NC State took advantage of Wake Forest’s offensive woes in the second half and 14 turnovers to cruise to a 90-74 win Wednesday.
Sixth-year senior point guard Jarkel Joiner proved to be the best player on the floor again, powering the Wolfpack with a game-high 29 points, plus quality defense. Joiner and redshirt junior center D.J. Burns combined for 50 points in the victory, with the Wolfpack shooting 58.1 percent from the field.
NC State improved to 22-7 overall and 12-6 in the ACC, and host Clemson on Saturday. The win proved especially special with the Wolfpack celebrating the 1983 national championship squad at halftime
“Having the ’83 team just back for the last couple of days, they came to practice yesterday,” NCSU coach Kevin Keatts said. “They were able to share some knowledge, and we had six of those guys at practice.
“We want to win every game of course, but I wanted these guys experience the last couple of days and kind of be perfect. From my standpoint, perfect was to win on the night that they were going to be honored.”
The Wolfpack did get a scare in the second half when redshirt junior power forward Jack Clark flew in for a dunk, but couldn’t get a grip on the rim and crashed to the floor. He exited with a left shoulder injury, leading to sophomore Ernest Ross and redshirt junior Greg Gantt to resume the power forward duties once again. Clark had injured his groin at Clemson on Dec. 30 and didn’t return until Feb. 11.
Keatts said he didn’t have an update on Clark’s injury due to spending time with the 1983 team following the game.
The first half was full of fireworks or as both coaches called — “playing horse.” Wake Forest started off the game shooting 10 of 11 from the field, but then the one-two punch of Joiner and Burns got going.
If it wasn’t Joiner aggressively hunting down his drives and mid-range jumpers, then it was Burns working his magic in the post. He had 31 in the first meeting and the Demon Deacons still had little chance in slowing him down. WFU tried three different centers, but none made him uncomfortable.
“The first thing was to make it a lot harder to catch it,” WFU coach Steve Forbes said. “I don’t think I’ve played many players who post up way outside the three-point line. I’ve coached a long time and have played a lot of bigs, but I’ve never seen that.
"I think he's the best scoring big in the league and he enjoys passing, and that's the problem."
The Wolfpack finished the first half 21 of 31 from the field, and they needed every shot. Wake Forest shot an amazing 9 of 15 from three-point land en route to shooting 65.4 percent from the field in the first half.
“The first half, we didn’t do a good job of defending the three-point line,” Keatts said. “I didn’t think they would come out and shoot the ball as well as they did.”
The Demon Deacons free-flowing vibe took a hit when small forward Damari Monsanto hurt his knee. Monsanto fell to the ground and it allowed NCSU’s Casey Morsell to end the half with an easy dunk and 52-46 lead. Monsanto needed help walking off the court and didn’t return to action in the second half.
“He’ll have an MRI tomorrow, but it didn’t look good,” Forbes said. “You never know with those kinds of things. Hopefully, it will work out OK after last year’s when he did tear his Achilles’.”
Wake Forest tried playing 6-10 freshman Bobi Klintman, 6-10 junior Andrew Carr and 7-1 sophomore center Matthew Marsh together in the second half in light of Monsanto’s injury, but that proved an ineffective lineup against the smaller, faster Wolfpack. Wake Forest went 6:44 without a point during the second half. Wake Forest shot just 38.5 percent from the field and looked nothing like the squad from the first half.
“We are a really good team when we share the ball,” Forbes said.
Wake Forest fell to 17-11 overall and 9-8 in the ACC, and likely headed to the NIT this postseason. NC State swept the season series against WFU.
“Steve has done a tremendous job with that program,” Keatts said. “For us to get a sweep of those guys, says a lot about this team how much they have matured.”
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