In a few days, the Pack will resume its basketball season, after having an extended break. The team sits at 9-3 but the early-season schedule didn’t divulge a whole lot. The good news is that they didn’t get tripped up by any of the tomato cans on the schedule. Additionally, they won a conference road game. The bad news is that they went just 1-2 in neutral court games against good competition and got blown out in their ACC-SEC challenge road game.
The preview of the season included this graph:
This year’s squad doesn’t have that elite scorer. But it should be a more-balanced attack. It’s up to (Kevin) Keatts to find the style the team should play and the individual players who should be in the game at any point. It may take a while to find the right mix and this should be a squad that no team wants to face come February.
The task to find which players to play when has been complicated by three issues. First, transfer M.J. Rice missed several games after being away from the team before the season started to handle undisclosed personal matters. When he showed up in the games, he clearly didn’t mesh seamlessly with his teammates. Rice oozes talent but he doesn’t look comfortable on the floor, especially in halfcourt action.
Secondly, transfer Kam Woods was denied a waiver from the NCAA for eligibility, since it was the second time he switched schools. But Woods was among the players to benefit from a court’s ruling against this NCAA rule. He was practicing with the team all along, so he looks more in sync with his teammates than Rice. But it’s hard to find him minutes with all of the other talented guards on the roster.
The third thing that’s caused issues for the team have been the injuries to Mo Diarra. The losses line up with periods where Diarra was either out or had limited minutes. Diarra brings both size and toughness to State and is a good fit defensively with DJ Burns, who’s not much of a shot blocker or great help defender.
Burns was a revelation last year and he forces teams to scramble when he gets the ball. But he’s almost as much of a liability defensively as he is an asset on offense. A healthy Diarra allows Keatts to play Burns fewer minutes and when they’re on the floor together, Diarra can check the better offensive player.
Diarra missing so much time has kept Keatts from establishing consistent minutes for his big men. It’s also created another problem, as it allowed more playing time for freshman Dennis Parker Jr. While he’s more of a wing than a post player, Parker was the main beneficiary of Diarra being out. Parker is extremely athletic and gives State a different dimension when he’s on the floor. It would be nice to see Burns, Diarra and Parker on the floor at the same time. But Keatts likes having Casey Morsell in the game as much as possible, which complicates things.
Morsell is tough, probably the team’s best defender and he scores from all over the court. The problem is that he’s the size of a guard, which inevitably gets him in trouble when he has to check people with a four-inch height advantage on him. One option could be moving Morsell to guard. But with the strong starts of DJ Horne and Jayden Taylor in the backcourt, there aren’t a ton of minutes there, either.
When State ends their 10-day break with a road game against Notre Dame, we’ll get to see what the plan is for minutes. Rice and Woods are definitely in the mix and hopefully the time off was what Diarra needed with his various leg injuries.
Notre Dame has a 173 ranking by Ken Pom, 100 spots below the Pack. It should be a good chance to pick up a conference win and a nice way to get back into the swing of things. And State will have to be ready for tougher teams, as after the Irish, it will take on #54 Virginia, followed by #12 North Carolina.