Giglio:

Quote :

"Now comes the interesting balancing part for NC State. Jalen Lecque and Markell Johnson are in the draft (present tense). So Keatts is recruiting two grad transfer guards but he only has those available scholarships if the Lecque and Johnson stay in the draft The guards State/Keatts are recruiting -- Christian Keeling (Chas Southern) and Jaevin Cumberland (Oakland) -- had huge seasons in 2018-19."

4/20/2019 5:09:16 PM

how did i miss that superstar preferred walk-on max farthing was a BIG BALLER BRAND ALL AMERICAN???

4/20/2019 11:37:16 PM

^^Keeling is very likely to end up at UNC if they pull the trigger on the offer when he makes his OV, which they're expected to do.

4/22/2019 9:56:55 AM

Offered 4* PG Jalen Cone. #53 overall, #3 NC, #11 pg for 2020 but he is eligible to reclassify to 2019. We offered him for both classes.

He's got a pretty impressive offer list for 2019 already - Tennessee, Texas Tech, and VT, but he seems really high on us if you read his quotes from the article.

Might hint at what the staff thinks Leque/Markell are leaning toward as far as the NBA. We don't have the scholarship room unless we rescind other offers.

https://247sports.com/college/north-carolina-state/Article/Jalen-Cone-NC-State-Offer-Earned-It-2020-2019-131492706/

4/25/2019 12:16:16 PM

Idk about Kells...obviously I hope he comes back. But it just seems like Lecque is flirting awfully hard with the NBA to not go. Like, somebody’s gonna need to tell him definitively that he won’t get drafted otherwise he will go. That’s just what it seems like from my perspective but I don’t pretend to have any #sources either.

4/25/2019 6:06:09 PM

apparently lecque has unfollowed keatts and the official nc state basketball account on twitter. so take that for what it's worth.

(i take that + the offering of a '19 PG to mean he's definitively not coming, but that's just me. get that money son)

4/25/2019 6:59:51 PM

Quote :

"TreeTwista10 Laugh, Think, Cry 140270 Posts user info edit post so some folks on IC are predicting that Lecque never plays for us. Are they just hating or is there any thing to be concerned about? 10/8/2018 9:06:58 PM"

4/25/2019 7:47:24 PM

^^he gonna be getting that gleague money, haha. Im fine with it. A combo guard that cant shoot and isnt good enough with handles/passing to play PG. He wouldnt have made us better next year. Gimme jalen cone and lets move on

4/25/2019 8:30:16 PM

Quote :

"He wouldnt have made us better next year. "

Yeah you keep thinking that. This 5'11 kid will help us much more. I can't wait to see him and Beverly lock down the guard spots!!!

4/25/2019 8:47:11 PM

I will think it. Hes a one trick pony that doesnt have the body to get to the rim consistently in the ACC. Until he develops PG skills or a jumpshot, he wouldnt have made us better and he wont be in the NBA

4/25/2019 9:22:31 PM

You seem to be an expert on Lecque. What are you basing that on, the box score of a dozen AAU games?

4/25/2019 9:27:51 PM

No. Basically every scouting report thats out on him. His biggest knock a year ago was he couldnt shoot. So he flipped to playing PG full time. But he wasnt good at it, so a few months ago he said in an interview he was going back to more of a combo guard role because that is what he was best at. So a 6'4 guy that cant shoot and doesnt have PG skills. Hes very athletic and can dunk. Some team may take a flyer on him in the 2nd round due to his athleticism hoping he develops...but thatll be it

4/25/2019 10:02:08 PM

everybody's known he might never come here since the day he committed. i think everyone hoped he would rather come to college then go gleague.

of course, i still hope he comes but this whole thing is no surprise. I dont think its over yet by any means but the signs arent looking great.

even an espn story about it a month after commitment
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/25164402/jalen-lecque-weighs-skipping-college-entering-2019-nba-draft

[Edited on April 25, 2019 at 10:42 PM. Reason : e]

4/25/2019 10:33:25 PM

I heard we are a lock for Schea Cotton, John Wall, and Mustafa Shakur to take all three guard spots

4/25/2019 10:43:37 PM

Smits is announcing today

4/28/2019 2:24:43 PM

He's going to butler

4/28/2019 4:44:22 PM

Well shit

4/28/2019 4:48:36 PM

Haven’t read this thread in a few days and It has gotten depressing fast.

4/28/2019 8:15:08 PM

Keeling to UNC also

Not looking great

4/29/2019 1:43:58 AM

I think at this point it's going to come down to if Markell comes back. If he opts to stay, then I doubt Cone reclassifies. If Markell stays in, I think there is a strong chance Cone reclassifies to this year's class and joins the Pack. He has said he's only graduating early if he has guaranteed PT.

Lecque coming in as a SG is much more appealing to me. I was always a little worried he would come in and use next year an audition for the NBA to show he could play PG. Thought he'd be pressing too hard at times to be the PG and show his ability to shoot(shoot way too much).

