NC State Basketball: The return of Lennard Freeman is key to success

NC State Basketball has lots of new faces, but this season they will rely on the return of an old face: fifth year senior Lennard Freeman.

The NC State basketball team is in the midst of big changes. They hired a new coach. There were player departures and there were new transfers who arrived to help install the system. There are still things that will fall on the shoulders of the returning Wolfpack roster and fortunately for them, they get back a missing piece from last year’s campaign – forward Lennard Freeman.

With new coach Kevin Keatts in command, the Wolfpack defense is going to lean towards a more high-pressure look. That means the big men will have to be ready to do a lot of running as well. That would have been unreasonable for BeeJay Anya last year, but Anya is now gone. Instead, Freeman returns for his senior season after a year away due to injury.

Freeman was missed last year by an NC State team that was inexplicably beaten for rebounds. Freeman’s effort on that end will be necessary for an offense that wants to respond quickly to changes in possession and not get stuck having to contest multiple shots by the opposition.

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The other area that Freeman will contribute to is on the defensive end. According to reports from Joe Giglio of the Raleigh News and Observer, Freeman was the best pick and roll defender on the team when he was healthy in 2015. Defensive adjustments and steals are critical to making a high-pressure defense work so Freeman’s mobility will be welcome in that aspect.

All of these things are hypotheticals, though. Is Freeman putting forth the effort to make his final year is best and adapt to the new system? All indications are that he is. Freeman has lost twenty pounds and Coach Keats credited him with “completely remaking his body.”

NC State may have a lot of new faces at the guards and wings, but their core group of big men should be very familiar to any NC State fan. The middle will be patrolled by a rotation of Omer Yurtseven, Abdul-Malik Abu, and Freeman. They will just be asked to do things that they were not asked to do last year. As the only real bigs on the roster, there should be plenty of minutes to share between them.

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Of all the players currently at NC State, a big year from Lennard Freeman could be the best indicator of how successful the team is going to be. Last year’s squad lacked rebounding, effort, and defense and these are things that Freeman does in spades. He should also be pretty motivated to comeback from his two surgeries over the last two years.