Notebook: NC State capitalizes off of Wake’s mistakes, beats Deacs 80-62

NC State (10-9, 6-8 ACC) defeated Wake Forest (6-11, 3-11 ACC) 80-62 Saturday in Winston-Salem to complete the season sweep of the Demon Deacons, but the final score didn’t reflect just how dominant the Wolfpack was in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The Pack forced 18 Wake turnovers, tying its ACC-high this season, and produced 28 points off of those takeaways.

With the win Saturday, the Wolfpack is now 9-0 when it creates 19 points or more off of turnovers and 1-9 when it produces just 18 or fewer.

“It was big,” NC State head coach Kevin Keatts said. “It's frustrating to me as a coach when we don't turn people over. That's what my system is predicated on. It's been tough the last few games because we were turning the ball over, and there's nothing like thinking you're good at something then somebody else is beating you at your own game. We got better. Our team is much better when we're creating off of our defense, and I thought we were great tonight.”

The Wolfpack outscored Wake Forest 28-5 off of turnovers and 19-1 in fastbreak situations.

NC State also outrebounded the Deacs 33-32 and outscored them 10-9 on second-chance opportunities.

“We can talk until we’re blue in the face about scheme, but when the other team scores 28 points on turnovers, and you score five, they score 10 on offensive rebounds and outscore you 19-1 on fastbreaks, I don’t think you’re got a good chance to win,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes said. “Those things are effort and communication and toughness, and I thought they had all that today and we didn’t.”

Saturday marked the third-straight road win for the Wolfpack in the month of February.

Until this weekend, NC State hadn’t won three consecutive ACC games on the road since the last two away games of the 2002-03 season, and the first of the 2003-04 campaign.

It also marked the first time since 2001-02 that the Pack won three straight conference games on the road in the same season.

Redshirt freshman guard Dereon Seabron had a productive game in the 74-73 road win over Pittsburgh Wednesday, but it paled in comparison to his performance Saturday against Wake.

Seabron finished with 14 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three assists in 33 minutes, all of which marked new career-highs for the 6-7, 180-pounder.

“I've asked him to play with a little bit more grit, and a little more toughness,” Keatts said. “He's long, he's the closest that we have to a Devon Daniels, obviously in different ways. He's not as physical as Devon, doesn't shoot it as well as Devon, but he's the biggest guard that we have on our roster. We need him to be able to play.

“One of the reasons he hasn't played as much is because we need toughness from him, we need him to rebound the basketball. We need him to guard bigger guards, we need him to do a good job getting out in transition. He's starting to get it, he understands it.”

“I'm not going to say this is a breakout game because anything can happen next, but I thought he played a really good game.”

Not only did Seabron put up big numbers, he was also efficient. He went 5-of-10 from the field and made all four of his free throw attempts, marking career-highs in both field goal and free-throw makes.

Keatts added that the start of this season has been a frustrating one with Seabron. According to him, the redshirt freshman was a “victim of COVID” because he lost so much time to develop in the offseason and even last season when he couldn’t travel with the team due to an academic redshirt.

“We had to rely on the fact that he was doing all the right stuff at home, and you know how that goes,” Keatts said. “We've asked him to get back to being aggressive. A lot of that's going to help him when he continues to get into the weight room and adds about 15 pounds of muscle. He's different because he's long, he's athletic, he can handle the basketball.

“Right now, he's not shooting it great behind the three-point line, but he can bring so much to our team, especially when he plays with toughness. When he doesn't, then we have to get somebody else to play those minutes. I like the way he played today.”

NC State had five players in double figures Saturday and an additional two with eight points or more.

Seabron and junior forward Jericole Hellems tied for a team-high with 14 points.

Freshman guard Cam Hayes and fifth-year senior forward DJ Funderburk each had 11 points, and fifth-year senior guard Braxton Beverly added 10 points off of the bench.

Redshirt sophomore center Manny Bates also had nine, and freshman guard Shakeel Moore, who played just 16 minutes due to early foul trouble, finished with eight points.

Less than two weeks ago, Keatts was asking for just one of his guards to consistently score in double figures. In the win over Wake Forest, he received enough to go around.

“I had to be patient,” Keatts said. “Probably like I wish everybody else could be because of the fact that these young guys, it's going to take some time. As I've maintained, these guys will be really good basketball players. Of all people, we've had to shift the way we play. Our focus has now become more of an inside-out team, but while we're going inside-out, our young guys are starting to get better on the perimeter.

“When we have two or three guards that play well on a given night, we're capable of this outcome. When we don't, when we have one, they're probably going to be a lot closer games, and they're going to be nail-biters. When you get your bigs playing well like they're playing, and then we get a couple of guards who are contributing the way we had these guards play today, then we could be a really good basketball team. We'll be tough to beat if those guys play that way.”

For the second-straight game and just the fourth time in ACC play, NC State shot 50 percent or better from the field. The Pack made 29-of-58 attempts, making seven more than the Deacs.

The Wolfpack also caught fire from the perimeter. NC State went 8-of-19 from beyond the arc (42.1), marking the fifth time this season that it shot 40 percent or better from three against conference competition.

“Everybody that we put in the game affected the game in a positive way,” Keatts said. “I thought we took another big step towards maturing. I've told these guys to try to mature from half to half. We don't look at it from game to game, so I wanted to see how we would play from the end of the Pitt game to the beginning of the Wake game, then Wake at halftime through the second half of Wake.

“A lot of good things that we can build on.”

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