NC State dropped to 7-6 overall and 3-5 in conference play in 2020-21 with a 76-73 road loss to Syracuse Sunday.

For the first time this season, the Wolfpack was without fifth-year senior guard Devon Daniels, who was the team leader in scoring (16.5 ppg), assists (3.1 apg) and steals (1.7 spg).

Daniels suffered an ACL tear in the 72-67 win over Wake Forest Wednesday and will miss the remainder of the 2020-21 campaign due to the injury.

In his absence, redshirt freshman guard Dereon Seabron played 17 minutes in the loss, an individual season-high in conference play. Seabron finished with nine points on 4-of-8 shooting and added two rebounds, two assists, two steals and one block.

“I thought he did some really good things,” NC State head coach Kevin Keatts said Monday. “He's certainly the most athletic guy that we have on our roster now. He's long, he got out in transition. I thought he did a lot of good things. He's a freshman. I evaluate not just him, but those three freshman guards that had to play. I thought they played inspired basketball, I thought they played winning basketball, but all three of them made a couple of mistakes down the stretch that freshmen will make.

“I thought he did a tremendous job, he made a three-pointer, he got out in transition, he was active.”

Despite the overall strong performance from the first-year Wolfpack guard, who took an academic redshirt last season and appeared in just his 12th career collegiate game Sunday, Seabron made a costly mistake in the final minute.

NC State trailed by two points with 45 seconds left in regulation and decided to defend Syracuse straight up as opposed to fouling for a chance to make a stop and take the final possession down one shot. The Wolfpack was playing strong defense but with just six seconds remaining on the shot clock, Seabron committed a reach-in foul to give the Orange a fresh possession.

With a reset shot clock, the Pack was forced to put Syracuse on the line. Orange forward Marek Dolezaj made two free throws to stretch Cuse’s lead to four points with 17 seconds remaining, a deficit NC State was unable to overcome.

“The one thing that we've got to teach these young freshmen is at the end of the game, I didn't want to foul because we would have had a difference of about 14 seconds,” Keatts said. “We played great defense and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, 'Don't foul.' With six seconds on the shot clock because he's a young kid, he fouls. That's just a situation where I can teach him to become better in those areas, but I was very happy the way he played. I was happy with my team. Nobody expected us to go in and play the way we did especially with the adversity that we were facing.”

Not only did the Wolfpack miss Daniels, it was also without the team’s second-leading scorer fifth-year senior forward DJ Funderburk, who was unavailable Sunday due to “university policies.”

NC State is next scheduled to host No. 14 Virginia on Wednesday at 9 p.m. on ACC Network, but Funderburk’s status for that game is still in question.

“I don't know if we will have him on Wednesday, it's too early to determine that,” Keatts said. “I have no idea on that part of it.”

Funderburk’s potential absence Wednesday would be another devastating blow with a Cavaliers squad coming to Raleigh featuring its two leading scorers in the frontcourt: senior forward Sam Hauser (14.6 ppg) and senior center Jay Huff (13.8 ppg).

“How do we combat the size? I don't know,” Keatts said. “That's something that at least I got a couple of days, maybe three days, at least it's a 9 p.m. game so I can try to figure that out. They're tall. Hauser and Huff are as good as they come, talented four and five in our league. They make shots.

“What makes them tough is they can iso Hauser or Huff can step out and make threes. I haven't even gotten to the point where I'm talking about their guards, but we've got to figure it out and make some adjustments.”

One of NC State’s best wins in 2019-20 was a 53-51 road victory over the Cavaliers in Charlottesville. Because of the stark differences in both teams’ rosters from one year ago, the Wolfpack head coach says he can’t put too much weight into last season’s result.

“It's completely different,” Keatts said. “It's been a year and since that year, we've had a lot of things going on. There's absolutely nothing we can take from that game. I'm going to watch the game as will Virginia. We got different personnel. I had three veteran guards at the time with Markell Johnson, C.J. Bryce and Devon Daniels. It's a completely different squad.”

One main difference for Virginia from last season has been its offensive efficiency in 2020-21. The Cavaliers, who identify as a defensive-minded squad, rank 11th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency (115.4 points per 100 possession) according to KenPom.

Although UVA’s defense doesn’t rank inside the top 10 nationally as it has each season since the 2013-14 campaign, the Hoos still rank 17th in adjusted defensive efficiency among Division I teams according to KenPom.

“I don't know if they've necessarily taken a step back,” Keatts said. “It's kind of weird how this works, the more you score, then it appears like your defense is not as good. If you're a scoring team, then everybody says, 'Man, they're not very good defensively.' When you pull the numbers and you look at it, they're still one of the top defensive teams in the country and always will be because that's their calling card. They're talented.

“What makes this team a little bit scary is the fact that they can still defend you, but they also can put points on the board. Typically, they don't do that. They haven't done it in the past, they've been more ‘everything's coming off of defense,’ but he's got a team that can score. They've got four guys right around above 10 points a game, and that probably hasn't happened since the national championship team, which is obviously a couple years ago, but they're talented. They're really good, and they can still defend you.”

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