After a lackluster opening half, the NC State men’s basketball team came to life and ran away with a 105-55 season-opening win over Mount St. Mary’s in PNC Arena Tuesday night.
The Wolfpack (1-0) ended the game on a staggering 49-9 run, led by a career-high 28 points from redshirt senior guard Torin Dorn. A 10-point halftime lead blew up to a 50-point win for NC State, as the Mountaineers (0-1) managed just 10 points over the final 13 minutes of play.
“We were able to see two different teams,” head coach Kevin Keatts said. “I thought our guys came out with a little bit of jitters to start the game, but once we settled in, I thought we played great.”
This year’s Wolfpack is almost an entirely different team than it was last season, but it was the three guys on the court most familiar with Keatts’ system that led the way for NC State. Dorn, one of just two returners for the Pack, had nine rebounds to go along with his game-high scoring mark.
“We were able to pick up our energy and our intensity and play together and move the ball,” Dorn said. “We’re a high-octane team and we know that. That’s what we were able to do.”
The other returner, junior Markell Johnson, put up 17 points and had five assists. Redshirt junior guard C.J. Bryce, who played for Keatts at UNC-Wilmington before transferring to NC State, was the Pack’s other leading scorer with 16 points. On the other end of the court, Mountaineers’ guard Jalen Gibbs led the way with 24 points.
“I thought Markell Johnson and Torin Dorn stepped up,” Keatts said. “Made a couple big plays and kind of played like guys who played in the program last year.”
To go along with the three leading guards, NC State got points from all seven of its other healthy scholarship players. The Wolfpack has some depth, especially at the guard position, and that could pay off well as the year goes along.
“We have a really deep team this year,” Dorn said. “We have a lot of guys who are interchangeable. When you go in and play your heart out, you can go back out and get a rest. I don’t think anybody can play hard for 40 minutes. It’s definitely good for us.”
NC State held a lead through all but nine seconds of the first half, but wasn’t able to really pull away from the Mountaineers during the opening 20 minutes. The Wolfpack entered the locker room up 40-30, with Dorn leading all scorers with 12 points each.
The Pack came out strong, opening up a 9-4 lead while creating some chaos defensively. Through the first five minutes of play, NC State had four blocked shots and three steals and held Mount St. Mary’s to just 3 of 12 shooting.
However, the Mountaineers jumped right back into things thanks in big part to a zone defense that gave the Wolfpack fits. Mount St. Mary’s shrunk an 11-4 Wolfpack lead to a 12-12 tie thanks to the zone, which it went away from shortly after despite its success.
The Wolfpack jumped out to its biggest lead of the first half, 11 points, with an 8-0 run with about five minutes remaining in the opening frame to make it 32-21. Four different members of the Pack scored on the run, which was capped off by a 3-pointer from redshirt sophomore guard Devon Daniels.
While it wasn’t a convincing first-half performance for NC State, the Wolfpack did enter the break with a 10-point lead and leading in most important categories. Thanks to some strong rebounding from graduate Wyatt Walker and Dorn, who finished the first half with a combined 10 boards, NC State led the rebounding battle 23-21 after 20 minutes.
The second half started out evenly, but NC State was able to push its lead back up to 11 points at 47-36 in style. After a couple of ugly turnovers from Mount St. Mary’s, Johnson threw up an alley-oop to Dorn, who slammed it in hard to force a Mountaineers’ timeout less than four minutes into the second frame.
“We just came into halftime and [Keatts] told us we had the jitters,” Johnson said. “He told us that when we came out in the second half that if we played hard it would all go away.”
The Wolfpack started pulling away from the Mountaineers, and fully turned it up midway through the second half. NC State started utilizing a full-court press, something Keatts loves to go to, and went on a 13-0 run to jump ahead to a 69-46 lead with just under 10 minutes to play.
“I think when we went to our diamond press, it changed the game around a little bit,” Keatts said.
The Mountaineers never clawed their way back into things, as the Wolfpack continued to put pressure on and extend its lead as the second half went along. NC State ended the game on a 49-9 run, as Mount St. Mary’s was completely stifled down the stretch.
The Wolfpack will host Maryland Eastern Shore at PNC Arena Saturday afternoon in its next contest.
“We just want to take that second half and run with it,” Dorn said. “We played great in that second half. If we can play that same intensity and put it into the first half, we can have a more dominant performance next game.”
Redshirt senior guard Torin Dorn drives against Mount St. Mary’s guard/forward K.J. Scott on Tuesday, Nov. 6 at PNC Arena. Dorn scored a game-high 28 points as the Wolfpack won 105-55.
