The NC State at Florida State game has been circled on the calendar for weeks by Wolfpack fans because it’s the last regular season contest that can help boost NCSU’s resume for the NCAA Tournament. Whether the players have been looking ahead is unknown, but Keatts insisted he hasn’t.
“As I said it last year, these guys are smart enough to know what is going on,” Keatts said. “We don’t talk about it. We may have had a conversation saying about the final games that we have, but we haven’t talked about as far as selection and NCAA at all.”
Florida State will have some lineups where its frontcourt includes players at 6-foot-7, 6-10 and 7-4 on Saturday against NC State.
Even if the heights are a little inflated, which is often the case in college basketball, that is still some serious length with 7-4 senior center Christ Koumadje, 6-10 sophomore Mfiondu Kabengele and 6-7 senior Terance Mann. Then add in 6-8 senior power forward Phil Cofer and a theme has developed against NC State that features a “small ball” lineup.
NCSU fifth-year senior forward Torin Dorn, who is 6-5 and 210 pounds, will be entrusted to combat Kabengele and Mann at various points. He half-jokingly also talked about trying to dunk on Koumadje, which NC State head coach Kevin Keatts wasn’t willing to endorse.
“That means he is going to block TD’s shot a 1,000 times,” Keatts said.
Dorn is used to being the underdog, having been in that role at Charlotte (N.C.) Vance Hig and then his first year at Charlotte before transferring to NC State.
"Being able to go through adversity and weather any storm," Dorn said. “Going through four coaches in my college career and two schools and being on losing teams and being on winning teams. Invaluable lessons have been learned.”
Keatts ended up not having the healthy personnel and roster makeup to play two post players the majority of the time this season. He also said that his affinity for small ball goes back to when he coached P.J. Hairston of Greensboro, N.C., and Dez Wells of Raleigh while at Chatham (Va.) Hargrave Military Academy in 2010-2011. Rivals.com both listed them at 6-4.
“I had to figure out how to get both of those guys on the floor," Keatts recalled. "They were both small forwards in my opinion at the time. Because P.J. could shoot the ball and get an advantage, we played him at the four.”
The key to making it work is that Dorn is averaging 6.9 rebounds per game and has grabbed at least 10 boards in six contests this season. Keatts hopes redshirt sophomore DJ Funderburk and freshman Jericole Hellems will play power forward next year.
“If he couldn’t rebound, we probably couldn’t play that way,” Keatts said. “He allows us to do a lot of things because of his ability to guard one-through-four.”
Keatts said at this point in the season he’ll typically watch the last four or five games from an upcoming opponent and maybe one of its non-conference game if the team played an opponent similar in fashion to the Wolfpack.
FSU will sometimes play up to 11 players and have had nine guys who have led them in scoring in a contest this season, and seven have hit at least 16 three-pointers. Keatts broke up the scouting of the Florida State players into two groups.
“We gave out the first six [Wednesday] and then we’ll go over the next five today,” Keatts said. “We’ve told our guys it is more about personnel than just a team. You have to know each individual guy that you are playing against, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.”
FSU has won nine out of its last 10 games, with the lone loss at North Carolina 77-59 on Feb. 23. They’ve scored at least 77 points in six of those wins.
“They are playing faster than people think,” Keatts said. “[FSU head coach] Leonard [Hamilton] has changed over the last two, three years on the defensive end. They used to be more laid back halfcourt. Now they pressure the basketball.”
——
• Talk about it inside The State of Basketball
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker
• Like us on Facebook
