NC State turns it on in second half
NC State overcame a sluggish start to put away visiting Saint Louis 82-70 on Wednesday to improve to 8-3.
NCSU coach Kevin Keatts isn’t a big fan of all the changes that happen around the December break and told the players the Billikens would be their toughest home game on the schedule. SLU fell to 7-6 on the season.
“We had to throw their record out the window because it didn’t matter what it was,” Keatts said. “We knew we would play good team on our home floor. If you don’t lock in, it certainly wouldn’t be a great outcome.”
The first half proved uneven for NC State, and essentially the first six minutes of the second half was more of the same. The Wolfpack trailed 36-33 at halftime, and were down 50-46 with 14:32 left. That set the scene for what happened next.
NC State played through sixth-year center D.J. Burns and fifth-year guard D.J. Horne and went on a 29-7 run to put the game away 75-57 with 4:40 remaining.
Horne got hot and hit three three-pointers and scored 11 points during the stretch, and Burns six points and some impressive dishes along the way.
Saint Louis tried to have freshman center Bruce Zhang of China attempt to guard the listed 6-9, 275-pound Burns, and it wasn’t pretty.
“[Burns] is a pressure release for us, and he’s another point guard on the floor,” Keatts said. “We look for different matchups. We thought he had an advantage. We liked the matchup that we saw.”
Burns finished with 13 points and three assists and Horne added 18 points and went 4 of 6 on three-pointers.
“I don’t know what it was in the first half,” Burns said. “We couldn’t throw a rock in the ocean.
“We had some fun [after halftime] and I knew my guys would get open. We had some great play calls and had some options.”
The duo was joined by leading scorer Casey Morsell, who had 21 points and went 4 off 6 from beyond the arc. No one else on the team had more than nine points.
“I thought that second half was tremendous,” Keatts said. “Casey was able to see the ball go back into the hole.”
The hot shooting by Morsell and Horne was complemented by holding Saint Louis to 1 of 12 shooting from beyond the arc. Center Bradley Ezewiro had 18 points and nine rebounds, and forward Tim Dalger had 17 points.
The two obvious keys besides working the ball through Burns, was NC State went 0 of 8 on three-pointers in the first half and went 9 of 17 from beyond the arc in the second.
NC State also forced 18 turnovers, while having just six — three in each half — and held a 29-2 points off turnovers advantage. The Wolfpack had three assists in the first half, much to the dismay of Keatts, but finished the game with 13.
“I thought we took some questionable ones [in the first half],” Keatts said. “We forced a couple of them. We didn’t pass the ball in the first half.”
NC State returns to action against Detroit Mercy at 1 p.m. Saturday to close out the non-conference state. Keatts is looking forward to working with sophomore forward M.J. Rice and junior guard Kam Woods during the nice break with the second ACC game coming Jan. 3 at Notre Dame.
“Those guys are going to be good,” Keatts said. “I wouldn’t write how much they are playing right now. It’s a process. I actually had to step back a little bit. I was throwing in two guys in the game that didn’t know what they were doing.”
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