Here are some the thoughts from those who covered NC State Wolfpack basketball's 89-68 loss to Syracuse Wednesday afternoon.
All things considered, NC State was in good shape at halftime down just five to a Syracuse team that led by as much as 12 in the opening 20 minutes.
But the Wolfpack (13-10, 9-8 ACC) had no answers for the Orange (16-8, 9-7 ACC) in the second half, falling to Cuse 89-68 in the second round of the 2021 ACC Tournament.
The Orangemen jumped out to a 16-3 run in the first 4:25 out of the half, opening up an 18-point lead with 15:35 remaining.
From that point on, NC State was only able to shrink the deficit to 14 points and could never get enough momentum to make a dent due to Syracuse’s hot shooting.
The Orange shot 56.7 percent from the field and 48.3 percent from three, including a 53.3 percent mark from the perimeter in the second half.
“Second half, I thought we came out of the locker room with a lot of energy, but we had two bad turnovers at the beginning of the second half and never really -- we kind of played catch-up from that point,” Wolfpack head coachKevin Keatts said. “We never really got a flow of the game. At the first media of the second half, they had scored 14 points and we had scored three, and that's not a good formula.
"Give them credit. These guys made shots. They were a good team. They would have beat a lot of people today, and unfortunately, we were the team that they had to play against."
• Matt Carter, TheWolfpacker.com — Quick hits from NC State's loss to Syracuse
While Syracuse could not miss for most of the second half, on the opposite end of the spectrum the Wolfpack could not seemingly buy a basket. NC State shot 8 of 27 from the field, or 29.6 percent, after emerging from the locker room trailing by five points at the break.
NC State went 6 of 10 on threes in the first half but was just 1 of 7 in the second. Adding salt to the wound was seven second half turnovers.
The result was the Wolfpack choosing a bad time to shoot a season-worst 36.2 percent overall from the field.
The overall 16-point deficit in the second half was the second most lopsided margin suffered by NC State after halftime, trailing only a 17-point difference in a loss at Saint Louis. Ironically, the third and fourth biggest deficits after the midway break also came to Syracuse.
The Orange outscored NC State by 12 points in Syracuse, erasing a nine-point halftime advantage for NC State, and eight points in Raleigh after it was a one-point SU lead at the break.
In an unusually quiet Greensboro Coliseum, moments before N.C. State tipped off versus Syracuse, Kevin Keatts had a message for everyone.
Keatts looked out at his starting five on the court and shouted “energy.” He repeated it a few more times to drive home the point. It appeared his guys missed the memo, though. The Orange, however, heard him loud and clear.
The Orange, notorious for losing early in the ACC tournament, especially when it’s in Greensboro, came into day with just three tournament wins the last four years. This time around, Syracuse had the last laugh.
The Orange had more energy and more offense in an 89-68 win over N.C. State. That means Syracuse (16-8), the No. 8 seed, will move on and face top-seed Virginia on Thursday. The Wolfpack (13-10) saw its five-game winning streak come to a crashing end.
“I’m proud of these guys,” Pack head coach Kevin Keatts said. “It’s hard for me to get mad at these guys because of one bad game in the ACC tournament with the way they played and the way they responded to me all year.”
Suburban Dallas is supposed to be lovely this time of year. For the second time in three years, N.C. State could be headed to the NIT. If the Wolfpack is lucky. If it even wants to go.
Everything N.C. State spent the past month building unraveled quickly in the space of a few minutes at the start of the second half against Syracuse on Wednesday. In less than four minutes, a five-point halftime deficit ballooned to 15. That was as close as N.C. State would ever get in an 89-68 loss.
A sixth straight win would not have been enough to get the Wolfpack into the NCAA tournament, but it certainly would have moved N.C. State closer to the conversation, to the point where a win over Virginia on Thursday might have bridged the gap. Syracuse gets that chance now, if the Orange hasn’t done enough already.
Now the Wolfpack becomes a part of an entirely different conversation, one it was really, really hoping to avoid. The NIT will invite 16 teams to Frisco, Texas, for what could potentially be an extended stay with the NIT’s typical long gaps between games. That’s not a big deal if you’re hosting in Reynolds Coliseum. It becomes a very big deal if you’re sequestered in some business-park hotel. Is the hassle worth the experience?
“Whatever we decide to do, it will be in the best interest of our team moving forward,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said.
