Here are some the thoughts from those who covered NC State Wolfpack basketball's 75-61 win over Davidson in the NIT on Thursday evening.
All three members of the Pack’s starting frontcourt finished the night in double figures.
Fifth-year senior DJ Funderburk led all scorers with 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting, including his second made three-pointer of the season and his first since the overtime road loss to Clemson on Jan. 3. He also reeled in seven rebounds and recorded one assist.
Redshirt sophomore center Manny Bates had 14 points on a perfect 7-of-7 mark from the field and a team-high eight rebounds.
Junior forward Jericole Hellems finished with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting, including a 2-of-4 mark from three, which increased his season percentage from beyond the arc to .397. Hellems also chipped in four rebounds and two steals.
“They came out and played the way you're supposed to play basketball,” Keatts said. “That was fun. If you're a Wolfpack fan and you watched that game, you got to say, 'Man, that was a fun game.' It was NC State basketball. We played on both ends of the floor, and I'm excited that we're playing hard that way at the end of the year.”
• Matt Carter, TheWolfpacker.com — Quick hits from NC State's win over Davidson
One game after shooting a season-worst 36.2 percent from the field in an 89-68 loss to Syracuse in the ACC Tournament, NC State responded by having its best shooting performance in the 2020-21 campaign.
The Pack finished 30 of 51 overall, including 7 of 17 on three-pointers. Playing against one of the most prolific three-point shooting teams in the country, NC State was able to match Davidson's production from long range. The Wildcats went 7 of 24 from beyond the arc.
NC State's 58.8 percent from the field topped the 56.9 percent it had in a one-point, 74-73 win at Pittsburgh on Feb. 17 for its highest shooting accuracy of the season.
The Wolfpack did it by mainly by just making shots. It had 12 assists on the 30 made baskets, or 40.0 percent. That's the eighth lowest percentage of shots made off assists in its 24 games this season.
N.C. State definitely looked like a team that wanted to be there.
The Wolfpack wasn’t just going through the motions in the NIT’s first round, and it was apparent from the start. N.C. State got a dunk off the opening tip from Jericole Hellems and that got things going as the Wolfpack rolled to a 75-61 win over Davidson on Thursday.
N.C. State (14-10) will take on the winner of Buffalo and Colorado State in the next round of the tournament on March 25.
The last time Wolfpack fans saw the team in action was a rather forgettable performance in the first-round loss to Syracuse in the ACC tournament on March 9. The team regrouped and proved it wanted to extend the season, jumping out to a double-digit lead in the first half Thursday and clicking on all cylinders for most of the night.
“I thought we were great,” Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts said. “What I mean is I thought our ball pressure was good, we moved the ball. We executed the game plan probably better than we have the entire year. We wanted to play inside out; our post guys were tremendous.”
Davidson (13-9) cut the lead to eight at the half and four early in the second half and that’s when N.C. State turned it up a notch. The Wolfpack hit seven straight shots from the floor, outscoring Davidson 16-8 during the key stretch.
“I thought we got great shots,” Wildcats coach Bob McKillop said. “Sometimes you need that to get over the hump against a team that’s been in the lead the whole time and we just never got over the hump.”
D.J. Funderburk, one of the seniors who encouraged Keatts to accept the NIT invite, got things started with an old-fashioned three-point play. During that sequence of seven-straight baskets, the Wolfpack hit four shots from 3-point range. N.C. State was 2 of 7 from 3 in the first half, but got triples from three different players — Hellems, Cam Hayes and Dereon Seabron — during the key stretch of separation.
Starting its postseason run, the NC State men’s basketball team defeated the Davidson Wildcats 75-61 in its first postseason matchup in Denton, Texas on Thursday, March 18.
“I’m proud of these guys, they’ve done everything we asked the last couple of days,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “If you could have been in our practice, you would have never known what tournament we are playing in. They’ve been excited, and I’m happy we are that way.”
After missing a bid to the NCAA Tournament, the Wolfpack accepted a bid to the National Invitation Tournament in Texas to continue its postseason play and look for more success after a tough 21-point loss to Syracuse.
“It was a bad taste,” said redshirt senior forward D.J. Funderburk. “But we just wanted to prove to ourselves more so than anyone else that we could get back to that level of play and that level of playstyle and we showed that tonight.”
The Wolfpack came out hot with an immediate dunk from junior forward Jericole Hellems right off the tipoff. Within the beginning minutes of the game, NC State was able to build on its early heat with a pair of 3s from Funderburk and Hellems. Once the Pack got going, it never stopped and led the Wildcats through the final buzzer.
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