Notebook: NC State ‘ran into a buzzsaw’, loses 105-73 at Florida State

Most of the time there are positives to be found in a loss. That was not the case for NC State in a 105-73 drubbing to Florida State Wednesday.

The Seminoles (6-2, 2-1 ACC) shot 71 percent from the field and 67 percent on three-point attempts against the Wolfpack (6-4, 2-3 ACC).

While the Pack was able to shoot an impressive 42 percent from the perimeter on 11-of-26 attempts, it wasn’t enough to overcome Florida State’s historic offensive performance in the Tucker Center.

“We just ran into a buzzsaw today,” head coach Kevin Keatts said.

At halftime, the Seminoles were shooting 71.4 percent from the field (20-of-28), 70 percent from beyond the arc (7-of-10) and 100 percent from the free-throw line, making all 10 of their attempts, a seemingly unsustainable rate for 40 minutes

But FSU picked right back up where it left off in the second half. The Noles shot 70 percent from the field, making 21 of 30 attempts, including a 5-of-8 mark from behind the three-point line.

“On this given night, I think they would have beaten most teams in the country,” Keatts said. “Obviously, I don't like the outcome of the game and the score of the game, but I thought they played tremendously. I thought they played out of their mind, making 12 three-pointers. They made them long, they made them in transition, got to the free-throw line, going 11 for 11 from the free-throw line. Probably the best team that we have played in our early season so far.”

All 11 Florida State players that played at least 10 minutes Wednesday night are 6-4 or taller, six of which are at least 6-8.

NC State was already going to be undersized compared to the length of the Seminoles. To make matters worse, the Wolfpack announced an hour before tipoff that redshirt sophomore Manny Bates, who is the Pack’s tallest player at 6-11, was not going to be available due to an ankle injury.

Because of the absence of Bates, State needed a near-perfect performance from fifth-year senior forward DJ Funderburk to have a chance at victory. Instead, Funderburk spent most of the night on the bench, playing just 17 minutes due to foul trouble.

“DJ's our only veteran big that we have,” Keatts said. “Without Manny being able to play in the game, and then DJ goes out, we become incredibly young. Instead of being able to put another veteran guy in the game, I've got to put in a freshman.

"Then when you add the fact that you've already started two freshmen in Cam Hayes and Shakeel Moore, now you got three freshmen that have to play a bulk of your minutes, so it completely changes us.”

Funderburk’s first foul provided the first noticeable momentum swing of the night, which preceded to turn into an all-FSU performance from that point on.

With 14:21 remaining in the first half, Funderburk picked up a technical foul after arguing a no-call under the rim on a physically-contested offensive rebound attempt. Keatts immediately sat him on the bench for two minutes in an effort to call his veteran big down.

That was the only spark the Seminoles needed.

Florida State led 15-11 when Funderburk picked up his technical, which marked the beginning of a 24-4 FSU run in a stretch of 8:01. The Noles led by 24 points at that point and took a 25-point lead into the locker room, a margin it stretched to as much as 36 points late in the second half.

Without Bates all night and Funderburk for most of the game, the Wolfpack missed its two-leading rebounders, who average 5.4 and 5.5 boards per contest, respectively.

That was evident in the box score. NC State was outrebounded 32-19 by Florida State, including 26-10 on the defensive glass.

“It's tough because when you're missing one of your bigger guys,” Keatts said. “I've got Jericole Hellems, who is 6-7 and trying to fight against someone of bigger size. Florida State's a big team, maybe the biggest team that we've played against, the other one being Carolina... In order for us to do better against a bigger team, it takes a lot of the guards to rebound the basketball, and they're just bigger than us.”

Some will argue that it’s best to just throw out the game tape and move on from a 32-point loss. Others will contend that lopsided losses like Wednesday can be used as motivating fuel for the rest of the season.

After the game, fifth-year senior guard Devon Daniels said his team has to embrace the disappointment from the lackluster performance and find a way to grow from it, one way or another.

“We can't put our head down about this,” Daniels said. “We can't hide from it, we can't look away from it. We got to get in the gym. We got to become tougher. We can't take days off in practice. We have to play with more urgency.

“This is on us. They're a very, very good team. I think they shot like 70 percent from the field. They didn't miss much, and that's on them. They had a hot shooting night, but we can definitely do some things to make it tougher on teams from scoring on us.”

His head coach led off with a similar approach to that of his senior leader in the backcourt, taking responsibility for the loss and offering that his team is entering a crossroads for the season.

“I want them to remember the loss,” Keatts said. “We're all going to take ownership, and we understand that we got to do some soul searching. We got to get better in certain situations. I certainly don't want those guys to forget what happened tonight. We learned a valuable lesson.”

NC State is next scheduled to play this Saturday against Georgia Tech in PNC Arena at 2 p.m. on RSN.

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