When: Monday, November 4th, 7:00 p.m

Where: The Lenovo Center (Venue formerly known as PNC Arena)

TV: ACC Network Extra

Opponent: USC Update Spartans (Big South Conference)

Predictions – KenPom (KP) / Bart Torvik (BT): KP – NC State 86-60, BT – NC State 82-59

Wolf Pack Snapshot: KP No. 53, BT No. 58

Wolfpack season so far: (1-1 in exhibitions)

Wolf Pack Injury Report:

• Mike James has a knee problem (described as “nothing major” by renowned arthroscopist Kevin Keatts); The arthroscopic operation took place on Wednesday (October 30th). Expected to be canceled for 3-4 weeks.
• Dennis Parker Jr. has a similar pair of sprained ankles (Reputed sprained ankle specialist Kevin Keatts points out that it is not a serious condition), but no estimated time of arrival on his return

Opponent overview: KP #349, BT #345 – 10-20 / 5-11 last season. Big South voters assumed they would finish last in the league that season.

This will be the third meeting, we are 2-0. The last meeting was a 98-71 win in 2018 and Eric Lockett (Do you remember him?) topped our ranking.

Coach Marty Richter is in his first season at USC Upstate. He has two seasons of head coaching experience, both at JUCO Florida Southwestern State. He most recently spent five years at Drake as an assistant under new WVU coach Darian Devries.

The Spartans return just one player, guard CJ Rich, who logged 9 minutes last season. He is expected to improve on that total this season.

6-foot-2 redshirt freshman Chico Johnson is expected to be a standout player for the team. Johnson succeeded coach Richter from Drake after spending his rookie season recovering from a torn ACL.

“Be ready to play for NC State. And if you do, I promise you’ll get the reward we got last year.”

The Pack has five winnable home games to prepare for our first three games.Continue games’ from November 28th in San Diego. (Note that both Purdue and Texas are expected to be close.) Based on both pre-season predictions in the table above, the five “pre-season” games are expected to be generally more difficult, which is a good thing. (caveat: preseason predictions are made using Ouija boards)

Goals for Game #1:

Fixing everything that was wrong in the Lees-McRae exhibition game (too much?) How about:

1. The big ones – Huntley-Hatfield / Middlebrooks / Diouf

• Get involved in the half-court offense – this should improve both scoring and shooting percentage
• Defend the basket better – no easy baskets
• Improve rebounding

2. Reduce turnovers – 8 different players turned the ball over in the exhibition. Yikes

3. Run the offense – Play with the entire squad, but make the lineups work

4. No more injuries! – One knee and two ankles are enough, thanks.