Here are some the thoughts from those who covered NC State Wolfpack basketball's 86-76 loss at North Carolina on Saturday afternoon.
• Justin H. Williams, TheWolfpacker.com — NC State must lock in defensively to save season
For the second straight contest, NC State played well enough offensively to win Saturday.
One problem with that.
The Pack has allowed its last two opponents, North Carolina and Florida State, to score an average 95.5 points per game.
Granted, it’s a small sample size, but the Wolfpack’s defensive numbers don’t look much better when looking at the full six-game conference resume.
Head coach Kevin Keatts receives a lot of criticism on social media and message boards about the offense he runs. For those that suggest the Pack can’t get it done in half-court situations, the numbers suggest otherwise.
NC State averages 0.935 points per possession in offensive half-court looks this season, which is considered “excellent” and ranks 60th nationally according to Synergy Sports.
Instead, the shortcomings this year have been on the defensive end. If the Pack can figure those out quickly, there is still plenty of time to win enough games to secure an at-large bid in March.
• Matt Carter, TheWolfpacker.com — Quick hits from NC State's loss at North Carolina
The calendar year of 2021 has not been kind for NC State athletics:
• Its shorthanded football team lost a bowl game to Kentucky.
• Its potential national championship contender in women's basketball has been sidelined by an extensive pause related to COVID-19. It is set to make its first appearance since December on Sunday against Virginia Tech.
• The men's basketball team is now winless in four games, having lost a pair of contests due to its own COVID-19 issues.
The last time NC State went winless in the month of January was 1967, although the 1997 squad's only win in the month came against Texas-Pan American and it otherwise went 0-7 in ACC games.
NC State is scheduled to have two more ACC games this month: Wednesday at home against Wake Forest at 8 p.m. on the ACC Network and Sunday, Jan. 31 at Syracuse at 6 p.m. on ACC Network.
North Carolina led for over 36 minutes and controlled most of the game Saturday, but NC State found itself within striking distance down six at the under-four minute timeout of the second half.
In a less than three-minute stretch beginning at the 6:46 mark, the Wolfpack outscored the Tar Heels 13-5.
UNC (10-5, 5-3 ACC) responded by making seven of its eight free throws for the game in the final 3:26 to defeat NC State (6-5, 2-4 ACC) 86-76.
The Pack was in a similar position at the end of the first half, down just two points with four minutes to go before halftime. Carolina was able to finish the opening half on a 10-2 run and took a 10-point lead into the locker room.
“I thought we played a really hard, inspiring game,” NC State head coach Kevin Keatts said. “When you look at it, I thought the difference in the game probably was the last three or four minutes of the first half. It kind of got away from us a little bit.”
• C.L. Brown, Raleigh News & Observer —UNC avenges its early-season loss to NC State basketball
North Carolina looked inside to avenge its loss to N.C. State with an 86-76 victory Saturday at the Dean E. Smith Center. The Tar Heels scored 48 points in the paint led by 17 from Armando Bacot and 16 from Day’Ron Sharpe.
The win moved Carolina (10-5, 5-3 ACC) to 33-5 against N.C. State during coach Roy Williams’ tenure in Chapel Hill. N.C. State (6-5, 2-4), playing for the first time since its program paused due to COVID-19 quarantines, is now on a four-game losing streak.
Carolina led by 13 with 5:41 left when the Pack used a 7-0 spurt to pull within six for the first time since early in the half. Braxton Beverly’s second 3-pointer of the game made it 72-66 and the cheering from the visitor’s bench made a dent in the cavernous Dean E. Smith Center silence.
Kerwin Walton answered with a 3-pointer only to watch Devon Daniels knock one down for NCSU to signal the last four minutes of the game was going to be a battle.
The Tar Heels were ready for one. Caleb Love, who finished with 15 points, made a pair of free throws and after Sharpe’s outstretched arm made Beverly miss a layup, the Heels pushed their lead back to 10. Love missed a 3-pointer, but Anthony Harris scooped it out of the air for the putback and a 79-69 lead with 2:17 left.
After watching Manny Bates in practice Friday, testing out a tender ankle, N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts sensed the big man would play Saturday against North Carolina.
But play 30 minutes, against UNC bigs Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharpe? Scoring 10 points and blocking seven shots?
Keatts also sensed senior guard Braxton Beverly, always the silent one when it comes to injuries, would play better after seeing him in practice and might have his old “mojo,” as the coach said Friday.
But 12 points, four assists and five steals? Keatts wasn’t sure Beverly would give him that.
Not that it was enough. The Tar Heels won 86-76 at the Smith Center. Bacot and Sharpe did their damage inside, combining for 33 points, as UNC handed the Wolfpack its fourth straight loss in 2021.
But there were enough positives for Keatts to bank on after a game that was anything but like the last one for the Pack — the ugly 105-73 beating at Florida State on Jan. 13. The Wolfpack weathered its second COVID-19 pause to the season, had a chance Saturday despite being off 10 days and should have a full complement of players in practice moving forward.
