The NC State men’s basketball team was bullied, beaten and battered in a miserable 84-74 loss against the UNC-Chapel Hill Tar Heels inside PNC Arena on Saturday, Feb. 26.
What has been said about the Wolfpack’s (11-19, 4-15 ACC) losses all season long was once again the theme in the Pack’s home finale, getting outrebounded, outscored in the paint and outshot from the field in the blowout loss. The final score doesn’t do the blowout justice, as the Pack trailed the Tar Heels (21-8, 13-5 ACC) all game and was mercilessly dominated inside.
“When you look at the difference in the game, we had no answer for Armando Bacot,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “He was great. And that’s nothing against [sophomore forward] Jaylon Gibson or [sophomore forward Ebenezer] Dowuona because I think both of those guys tried extremely hard. But we had no answer at all. I thought we did a good job on the other guys, we did what we were supposed to do as far as guarding those guys. But when [Bacot] has 28 and 18, and then five blocks, I don’t know how we can win a game that way.”
Armando Bacot made a mockery of the Wolfpack’s interior defense, posting 28 points on 11 of 13 shooting to go along with 18 rebounds and five blocks. That game marked the first 20-point, 15-rebound, five-block game in Chapel Hill history.
In the five career games in which Bacot received more than 20 minutes against the Pack, he averages 18 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game.
Bacot’s dominance was reflective of UNC’s ruling the paint, where it out-rebounded the Wolfpack 46-25 and outscored the Pack 44-28 in the paint. At one point, Bacot had as many rebounds alone as NC State did as a team and UNC had more offensive boards than the Pack had defensive boards at that time.
“I talked to our young kids about a guy like Bacot, who came in the league and has gotten better every year that he’s been here,” Keatts said. “[I told them], ‘If you want to be inspired by someone, be inspired by guys who are still in the league who are still working on getting better.’ So congratulations to him and like I said we didn’t have an answer for him tonight.
Bacot wasn’t the only player to have a career game against the Pack as Puff Johnson, brother of current Phoenix Suns and former UNC forward Cameron Johnson, set a career high with 16 points, playing 17 minutes in the second half after Leaky Black went down with an injury in the first.
Comparatively, NC State’s star-studded duo of redshirt sophomore guard Dereon Seabron and freshman guard Terquavion Smith fell into somewhat of a slump following a strong performance against Boston College. Smith did finish with 20 points but shot just 7 of 22 from the floor (31.8%).
To his credit, Smith was instrumental in keeping the Pack within striking distance after it went down 73-48 with 7:19 remaining.
Seabron, on the other hand, had just 11 points and too often went to his left through traffic, failing to convert the layup or pick up a foul.
“That was just me,” Seabron said. “That was a combo of me trying to initiate the contact and draw a foul and not focus on making a layup. It was me trying to move in the air. It was me trying to move around them instead of going up strong through them.”
One player that did have a strong performance was sophomore guard Cam Hayes, who ended the game with 16 points on 4 of 5 shooting from downtown.
It was clear what kind of game was in store for the Pack from the beginning. The Tar Heels quickly got out to a 20-3 lead, with Bacot scoring eight of the first 11 points for UNC. Outside of an early 3 from Smith and an and-one play from Seabron, the Wolfpack looked dead in the water in the first 10 minutes.
In keeping with the theme of the season, NC State got right back into things toward the end of the half when it transitioned to a press defense.
The defensive trio of freshman guard Breon Pass, junior guard Casey Morsell and Smith was solid in both halves, causing a significant amount of pressure for the Tar Heels. Pass didn’t show up much in the box score, but gave great energy and forced a double dribble in the first.
NC State cut the lead to single digits while pressing but eventually the Tar Heels sorted things out and rode into the second half with a 17-point lead. Seabron and Smith were a combined 3 of 19 from the field in the first and the Wolfpack missed layup after layup.
The Wolfpack fought early in the second half, getting back-to-back strikes from Smith and Dowuona. Dowuona had a spectacular stuff at the rim in the second, but picked up his fourth foul shortly after and sat for most of the rest of the game, giving Bacot a prime opportunity for his 17-point second half.
Once again, the Wolfpack fought back and showed heart late but, like many of the games before this one, it was too little, too late, and the Pack ultimately fell at home to the Tar Heels.
The loss was certainly not the way NC State or Keatts wanted to send out senior forward Jericole Hellems or redshirt senior guard Thomas Allen on senior day. Not only did the Pack disappoint in front of a big crowd, but it also did so on the day the 1974 National Championship team was honored.
Joining Hellems and Allen on senior day was redshirt junior forward Manny Bates, who has missed this season with an injury and was speculated to have looked at transferring before the season. However, Keatts said not to look into Bates walking on senior day, and he was the only one of the players to not receive a framed jersey.
“We went back and forth,” Keatts said. “[Bates]’s graduating and he wanted to go through senior day with Jericole. They came in, they’ve been [very] close. We didn’t give him a framed jersey on purpose, because he’s still got eligibility. … He wanted to go through with his brother who has been here from day one.”
However, Keatts did say that while Hellems and Allen have one more year of eligibility remaining due to COVID-19, they were not planning to use that year “right now.”
Keatts also said, despite the disheartening loss, that he’s trying to remain positive about the season and that he’s proud of where the team is at, considering the circumstances.
“If you follow basketball and you just look around college basketball, you take the best center off of any team and they’re gonna struggle,” Keatts said. “I hate injuries, I hate them. But on every team, there’s one guy that you can’t afford to get hurt, and on our team, that’s Manny Bates. … You add Manny back, which we’ll talk about that, and then you have Terquavion Smith and Breon [Pass], and then Casey Morsell and Cam Hayes, it’s a pretty doggone good team. I do feel like that we would have been anywhere from a top-25 to top-30 program with Manny Bates, but unfortunately, we don’t have him. So, I’m excited about the future.”
Next up, NC State hits Tobacco Road for a matchup with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in Winston-Salem on Wednesday, March 2. That game will tip-off at 9 p.m. and can be viewed on RSN.
“I hope you notice about me by now, I’m not fake,” said Keatts when asked if he’s the same with the media as he is with his team. “So I’m not going to give you one side of me and then give [the team] another side, I just don’t roll like that. I’m very positive with my guys because I love them and I love everything that they bring to the table. There’s nothing that they can do to make me turn on them because of the way that they show up every day and every day in practice.”
