In accordance with its “close but no cigar” theme this season, the NC State men’s basketball team lost a tough one against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday, Feb. 5, 69-57.
The first 15 minutes saw a nightmarish shooting performance by the Pack (10-14, 3-10 ACC). An NC State surge stretching across the end of the first half, and the start of the second wasn’t enough to pull away from the Fighting Irish (16-7, 9-3 ACC), who regained momentum down the stretch, utilizing a stingy zone defense to seal the deal.
“I thought we stood around against Notre Dame’s zone and didn’t have a lot of player and ball movement,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “And I think that hurt us a little bit, we settled.”
Despite the overall poor performance, the Wolfpack faithful witnessed some flashes of brilliance, especially during that midgame run. Freshman guard Terquavion Smith dropped 19 points to lead NC State’s scoring effort while redshirt sophomore guard Dereon Seabron led the team with nine rebounds, notching 14 points as well.
Notably, both of these top Pack performers are guards. In a game that saw just 52 total minutes from NC State forwards, the Wolfpack’s small-ball strategy was necessary to get itself a chance to win against the Fighting Irish
Although the Pack’s guards put up good numbers, Notre Dame’s big men capitalized on their size advantage to dominate the inside game. The Fighting Irish outrebounded the Pack 38-34 while also outscoring it in the paint 38-26.
“We got so many guys banged up, especially down in our frontcourt,” said junior guard Casey Morsell. “We were definitely going to have to play a lot of small ball and it worked for us today, especially when [Notre Dame’s Nate Laszewski] went out.”
Even though NC State battled back in the tail end of the first half, another key problem in the loss was the need for a comeback in the first place. While the Wolfpack failed to break the lid on its basket, Notre Dame pulled away early to the tune of a 21-4 lead. For an NC State team that has had to play from behind most of the season, holding the lead for just 1:07 was not good enough.
“We had our runs,” Keatts said. “We had some pride. I don’t want to get in the habit of being the team, as we’ve done so many times, that’s down to so long and so often and early that we have to come back.”
The Pack stays in Raleigh for its next matchup, a Tobacco Road showdown against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The game will be broadcast on the ACC Network at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 9.
