Light it Red

Griffin Cunningham 0:10
Welcome to the Light it Red Podcast. I'm Griffin.

Jenna Cuniowski 0:13
I'm Jenna.

Griffin Cunningham 0:14
And this is our debut episode. We are here at the WKNC studio and we are both, I'm a sophmore, I am a first year and we are both involved with student media and sports and this is going to be kind of a deep dive into NC State sports and just uh the happenings around what's in season and today our day view episode is going to focus on men's and women's basketball and how they've just eliminated in the same day in the March Madness Tournaments

So to start out men's basketball, lost to Creighton on

Friday, Friday. All right. And they lost by nine here and yeah, general thoughts on that last Jenna.

Um, to be honest, I saw coming. They never

Um, I feel like they've definitely had stretches where they played really well. But especially in higher pressure games or tournament games. They haven't really performed this season. Like they definitely know better than last season. But this season, it was kind of a toss up for both men's and women's teams. I think like they would have certain games where they play. Really good teams are highly ranked teams in the ACC or nationally ranked teams. And you'd be like, wow, like, we're kind of good. And then other games, they play kind of like no name teams. And you'd be like, yikes, I have, ya know, for sure. I think they lost two. I think there was one game that they lost to Pitt early in the season. And that was kind of the game where I was like, their ACC opener. Yeah. Yeah, that that was tough. Like, Pitt is an experienced team and they kind of had a game plan that they executed on and NC State just couldn't like, hit shots kind of outside of Terquavion Smith, which is exactly what happened against Creighton and then create an obviously is better than Pitt.

They had that one Baker, I don't I need to figure out his name here. But I don't like him. He runs funny. But um, yeah, they they I think he had a career high in points against them, because burns couldn't say, burns, couldn't, you know, stay in and got in foul trouble. And

so I think it's been a pretty consistent issue for him. Like that's happened a couple times where he's even though he's playing well, he has been benched because of foul trouble.

Yeah, I think Keats has said on a couple occasions that like, he doesn't want to play burns more than 25 minutes. Because like, he is a liability. When he when it comes to like running the floor and stuff. Yeah. But at times, you know, he was a great energy guy. And I think that's why people really fell in love with him. Yeah. But yeah, in the kind of the big moment there he kind of it all went went away and joiner wasn't making his shots. And yeah, those were the three that him Smith and burns were the like the biggest scoring guys on the team. And it just didn't come together. And

which I think was probably at Pitt against Pitt. Like going back to what you're saying. Like there's just wasn't a lot of like cohesiveness like there was Smith doing his thing and doing really well. But there wasn't a lot of contributions coming from everyone else, or even good, like team chemistry, where they could move the ball really well or anything like that, which we saw at certain points in the season. Like I remember the Wake Forest game was a really good game for them. When they played, I believe it was it was here that they had like a really good game and Burns had a career high.

And he was also like, dishing out really good assists and everything like that. But yeah, definitely against Creighton like they lacked the cohesiveness that they needed to win that game. Yeah. Yeah. The guy the center. His name is Ryan Kalkbrenner, junior. Yeah, he he's 7'1". So I think yeah, they didn't have any, like true centers on the roster this year. And so when it came to like matching up against like actual bigs, I think, I mean, they split with Duke this season, but Duke has a couple bigs outside of that. I don't think they really played like any true like seven footers. And so when they put like, Ernest Ross in there, like

what's the other guy? Dowuona Yeah, yeah. Ebenezer? Yeah, yeah.

rotate off of pick and roles on defense and, you know, be a rim protector, which is kind of what they were missing. And then, you know, consistent paint scoring as a whole, I'd say.

Yeah. Do you know where you paint into the Jack Clark at all? Because there was a lot of hype around him, I think coming back from injury and how he just kind of kind of boosts the team. Yeah, a lot.

I think when they played Carolina, I think he was a really big contributor to that. And that was kind of like the pinnacle of like, NC State basketball and like their execution. And, you know, he's a good stretch for, is he a junior?

