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The annual Wolfpack Club Caravan is ongoing this week, with stops across the state. Mark Gottfried, Dave Doeren, and Wes Moore are all involved. Here are a couple of reports from the road.
In town Monday for a Wolfpack Club gathering at Country Club of Asheville, Gottfried talked about starting over — again.
"That's college basketball, and it makes it harder (to keep a winning program going)," he said. "This year, it's different because we didn't expect Lacey to leave.
"Last year, we anticipated (Warren) leaving and we had Lacey (sitting out his transfer year) waiting, so we could make that work.
"But Lacey leaving kind of came out of left field, and so it's a blow the team has to figure out how to overcome."
Quit trying to make Mark Gottfried cry with all these Trevor Lacey questions, y'all!
From the Citizen-Times' story on Doeren's team:
"We have just 10 seniors so we are still a young team," said Doeren.
"We had a real good spring, and a lot of players stood out. Our biggest area of concern is our kicking game, where we have to replace two quality players ( including All-ACC punter Wil Baumann, 45.4 yards per kick)."
Score touchdowns on every drive, go for two every time. I'm not seeing the problem.
Q: Were you surprised when Trevor Lacey decided to go pro?
A: Yes. I was very surprised. We all anticipated him coming back. We went through the process where he got some accurate information from the NBA. But I think Trevor was convinced his age (23 years old) was going to work against him if he waited another year, which we didn't necessarily agree with. But at the end of the day, it's my job now to support him the best I can and try to help him the best I can. We'll root for him, but it obviously hurts our team for a guy of the caliber to leave when you're not expecting it.
Well, there's that. Gottfried doesn't think Trevor Lacey made the right decision by turning pro.
Dave Doeren answered questions as well:
Q: You signed a lot of kids from North Carolina (12 of 22 in recruiting class) this year. Is recruiting the state your priority?
A: It is. I've always felt like the best teams I've been on have been in-state oriented. Not that football is more important to them than it is to the (out-of-state) kids, but they take a lot of pride in making sure when they go back to their hometowns that they're handling their school the right way. And it's important, obviously, that we win the state when we play those other (in-state) teams.