4/29/2019 9:15:35 AM

I hope Markell comes back and Lecque comes as well. The feeling I get from Markell is he just doesn't want to be in school anymore. I could see him taking G-League money, even though I think he'd be better off staying. Lecque unfollowing everyone and everything related to NC State seems like Generation Z speak for "we're done here". This is just starting to look more and more like a class that's cobbled together last minute.

So worst case scenario right now:

PG - Beverly, Harris
SG - Bryce, Daniels, Seabron, Farthing, (Allen RS)
SF - Hellems
PF - Funderburk, Bates, Adree
C - ???

Beverly wouldn't be the end of the world at PG and he's shown he can play extended minutes. Harris will hopefully improve. Daniels could probably play down into the 3 slot alright and Hellems was getting better / more minutes toward the end of the season. Funderburk is pretty solid but no idea what to expect from Bates and Andree. Might as well call all three centers since we have no true center there. Not sure whether we'd play two "bigs" at once, or stick to a heavier rotation of guards. The lack of proven depth and a true center is going to hurt in Keatts' system.

4/29/2019 10:04:50 AM

Bates is a C. He needs to add weight, but he is definitely not a 4 in keatts' offense

4/29/2019 12:27:46 PM

Call it a C or a PF, funderburk will almost def start at 5 and Bates will back up him up.

Also think someone else said it but Keeling was never that into us anyway apparently. Was going to clemson before the unc offer and Clemson fbi trial issue.

[Edited on April 29, 2019 at 12:40 PM. Reason : ^Just saw your GOT post, don't shit your pants this time ]

4/29/2019 12:32:47 PM

If Beverley or Harris are starting at PG next year, we are doomed. We could start 4 David Thompson clones, and it wouldn't matter. Neither of them are ACC level PGs (though Harris could be in a couple years).

4/29/2019 3:03:05 PM

Quote :

"though Harris could be in a couple years"

This is a good joke. I got a hearty laugh out of it.

4/29/2019 4:44:27 PM

You're boldy predicting that there's no way harris can be an ACC-level PG by his senior year?

I assume an "ACC-level" guard means an average guard in the ACC?

4/29/2019 4:58:39 PM

I can't keep up with the best thread for this, but Lecque got a combine invite and Markell got an invite to workout for the Hawks.

4/29/2019 5:39:49 PM

I actually thought Harris looked really effective at times during the NIT last year. Still needs to improve his decision-making but was aggressive on both ends of the court and made some nice plays. Have to remember he was coming off a transfer and got fairly sick midseason and missed some games.

Ideally Harris is our back-up PG but I don't think we're completely doomed with Harris playing significant minutes at the point, but I do worry about having to play Beverly there for long periods of time because he doesn't seem to do well running the point AND hitting his 3's.

4/30/2019 9:37:18 AM

We need a PG who can run the PnR and create for the other shooters on the team. Beverley doesn't have that skill set and never will. Hopefully Harris can develop it, but even when he was playing his best at the end of last year, he was turning it over way too much in the half court offense.

4/30/2019 10:23:48 AM

I think in a general recruiting sense what seems worrisome is a bit of a lack of direction/recruiting strategy I thought KK would bring. With previous coaches we landed some good players but didn't always fit the system or have a cohesiveness to it leading to transfers and some poor teams.

With KK I thought we'd have a more clear recruiting strategy as he really has a pretty defined style and system he wants to play and certain players will fit that and others won't. But we don't seem to really have any recruiting momentum, direction, and just keep plugging holes with transfers. Now if the strategy is to be the "transfer destination" and build a roster that way that is fine. I think it can be effective to be a tournament team but not sure that it gets us into the top 3-4 of the ACC.

We also seem to always find guys just good enough to leave early, but not good enough to help us win anything significant. If the goal was the feed players into the G-League we are really crushing it. With how this is looking to play out certainly don't think we are better next year than this year and it will take quite a bit of off-season improvement across the board from who we have to not be a bubble team or worse.

4/30/2019 11:55:25 AM

Quote :

"We need a PG who can run the PnR and create for the other shooters on the team"

i just don't see this ever happening with harris. he's a walking turnover machine who looks for his own shot entirely too much. He isn't a good finisher and I will withhold judgement on his ugly 3 point shot until he has a larger body of work.

4/30/2019 12:29:25 PM

^^To be fair, I do think Keatts has a strategy but he keeps getting hit with dudes leaving.

Last year we had a top 25 recruiting class and then Bey, our highest rank commit, de-commits really late.
So we still bring in 3 HS players(Bates, Steere, Hellems), 1 JUCO(DJ), and 2 high-profile transfers(Harris and SKJ).
One of the HS players(Steere) transfers after 1 game.
One of the high-profile transfers(SKJ) is kicked off the team.

KK took a gamble with Lecque because he and his family were saying all the right things and IF he went to college he'd be a big-time 1-2 year player. Obviously doesn't seem like that is working out in our favor but you can't blame him for taking a chance here.

Markell was always a threat to leave, and if he comes back then I think everyone will feel good about our team, but once again this was never in KK's hands and it's hard to land a big-time PG that may or may not have a starting spot their first year. If we lose Markell and land Cone, think most will still be happy.

