Starting with Wednesday night’s trip to Wisconsin to take on the Badgers in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, the men’s basketball team will face two of its toughest nonconference games of the year between now and Saturday.
After battling the Badgers Wednesday, State will remain on the road to take on No. 10 Syracuse three days later. With so much of the offseason discussion centering on the Pack’s trio of highly touted freshmen—Ryan Harrow, Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie—Wednesday night will mark one of the first glimpses fans get of what those three can do against elite competition.
To this point, all of the Wolfpack’s games have been played at home or in a neutral environment. Wednesday night’s atmosphere will be the furthest thing from hospitable, as State will take on a Wisconsin team that has boasted one of the best home court advantages in the country. The Badgers dropped only one home conference showdown a year ago and are 138-11 in home games under coach Bo Ryan.
Senior Javier Gonzalez’s experience will likely prove invaluable for a team relying so much on three players with less than 10 games under their belts at the collegiate level. The senior point guard’s presence and ability to calm the nerves of his young teammates will be all the more significant with Tracy Smith, the Pack’s offensive leader and one of the ACC’s top scorers in 2009, likely out until January due to injury.
The Badgers are coming off a 24-9 season that ended with a loss in the second round of the playoffs to Cornell. This season, Wisconsin is led by preseason All-Big 10 selection Jon Leuer, who averaged 15.4 points and 5.8 boards per game a season ago. Stopping Leuer in the paint will be all the more difficult without Smith’s veteran presence down low.
The task of anchoring the Pack’s post presence will fall upon the shoulders of sophomore center DeShawn Painter, who has quickly emerged as a capable temporary replacement for Smith on the low block. Painter has averaged 9.5 points and 8.7 rebounds in 24 minutes of action per game in the Pack’s last four times out. In the win over East Carolina, he set a new career-high with 12 points, then tied it a little more than a week later with 12 more against Fairleigh Dickinson.
On the perimeter, State’s top two contributors this season have been Brown and sophomore Scott Wood, and the Pack’s most recent action was no exception. Brown continued to look like the most polished of the team’s three freshmen, leading the way with 13 points. Wood knocked down four three-pointers to keep defenses from doubling Brown, and as long as Smith is sidelined, one or both of the pair of Wood and Brown will have to keep the Pack in games with outside shooting and penetration.
