Faried. Harper was the shoot first and ask questions later type, and not particularly efficient, while Faried was one of the best players in the country. Faried grabbed 508 rebounds by himself and led the nation in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage, all while hitting 62% of his field goal attempts. It's no coincidence that the team has ranked in the top 25 in OR% and DR% in each of the last three years with Faried on the team. Now the Eagles must find a way to replace as much of that production as they can. Tough task.

-- This year the go-to roles likely fall to guards Ty Proffitt (6-4, 190) and Terrance Hill (6-1, 175), who started all 35 games for the Eagles last year and are two of just five holdovers from that team. Both were effective long-range shooters in 2011 but they didn't have to worry about distributing the ball or otherwise carrying an offense, so we'll see how that goes.

-- As for the overall profile, Morehead has been a deliberate halfcourt team throughout Donnie Tyndall's tenure, and they don't take an inordinate amount of three-pointers. They shot a decent percentage in 2011 but had all sorts of turnover problems. Their offensive rebounding prowess helped them maximize the possessions on which they got a shot off.

-- Faried's fingerprints are all over the Eagles defense as well. Aside from his awesome defensive rebounding, he led the team in both block percentage and steal percentage, which made him a big factor in how the team got stops. With so much inexperience in the paint, it will be interesting to see how this defense turns out. They weren't very big with Faried, and they aren't any bigger now.