NC State’s 3-point defense excels through first 5 games

Shortly after NC State’s first appearance in front of a live crowd with its new roster at Primetime with the Pack in late October, Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts knew the question was coming. 

There wasn’t much defense to be played during his team’s brief intersquad scrimmage in what looked like a group of friends just having fun on the Reynolds Coliseum court. Three-pointers flew wild, while dunks were aplenty for the Pack’s high-flying guards and big men. 

“Nobody direct message me and ask me about defense,” Keatts joked to reporters afterwards. “We’re going to work on it. We’re going to get better at that.”

Fast forward a month, and it turns out, Keatts wasn’t lying. The Wolfpack, which tends to hang its hat on high defensive intensity in the eight years under the now ACC-title-winning coach, turned up the heat on that end of the floor once the regular season began. 

NC State has won five straight to open the 2024-25 season. The Pack has done so with a stout defense from beyond the 3-point arc.

The Wolfpack leads the ACC — and its third in all of Division I — in 3-point defense at just a 22.3% clip allowed from deep. Even though NC State has yet to face a power conference opponent, the Pack has seen squads that can stroke the basketball at a high clip, including William & Mary’s 3-point attempts on 56.5% of their possessions. That hasn’t seemed to matter, however, as the team has locked down the perimeter. 

“We have played some teams who can really shoot the basketball,” Keatts said. “I just think we’re locked in. We’re concentrating on it. We talk about the shooters and make sure the shooters don’t get good looks.”

NC State’s path to this clip hasn’t been a fluke, instead it’s held each of the first five teams under their season average of made threes. The Pack limited USC Upstate to a 3-of-21 clip in the season opener, while it followed that up with a 5-of-15 shooting effort against Presbyterian. After that, the Wolfpack continued to be stout from the line against Coastal Carolina (5-for-18), Colgate (5-for-26) and William & Mary (7-for-31). 

The Wolfpack’s 3-point effort against the Tribe appeared to be NC State’s best defensive effort from the outside of the season. William & Mary entered the night averaging 11.8 made triples a game as a volume-shooting team. The Pack was able to key in on its own defensive strength to coast past the Tribe by keeping them off balance on the three-point line. 

Graduate point guard Michael O’Connell noted three-point defense has been a key emphasis from NC State’s coaching staff this season. 

“It’s what we practice every day and what coach preaches, especially coming into these games with great shooters,” O’Connell said. “You don’t want to let them get hot or get going in the game because then it’ll be a long day. Make sure to run them off the line, make them uncomfortable and that’ll help us throughout the game.”

While NC State’s 3-point defense has been among the best in college basketball to start the season, its offense from beyond the arc has been almost the opposite. The Wolfpack owns a 28.1% clip from 3-point distance, which is No. 301 in all of D-I, according to KenPom. 

The Pack hasn’t taken a large volume of shots from three — just 27% of its total attempts are from there — so the damage isn’t as large as some might expect. Plus, NC State’s ability to score in the paint has allowed the Wolfpack to score at will. 

NC State is averaging 45.6 points in the paint through its first five games, which has made up 60.6% of its offense — the 13th-highest mark in the country, per KenPom. Senior guard Marcus Hill thrives by driving to the rim with three double-figure efforts, while senior centers Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Ben Middlebrooks provide an elite paint presence on the offensive end as they’re averaging 11.6 and 11.8 points, respectively. 

And, in a way, it has allowed the Pack to lean on its defensive strength to win games. 

“It becomes a game of twos and scoring in the paint,” O’Connell said. “I think we’ve got the bigs that can score in the post and a lot of guards that can get downhill to get into the paint, which is huge for us. If we can make it a game of twos, I think it’ll benefit us.”

Even though NC State’s 3-point offense hasn’t gotten off to a blazing start, Keatts is confident the shots will eventually begin to fall for his team. But in the meantime, the Pack remains confident that its defensive urgency from distance will help win games, starting with No. 13 Purdue on Thanksgiving Day in San Diego. 

“We know that if we can guard the three-point line,” senior guard Jayden Taylor said, “we’ll be hard to beat.”