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Wes Moore shares update on Diamond Johnson, NCAA prep

On3 imageby:Ethan McDowell•03/03/23•

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NC State women's basketball coach Wes Moore (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

NC State’s 10-game ACC Tournament winning streak came to an end Friday afternoon when top-seeded Notre Dame defeated its No. 8-seeded opponent 66-60 at Greensboro Coliseum. The conference quarterfinal run by the Wolfpack is the program’s worst result in the tournament since 2017.

Wolfpack sophomore guards Aziaha James and Saniya Rivers played well over their two games, averaging 12 and 11 points per game respectively, but the Pack was noticeably missing All-ACC star Diamond Johnson.

The junior guard dealt with an ankle injury for most of the regular season, and NC State eventually decided it would be best to rest and wait for it to completely heal.

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After the loss, Wolfpack head coach Wes Moore talked about Johnson’s availability going forward and how the program will approach NCAA Tournament prep.

“That’s the plan,” Moore said when asked if Johnson will be available for the Pack’s next game.

“By not playing her the tournament, you basically gave her two more weeks off because, next week, we’ll [have] a practice or two, but we can sit her out of that and give her a full three weeks, but we’ll see. Who knows. It’s been a lingering thing and, at some point, it’s kind of up to her.”

With a lengthy 9-day gap between NC State’s conference tournament and selection Sunday, Moore shared the program’s preparation schedule.

“We’re going to give them a few days off, and then we’ll get back,” Moore said. “It’ll be good to have a few practices where we can focus on us before we find out who our opponent is, so we’ll probably do that. We’ll probably come in maybe middle of the week, lift weights, shoot and then start practice. We’ll probably practice a couple of days, take a day off and then, next Sunday, we’ll find out who we’re playing, and we’ll have a few practices where we can focus on that.”

NC State will play in the 2023 NCAA Tournament with likely its lowest seeding since 2017. Moore said he is unsure if the Wolfpack will feed off of the energy of the program’s doubters.

“I don’t know,” Moore said. “We came into this tournament as an underdog, and maybe I didn’t stress that enough, but you look at our bracket— We beat Notre Dame earlier, we beat Louisville earlier, so you felt like ‘Hey, you’ve got a chance.’ And, obviously, we didn’t have Diamond this week, but we felt like we could come in here and and make some noise, and so it was really disappointing that we didn’t.”

The 2023 NCAA Tournament selection show is scheduled for Sunday, March 12 at 8 p.m..

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