Rodney Purvis to Transfer from NC State [Updated 4:10pm]

13-14 Basketball175

In today’s episode of ‘How NC State Turns’, freshman guard Rodney Purvis will be announcing that he is transferring from NC State.  Purvis came to State as a 5-star All-Everything, McDonald’s All-American. Albeit inconsistently, Purvis showed flashes of why he was so highly recruited during his freshman season. Rodney hit the freshman wall and eventually struggled down the stretch, creating situation where fellow freshman, TJ Warren, replaced Purvis in the starting lineup.  

Now that Mark Gottfried has lost 5 players from last season’s Wolfpack squad, (two graduates, two prematurely to the NBA draft, and now Purvis to transfer) Warren will now be the most experienced starter returning for next season (14 starts) and will be counted on heavily. With Purvis’ departure, NC State currently has only seven scholarship players currently projected to be in the program for 2013-2014, three of which have not yet set foot on a college campus.To give you a quick indication of the massive change in the Wolfpack’s composition, The Wolfpacker’s Ryan Tice tweeted the following:

Lack of playing time is often cited as the biggest reason for transfers, but seeing how Purvis was going to be looking at 35+ minutes next season this move is baffling. These things often come down to parenting or kids growing up in an entitlement society and quitting at the first sign of adversity, but I’ll leave that speculation to you all.

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Based on Rodney’s newest twitter follower, UCONN coach Kevin Ollie, (screenshot attached) there is speculation that RP will end up playing for the Huskies, but I wouldn’t count out Missouri.

I always saw Purvis as a Julius Hodge type of player – someone that loved NC State and would probably be here about three years, during which he would work hard and still have a good time while doing it.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up at Georgia State eventually.

The following is the current configuration and scholarship spacing of NC State’s basketball program. It goes without saying that the potential addition of JUCO transfer Desmond Lee and at least one, if not two, 5th year graduate transfers would do wonders for Gottfried and the Wolfpack basketball program about now.

Senior Class
(1) Jordan Vandenberg (C) (Redshirt)

Junior Class
(2) Ralston Turner (Wing) – transfer from LSU sat out 2012-2103

Sophomore Class
(3) Tyler Lewis (PG)
(4) TJ Warren (F)

Freshman Class – 2013 Commits
(5) Anthony Barber (PG)
(6) Kyle Washington (4F/5C)
(7) BeeJay Anya (4F/5C)
(8) Departure of Scott Wood
(9) Departure of Richard Howell
(10) Departure of Lorenzo Brown
(11) Departure of CJ Leslie
(12) Departure of Rodney Purvis

2014 Commits
(13) Caleb Martin (wing) (Open scholarship)
(1) Cody Martin (wing) (scheduled departure of Vandenberg)

About JackWolf

I'm an unapologetic NC State fan but also consider myself a rational one. Hit me up on twitter if you want to talk @NCStateFootball

13-14 Basketball

175 Responses to Rodney Purvis to Transfer from NC State [Updated 4:10pm]

  1. JeremyH 04/01/2013 at 11:13 PM #

    your ryebread is burnt toast.

  2. WeAreCured 04/01/2013 at 11:16 PM #

    Should have gotten a Kitchenaid. Them thangs got settings.

  3. packalum44 04/01/2013 at 11:42 PM #

    Count me in as one who is very concerned. Harris, DeThay, Painter and Purvis are 4 significant losses. Raymond was an athletic 2 who could have played defense and allowed us to full-court press which we desperately needed at times this season but didn’t have the depth.

    Very unusual to lose so many players to transfer. What is less unusual is the fan reaction. More specifically the act of consolation and rationalization.

    Console each other and rationalize the unusual all you want. Fact is, this has been a very strange program since Gott arrived.

    If I’m the Martin twins or their parents, I start second guessing the decision.

  4. JeremyH 04/01/2013 at 11:44 PM #

    packalum44, I really don’t picture you as the concerned type, really. You’re the type that eats rainbows for breakfast.

  5. coach13 04/02/2013 at 12:00 AM #

    Are there any top 100 recruits who don’t feel entitled to 30 minutes and pick of position coming into college anymore? As for RP, once you abandon the red & white, I could give a rats arse what happens with you next. You are not a f-ing pg. Good luck with that.

