NC State's Defense is Trending Up

You’d never know it if you simply measured the sentiment around it, but NC State enters conference play with a top 50 defense. Will Wade’s first Wolfpack team, which was rightfully lambasted for its early defensive efforts, has quietly pieced together a nice four-game stretch to wrap up its out-of-conference slate. 

Three of the team’s four highest-rated defensive games per Torvik have come in the last two weeks (Liberty, Kansas, Ole Miss). Over the four-game stretch since 12/10, Pack opponents have shot 26.7% from three. The team nearly halved the defensive three-point percentage from the previous four games, which was over 44%. 

The defense was quite bad coming out of Maui, but it was not going to continue allowing a number like that. For reference, the worst three-point defense in America last season allowed 42.6% shooting. That’s how sample sizes work, kids! Auburn and Texas going berserk took a couple of very poor defensive showings and made them look galactically bad. Water has found its level to some degree, but that’s combined with an improved effort. On Sunday, State got Ole Miss, a team that is 235th nationally in three-point rate, to shoot 30 triples. It’s the first time all year the Rebels have taken more threes than twos, and it only made eight of them. 

That’s what this defense looks like when it works. Particularly in the first half, State dominated that end of the floor. It wasn’t perfect (Williams blew a switch on the very first possession that led to a three), but it consistently kept Ole Miss out of the paint and forced contested jumpers. State had some issues with Malik Dia’s physicality and it gave up some good looks off its live-ball turnovers, but it was strong when it wasn’t clipping its own wings by throwing initiation passes to the wrong team. 

Wade is far from propitiated by his team’s defense, but the trends are positive right now. If you throw away the stat sheet and just watch the tape, you see a team that is recovering off strongside help in the gap cleaner than it was in Maui. You see a team that is totally miscommunicating far fewer switches than it was in Maui. You see a team that is closing out shooters better. The effort has gone up and the result has been a similar shot distribution for the opponent, but with fewer makes because of stronger contests. 

State allowed three made threes in the first half on Sunday. The first came from the blown switch on the first possession. The second came from a bad strongside stunt. The third came in transition from a live-ball turnover. The mistakes lead to the uncontested shots, and the mistake count was just lower. Its gap help was really effective in the game and it didn't burn itself with crappy recoveries or inactive hands. It could handle the pin-downs better I think, but the ability to prevent paint touches and close out shooters was key.

The Pack now needs consistency at this level of intensity. It definitely did not play the final ten minutes against Ole Miss at the same level as it did the other 30. Ole Miss is not very good, so it didn’t change much, but State was actually outscored 26-13 over the final 11 minutes. That is not the standard. 

The offense continues to play well. State is getting quality shooting from McNeil and Holloman, and the level that Copeland is currently running the offense at is far beyond what even the stoutest optimist would have predicted. If the defense continues an upward trajectory and Darrion Williams joins the party, this could become something fierce. 

The loss to Kansas felt like a real deflater, but State wins that game eight out of ten times. The Pack’s a good shooting team that shot horribly against the Jayhawks despite creating enough good looks, and even so, that result changes from one bad bounce, one egregious foul call, one made three from a bad shooter, etc. Over 30+ games, those types of things come home. Losing that game was infuriating, but the indicators from it were still good. Those indicators carried to Ole Miss as well. Now, a ton of very winnable games are laid out for the first half of the conference season. This whole thing may not have started the way we dreamed it, but it’s all still plainly there for the taking if State would like to have it.