Nevada...Now NC State Recruit Tracking Topic

I'm really starting to think that Zmich has had a huge impact these past two seasons running the offense.  With someone that good at limiting TOs, I think he may raise Shooting %'s more than people realize, not to mention he's a lockdown defender.  I'm starting to think that pure-PGs are a little underrated.  
4/20/2013 8:10 PM
Recruit #1: Albert Fowler

The ACC region was pretty devoid of very talented guards, and with all of the scholarships available between Duke, Wake, and South Carolina, I thought the pickup of Fowler was an excellent one.  He'll be very good and I desperately needed guards.  He won't be asked to contribute a whole lot this year, but he should be good down the line.  

Note: high-high in Spd, Reb, LP, Per, BH.  Pas is unknown.  He's going to be very good, just wish he was a better defender.  

4/29/2013 11:53 PM (edited)
Recruit #2: Jeff Payne

Originally from Atlanta, Jeff Payne elected to go to Surry Community College for two years before joining his childhood favorite team, the North Carolina State Wolfpack!  He's an excellent addition to a team that played only two guards next year.  The Fowler addition is nice, but we needed someone who could contribute at a higher level this year and especially next year.  With Payne, we'll be able to bring a shooter off the bench.  Although his Def is a big shaky, hopefully by the end of next year, when I really want to make our run, it will have improved enough to be a decent defender off the bench.  Also, his speed potential really excites me.  His Per is the real reason I recruited him, as Potter is a good shooter, but with Zmich not being able to shoot, I needed a guard who could take 5 3s per game so defense won't be able to pack it in.  

EDIT: Forgot to mention he already knew my Off/Def, he came in at A- in Triangle and B+ in zone...very good addition for us.  

5/3/2013 2:05 PM (edited)
Recruit #3: Joseph Nair

Nair comes in as the highest rated, yet most questionable recruit (he's listed at SG, he'll play SF).  With such low ath-spd-def, I may be crazy signing him.  He is high-high in Ath-Reb-Def-LP.  I hope that his high-highs explode and his skills (ability to score/not turn the ball over) can make up for the lack of spd.  I took away from Georgetown on the 2nd day of recruiting, really wasn't any trouble as Georgetown is still all the way down at a C prestige.  With only 2 open scholarships, I had to cut George Smith for him.  Smith, while a talented player, was going to have his WE continually falling and was not going to be a good enough contributor to keep around if I could get some value at a position I needed (Burton will graduate this year, leaving me with only 1 SF in Dixon, and he'll graduate the next year.  I needed to start grooming my next SF, as it is harder for them to step right in and be good).  Smith signed with Chicago State, I'll keep a close eye on him.  
4/29/2013 11:38 PM
Recruit #4: Charles Jennings

I LOVE this signing.  Like with Nair, I had to cut someone for him, so I cut Dan Arnold.  Arnold was going to be an RS most of last year, until the end of the year where his Ath and LP went black far earlier than I hoped.  I took the RS just so he could be out of the program sooner, although I still didn't consider cutting him because he was going to be at least a semi-decent rebounder/defender.  The idea to go after him came in the couple cycles before signings, when I was looking at the best big man JUCOs and saw VT had grossly over-extended themselves.  Scouting revealed that Jennings had high-high potential in Reb and Def (LP unknown).  With 75 avg Ath, he could easily hit 90.  A 90+ Ath-Reb-Def big man could be EXTREMELY valuable coming off the bench, especially if his LP pot is high-high as well.  With this kind of potential confirmed, I snagged him from VT the last possible cycle (ie. I poached him).  I really don't need him for this year, as he'll be my 5th big man, and with so much potential for a 2 year JUCO, I am thinking about RSing him.  This would put him in the same class as Derrick Howard (also RS'd), which would give me two very athletic rebounding defenders for that class, which would make the year coming down off of our big class (5 SRs graduating if Jennings RS's).
EDIT: He won't take the RS, oh well.

5/4/2013 12:41 PM (edited)
Well the season is over and oh what a season it was.  We started off very strong, going 10-0 in non-conference, beating some of the strongest mid-major teams.  We were ranked #25 to start and #3 at the end of non-con. We lost to #1 UNC to start conference play, but we continued to win after that.  We were #2 at one point, with the #1 RPI.  We were top 4 in the projection report the whole season.  We ended up going 13-3 in conference play and eventually losing in the CT Semis.  We held onto that last #1 seed with a 24-4 record.  We had a good start to the NT, creaming the 16 seed Davidson.  Then we got a scare, beating South Carolina in OT.  We then faced 13 seeded North Texas, who had been on an absolute run, and looked as if they might beat us after they were up at halftime, but we came through and took care of business in the second half to go to the Elite Eight.  There we drew OR's Texas (3 seed) and I thought we were going to get smacked.  Down 16 at half, we battled back and won it late (that was one of my favorite pbp's ever) to advance to the final four.  We ended up losing there to Seton Hall, but damn it was a good run.

