Adversity struck early for NC State, 57 seconds to be exact.
NC State junior center Manny Bates chased for a loose ball, felt pain in his right shoulder and headed right to the locker room at the 19:03 mark of the first half Tuesday against Bucknell at PNC Arena.
The injury stunned the Wolfpack crowd and likely the players a little. Bucknell was also player near-perfect basketball in building a 13-1 lead with 15:11 left in the first half.
NC State regrouped and built around the energy of redshirt sophomore wing Dereon Seabron and freshman shooting guard Terquavion Smith.
Senior forward Jericole Hellems also heated up en route to a game-high 22 points to power the Wolfpack to a 88-70 win over Bucknell on opening night. Smith had 20 points in his Wolfpack debut, and Seabron added 18 points and 11 boards.
NCSU coach Kevin Keatts knows his team needs the shot-blocking presence of Bates, who averaged 9.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game last year.
"Lets start with this, I don't have an update on Manny Bates at this present time,” Keatts said. “I don't want to speculate on anything. I will wait. He will have an MRI done.
“As soon as we get any type of results, as soon as I talk to him and his family, we'll share it with you guys.”
NC State played without Bates against Elizabeth City State, but the thought of him missing any other games isn’t something Keatts wanted to ponder. NC State hosts Colgate at 2 p.m. Saturday.
“I don't want my mind to go to the worse situation,” Keatts said. “I have no idea what the situation is, but I look forward to getting the results. I'll keep praying for him."
Sophomore Ebenezer Dowuona filled in for Bates and played a career-high 25:11 minutes. The big man from Georgia had eight rebounds in nine games last year. He eclipsed that in his first game, with two points, 10 rebounds and two blocks.
“I thought he rebounded the ball very well, and that is what we wanted from him,” Keatts said. “I’ve been very critical of Ebe about becoming a better rebounder. He did a tremendous job.”
The momentum was completely NC State, who shot 52.9 percent from the field in the second half. Conversely, Bucknell was 50.0 percent from the field in the first half, but fell off to 41.4 percent after halftime.
“I don’t know if we could have a better opening game, and what I mean by that is having some adversity,” Keatts said. “You look at it and they jumped out at us 13-1. We handled that.
“Some guys came in off the bench and gave us a tremendous lift. We started off slow, finished the half and from that point on, in the second half, we played NC State basketball.”
Bucknell controlled most of the first half, but Hellems’ three-point play tied the game at 38-38 and Smith gave the Wolfpack the lead with a steal and eventual layup, 40-38. Bucknell ended the half with a second-chance basket with a second left to tie it up.
“They completely put us on our heels,” Keatts said. “They advanced the basketball, drove it hard to the paint and they made shots. We didn’t put them in a situation where they uncomfortable.”
The second half energy of Smith and Seabron proved contagious. The Bison finished with 17 turnovers.
Smith played the same way in a Wolfpack uniform as he did winning state titles for Farmville (N.C.) Central.
“He scored a lot of points at Farmville Central,” Keatts said.
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