The beauty of NC State’s run since the start of the NCAA Tournament has been its ability to play various styles of basketball.
The Wolfpack were expected to play at a race-car pace against Marquette on Friday in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Instead, NC State was comfortable playing at a slower pace and let the defense do the work. The move paid off with a 67-58 win over Marquette to advance to the Elite Eight and the opportunity to play Duke for a third time this season at 5:05 p.m. Sunday on CBS in Dallas, Texas.
The Wolfpack are inching closer to being a full-blown team of destiny. The players have had a steady dose with NC State’s 1983 national championship squad and the 1974 national title team.
“I think every team has to create their own path,” NC State coach Kevin Keatts said. “Our 1983 team, and not only our ’83 team, but our 1974 team, have been tremendous. They’ve been big brothers, uncles or maybe some of them grand-dads to some of our kids.
“We don’t have to talk about the history now because we talk about it all the time.”
NC State (25-14 record) has reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 1986 and have a historic eight-game winning streak between the ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament. The Wolfpack needed to win the ACC Tournament title just to reach the Big Dance.
“I’d just say it has been proving everyone wrong,” NCSU senior wing Casey Morsell said. “Going into every game, we are pretty much the underdogs. We have that conversation heading into every game on embracing everyone doubting us. We just want to prove everyone wrong and then go into the locker room and celebrate.”
NC State took care of business offensively by playing through senior center D.J. Burns, who used his passing skills to find open teammates. He had four points and seven assists in helping set the tone. The Wolfpack went 9 of 23 on three-pointers to make up for their lack of free throws and 14 turnovers.
The maligned ACC has teams that play fast or slow, with emphasis on offensive sets or just high-ball screen pick-and-rolls.
“It has 100 percent prepared you,” Morsell said. “From a physicality standpoint, we were prepared for a lot of different things that teams throw at us. It can be super fast or super slow. It has kind of been a major key for us to adapt.”
The game changer for NC State was what the players did against Marquette’s offense. Besides slowing them down, the Golden Eagles simply couldn’t make open jumpers. Marquette entered the game shooting 48.2 percent from the field and 36.0 percent on three-pointers.
Marquette shot a miserable 4 of 31 on three-pointers, with junior sharp-shooter Kam Jones going 3 of 12 and junior power forward David Joplin going 0 of 7 from beyond the arc. Jones is a 41.4 percent three-point marksman and Joplin was 36.7 entering the contest.
Keatts said the three-point shot is usually an “incredible weapon” for Marquette.
“We talked about if we defend three-point line, it would give us the best opportunity to win,” Keatts said. “When we defended the three-point line, that made a huge difference.
“We just relied on our experience and our defense.”
The poor shooting led Marquette to shoot 33.3 percent from the field and it proved that star senior point guard Tyler Kolek didn’t have enough help around him. He finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, but just three assists. The Golden Eagles had eight assists on 20 made field goals in ending the season at 27-10. Marquette could have all five starters back.
Morsell added 15 points and junior power forward Mohamed Diarra had 11 points and 15 rebounds in the win.
“They need him [Kolek] to get going in order for them to be very successful,” Morsell said. “He had a good scoring night but we tried to hold him below his assist average.”
The key for the Wolfpack was playing with the lead and dictating the tempo. NC State only needed 7:01 into the game to build a 20-10 lead. The Wolfpack stretched it out and went into halftime confident with a 37-24 lead. The contrast in the two teams was clear with the Wolfpack shooting 53.6 percent form the field in the first half.
“We talked about it being 0-0,” said Keatts on what he told the team at halftime. “Just off offensively, we did some good things and shared the ball. We had a few more turnovers.”
Marquette made a 11-2 run to cut the lead to 55-49 with 4:21 left, but senior guard D.J. Horne, who had declared “Why not us?” this tournament, buried a big 3-pointer to calm the drama down.
When senior point guard Michael O’Connell made a 3-pointer with 1:35 left, the celebration began with a 63-52 lead.
“If you let me tell it, I imagined back in October,” Burns said. “The ‘Why Not Us?’ thing, we are going to keep that going. We get a lot of disrespect. People still don’t think that we are supposed to be here. That we are going further.
“We are going to keep trying to crash the party.”
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