Syracuse Overcomes 16-Point Deficit at NC State For 1st Road Win of Season
By MIKE McCURRY Dennis Smith Jr. messed around and
By MIKE McCURRY Dennis Smith Jr. messed around and
By MIKE McCURRY
After Dennis Smith Jr. dropped a career-high 32 points on Monday to propel North Carolina State to an upset victory at No. 17 Duke, the freshman is up to 19.5 points, 6.5 assists, and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Using the Player Season Finder tool on Play Index, only one other first-year in (at least) the last 24 seasons has posted a 19/6/4 stat line—fellow rookie Markelle Fultz of Washington.
Now comes the scary part: Smith, who missed his senior year of high school after tearing the ACL in his right knee in the summer of 2015, may not even be back to full strength.
During ESPN’s “94 Feet with Jay Bilas” segment that aired during Monday’s telecast, Bilas asked Smith about the injury.
“And you feel 100 percent now?” Bilas asked.
By MIKE McCURRY Prior to Monday, the last
By MIKE McCURRY North Carolina State showed little
The 2016-17 college basketball season is upon is and it could well turn into the Year of the Fabulous Freshmen.
Twelve of the top 14 projected picks in the 2017 NBA Draft according to DraftExpress.com are freshmen.
Duke, Kentucky and Kansas — the top three teams in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 — all feature projected one-and-done lottery picks coming to a television near you. (Interestingly, No. 4 Villanova and No. 5 Oregon do not feature any projected one-and-dones.)
And all of the freshmen hype, of course, has engendered NBA Draft Tank Slogans such as “Lose like hell for Markelle.”
Washington’s Markelle Fultz, the 6-foot-5 guard who led the USA U18 basketball team to a gold medal this summer, is the projected No. 1 pick. Even though he plays in the Pac-12 on the West Coast, he may be worth staying up late for.
