NC State made history on so many different levels, but most of all, the players showed what can be achieved with belief in each other.
NC State wasn’t given much of a chance to defeat Saturday and at one point was a double-digit underdog going in the ACC Tournament title game. Combine that with playing five games in five days, it was a mystery on how much was left in the tank.
NC State proved to be the aggressor from the start, and never really was truly threatened in winning 84-76 against rival North Carolina.
NCSU seventh-year coach Kevin Keatts was proud to have defeated past NCAA champions Louisville (2013), Syracuse (2003), Virginia (2019), Duke (2001, 2010 and 2015) and North Carolina (2005, 2009 and 2017) over the last five days.
“For all the players that came before us, it’s not just our championship, but everybody’s championship,” Keatts said. “I’m emotional, proud and excited.
“Our players deserved this. It’s a tight group that sticks together with everything and they’ve been through adversity.”
The No. 10-seeded Wolfpack, who improved to 22-14 and clinched a spot in the NCAA Tournament, sprinted out to a 11-2 early lead and quickly answered that the tank wasn’t going to be on empty. Now, by the end of the game, the tank took a hit with two players affected by injuries — guards Casey Morsell, a senior, and junior Jayden Taylor — and star senior guard D.J. Horne fouled out with 29 points and 1:11 left in the game. By then, the Wolfpack were leading 78-67.
“You can tell our guys were getting stronger every game that we played,” Keatts said. “It’s weird, we are the team that played and we were the one that played every game, but we seemed like every second half we got a little stronger than other team.”
NC State achieved so many important crucial milestones:
• The first ACC Tournament title for NC State since 1987, and the first league team to win five games in five days.
• A second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, which has seemed improbably the last two months of the season.
• A contract induced raise and two-year extension for Keatts through 2030.
• Momentum for portal season coming up which starts Monday.
Horne, who is from Raleigh, knows how special this week has been. He previously played at Illinois State and Arizona State, but got to cut the nets down for the first time.
“There is no better time to play your best basketball than March, and I’m glad we figured it out now,” Horne said.
NC State played at a slower pace in the first meeting Jan. 10 in Raleigh, and it was a two possession game with 8:10 left, 54-48. North Carolina turned up the intensity and put the game away to win 67-54.
The Wolfpack ran more in the second meeting at the Dean E. Smith Center on March 2, and it was a two-possession game again, 58-42 with 10:46 left. UNC built a double-digit lead and again put NC State away for a 79-70 win.
The game plan for Saturday night, with playing a fifth game in five days, was a mix of feeding the ball to senior center D.J. Burns, who was named the ACC Tournament MVP, and letting the other four players get out and run from time-to-time. UNC only led for one minutes and four seconds, so nothing about the win was fluky.
"We knew it would be hard and nothing about this would be easy," said Burns on five-straight wins. "We knew we had to get over ourselves and push it to the absolute limit, and that is what we did."
NC State has four players in double figures and the Wolfpack shot an impressive 54.9 percent from the field, made 22 free throws and shot 6 of 14 from three-point land.
Horne led the way scoring on all three levels, and Burns went 9 of 12 in the post for 20 points and seven big assists in 28 minutes of action.
Junior power forward Mohamed Diarra added 11 points, 14 rebounds and three blocks, senior point guard Michael O’Connell was steady in chipping in 10 points.
Morsell was often tasked with slowing down UNC star senior guard R.J. Davis, and he almost willed the Tar Heels back in the game. Davis scored 17 of his 30 points in the second half, but he went 4 of 13 on three-pointers.
NC State held freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau, senior wing Cormac Ryan and junior power forward Harrison Ingram to a combined 7 of 26 from the field and 4 of 15 on three-pointers, which helped cause the Tar Heels to shot 37.3 percent from the field.
The moment of truth came when UNC cut NC State’s lead to 61-58 with 8:02 left in the game. Instead, the Wolfpack went on a game-deciding 11-4 run to put away the Tar Heels.
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