“I told my guys in the locker room, man, you’re playing hard and you’re competing,” Keatts said on his postgame media call. “This will be, whenever we get back in practice, this will be the first time in probably 15 or 16 days we have had our entire team in there.
“Everybody has got to get on the same page, everybody has to continue to work. We’ve got to get back in shape and figure everything out.”
The Wolfpack could’ve secured its first regular-season sweep of North Carolina since the 2002-03 season, when Matt Doherty coached the Tar Heels. Love said North Carolina drew on a heightened sense of motivation to not allow that to happen here.
“This was just like a statement game,” Love said. “We knew that we shouldn’t have lost that last game. They shouldn’t have beat us. So just coming out, we knew we had to hit them in their throat, and that’s what we did.
“Me being a competitor, I didn’t want to lose this game, especially for Coach. I knew how much it means to him, so I just went out there and played my hardest.”
Williams’ considerable record against N.C. State grew to 33-5 during his time as coach of the Tar Heels. The Hall of Famer always has viewed the Wolfpack as a decidedly heated rival, even though more attention has become focused on North Carolina’s rivalry with Duke.
Bacot on Saturday called the Tar Heels’ 79-76 loss to N.C. State on Dec. 22 something of a turning point for his team. The Wolfpack carved up North Carolina that night in Raleigh with more energy and crisper execution, prompting Williams to admonish what happened as perhaps the worst defensive game with which he’s ever been associated.
Williams responded by putting the Tar Heels through a marathon film review session that identified and underlined their defensive failings. And starters Love, Garrison Brooks and Leaky Black were benched for the team’s next assignment, an eventual loss at Georgia Tech.
After a 10-day hiatus, the NC State men’s basketball team extended its losing streak to four following a 86-76 loss to UNC-Chapel Hill on Saturday, Jan. 23.
The Pack (6-5, 2-4 ACC) was able to battle back after being down by as much as 14, cutting the lead down to just six with under four minutes remaining in the game. However, UNC’s (10-5, 5-3 ACC) interior offense was too much to handle, and the Pack fell apart in the end.
“Well I thought our guys fought hard,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “When you look at it, I thought we played a really good, hard, inspiring game...the difference in the game was probably the last three of four minutes of the first half kind of got away from us a little bit.”
For the entirety of the game, NC State looked completely helpless with its interior defense, an area that it excelled in during the first clash between the two teams. Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharpe ate the Pack up. Bacot and Sharpe finished the game with a combined 33 points, with the Tar Heels finishing with 48 points in the paint, many of which came early.
“You look at the two guys who I thought really hurt us were Armando Bacot...and Day’Ron Sharpe,” Keatts said. “They came in, they obviously worked the past few days on pounding the ball inside… Give Bacot and give Day’Ron Sharpe a lot of credit; they were very effective around the basket.”
Despite an overall horrid defensive showing, multiple Pack players showed out on the offensive end and showed enough heart to keep the Pack around long enough. Five players finished the game in double digits.
• Joe Giglio, WRALSportsFan.com — Armando Bacot, Day'Ron Sharpe power UNC past NC State
Senior guard Devon Daniels led the Wolfpack with 21 points for NC State and Bates added 10 points and seven blocks in 30 minutes, after missing the FSU loss with an ankle injury.
Twice in the second half, NC State was able to get as close as six points. A 3-pointer from Braxton Beverly and then another from Daniels, at 3:54, cut UNC’s margin to 75-69.
Then UNC scored the next four points, a pair of free throws by Caleb Love and a putback by Harris, to stretch its lead back to 79-69.
UNC shot 57 percent in the first half and used a 10-2 run at the end of the half to build a 43-33 lead at the break. It was the Heels’ largest halftime lead of the season. A 67-65 win at Miami on Jan. 5 was the only other game in January that UNC led at the break.
"The last 3 or 4 minutes of the first half, it kind of got away from us," NC State coach Kevin Keatts said.
• Andrew Jones, Tar Heel Illustrated — Guards' process continues in win over NC State
Don’t base any judgement on the performances by North Carolina’s freshman guards in what the box score says from the Tar Heels’ 86-76 victory over NC State on Saturday at the Smith Center.
It doesn’t tell the whole story. Not even close, really.
The trio of true freshmen Caleb Love and RJ Davis along with redshirt Anthony Harris combined for eight turnovers, the stat sheet says. Love was 6-for-15 shooting from the field, including 0-2 from the perimeter, it also reads.
But the box also shows the trio teamed up for 35 points, Harris and Davis combined to shoot 7-for-11 overall and 2-for-3 from 3-point range, and that Love handed out five assists.
The latter stat grouping is a better reflection of how they played, but still doesn’t get the job done. The guards, especially Love and Davis, who have struggled navigating their way through the process of having the keys to this blue blood, played with confidence, energy and made stuff happen all game long.
“I told them at one time out, we’ve had 60 practices, we’ve had 14 games, so I think at that time they should no longer be freshmen,” UNC Coach Roy Williams said. “They've played a ton of games, we've had a ton of practices, but they're still going to screw it up and make mistakes that freshmen make.”
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