Portal season has been pretty quiet on the women’s side, but no doubt that ex-Colorado guard Desiree Wooten was a critical recent addition to Wes Moore. Not only does Wooten give NC State a second reliable scorer in the backcourt, she’ll also help replace some of the three-point production that Zam Jones took with her.
Wooten’s transition from North Texas to Colorado last season was impressively seamless, and most encouragingly, she improved her outside shooting significantly despite a substantial
increase in workload. It’ll be important to State that she at least maintains that 35% three-point shooting from last season.
She also proved a good distributor (21% assist rate), matching Jones’ contributions there, which will ease some pressure on Zoe Brooks and give the Pack options on the ball. Wooten should be a defensive upgrade, and she was also better than Jones at getting to the free throw line.
This is not to say that a clear upgrade has been made here—I don’t think anyone believes that’s the case—as she’ll need to be better inside the arc (39.4% on twos last season, 41.7% for her career) but the potential is impressive. Especially since she will not have to carry the same heavy workload that she did at Colorado, which should help her efficiency.
Both Wooten and forward transfer Khady Leye should help NC State improve at the defensive end, so mission accomplished on that front. It remains to be seen if this team will be better overall, but I feel better about the possibility than I did a week ago.