Keatts has a plan but he's been a bit of a risk taker with recruits/transfers and where he's done well is finding guys to fit in his system to plug holes. Obviously this isn't the ideal approach all the time, but it's better than the days when we would plug holes with guys who will never contribute like a Thomas De Thaey.

I'll worry about the sky falling when we figure out what our roster actually looks like for next year. If our starting 5 is Markell, Beverly, Bryce, Andree, DJ, I'll feel pretty good about our squad.

5/1/2019 10:09:43 AM

^^ This. I love Harris pressure on defense, but I'm convinced that we wouldn't start for GT or Wake if he stayed there four years.

5/1/2019 11:07:39 PM

Oh man let’s get Boogie Ellis

5/2/2019 3:18:35 PM

Think he signed a LOI with Duke so can't go to acc school

5/2/2019 3:54:31 PM

nah, if they release him from his LOI he could sign anywhere. that said, he's going to end up at memphis so we'll play him this year anyways.

5/2/2019 4:49:03 PM

Atticus Taylor commits.

Immediately eligibility juco transfer with 3 years remaining. Had 0 NCAA offers a year ago. WOOOOOOOOO

[Edited on May 3, 2019 at 10:34 PM. Reason : He's got sweet hair tho]

5/3/2019 10:34:22 PM

Quote :

"Taylor averaged 9.0 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in 17 games. He also made 36.9 percent (17 of 46) of his 3-point shots. Taylor will be a sophomore and have three years of eligibility. Texas A&M and West Virginia also recruited Taylor."

Hope it’s worth something that we weren’t the only suitors

Disappointing on paper though

5/3/2019 11:59:56 PM

I mean Buzz Williams was on him both at VT and TAMU. Seems like he's a project offensively, but a guy who can come in and guard multiple positions in an uptempo system.

5/4/2019 12:24:25 AM

His hype video on youtube has a bunch of players on the same team wearing different colored shorts, so he definitely played in some fancy places

5/4/2019 3:25:55 AM

I guess that's why he was pretty excited to wear an NC State uniform from 2010 in his photoshoot.

5/4/2019 9:52:02 AM

Sounds like Cone is going to VT. Going to be a long few years lmao

5/5/2019 9:26:52 PM

Seabron jumps up the rankings on 247 and is a top 100 player(#89).

Jalen Cone is now in the 2019 rankings and is a 3* player and ranked 175th.

Missing out on Cone isn't the end of the world and won't derail our recruiting. If Lecque goes pro, then it just makes PG the top priority for the 2020 class.

5/6/2019 8:13:20 PM

And if both Lecque and Johnson aren't here next year we're totally screwed.

5/6/2019 8:55:41 PM

Right now some positive signs that Markell is coming back.

But even if Markell doesn't come back, Jalen Cone isn't the one. He's reclassifying up and is a 3* PG that is undersized and doesn't appear to be an immediate impact guy. Give me Beverly and Harris with their experience.

Even without Markell, our depth chart next year is still solid:
PG - Beverly/Harris
SG - Bryce/Seabron
SF - Daniels/Hellems
PF - Andree/Taylor
C - Funderburk/Bates

Redshirting: Thomas Allen

If Markell comes back you slide Beverly to the starting 2 and Markell is the starting PG.

Without Markell we're still experienced at all 5 starting spots, we have more shooting threats and we should be better defensively(replacing Walker with DJ/Bates is a big improvement). Markell was our only big-time scoring threat but I think with more shooters on the court we could offset that with more balanced contributions.

5/7/2019 9:53:31 AM

DJ is not an improvement over anyone on D until he can learn to avoid fouls

Also that lineup is a bottom half acc lineup.

5/7/2019 10:35:54 AM

Keatts danced around the subject but gave the impression that Markell would be back at the Coaches Caravan last night. He said he's had workouts with 4 teams to this point.

He also compared Lecque to Westbrook, but really didn't give any indication about him with the way he worded it.

[Edited on May 7, 2019 at 10:53 AM. Reason : He also mentioned he expects the Pack to get bigger in the next 24 hours]

5/7/2019 10:53:12 AM

Markell not getting invited to the NBA combine OR the G-League Combine is pretty telling that he isn't on any NBA radars right now.

Lots of speculation that the workouts are like what Abu did and he gets direct feedback on what he needs to work on for next year.

Lecque and his family INITIALLY said they were only going pro if he was guaranteed to be a 1st round pick, I'm not sold they still feel that way. NBA combine will be really big for him, but he's such an athletic freak that I think the combine is a place he should shine.

5/7/2019 10:57:47 AM

A UMKC grad center just committed, 6-10 Danny Dixon


Based only on his stats, looks purely like a depth/Bates insurance pickup

[Edited on May 7, 2019 at 11:03 AM. Reason : E]

5/7/2019 11:01:40 AM

I think that pretty much says Lecque isn't coming back. We'd have to have someone leave to have room for this guy, right?

5/7/2019 1:08:52 PM