The Big Weekend

This episode covers NC State Mens Baseball's opening series vs Princeton, and furthering ACC rivalries with Womens hoops vs Duke and Gymnastics vs Stanford!!!

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Creators and Guests

Host

Logan Brumley

What is In The Den?

"In The Den" with host Logan Brumley covers everything from the NC State Wolfpack's NCAA, intramural and club sports. "In The Den" is a podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

00:00
Logan Brumley
Hello and welcome today's episode of WKNC Sports podcast in the Den. Today we're going to be seeing the home debut of NC State baseball with them playing against Princeton. We'll be looking at the Thursday night at Duke women's basketball matchup and we will finish off with the women's gymnastics as top program Stanford will be coming over from the west. So get your headphones on and let's get straight to it. We'll start off with NC State baseball. So how did they do in Puerto Rico? As expected. They dominated. They beat Washington 13-0 and Indiana State 10-4. With the seton hall game getting canceled unfortunately and nt state overall they had a pretty good statistical performance from some of their key players.

01:06
Logan Brumley
Their catcher who has been batting ninth, Drew Lanphere he has gotten himself a 600 baton average which is good for about three runs and three RBIs. But the key hitter here batting queenup is first baseman Dalton Bargo. The Tennessee transfer hitting himself how many? 2 home runs and 3 RBIs which leads the team and at least a home run category. The RBI category is a tie between McHugh and Nixon. And another notable thing is Sherman Johnson who has been taking reps to third base along with Wyatt Pifer is batting a whopping .667 in three at-bats. A lot of them don't really have too many plate appearances. Only four players including Bargo and McHugh have 10 plate appearances. So ultimately, I mean it's not too bad.

02:17
Logan Brumley
I think we kind of have our order sorted out in general and it's looking really strong and it should look the same against Princeton. So why am I talking about Princeton as the home debut rather than Winthrop who is. I mean it's going to be a single game against Winthrop versus a whole series of Princeton at with Princeton and Princeton it'll be their first game playing against NC State so it's going to be a fresher overall look. So what do you need to know about this Princeton squad? Well, while they're not looking too good, they were near the bottom of the conference with an 8-13 record in the Ivy League.

03:06
Logan Brumley
But this year they're expected to be about fifth in the conference, which I mean with a strong postseason showing and maybe some quality wins in this series would not be too bad for them. So let's see some of their notable returnees. Jake Koonin, who is probably their best hitter returning, he had a .236 average with eight home runs and 22 RBIs which leads all returnees essentially. And another notable hitter to watch out for would be their other infielder like mid infielder piece Tommy Googins, who also got himself a home run of 15 RBIs off of .196 average. He should be able to make that next big jump and to start being a more trustworthy batter with time. And that could be a guy who has a strong showing in this competition.

04:11
Logan Brumley
Especially when you look at, I mean the roster isn't too strong, there will be plenty of opportunities for him to show up, but either way just look out for that middle infield. It looks pretty decent. That's probably the strongest part of the roster offensively and defensively. Their pitching is not that great. They don't have a player with a smaller than .4 ERA that is still on roster. Episcope went to the MLB I I think their top returner is going to be Justin Kim who has a .526 average and a 2-5 record, which is going to be rough. So I figured that's a brief preview. I feel like it's going to be blowout. But it's, you know, make sure to stop by a game if you're able to get a ticket.

05:12
Logan Brumley
I'm sure they're probably sold out by now, but that'll be a fun weekend to be an NC State baseball fan. All right, coming up next, women's basketball against Duke. So let's get right back to it. I'm sorry if you can hear the band activity in the background, they are performing during my recording, you know, with me recording on Wellness Day. That's why I couldn't get a UNC & NC State thing going. I hope they won. But women's wise they should really focus on the Duke. How's NC State doing? I mean you've probably noticed they were blown out by Notre Dame after a blowout. Virginia Tech and will be on the last leg of their three legged road trip and both of those games kind of came down to the second quarter.