We only had 2 seniors this year, which I thought made this entire season pretty special.  Both were key role players, Burton being a strong defensive SF and Scalzo and extremely talented big coming off the bench at both PF and C.  Everyone seemed to play a role on this team.  Dixon came in and shot extremely well off the bench at the 3 spot, Jeff Payne (a huge pickup) was fantastic as our 3rd guard, Zmich was our distributor (1st all-time on the NC State assist list after only 3 years), Sims was our banger down low, Potter was our very solid guard, and Derrick Howard was our star.  The two top scorers on this year's team were both sophomores.  I am very proud that I was not only able to make a run to the final four, but also have a season good enough to merit a 1 seed despite not having any 5 star players on this entire roster.  I do fear that Howard will go pro after this run, but I don't think anyone else in draft-worthy at this point.  Hopefully, this run will bump the prestige up to A+ and I can do some damage in recruiting this year.  God, what an awesome year.  The future is bright for NC State.
(NOTE: Both sophomore studs were 1st team all-ACC)



5/23/2013 11:47 PM (edited)
Josef Zmich has left the building.  Unexpectedly, Derrick Howard has decided to stay for his junior year, but our Ukrainian point guard has decided that the pull of the NBA was too strong.  Despite only scoring 2 ppg this year, Zmich led the nation in assists and would have had a shot at the all-time D1 assist record had he stayed.  I think pure PGs are severely underrated by today's coaches, so I sure will miss what he brought to the table.  Hopefully we can go out and find his replacement this year with our new A prestige (perhaps A+ if him getting drafted gives us a bit of a bump?).  We still have Jeff Payne, our JUCO transfer with A IQs, who could step in and play PG, but he only has 70s BH/P and poor defense.  I might have to look international again.

EDIT: He had one stretch this year with 55 Asts and 1 TO in ACC play.


5/28/2013 6:59 PM (edited)
Recruit #1: William Dodge


Dodge wasn't my 1st pick, but he should be a solid shooting guard.  Although he's a bit low on the passing, he'll be very fast and a good defender, as well as a good shooter.  I'll take him. 
5/31/2013 11:53 PM
Recruits #2: Ernest Gerke


I really like Gerke.  He's athletic, he'll be a fantastic defender and rebounder.  He'll also be a good passer, which I value.  Most importantly, he has high-high LP, which means he could be an excellent low post threat.  
5/31/2013 11:59 PM
Recruit #3: Jeff Scott


Scott is the biggest risk of this recruiting class.  He does have high-high defense and passing.  He'll redshirt this first season, so I'm hoping he might turn out to be real gem.  The last time I took an unranked recruit from Florida he turned into a 1st team all-american.  I don't think that's what is going to happen for Scott, but I think he'll end up being a pretty good player down the line.  I'm excited to see how his development goes.  

I also did one other, somewhat stupid, thing.  I cut Nair, who was not going to be anything more than a sub-par backup SF.  I then threw 37k at Lewis Harrel (a battle that involved Lehigh, Virginia Tech, and St. John's).  I think he'll end up going to St. John's.  At this point, I am wishing I would've been happy with my class and rolled over the 9k for a big year next year.  

6/1/2013 12:16 AM
Well, our season is over so it's time for another write-up.  We had pretty much the year I expected, no more, no less.  We won our division, went 12-4 in conference, 10-0 overall at home (2nd undefeated home season for NC State ever), we even beat UNC during the regular season.  We earned a 3 seed in the NT.  We beat Depaul and Syracuse before bowing out to Texas Tech (and their new coach tanzetti).  I was pleased with our performance, although I wish we could have had Zmich with us.  If we had Zmich I think we would have been capable of another final four run, but those are the risks you take at high level D1.  

Albert Fowler improved quite a lot over the course of the season and developed into a PG who could handle the press, which really helped us towards the end of the season and in the NT.  David Dixon also did quite a nice job this year, his last, as our starting SF.  He scored very efficiently and was named 3rd team all-ACC, something I didn't expect from him at the beginning of his career.  

Albert Sims also deserves a shout-out, as he finished 1st all-time on the NC State records in Rebounds (by 1) and FG% as well as 3rd in Blocks.  He was honored with 2nd team all-ACC honors.  

Our two juniors, Howard and Potter, were our leading scorers once again.  Potter was left off the awards list this year after being a 1st teamer as a sophomore, but Howard was once again honored with 1st team all-ACC.  We have 5 seniors leaving, so there's still room for Howard to leave unfortunately, and I think he will.  

Also graduating are Jeff Payne (a key contributor these past two years after coming in as a JUCO, Steven Covell, a very good role player, and Charles Jennings, who never really made it far off the bench, but was a very solid 4th big man.  If Howard leaves early, Ernest Gerke, who took 3 shots all year, will be our only remaining big man on the roster.  

We will have 6 or 7 openings to fill this offseason, and a high A or A+ prestige to work with.  Needless to say, I am very excited.  Here's this year's team:



6/24/2013 2:00 AM
Good luck in recruiting. Do you have any tips for recruiting as a lower DI school? My prestige is a C-. I am doing okay I just can't seem to find the right guys.
6/26/2013 9:49 PM
Derrick Howard declared Early after his RS Junior season.  That's no surprise, but it leaves us with only 1 big guy on the roster.  He left to go #34 in the draft.



6/29/2013 9:37 AM
I have to admit, tkimble, I started watching your recruiting very carefully each cycle to see whether you would choose to cut ties with Kerstetter.  Y'all are flat nasty about jumping each others recruits in the ACC!   
7/3/2013 11:22 AM
Recruit #1: David Kerstetter



Kerstetter is a project who will RS this year, but with high-highs all over the place, he could end up being a high end D1 guard.  His ath is low-high, unfortunately, so he won't ever get drafted, but I could see him being a major contributor in a couple of seasons.  
7/8/2013 5:23 PM
◂ Prev 1...8|9|10|11|12...15 Next ▸
Nevada...Now NC State Recruit Tracking Topic

Search Criteria

Terms of Use Customer Support Privacy Statement

© 1999-2024 WhatIfSports.com, Inc. All rights reserved. WhatIfSports is a trademark of WhatIfSports.com, Inc. SimLeague, SimMatchup and iSimNow are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts, Inc. Used under license. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.