    Also, I’d take some 2-3 star projects for depth. Ball is in Gott’s court. I tend to side w/ the adults over spoiled young adults and their mothers eyeing $$$ more than what’s good for their kid. I’m sure she’s D-1 coach material.

    Finally that f-ing ACC video restarting every time I skip to the next page is annoying as hell.

  6. vtpackfan 04/02/2013 at 12:05 AM #

    C”mon lets See the path ahead.Go read a Robert Frost poem. Lay off social media for a fortnight

    Buy into the program
    Defense
    Forget about the names on the jerseys
    2013

  7. WeAreCured 04/02/2013 at 12:07 AM #

    Every program that recruits well has transfers. It’s not strange. When you recruit several guys that all need to play the same position to make it the NBA, all of them aren’t going to stay if they can find somewhere else to log minutes at that position. It’s a good problem to have, all in all, as long as there are guys who can put in some useful minutes as backups. There is still time to find those people, such as Desmond Lee.

    If something is capable of being rationalized, it is not irrational to so. It is irrational to not rationalize something that is capable of being rationalized, no?

  8. PackerInRussia 04/02/2013 at 12:10 AM #

    I tell you what. Next year’s team is going to be yoooung. Jordan Vandenburg will be like a father figure to half the team. Sometimes it’s fun to play with house money, though. And after this season, we might all be able to use a season with no expectations. We can just pull for the team and enjoy basketball for what it is. And there will be a lot of talent. I’d prefer to be surprised than disappointed.
    By the way, is this the new March Madness?

  9. GoState91 04/02/2013 at 1:16 AM #

    This move by Purvis makes no sense. He would have been one of THE guys on next year’s team.

    What a difference a year makes. We were picked to win the ACC this year and next year we will most likely be picked to finish dead last! The program is back at square one in Gottfried’s third year.

    We will see what Gottfried is truly made of next year. Things are not looking good for us in a much improved ACC conference.

  10. Pack Mentality 04/02/2013 at 6:42 AM #

    “What a difference a year makes. We were picked to win the ACC this year and next year we will most likely be picked to finish dead last! The program is back at square one in Gottfried’s third year.”

    While I don’t know what the other teams are doing, is this statement accurate? I thought we would be pretty decent but just not in the top group of teams.

  11. sjmac11 04/02/2013 at 7:22 AM #

    There is absolutley NOTHING positive about this. N-O-T-H-I-N-G! This does say something about our program, I don’t know what it is, but it says something. I have absolutley no optimism that this program will recover any time soon. The league just got a whole lot toughter too with the addition of the “new guys”. I keep logging in to see if this was just a huge joke. I’m happy for all the “happy” people on here that are saying positive things about our future…..good for you, no really, good for you. I’m cursed with seeing the obvious and I guess forever having a negative opinion. WTF?

  12. StateBasketball 04/02/2013 at 7:50 AM #

    Sorry Double Posted.

  13. StateBasketball 04/02/2013 at 7:50 AM #

    Off a good source. I would say Tyler Lewis and T.J Warren are going to transfer to.

  14. partialqualifier 04/02/2013 at 8:05 AM #

    I have been a fan since 1982, and as much as anyone, I would love a strong, stable program with a coach we can all appreciate and respect. I see many of people making comments regarding our record the last 2 years, but I ask you: Given what we have seen so far from MG, is this sustainable? Can you win consistently giving mediocre effort, playing very little defense, and being a poor recruiter?

    I know what you’re thinking. Poor recruiter? Look at the rankings, you say. Well, what would last year’s class be ranked without RP? Furthermore, as many of you astute fans have pointed out, where are the role players? Why have we not recruited more 3 stars (some of whom openly campaigned to play here) to give our porgram some depth? And then some of you say, well RP wanted to play PG in the NBA. Well, to that I say, why the hell didnt MG know this before now? If he knew that RP wanted to play PG, then either you sign him and then go get a 3 star guy to back him up, or you sign TL and tell RP you dont believe he is a PG and stop recruiting him. By signing a guy you knew wanted to play PG, and signing Lewis, someone was going to be very unhappy. This was just sloppy all the way around. Experienced coaches rarely make this mistake.

    Finally, I have read at least 20 comments regarding the possible source of decension on this years team. I have read that Leslie was the problem….no wait it was Purvis…or was it Warren and his tweet…or was Dethay….or was it Zo and Warren didnt get along…or wait, maybe it was the tweet from the parents of Ty Lewis…. Really? How can you read that and not say WTF? I think we have discovered the problem. Everyone was unhappy.