06:14
Logan Brumley
We saw a good second quarter performance against Virginia Tech with 25 points by the team including Zoe Brooks shooting and rebounded by Samuel St. Pierre to secure the 11th winning record for head coach West Moore like in the conference. And then that's Notre Dame was they weren't as efficient getting six turnovers in that quarter and 22 overall and given a high flying offense with Notre Dame every opportunity to score that they can and it was taken every shot that it could be. So when this team gets hot, they're on fire. But I mean these cold streaks happen and they just will get toppled if they are not capable and Duke is a team they especially need to be careful against as a top dog of the acc.

07:10
Logan Brumley
They have not lost a game yet in the conference, currently 14-0, 19-6 overall after starting the season about like what, 3-6, they've won 16 consecutive games looking from being outside of the playoffs in general to now looking like a third seed in the conference. They just recently came they just recently came off a blowout win against SMU and snuck a close win against unc. So this looks like it'll be the next leg of that Duke UNCNT State Women's basketball rivalry, which I'm excited to see what I could do. I mean Duke is ranked ninth in the nation, but who knows, maybe something great could happen.

08:10
Logan Brumley
Duke is one of the strongest assist distributors with the highest assist differential in the ACC thanks to the gameplay abilities of Tanya Meyer and Ashwon Jackson who are both top 10 in assists in the conference. They even have great all around scoring, but especially at the 3 point being around 6% higher than the usual opponents and 2% more than NC State when it comes to 3 point accuracy. Both NT St. Duke have four players each above 33% shooting, of course including the aforementioned Mayer and Jackson. Just know that most of the starters on Duke's court are going to be shooting above 30% while NC State really only has a small handful. With Brooks Co. Having a balanced offense with many approaches, Duke is really going to set up NC State with the challenge.

09:11
Logan Brumley
I think that NC State's rebound ability is vital here because they can minimize the second chance opportunities for Duke because Duke shoots great but not perfectly. And maybe there's a way that they can cut down the efficiency with really tough just suffocating defenses and efficient rebounding by Pierre. And maybe they could sneak out a win against Duke, especially since Duke does have an issue when it comes to keeping the ball and trying not to turn it over. And defensively, Duke has also been able to kind of keep suffocating their opponents as their opponents have a usual split of 37, 25 and 75 and about 58.7 points per game. Anti State can shoot more efficiently, but that turnover issues from the other State does leave a sour taste in your mouth for Delaney Thomas and the aforementioned Mayor.

10:13
Logan Brumley
Both are able to get steals and their star shooter Toby Fournier can get two blocks a game of her own. So this team can definitely have defensive playmaking and force mistakes and as Long as NC State wasn't completely demoralized by that Notre Dame loss and they're able to shake it off and play a tough offensive game, maybe they could sneak out with a win. I am a little bit suspicious and I hope reasonably so, but I think only time will tell. With what we can get out of this Duke defense and what we can expect from the offense, I think that Pierre will of course be able to eat up in the inside and be able to get that double again. I think she's now like third French State single season in that category.

11:05
Logan Brumley
I think Quigley off the bench is going to probably have a little less of an effort in that second quarter against Notre Dame. She was very crucial to the turnovers, but at the same time she's a great three point shooter. So keep an eye on her. Keep an eye on what her role is going to be in this game with her. I'm sure they're not going to cut her down, but if she ends up kind of being more of a spot on shooter rather than a ball distributor and try to cut down on the mistakes as much as they can, that would be great. I mean NC State sticking at the six seed, I feel like that's where they've been pretty much all season.

11:44
Logan Brumley
Sounds like they kind of had that slump in the beginning and I think that is going to be where they stay for the tournament. But having a strong performance against Duke might be able to help move the tides, get some great momentum and be able to finish the season strong. So that's the end of my preview there. Make sure to check it out. It will be on ESPN if I am recalling that correctly and we will finish up by looking at women's gymnastics. I'm not sure why most of my episodes have been going by really quick this lately, but today is not really going to be an exception. We're going to be going over women's gymnastics against Stanford as they're expected to come town this weekend for alumni Pink day for NC State.

