The sighs of relief coming from PNC Arena Thursday night may have been heard as far away as Clemson University’s campus. The NC State men’s basketball team survived a late scare for a 78-77 win over No. 19 Clemson.
It was a day of good news for the Wolfpack (12-5, 2-2 ACC), as sophomore point guard Markell Johnson had been cleared of a felonious assault charge in Ohio earlier. Johnson did not play, but the Pack got it done, squeaking out a victory over the Tigers (14-2, 3-1 ACC) for its second-straight ranked win after beating No. 2 Duke last Saturday.
It’s the Wolfpack’s first back-to-back wins over ranked opponents since the 2012 NCAA Tournament, and the first time it’s happened in the regular season since 2007. NC State is now 3-0 against top-25 opponents this year.
“What a wonderful game and a great game for us,” head coach Kevin Keatts said. “Man, I’m really proud of these guys. I know the biggest question that everybody has had coming into the game is if could NC State win a big game, another big game after coming off a big game against Duke. I thought our guys were tremendous. We played with great effort. We shared the basketball as I like.
“… We had 15 assists on 28 made field goals. We only turned the ball over four times. We were very aggressive. We did a great job. We got our 40 deflections. We were able to turn them over 17 times and they only had 10 assists. Very good Clemson team. They’re going to win a lot of games obviously. They were coming off winning 10 in a row but I think we answered the bell.”
Sophomore center Omer Yurtseven had a phenomenal game for the Pack, putting up a career-high 29 points while shooting 11 of 17 from the field and a blistering 5 of 6 from three.
“Tonight was my night,” Yurtseven said. “I’ve been working on it a lot, on my threes and everything. We knew that they were going to ice the screens, and I think we executed the pick and rolls pretty well.”
The Pack dominated the turnover battle, forcing 17 and committing only four, and racked up 11 steals, led by freshman point guard Lavar Batts Jr. with five, compared to none for the Tigers.
The Pack thought it was home free up 69-57 with 3:31 to play, but a 14-5 run, including eight unanswered points with under a minute left saw the Tigers trailing by just three at 74-71 with 33 seconds to play. The Pack then turned it over off an inbounds play, giving Clemson a chance to tie the game. Redshirt junior guard Torin Dorn and Yurtseven blew the roof off PNC, however, as Dorn came up with a steal and fed Yurtseven all alone for a two-handed slam with 25 seconds left.
Clemson would get back within three with 10.4 to go, but freshman guard Braxton Beverly was fouled and made both his shots. The Pack was again in hot water, however, as Beverly stepped out of bounds after another Tigers bucket, giving the Tigers a chance to tie the game down three off an inbounds play with 1.3 seconds to go.
“We’ve got a lot to learn from,” graduate guard Allerik Freeman, who put up 14 points, said. “We were up eight or nine with like 2.5 [minutes] to go. We’ve just got to finish the games out. We just made a lot of mistakes at the end. We need to go to practice tomorrow and watch film on it. We’re going to be in positions like that later in the year; we’re going to be up on really good teams that are going to keep clawing and fighting. We’ve just got to learn from this and not hurt ourselves at the end of the game.”
Graduate guard Sam Hunt then fouled Clemson guard Gabe Devoe from behind the line with .2 seconds left. With PNC on pins and needles, Devoe made his first two shots, then missed the third after an NC State timeout, sending the 17,000+ crowd into a frenzy and giving the Pack a 2-0 record to open its ACC home slate.
“We played and we won a really good basketball game,” Keatts said. “I didn’t want to focus on the last couple of minutes and take away from our great win. What I did tell those guys is to get used to winning. I felt like it was a team at the end that was so excited at being there and not used to finishing the games. When you look at Duke, we finished the game. We had some breakdowns in the last two minutes that certainly we have to clean up … I want those guys to learn how to finish.”
After a tight first half that saw the Pack take a three-point lead to the break thanks to a late three from Yurtseven, Clemson opened the second half’s first four minutes and change with a 10-5 run to take a 48-46 lead.
However, Yurtseven’s dominance helped the Pack take control, and he drilled his fifth three of the game to put NC State up 61-50 with 8:39 to play.
“As long as the shot’s falling, you’re going to keep shooting,” Yurtseven said. “It was all about executing the other team’s defensive flaws and punishing them.”
After Clemson got within four, with three free throws with 6:17 to play, the Pack pulled back away with a 5-0 run, taking a 66-57 lead with 3:56 remaining. Dorn nailed a three 3:31 to play to make it 69-57 and give the Pack what should have been a safe lead before the late drama.
“It was definitely good for us,” Dorn said. “Every time you play a great team and beat them, the tough part is coming back. We played Arizona and beat them; we lost the next day. It was definitely important for us as a team to give us confidence moving forward.”
The road does not get any easier for NC State from here, as the Wolfpack will head out to face the No. 3 Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville Sunday.
Senior forward Abdul-Malik Abu dunks over Clemson's Aamir Simms early in the first half. The Wolfpack held off the Clemson Tigers for a 78-77 nail-biter on Thursday, Jan. 12 in PNC Arena.
