NC State moves on without TJ Warren

N.C. State hasn’t even started its season, yet the Wolfpack is already talking about loss.

It’s understandable, considering the team ended its season with an 83-80 overtime loss to St. Louis in the second round of the NCAA Tournament — only to be followed by the loss of its star small forward and the ACC Player of the Year, T.J. Warren, who announced in April he would declare for the draft.

The players know people are already discounting them, saying they can’t make an NCAA run without Warren, who led the ACC in scoring last year.

“Our guys, they had a great appreciation for T.J. last year,” Coach Mark Gottfried said.

“They clearly know that, without him last year, we weren’t going to the NCAA Tournament. They get it. Yet now, there’s the competitive nature of each guy that says, ‘Hey we want to prove to everybody that we can win without that guy.’”

Ralston Turner, a redshirt senior guard, said the team will have to step up together to fill the gap left by Warren.

“I think we need to do it as a committee,” he said. “T.J. was a great player, in my opinion the best in the country, so he did a lot of great things, but I don’t think one person can do what he did.”

Gottfried said he thinks the team will play better defensively this year after dismal performances in 2013-14, when the N.C. State was among the worst in the ACC in nearly every defensive category.

Just like a season ago, the team is young — 10 of its 16 members are underclassmen — and Gottfried said they have struggled with inconsistent play during practice.

“Some days, we think we look great, and then other days we act like we couldn’t beat ... Meredith (College),” he said.

At the point guard position, Gottfried said sophomore Anthony “Cat” Barber is still using his speed while becoming a better passer.

“If you remember last year, really in the last month, month and a half, he started to play a lot better,” he said. “He was thinking pass first, not score first. He’s carried that over.”

The Wolfpack has depth at the forward position, with sophomores Kyle Washington, Beejay Anya and Lennard Freeman as well as freshman Abdul-Malik Abu competing for minutes.

Gottfried said the four of them could provide much-needed scoring in the absence of Warren but that none of them have really emerged yet.

“All of us want one to separate from the pack,” Washington said. “There’s no talk about it, you just have to go out and do it.”

In addition to Abu, the Wolfpack added transfer redshirt junior guard Trevor Lacey and freshmen forwards Cody and Caleb Martin to their team, all of whom Gottfried said were playing well. He said Lacey will bring needed leadership to a team with so many underclassmen.

“I think Trevor has the respect of his teammates. Trevor plays the game the right way,” Gottfried said. “If the next guy is more open, he’s giving it to him every time. That’s kind of contagious amongst your team.”

And that’s the kind of mentality needed for a team that will have to focus more than any other ACC team on playing together without the fallback of a star player.

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