It won’t surprise anyone that I’ve been thinking a lot about NC State. How exactly did they do what they did last week? Is their improvement real? What should we expect on Thursday?
What happened last week is a good reminder that teams are not static. During the course of the year, there are injuries, there are changes to the rotation, coaches keep coaching and making adjustments, players improve and figure things out, players go through slumps and lose confidence. All of those dynamics affect the team’s performance.
The numbers for NC State tell a story. In the first half of the year, they were a good defensive team and a mediocre offensive team. In the second half of the year, they improved considerably on offense, but regressed on defense. In the ACC Tournament, they put both together. That’s what enabled them to do what they did.
Let’s draw a line after the Syracuse game on January 27. Up to this point in the season, the Wolfpack was 13-7, 5-4 in the ACC. They were ranked #78 in kenpom, #100 in offensive efficiency and #54 in defensive efficiency. They had had several games where they were rotten on offense: Ole Miss, Notre Dame, Carolina, at Virginia, at Syracuse. But they had had a couple of terrific games on defense (Carolina, Virginia) and several others where they were very good (Notre Dame, at BC, Vanderbilt, Wake).
Going into the ACC Tournament, NC State’s overall kenpom ranking hadn’t changed much at 76. But the composition changed a lot. Their offensive ranking had improved from 100 to 69, while their defensive ranking had regressed from 54 to 104. Starting with the Wake Forest game on February 10, the Wolfpack’s average adjusted offensive efficiency rating over their last eight regular season games was 121 points per 100 possessions, with no single game less than 119. For reference, 121 is a Top 10 offense. It’s the level of Gonzaga, Arizona, and Duke.
So NC State clearly had found some things on offense, but it was hard to tell by wins and losses in the second half because a) their defense was inconsistent and b) their schedule was harder.
In the ACC Tournament, somehow it all came together. Offensively, they essentially continued to play at the same level they had been, which again is Top 10. Keeping in mind that 120 is a Top 10-level adjusted offensive rating, their ratings for each game were:
- Louisville – 125.7
- Syracuse – 117.2
- Duke – 116.1
- Virginia – 121.9
- Carolina – 128.0 (this was State’s second-highest offensive rating of the year, after their home win over Virginia)
But the really surprising thing is how much their defense improved after the first game against Louisville. Their adjusted defensive ratings were:
- Louisville – 123.5
- Syracuse – 90.5
- Duke – 85.9
- Virginia – 103.3
- Carolina – 92.9
Duke was their second-best defensive game of the year, Syracuse was fourth-best, and Carolina was sixth-best.
I don’t have any quantitative analysis that would shed light on why their defense was better. But I did watch the games, and my thought is that it’s a combination of greater effort and focus, improvement by Diarra, and luck.
This is an interesting thing to think about. Would you rather be a good offensive team and an OK defensive team, or an OK offensive team and a good defensive team? The data suggest that offensive-oriented teams typically perform slightly better in the postseason than defensive-oriented. Why is that? My theory is essentially that defensive performance is more dependent on effort, whereas offensive performance is more dependent on skill. And for that reason, defense can be “turned on”, up to a point. But you can’t really “turn on” your offense. If you don’t have good shooters and good passers, no amount of effort is going to make up for that.
Of course there is such as thing as defensive skill as well, and a poor defensive team can’t turn themselves into Virginia just by playing harder. But I do think defensive performance is more variable with effort. Watching NC State this year, I think Morsell and Taylor were capable of being good defenders, but there were games they couldn’t seem to stay in front of anybody. But in the tournament, you could see the exceptional effort. Morsell in particular was really digging in. The increased effort was also evident in transition defense which was visibly improved in the tournament.
Then Mo Diarra started being a rim protector. In State’s last 12 games, Diarra is averaging 1.9 blocks per game, which would be second in the league if he had done it for the whole year. The uncontested layups which seemed so frequent in February were much less frequent in the tournament.
There was some luck, too. From three-point range, Syracuse was 6-19, Duke was 5-20, Virginia was 9-28, Carolina was 8-30. That’s a collective 29%. Some of that was good perimeter defense, yes, but some of it was just guys missing shots that they might make another day. I’m not convinced that State suddenly has a suffocating three-point defense.
Going back to offense… what changed from the first half of the season to the second? As you might expect, it wasn’t just one thing. Jayden Taylor played much better. He had an outstanding run the last six games of the regular season. Diarra also improved on the offensive end, becoming a legitimate threat from three and contributing a few buckets off the offensive glass and even off the dribble as well.