12:34
Logan Brumley
This will be the third meetup in history going one and one in their meets. The last one being last year and then before that 2017 NT State had a dominant weekend since the last time I brought them up, going 21 against UNC with a win against number 17 Auburn in Boise State going for a grand whopping total of 6 and 3. However, they're still ranked at 22nd and they're fifth in the southeastern Region and I think that same position in the conference. I think unc, Stanford, Clemson I want to say are all ahead of them, which I know is for and Cal. Cal for sure. So let's take a look at Stanford. Ranked 10th, second in the west and first in the ACC.

13:35
Logan Brumley
They're coming off a two game losing streak against Georgia and Cow, but have an overall 5-3 record and are just above NC State. And when it comes to overall their qualifying score of a 196.9 versus NC State's 196.16. So yeah, it's very slim margins to win a gymnastics. I did not know it was that slim. It feels like the scoring for gymnastics is really interesting. I don't know kind of what makes a flip a, you know a 9.8 versus a 9.81 or even like a 9.3 but oh well, I mean they're the experts, not me. I'm just kind of previewing everything and going off the numbers that I found online. So here's each of the matchups and something to look out for. First up, the vault.

14:41
Logan Brumley
NC State and Stanford are neck and neck in the rankings, but I do believe that NC State could have the edge. Stanford hasn't been too great. They have an average around flat 49 and went below the 49 mark last weekend. Their top vault athlete is all around gymnast Anna Robert who went 9.8 as her average. If she was on NC State's roster that would put her fourth. Saniya Thomas, Lauren Wright, Eva Miles, Autumn Riordan are all rated higher than her. So I think they go off of like top five scores. So this is something where NC State can just open a can of like whoop butt against Stanford in this kind of matchup. All right, another notable opponent it would be the bars. Stanford is way ahead at number seven ranked versus NC State's 23.

15:55
Logan Brumley
NC State has reached 49.45 but have been steadily fallen since early February to a 49.125. Stanford has also been kind of on a downward spiral collapsing to 49.05. So I guess no matter which team do you expect to rebound better? Whether you think Roberts and Yuisama could do better against Eli Hadrick, this could be something where Stanford's a better team so they have the higher precedence and are more likely to win. But I would definitely keep an eye on NC State to potentially maybe probably get the upset competition see in the beam. That's another kind of wide gap. Stanford at 14 for Cincy, State at 23, still wide but a little better this time. NC State had all their momentum cut off they went from a slow rise from 48.7 to 49.3.

17:01
Logan Brumley
And these numbers, I just realized they probably sound like just random numbers. That's kind of like the collective team scoring for that. So it's like they take that for all four of those where it's like the top five scorers for each team and then they kind of like, I think they either total them or average them out and then that is kind of like their overall score and then they combine those scores to find a winner. I believe that's what it is. So when I say like all these numbers are out of 50, so like 49.3 out of 50. A dip in states production went from 49.3 to 49.1, which is Stanford's high in February and the highest since their second like their season second opener match where they got 49.6, which is near perfect. Temple Landry's the beam star.

18:07
Logan Brumley
I think she's like 33rd in the nation. Can't she keep up with Roberts and Tackett who are both in the top 50? I expect Stanford to sneak away to win. I mean that's again the better team. Temple Landry is really great at the beam, but we'll see. Maybe, maybe there could be something here for Stanford to be able to get the win. And the kind of final metric that we have is the floor number six, Stanford versus number 18, North Carolina State. So North Carolina State's highest level is the floor. And usually we see the floor team do better when they're the home team and the home crowd, which that's, it's interesting, but that's something that's very relevant here.

18:59
Logan Brumley
Even though Stanford has Anna Roberts who is just an absolute star on the floor, she's one of the top in the country in that metric. And NC State has kind of had their fall since hitting their max of 49.45. Almost perfect. This could be an opportunity for NC State to get a win. I set them fault. I expect tough losses to the bars and beam. Floor could be a difference maker. I mean when you look at it, both Hadrick and Thomas are top 25 on the floor. And that plus the home crowd and the home advantage, that could be another opportunity for NC State to win and give Stanford a third consecutive loss. So if you don't have much to do this Saturday, you should definitely check out Stanford and cheer on the Wolf Pack as they head to compete against them in gymnastics.

19:57
Logan Brumley
But I think that will conclude today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you have had a great wellness day and a great rest of your week. And go pack.