Um, I thought he was a graduate student. Oh,

yeah. He won't be back. But um, yeah. Graduate student. Yeah. So I think isn't I think Ghana, Ghana, we back. I don't know, I think that stretch where Clark was injured. And Gant was coming in. You know, he wasn't like someone that demanded touches on offense. And so I think he really knew his role as like an energy guy and like, a defensive kind of rebound guy, which is, again, that's something that every team needs. And he wasn't I don't think he saw the floor against Creighton. Yeah. And yeah, I think Jack Clark had like, one, three. And I don't think he scored a lot outside of that. He definitely missed more than he made. So yeah, him along with, you know, everyone outside of Smith was definitely more of like a hindrance to the success of the team, unfortunately.

Yeah, but then you also mentioned earlier, like, even though Smith had his 32 points, he was also shooting a lot of shots that weren't the best screw, which probably also contribute to the loss because instead of other people getting good looks, he was sort of shooting these like fade away threes that were also contested. And obviously that's a really hard shot to make. Yeah,

yeah, I think the

kind of selfish, I mean, it's hard to not be selfish, in like, in the March Madness tournament, because every game is nationally televised and like, a lot of these guys aren't sure about what their future is going to be. And so even though, like, team success is the number one priority when you can have like, individual success as a lower seeded team that, you know, gets a lot of attention and Smith definitely got a lot of attention. And I think it reminded me of like, like Ja Morant wasn't like a heavily

scouted guy coming out of high school. And he went to like, Murray State, and they were 12 seed, and he had a really good showing in the tournament, and then ended up being the number two pick. So I think, you know, guys see that and they're like, I want to be like that. Like, I want

to mate. That's what I need to do to be the lottery pick of the NBA (inaudible for the last couple of seconds)

So I think that was definitely probably in the

But he obviously like the the team when was definitely like, he was very emotional. And I don't know if that helped or hurt the team. I don't know he he got caught on the on the sidelines. They're kind of having a little moment. Yeah, I'm sure. The Chair. Yeah. Yeah. clearly frustrated. Yeah. I think Joiner had to come in and calm them down. It was good to have that on the team. And so I'm curious as to like,

next year, what, who's gonna kind of be they're not going to have a Smith type player. I know they have some new recruits coming in. But I don't know. I think Casey Morsell is gonna probably be the locker room leader. But I don't know if he's that guy to come in and like, calm people down. I think he just as a calming presence. So that'll be interesting.

Yeah. Do you want to jump in to kind of the women's game?

Unknown Speaker 9:25
Um, yeah, I want to say Well,

Griffin Cunningham 9:28
I'll let you kind of start with this one. Um,

yeah, so I covered that game for technician, actually. And they were definitely expecting to win. I was a little bit surprised when they came out that they were seven seed because I feel like they kind of fell off towards the end of the season like they did really well in the game against Syracuse. But then their next game against Notre Dame was not a great showing for them. So I would have expected them to have a lower seat but they ended up as a seventh. And I didn't think Princeton gotten off of they got the automatic bid from winning their conference, and I just tend to read write seven verses ten seed. Yeah, ten seed. Um, so I thought that NC State would have it wouldn't be an easy one, but it would be pretty, you know, they had a good chance. And there was also a lot of listening to the broadcast before.

A lot of the broadcasters were talking about Jakia Brown -Turner and how like this was like her, her last season and like she was, like, expected to do really well in the tournament, and she just did not meet those expectations. Yeah, I think at the beginning of the season, I remember hearing a lot about her to cuz she's, I think she had like she had like, the milestone like 1000. Yeah, pretty early on to and yeah, I mean, she's been pretty consistent for that. And I believe she was the one starter that came back. Yeah. From the void. Not start last year. No, she came off the bench, oh, pause

yeah. No, Jakia was, uh, I mean, she was she was solid this season. But I would say, a better adjective to describe like,

her play was inconsistent. Yeah, I don't, I don't think they had like, someone that they could rely on, for scoring like that. And, actually, you know, I take that back. I think diamond Johnson was probably someone that you can rely on to score, but she was like, her injuries just like she couldn't really overcome. Yeah, I think it was the same injury.

It was, yeah, it was the same one that she just wasn't taking enough time off, I think in between games. So it just, she would wait a couple days, and then play again. And then like, tweak it again, and then kind of repeat the same thing until it just got to the point where she couldn't really play anymore.