But what really stood out in the tournament was the play of O’Connell and Burns. As for O’Connell, in the regular season he had a total of three double figure scoring games. There were a lot of games where it seemed like he was just out there taking up space. He had some decent assist games, but he also had a lot of games with 3 points and 1 assist in 25 minutes or something like that. Not really making an impact. He had attempted only 25 free throws all year heading into the tournament.
And then he scored double figures in all five games in the tournament, going 9-16 from three, 15-18 from the line, and looking like a completely different player on the offensive end. I don’t really have an explanation for it. O’Connell is not a young player, having played 125 games in his career, and it would be unusual for a player like that to suddenly take a quantum leap forward. He has never been a scorer. He is a career 31% three-point shooter, which is not very good. I don’t know whether the coaches have been on him to shoot more, or if he decided on his own, but he clearly came into the tournament with a more aggressive mindset offensively, and once a few shots started going down, it fed his confidence.
O’Connell’s improved play is directly related to Burns’ performance. Burns has always been a skilled and unique offensive player, but the tournament was the best stretch of his career. I saw two things. One, Taylor’s, O’Connell’s, and even Diarra’s improved offense makes it much tougher to defend Burns. For a good portion of the season, the only real perimeter threat they had was Horne. Taylor was shooting poorly and O’Connell and Diarra weren’t shooting at all. It allowed their defenders to help on Burns with relative impunity. But with Taylor, O’Connell, and Diarra being threats to score, the situation changes completely. Choosing to double-team Burns means leaving a good offensive player open. Most teams therefore chose not to double team Burns, but when they did, he burned them.
That brings me to the other change I saw in Burns. He put a little Tyler Hansbrough in his game, which is to say, he did a better job of using his size and strength to get closer to the basket and get an easier shot. As big and skilled as Burns is, he winds up taking a lot of difficult shots. He shot 52% from the field this year, which is not bad, but it’s not that good either for a guy who is 6’9″ and 300 lbs. I’ve often thought that because he does have such nice touch, he falls in love with that a little bit and takes an 8-footer when he could use his size to get a 3-footer.
Then, too, I think the knowledge that teams weren’t double-teaming him gave him more time to work and get closer to the basket. In the past, he’s had to be mindful of going quickly and getting a shot off before the double team comes. In the tournament, he knew that teams weren’t going to double, and he could take 10 seconds to back a guy down and get a point-blank shot.
So I think all of that worked together to create offensive synergies for the Wolfpack. Will it carry over into the tournament? Anything can happen in a single game, but I think most of the improvements they’ve shown are real and sustainable. They now have 13 straight games with an offensive efficiency of 116 or better, which is outstanding. I’m not convinced that O’Connell will continue to be a threat offensively, but they have enough different ways to score now that I expect them to be a good, Top 20-type offensive team from here on out.
I have no doubt that teams, especially with time to prepare, will try to throw new wrinkles at them. But I will say this. Great offensive basketball is not primarily about being opportunistic and taking what the defense gives you; it’s about running stuff that the other guys know is coming and can’t stop. I think you saw in the tournament that NC State has some of that now. With the emergence of other scorers, the maturation of Burns, and the variety and efficiency of DJ Horne, defenses have to make some very difficult choices. Nothing could be more telegraphed in terms of what is coming than when Burns gets the ball, but the defenses in the tourney were at a loss for what to do about it. Most of them chose to defend Burns one-on-one, and he scored. If they doubled him, he passed to a teammate who was in favorable scoring position. I don’t think that fundamental dilemma is going to change in the NCAA Tournament.
What I am more skeptical of is whether NC State can maintain the defensive efficiency they showed in the tournament. I expect their effort to be excellent, but their fundamentals are shaky. They make mistakes in defending ball screens. They get beaten in transition. They give up back doors. Guys lose assignments for a second and give up open threes. All it’s going to take is a team having a good shooting night. But the way they’re playing offensively, it’s possible they could score enough points to survive a shaky defensive performance.
Watch the officiating as well. I loved the way the ACC Tournament was officiated. The officials let the players play and stayed in the background, which is the way it should be. Keatts’ teams at State, including this year’s team, have been high foul teams. That has hurt them at times, both from guys getting in foul trouble, but also from sending the other team to the line. But other than Horne in the Carolina game, State had no significant foul trouble issues, and they shot 128 free throws in the tournament to their opponents’ 65. If the upcoming games are called more closely, it could hurt State. I expect teams to try very hard to get Burns in foul trouble and get him out of the game. Watch for an early flop on a Burns back down to see if they can get the officials to bite.
I think the biggest stat to watch will be Texas Tech’s three-point shooting. If they shoot 6-for-27, State will win; 11-for-21 and we’ll be headed back to Raleigh. Also watch the foul situation closely. State cannot afford a major imbalance at the free throw line and they can ill afford foul trouble for Horne or Burns.