    Sadly, this is eerily similar to the complaints the fans at Bama had of MG. I am certainly wishing for the best, but all good leaders have the same fundamental abilities: discipline, getting others to buy what you’re selling, teamwork, organization. So far, can anyone honestly say MG has shown any of these attributes?

  15. Rick 04/02/2013 at 8:23 AM #

    I do not know what to think about our basketball program any more.

    Sigh.

  16. graywolf 04/02/2013 at 8:33 AM #

    This might be an good time to look at the SEC for sure. Put your eggs in the football basket and go for broke. I would rather have a seat in Carter watching us play Alabama than to have a seat in PNC watching us play Syracuse. Just my opinion.

  17. JEOH2 04/02/2013 at 9:22 AM #

    Oh Things are bad…but as many of you know and lived through…it’s been SO much worse…

    not in to hyperbole so I’ll reserve condemnation until the full roster is set and/or we finish the 2013-2014 season

  18. Wulfpack 04/02/2013 at 9:36 AM #

    I think we will be picked about middle of the pack. But with zero depth, our ceiling isnt very high. And if Warren leaves, forget it.

  19. phillypacker 04/02/2013 at 10:05 AM #

    Is it me or have the threads on here become more manic, speculative, sky is falling, than they used to be?

    NC State is one of those basketball programs that featured dominantly in college basketball in the 1950s and early 1960s and between 1972 and the late 1980s. Since then, we have sucked. (See UCLA for comparison)

    Gott comes in and inherits a group of players with very low self-confidence, poor fundamentals and no sense of team chemistry. Despite having a lot of talent, they were terrible. He also inherited at least one very difficult personality.

    He wins 20 and 24 games in the next two years, takes the team to the sweet 16, beats a number of excellent programs in his second year, achieves a high RPI, despite some major “team chemistry” issues involving Leslie and a freshman player. So we lose four starters, all to the pros.

    As for the younger class of players. As a college professor, I teach 18-22 year olds and for anyone with any distance from them, they are very different human beings. As a group, these are the ones who were not allowed to fail because of how hurtful that could be. And for many of them in college basketball, the NBA looms as this promised land.

    If they have any talent, they are told from early on that the NBA is their inevitable destination. And Mama’s like money as much as anybody else. They see college as their ongoing audition for the big time. As a result, the quality of college basketball has dropped very far over the last 20 years.

    I don’t find NBA basketball entertaining, and neither do most people apparently. But that is the place for these kids. Purvis needs some place where he can sell himself as NBA material. Watching him this year, I would have said that he would never make a great point guard. Zo came in as a combo who had the mindset to play either position. This is not Purvis.

    A number of second-line players have transferred under Gott. First, this is an epidemic in college basketball. Second, I feel certain that, like any other strong coach, Gott has no time for pampering or holding kids while they cry. The job he and Debbie Yow have done with Leslie has been nothing short of miraculous. If anyone needs a sense of how loose Leslie’s head seems to be, I know of no other athlete who has ever had a standing lunch date with the AD because doing so was necessary.

    How wonderful that we have a very strong starting five for next year (Lewis, Barber, Turner, Anya, Warren). With Washington and (I hope) Lee coming in, that is a strong first 7. That is very thin but this is rebuilding time.

    The prospects for basketball, coming off of back to back 20 win seasons, with back to back stellar recruiting classes and with the Martin twins coming next year, are stronger than they have been since the late 1980s. We also have a bunch of scholarships to use this year to fill in needs. When you inherit a program with a lot of problems and a history of losing, the turn around messy. Try to fix a dirty situation and you will get dirty as you fix it. Many of us have discussed Gott’s weaknesses but what a great improvement over where we have been and the ceiling, at least in the longer term, seems like it could be fairly high.

    Take a break from work today, go get a smoothie. Maybe have a salad for a change. Take some deep breaths all the way down to your diaphragm. It’s all gonna be OK.

  20. Tau837 04/02/2013 at 10:18 AM #

    Great post, philly.

    I especially liked this comment: “When you inherit a program with a lot of problems and a history of losing, the turn around messy.”