That's, that sucks. Because yeah, she was. Uh There were moments where she could just like, you know, hit threes drive to the basket. Like, couldn't really stop her. And,

yeah, and then also, like, there was so much value in what she would create for her teammates to like she was really good at like driving and dishing and like kind of dictating what the defense was doing to create those opportunities.

Yep. Yeah, they didn't have that starting unit that Wes Moore probably wanted out there. For most of the season. I think he started with like, Madison Hayes. And I brought her off the bench because she's more of like a, I don't know how to, like she's not she's definitely not a scoring guard. She's more of like a do at all type of player that can go get rebounds and like, and, you know,

like, she's definitely not very flashy, but she can like she can finish around the room when she needs to. And if, like, she can knock down open threes. Definitely

three point shots a little ugly, but I think, ya know, she definitely she hit a couple in the game, right? Um, yes. She hit more by herself then men's team. She was two for two. Yeah, yeah. But then what happened at the end there? Why didn't

Why didn't it work? Oh, the end was really painful. They I believe there was there was like 30 seconds left in the game. Or no, it was it was down to 12 because they had one turn over 30 seconds. But Princeton didn't end they missed their shot. And they got the rebound. So they thought they were in the clear.

It was 63 to 61. There's 12 seconds ago, NC State was inbounding because they'd been fouled but like they didn't they weren't in the bonus yet. And I think it was actually Jakia. That was inbounding Yeah, it was and they tried to go for they had I believe it was Schneider Rivers was like cutting to the basket. And they were trying to look at looking to get it into her for like a quick to to like really seal off the game. But that pass ends up getting tipped and then stolen. And then Princeton hit a three the other end when they left like four seconds on the clock. Yep. And then TC didn't even get a shot off. Yeah, I think what it does is Aziaha James got the ball, and then yeah, and they kind of locked her up and she wasn't able to do anything with it. Yeah, that was bad. That was really bad.

I can't like I think there's a time and a place to try to draw like an inbound play that like is for scoring and then for getting the ball in. And that was not the time to try and get a person to cut to the basket. And I saw like, I don't know if Wes like wanted I could like his body language on the sideline was just like he was completely deflated, like, head down shoulder sunken like, it just wasn't it wasn't good and it's a bad it's it sucks that that's the way you know Jakia and I think isn't Jada Boyd also done. There are a couple girls that that was you know, Camille hobby. Yeah. Like yeah, they brought in some some grad river Baldwin (inaudible for a couple of seconds). Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good amount of their roster. Yeah. Graduating. Yeah. That's kind of a shame. Yeah. Jada Boyd is a senior. So. Yeah. Well, we have another year of eligibility, though. Yeah. Jakia Brown-Turner Jada Boyd do their part of (inaudible) thing that happened? Yeah. So they probably will probably come back. I don't know, a lot of athletes like, I cover a lot of gymnastics and like three of the seniors over there, and I've probably come back and yeah, so I wouldn't be shocked if they did. They tried to bring in some more people and keep building on the program. But overall, kind of a dissapointing stepback from last season, definitely, it reminded me kind of like football, like when you have like these expectations and like you think you have something you can build on and it just like fumbles and I think injuries plays a big part of that but also like I don't know if pressure is like a factor in that like with Devin Leary I mean he was not playing well with like his injuries

same thing applies here. No, I think diamond was Jada got injured, too. But it just just didn't pan out. They didn't really deserve to be like a seven seat, I don't think Yeah, I agree. Some people thought they were gonna make a run. And I just, I don't know, I never really bought into that I would have expected to the least one the first game. I didn't. One of my friends had sent me that Stephan A. Smith put them in his final four.

