Maverick Rowan's commitment to NC State is significant not only for his obvious talents, but also for the critical extra depth he can bring to the Wolfpack in 2015-16. Without Rowan, State was headed into the year with eight available scholarship players, and that includes Shaun Kirk, who is exceptionally athletic but otherwise an unknown.
Whether he is 6'5 (as one recruiting site suggests), or 6'6 (as another says), or 6'7 (as still yet another says), Rowan should be able to help NC State in multiple places depending on the situation. Here's what we're looking at now, taking a guess at the pecking orders:
1 -- Cat Daddy / Cody Martin / Terry Henderson (?)
2 -- Terry Henderson / Maverick Rowan / Caleb Martin / Cody
3 -- Caleb Martin / Rowan / Cody / Shaun Kirk
4 -- Abdul-Malik Abu / Lennard Freeman / Cody / Caleb / Kirk (?)
5 -- Lennard Freeman / BeeJay Anya
Rowan, who will wear the No. 24 with the Pack, has talked about filling the role of a Trevor Lacey or T.J. Warren:
"Great relationship with the coaches, [Mark] Gottfried and [Orlando] Early," Rowan said of his decision to choose the Wolfpack. "They have been loyal and stayed with me through everything this year. Gottfried does a great job for his wings, and I feel I can go in and be the same type of player T.J. Warren and Trevor Lacey were."
And while that might be a bit ambitious out of the gate, it is a good indicator of where the coaching staff thinks he'll fit, and what type of game he has.
Rowan shot 37.2% from deep during his most recent AAU season, and if he can give State that kind of number this year, it'll be huge. The only truly known quantity, from an outside shooting perspective, is Terry Henderson, who has a lengthy track record of good shooting at the high-major level. We all hope that the Cat Daddy continues to show an improved stroke, but we can't be sure of it, and Caleb Martin could be more consistent from range this year, but again, hard to say.
So Rowan giving State another guy to stretch defenses is significant, not to mention whatever time he can spend at the two.
Mark Gottfried has himself quite the wing jambalaya goin' on, and I figure at least initially, Caleb is on top of that pile and will get the starts. With so many different possible pieces that could complement themselves in a number of ways, there are tons of scenarios we could see play out. Some of it will depend on how much the Martins have improved, and on Cody's viability as a backup point guard option.
The bottom line: jambalaya is delicious and versatility is good, my friends. NC State has a solid eight-man rotation to take into the season, with a revolver of wing players at Mark Gottfried's hip***. Rowan's addition puts less pressure on Kirk to contribute immediately, and makes the backcourt situation more comfortable. That's more than we could have asked for, especially this insanely late in the recruiting cycle.
(***Gott should, at random, yell "draw!" during games, and then the first wing to pull out a finger gun gets to go in the game. Maybe that's sending the wrong message given the current state of American society, though. Yeah it probably is. We'll workshop this.)