  21. ncsu_kappa 04/02/2013 at 10:45 AM #

    I really think some of us have gotten spoiled by the quick turn around. Building a culture of excellence and expectations comes with its trade offs. You miss on a Randle type guy or Amile. We are in consideration for the best players in the country which is where we need to be.

    Two things to keep in mind. One Gott is a professional surrounded by professionals all day long whose job it is to think about these issues. They actually have facts and knowledge through which to base their actions, commentary, and future decisions. They have watched full games of kids for every highlight vid we have seen of them.

    Last thing… what do we have? Speculation at best? We are fans, we get to optimistic, pessimistic, or anything in between. However lets not pretend we know what is going on. We can do a lot worse than start all 4-5 star players next year. Why hit the panic button before a single game is played? And if we have a bad season so what it was bound to happen sooner or later. We are building a program of 4-5 star recruits like the UNC’s of the world. It doesn’t happen over night but guess what, its happening.

  22. ringo 04/02/2013 at 11:19 AM #

    pq,

    You are going to give yourself an ulcer. As my sister says, “What’s the big deal? It’s just boys playing games in shorts.” Lighten up. NEWSFLASH: We could have an NIT year next year. IMO that chance was inevitable with or without Purvis. Especially coming off the Lowe era. Nobody else would have changed that IMO. Let’s calm down and look at the record, who they get in here, and actual games nest year before continuing to wallow in grief.

  23. MISTA WOLF 04/02/2013 at 11:28 AM #

    The only issue that I have with this is the scheme that will be put forth on the court. I know we want transition baskets and want to push the tempo but with what it looks like we have for next year Gottfried is going to have to adjust his strategy severely. We will have to transition to a zone oriented team to save the 10 to 14 legs that it looks like we are going to have. I wish Purvis the best and I hope he does learn the lesson that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

  24. packman05 04/02/2013 at 11:55 AM #

    A few things that stand out…

    1. If we keep this up we as pack fans will earn a reputation as impossible to please. For Coach Gott, it’s a bad thing to have a lineup full of 4-5 star players because of the attitudes etc. For Coach O’Brien it was a bad thing to have a bunch of 3-star guys because of the lack of stars. I know a balance is ideal but really?

    This was the first time in 10 years we’ve had back to back seasons with 13 or fewer losses. He took basically the same team from Lowe’s last season and went to the Sweet 16 (we’ve been there one other time since Valvano). Changing a program does not happen overnight. As NCSU stated above, we could have a starting 5 of all 4-5 star players next year. Not much depth, but a lot more talent than we’ve seen on a roster in quite some time.

    2. Recruiting two players for the same position is not a mistake, it’s competition. Purvis was recruited as a combo guard, much like Brown. Lewis showed to be a far superior PG and Cat Barber looks to be the same. If Purvis sees his future at PG then it makes sense for him to leave.

    3. As to the previous transfers, look at their situations…Harris was behind Howell and Leslie for another season with Jefferson looking like a good possibility in recruiting. Raymond was a Lowe recruit who offered little to Gott’s lineup playing minimally even before this year’s recruiting class came in. Harrow didn’t give Gott a chance as noted and we probably didn’t want him in the end. Painter was easily the biggest loss but also the most encouraging with his reasoning. He had no issues with the school or the program and the only program he considered was the one that put him closest to home because of family health issues. While he would have been a huge asset on this year’s team, his loss cannot be viewed as a negative against the program or Gott.

  25. phillypacker 04/02/2013 at 2:45 PM #

    This next season will be a character builder. A four man rotation among the two bigs
    Anya
    Warren
    Washington
    Vandenburg (we can get 5-8 minutes a game out of him)
    Robinson ????

    and a four man rotation among the guards
    Barber
    Lewis
    Turner
    Lee or whoever else Gott finds

    will not be so bad. I would bet they find another role player to ease the pain. Then next year, it is most likely that we might lose at most one guy: TJW. But we add the Martin twins.

    I would bet these guys buy into the idea of team defense in a way that some in the older group did not and you have a much better. This year will be a learning year but we get to see if Gott can actually build a team from his own players. These are all his from now on.

    The other thing is that the idea of facing teams with lots and lots of experience is becoming less of a factor. We will get killed a lot this season but the right kind of growth with players you enjoy watching, like Richard Howell, who do what they are told and gel, is much more fun for me to watch. Imagine us having 2 or 3 bigs who rebound and can shoot and run the floor instead of As The World Turns.

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