Practice gets underway on Friday.
Mark Gottfried spoke at length with reporters on Thursday afternoon at NC State’s annual media day. He addressed a bunch of topics, and you can watch the entire press conference at GoPack.com if you’re feeling up to it. Assuming you are not, here are the highlights:
— Gottfried said they “don’t really have a timetable” regarding Omer Yurtseven and Ted Kapita and the NCAA. With Yurtseven’s process, he said, “nothing has happened in a negative way, I think there's been a lot of fact finding, it's just a process that's ongoing” and that they are "approaching it with the hope that [Yurtseven] doesn't have to miss any games." Yurtseven has been participating fully in team workouts.
— Gott praised Dennis Smith Jr., calling him the best guard in the country, “period, hands down.” He also had lots of praise for Torin Dorn, whom he said is “one of those guys I think every coach in the country would like to have on his team.”
— Gottfried still has every intention of redshirting Lennard Freeman, barring a strange turn of events. He basically said Freeman still isn’t 100% in any respect, and anyway, if State gets good news about its freshmen big men, making sure Freeman fully recovers makes way more sense than letting him back onto the court. He does not have plans to redshirt anybody else at this time.
— Maverick Rowan has grown an inch or two since last season and could be played in a stretch-four type of role.
— BeeJay Anya was at 344 pounds as of a couple of weeks ago, Gott said, and when asked about this he was clearly frustrated. “That’s where it was so that’s what it is.” The N&O’s Joe Giglio pressed after joking about this topic being brought up constantly, asking Gott if Anya is as of today still 344. Gott’s response: “close.” He added also that “we’ll see how it all plays out. It is what it is.”
— Gottfried didn’t question Anya’s mental commitment to the team, but I don’t think anybody’s ever questioned that.
— Is it possible to sub-tweet, so to speak, during a press conference? Gottfried basically did this when asked about how the non-conference schedule turned out.
"I like to play a really aggressive November and December schedule. We were in kind of a holding pattern for a couple three or four weeks back in March and April where our roster was a bit unsure and I think as our roster became a little more solidified, we circled back with some teams and there wasn't any interest anymore. All the sudden we couldn't get the games we wanted. There was about three weeks where everybody was calling us, everybody in America wanted to play us. Right after that i called them back and couldn't get anybody to commit. It wasn't for a lack of effort."
If you’re scared, get a dog, anonymous basketball programs!
— SOON
To Be Continued #YearOne http://pic.twitter.com/yPjMNtQQN1
— Markell Johnson (@kells_2017) September 29, 2016
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