It’s an unfortunate dilemma for N.C. State to find itself facing, because the Wolfpack found something inside itself in the wake of the Duke loss that worked, and worked well. Everything clicked at the moment it looked like everything was lost. Players accepted new roles, adjusted to a new philosophy, adopted a new identity. That’s not easy to do in the summer, and nigh-impossible on the fly amid the turbulence of this season.
That shouldn’t be forgotten, even if those same players seemed to forget all of that at halftime.
• Joe Giglio, WRALSportsFan.com — Ending shouldn't sour NC State's season
The final relatively meaningless 15 minutes gave the Wolfpack a moment to reflect on a most unusual season and what the future holds.
A resilient group, NC State won five straight ACC road games for the first time since 1974 and had a five-game ACC winning streak for the first time since 2004.
Given both of those streaks happened after NC State was flattened by Duke at home on Feb. 13 and could have shut it down for the season right there is significant.
In Year 4 under Keatts, with leading scorer Daniels going down for the season with a knee injury on Jan. 27, NC State rode the COVID roller coaster with forward D.J. Funderburk and guard Cam Hayes going through their own bouts with the coronavirus and through stops in early December and mid-January.
The bones are there for Keatts to mold a winner and legitimate NCAA tournament threat next season. That’s the same situation Keatts thought he was in last March and then the pandemic turned the college sports world upside down.
Keatts, with a 39-34 ACC record, has shown he is a capable coach and now he has chance to show how well he can develop talent. Young guards Hayes, Shakeel Moore and Dereon Seabron have the potential to be top-line ACC players over the next two years.
The biggest question hanging over the program is what will happen with the NCAA violations case connected to former star Dennis Smith.
The case is in the hands of the NCAA’s independent review board. NC State still might be able to self-impose a post-season ban for this year to avoid future punishment. (the NCAA runs the NIT, so it still counts as the “postseason.”)
NC State should hear back from the NCAA’s IARP before the start of the next season, if not this spring. That’s for down the road.
This loss will put a cap on any fleeting NCAA Tournament hopes for NC State, meaning this will be the third consecutive year that the team has failed to reach the dance, although last year’s field was never announced.
“Well, just like everyone else, all my team, very disappointed that we lost,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “But I'm not disappointed at the fight that these guys have shown the entire year, obviously leading up to this tournament.”
Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim torched the Wolfpack, scoring 27 points while shooting 6 of 12 from deep. That performance headlined an unbelievable afternoon of shooting for the Orange, as the team finished shooting 48.3% from deep.
“A shooter like Buddy Boeheim, it's contagious,” said senior guard Braxton Beverly. “It can even be contagious for the other team sometimes. That's how good of a shooter he is. So definitely seeing like him being their main guy, seeing him, you know, two or three shots and just seeing the energy that he had, the other players are definitely going to feed off of him. And I think that's definitely a big part in their success today.”
Comparatively, the Pack finished the day shooting 36.2% from the field, led in scoring by redshirt senior forward D.J. Funderburk, who finished with 14 points and six rebounds. NC State committed 12 turnovers in the game, and while it forced 11 from the Orange, it only mustered eight points off those turnovers.
“We didn't hit shots,” Funderburk said. “We were flustered by their defense, and the turnovers carried over to us thinking about it later on in the game in different possessions, and I feel like that factored, too.”
The Orange merely played out the final eight minutes after taking an 80-57 lead on Boeheim’s last 3-pointer.
Syracuse swept the season series with NC State, but both games had been tight, hard-fought contests. Syracuse had to rally from an 18-point deficit to beat the Wolfpack 76-73 at the Carrier Dome on Jan. 31.
In the return game in Raleigh on Feb. 9, Syracuse earned a 77-68 victory.
Syracuse led by five points at halftime, but the Orange opened the second half with a 16-3 spurt to take a 59-41 lead. Guerrier, Griffin and Girard each hit 3-pointers during the rally. and then Boeheim buried a 3 as he was fouled and wound up with a four-point play.
Syracuse used a 12-1 run to take a 22-12 lead midway through the half. The Orange led by as many as 12 points, but the Wolfpack clawed back to within 43-38 at the halftime break.
Boeheim scored 20 points in the first half as he connected on 8-of-11 field-goal attempts. He also went 4-for-7 from 3-point range.
Edwards came off the bench and provided a defensive presence in the middle. The 7-foot sophomore had four points, six rebounds, one blocked shot and several shot alterations in the first half.
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