Which was really surprising to me. Because I think if they could string together a bunch of really good games, they have the talent to get there. But they just haven't been able to do that. Like they had a stretch of really good games in the beginning of the season. But then since they, I think you cover the loss of Boston College, and

they lost the Duke and Boston College. Yeah. Back to Back. Yeah, the ACC games,

right. And then they had they kind of stumble a little bit there. They recovered a little bit in January, but they could never like put together enough games like more than like two or three in a row. I don't think even though they started the season really well. And I think in order to be a good, like tournament team and like make a run, you kind of got to have that consistency and be able to like build upon the success and not

know, I think I think Wes Moore knew that. I think he knew like, he didn't have the same team. Yeah. Because I remember early on in the season, like in the postgame press conferences when they were playing those non conference teams. And they were they were winning really handily. There were still things that he was like, I don't like this about, yeah, you know, what's going on? I'm not comfortable playing this girl this many minutes. And like, and it just didn't, you know, didn't translate, and I don't think he was surprised. It was a really turbulent season for him. And just Yeah, I don't. I didn't like the, you know, the rotation was really thin all year. Yeah. They like really thin. I think

he took responsibility for that a little bit, because he was saying I should have brought in more transfers or like made a better bid for people that left to like, stay here. But

yeah, I don't. I didn't watch the team last year, but I know they had like at least three girls that were like, really important. Yeah. Success. And I think point guard.

Yeah, at least one of them got drafted into the WNBA. Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:20
Yeah.

Griffin Cunningham 18:22
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It. Just I don't think Camille hobby kind of filled that void. I think it was Cunene. I don't want to say that wrong. Yeah. I'm not sure what her name was. No, she came in. I mean, I don't it just didn't work. And then Sophie Hart left. And yeah, I think Did someone else leave to Jessica Timmons? Left? Yeah. Did Yeah. And she was she was, yeah, she was like a guard. I still terrible for the Well, I mean, good for them that they're going to try and get minutes, but not as good for the program. Because yeah, I mean, I didn't even know you could do that. In college. I thought you kind of had to stick it out.

I mean, I don't. I don't even I don't even understand the transfer portal like that. Well, but yeah. Yeah, they they dipped, because they weren't getting playing time. And I don't know, I don't think I didn't get to see hard enough to say like whether or not she deserved minutes. But I think Yemen's had stretches of play where it was, like, pretty obvious that she was a talented guard, like, you know, kind of helped the team, the bench unit. But I think the priority was more on like the development of scenario reverse. That was a huge, huge priority for the team. And I think it worked. Yeah, in a lot of ways. She was probably the leading rebounder which is not great for the centers, but good for Sanaya three point shot needs some work. But yeah, I don't know. I think this is a that's a good segue into kind of our last topic here, which is what's going to happen next season for both men and women? And I think we've already touched on that a lot here. But um, I think for men, there's gonna be, there's gonna be a lot of roster turnover for both.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like it's so hard to even say, just because of how the transfer portal is, like you don't know. I know, they have two pretty good like high school commits coming in for the woman that were played in the McDonald's all American game. But like, they don't know, what they're gonna get for transfers out, which I think was, it was pretty impactful for the woman this year. But I think more impactful for the men because they were pretty horrible last year. And then they got all these transfers from I think joyner and burns were both transfers, and a couple other ones that really impacted the team and kind of like dramatically changed how they were playing.

Yeah, Casey, came over from Virginia. But he or this is a second year here. I think. Actually, I take that back. I think this was

I'm not I'm not 100% sure about that. Okay. But I know this is him, he still has a year of eligibility. So yeah, I don't know. But I think it's, it's good for the program. I think, kind of the the NIL deals

both programs, I mean, the women, the Women's Program has been solid since Wes Moore took over like, almost 10 years ago. Yeah. And so I'm not concerned about I think they've kind of established themselves as like, one of the top programs, like regardless of how the season ended, I think I don't think they're going to have a problem like, recruiting and like getting attention from like, potential transfers. Yeah. So I think next season, even though like those two graduate made me Collins and river Baldwin are going to be on which honestly, I don't think they had the impact that, you know, everyone was hoping for. I think Mimi had a good game against Princeton, though. Yeah, she did do it, which we didn't talk about. Yeah, she, the team struggled to score for the first couple of minutes. The game I think was like my first seven. Yeah. Um, yeah. Then she came in, she was just kind of like a spark of energy off the bench, which hasn't been like that hasn't been the case all season. Like that was definitely like a unique game for her I think. But yeah, her she definitely impacted the game. And she had like an end one, I think was her first. The first time she's feedback, the back end ones. Yeah, sure. That's six total. Yeah. And she was a big part of getting their momentum going. When the starters just didn't really seem to have it like game. Yeah. No, it's It's unfortunate that that wasn't kind of how it was all season.

