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Sometimes, It's Not Your Day
- Jackson Williford
- 2 minutes ago
- 5 min read
A sold out crowd that actually pulled off a stripe out. Thousands of light up towels waving. A vintage Lenovo/PNC/RBC environment.
Melvin Council shrugged.
Once again, constituents at 1400 Edwards Mill Road were treated to an afternoon of “who is this guy?” and “what the ***?” in a game that was totally winnable. This one started out as a rock fight, but got progressively more entertaining as both teams started seeing shots fall.
What’s perhaps less entertaining is when the boys in stripes start taking things into their own hands. I have already filed away the “mental .gif” of Alyn Breed’s foul that was teach tape "how to defend straight up and down" that led to critical free throws. Then there was this totally normal basketball move that you see all the time, that would have absolutely been called a flagrant foul in regulation:
Take note of Mr. Council ducking his head towards the defender whilst swinging his elbow above his shoulder right at Breed’s face. Yes, basketball players do this all the time in the normal flow of a game. Thank you, Roger Ayers!
Obviously, this one sucks. For all of the aforementioned reasons, certainly, but there’s the backdrop of the year to date that makes it even harder for us to swallow.
Will Wade has been loud. He has not shied away from expectations, from winning early, from “The Reckoning.” With State falling short in Maui and at Auburn, and Kansas being the only marquee non-conference home game, this felt like the opportunity to launch Wade’s tenure at State with fireworks. It ends in a one point overtime loss at home on some nasty calls and a non-shooter finishing with a career day.
Stack that on top of N.C. State’s recent track record of crumbling in high leverage non conference games, other triangle schools starting the year hot, and the NIL investment with this roster: It’s hard to not feel like we are in the same place we’ve always been as a basketball program.
We are not in that same place, but I want to process some of this pain first before we get all positive on the outlook of this season. This result warrants it. First, a note on
Variance
Human beings have a difficult time disentangling process and results.
Imagine you’re at a blackjack table. You get an 8 and a 10 to start your hand - a position that wins ~60% of the time. You make the decision to “stand” at 18, but lose when the dealer procures a 20 from a poor starting card.
Following the correct process did not yield the best result for you this go round. But if you had “18” to start every hand over a long period of time, you’d expect to win significantly more than you lose. We live in a random world that doesn’t always fall the way we think it “should.”
There are definitely issues in comparing a Vegas staple with a finite number of variables and outcomes to a basketball game. The principle of “good process doesn’t always lead to good results” still holds true.
Athletic contests by their nature are short time propositions. The variance you see in a given game is what allows an underdog to beat a Goliath. If you simulated 2023 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson against 1 seed Purdue, Purdue wins ~999 times out of 1,000. In 2023, the “one” happened.
N.C. State fared unfavorably in two variance categories on Saturday:
Their own three point shooting
Melvin Council’s three point shooting
State finished the first half shooting 2/19 from three. 10.5%, by far the worst shooting performance on volume this team has seen in a half this year. Even more frustrating is the quality of these shots, which were largely quality looks from players you want taking them.
On the other side, State saw a career 27% 3 point shooter who was shooting incredibly poorly this year on uncontested jumpers. They dared that guy to beat them - vs. other strategies that would have allowed, say, Kansas’s future top 3 NBA pick Darryn Peterson, or other potential NBAer Flory Bidunga beat them.
And when they got new data - when Council hit 3 threes - they changed up their approach. They stopped sagging and picked up the pressure, leading to contested shots:
…that he still wound up making.
For context, Melvin Council Jr’s 9 made threes are second most in a game in Kansas History. Council’s previous career high in 3PM was four. State’s defense was largely sound in this game, which limited the rest of the Jayhawks to 2/15 from three. If you extend the time horizon out long enough, Council’s three point percentage likely settles around 30%, where he’s been his entire time in college. But State didn't have a long time horizon yesterday.
He will not have a better game in his career. You tip your cap.
Don't get me wrong: State played well enough to win. They did not make the most of their chances late - Darrion’s missed and-1, two end of game chances to win on a final shot, the aforementioned brick building of 3 point misses. The list goes on. They didn’t lose this game because the God of Luck wasn’t smiling on them yesterday, but it’s hard to look at this game and not see the obvious impact that tremendous variance in a couple of categories had on this result. We hate attributing outcomes to luck, but most outcomes in life aren’t as simple as “if x, then y.”
I leave this game satisfied with the inputs we saw. They’ve responded to a “chewing out” around the time of the Asheville game with two performances good enough for a 100/100 and 89/100 game scores on BartTorvik.com.
If State plays like this from here on out and a few more shots go in, they’re going to have a very good first year under Wade.
Moving Forward
State did not capitalize on the opportunities it had in the non-con. The players and coaching staff would tell you that. They didn’t leave completely empty handed, though.
State has outperformed preseason expectations. They’ve risen ~10 spots in KenPom and BartTorvik to 28 and 29th nationally. They picked up wins over potential tourney teams in Boise State, VCU, and Liberty.
Arguably most important is the improvement we’ve seen defensively post Maui debacle. State left the Maui Invitational with the ~190th rated defense nationally if you strip out preseason expectations. They’ve gotten that number down to 59th by moving away from switching everything to playing mostly true man to man defense. It is good to see a coaching staff willing to move away from a hypothesis and then see significant improvement, even over a small sample size.
State is figuring things out with an entirely new roster and coaching staff, and if we look at Bart Torvik’s season simulations, State is in line to finish well:
Projections and metrics don’t win championships, but on this path, State would land on the 7 seed line, which would be the best seed for N.C. State in over twenty years.
Y’all, that is a hell of a year one for Wade if this happens. And we are currently on this path!
This isn’t a bad team. It's got a lot to figure out, but this is a team that will win a lot of basketball games, probably make the tournament, and set a good foundation for the future of Wade’s program in Raleigh.
The best moments of this year are yet to come. State will be favorites in seven straight games. That doesn't diminish the pain from this one, but give it time and I believe we’re going to be feeling much different about this team in a month.
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