The “Rescue Squad” is finally able to step onto the court Friday night to a sold-out crowd at PNC Arena.
Freshman phenom Dennis Smith Jr., former Conference USA Rookie of the Year Torin Dorn and fifth-year senior and three-point specialist Terry Henderson are hungry to finally get on the court and bounce back from a down year in 2015-2016, one in which each of the three watched from the Wolfpack bench.
“I looked over there a lot,” (at the bench) Coach Mark Gottfried said. “I tried not to look over there.”
Against an experienced, deep, and very talented Wolfpack lineup, Georgia Southern will need to do what they do best in order to keep up: shoot many, many three pointers.
The Eagles have a major issue that can be a bonus or a hindrance at either end of the floor--they don't have much size to speak of. Of the five guys who logged the most minutes for them last year, the tallest was 6-5.
N.C. State’s projected starting power forward, Junior Abdul Malik Abu, stands a sturdy 6-foot-8, 240 pounds.
Not surprisingly, Georgia Southern is bound to shoot tons of three-pointers. Only 22 teams attempted threes more frequently than the Eagles in 2016.
The Pack also return veteran players in senior BeeJay Anya (a former ACC 6th man of the year), junior Abdul Malik Abu who was last season’s second-leading scorer and a top rebounder, and three point specialist Maverick Rowan. True freshman and backup point guard Markell Johnson, who should be a rising senior in high school this year, graduated and enrolled early and would be starting for many ACC teams, even this year. Johnson was a consensus top-40 recruit in the nation in the class of 2017, and will be spelling Smith Jr. at times to keep each fresh.
Each of these players are expected to be professional basketball players, whether it be overseas or in the NBA, with Dennis Smith Jr. and Abdul Malik Abu both expected to make the leap to the NBA after this season.
Gottfried has called Smith, who is projected to go as high as #1 overall in the NBA draft according to NBADraft.net, the “face of the program” but fifth-year senior and Raleigh native Henderson is one of the team’s central leaders.
“Terry is as important of a player as anybody on this team,” Gottfried said. “He’s got a calming effect on our team. His teammates trust him. They know he’s a really intelligent player.”
“The sky is the limit for us,” Henderson said. “We have a chance at a great year.”