Yeah, so there'll be gone. And I don't think, you know, I think the lessons learned are going to be important from this season to I think, like, making sure that players that you want to like stay with the program are going to play because you don't want. I mean, I don't know, like all the details about the Jessica Timmons thing, but like, if I was, you know, a coach on that staff, I would want her to stay. Yeah, especially since you know, she's a sophomore, like she still has two years of eligibility like, that could be a big thing going down down the road. Yeah.

And that was a big part of Wes Moore had mentioned a couple times and like the postgame press conference is how it's really hard with the transfer portal now because he is so used to like having players for four years and getting to like develop them, so that they kind of fit the team's agenda and like, fit into the team. I guess, like how he wants them to, into the team can fit together and that way, but now you have all these transfers coming in. And it's sort of harder to make a cohesive, cohesive unit out of that, when you're just constantly adding new people.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I think, where the men succeeded where the women didn't this season. And so you go and get those transfer players. It's like, it's kind of a gamble. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a different different game, really, with the way things are now, but I think either team could benefit from that. And yeah, I mean, I don't know who's gonna step up for the men. I'm a little more concerned about that. Because dark hell and a graveyard Are both I mean, Jessica's gonna be gone. Forever Young can come back. I don't think he should probably go try to play in the NBA. And so yeah, it's gonna be interest. I think they had a couple of four star recruits, actually. But I don't know if they'll play. Yeah, who knows? Yeah. I don't know if they're gonna make the tournament next year.

Yeah, cuz that was like a big deal for them. Right? That's like that they lost half. Yeah, I think since 2018, maybe it was last time they made it.

Yeah. I know, I think they made the tournament when Dennis Smith Jr. was here. And then before that, it was pretty rare. It's a special thing to have a player like him come in, and then immediately be like an NBA caliber talent. Because this is a program that I mean, we share. We share kind of a player pool with Duke and UNC, like locally. And so it's hard, it's hard to get players to want to come here instead of go there, especially if it's like a local thing. And like, I I'm hoping that, you know, him being here. And repping NC State and not transferring out like the Martin brothers or, you know, you're it's been or like, I don't know, I mean, TJ Warren. TJ Warren was good. But it is it's rare to hear. I mean, that was a long time ago. And yeah, so hopefully, high school athletes see that. And they're like, you know, it's worth a shot playing here. This is a good coach. And this is a capable program. And the fan base is passionate, I would say Yeah, probably. It stacks up against Duke and UNC for sure. Even though we don't win as much. We definitely have like, the same level of passion for our athletes and our sports. Yeah. So

Yeah. Especially with I think DJ burns this year. Obviously, I wasn't here last year in Neither were you. But I feel like his personality that we talked a lot about earlier, like kind of garnered a lot of student support even from kids who didn't usually, like be into basketball. They just kind of saw like this big goofy guy and his sunglasses. I don't know, they just kind of love them, like gotta love the hype

bring your bring grandma on. Ya know, he's, he's a great guy. And yeah, I've seen some of his social media. He's, you know, he's really happy that, you know, this season was successful. I think that's the bottom line. And I think there are a lot of upsides despite the loss to Creighton. And yeah, I mean, Creighton is a good team. Yeah, so they shouldn't hang their heads too low. They're sweet 16 team, and there were

the the 11 seed too, so it's not like it'd be one thing.

We know you were the seventh or seventh seed going up against the pan and then shouted at the end, right. A little different. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think we could probably wrap it up there. Yeah,

we have for time here. 30 ish minutes.

All right. Well, that sounds good. Um, thank you for joining us for our first episode. We're going to try to return in two weeks and hopefully you guys tune in then. This has been lighter red.

Music In this podcast was Jonas Hippers king of sports and vibe and sneaky, licensed under creative commons from the Music Archive

Transcribed by https://otter.ai