With another loss Saturday afternoon to SMU, NC State men’s basketball has now dropped six of its last seven games. In a year where the Pack had hoped to build on a Final Four appearance and vault the program into relevance, this stretch has been disappointing. Four of these losses have come in one-possession games where the Pack had opportunities to tie or win on the final play.

It seems like the script for Wolfpack basketball games has been the same, contest after contest. It goes something like this: The Pack plays a good first half, but inefficiencies midway through the second half put its opponent in the driver’s seat. The Pack claws back into contention just to blow it in the final possessions. Contested deep shots, blocked layups, bad turnovers. Sound familiar?

In the last seven games, NC State has been dysfunctional on offense in the final two minutes, shooting 26% from the field and being unable to produce many good looks. The times where it has found success at the end of games have been through offensive rebounding and hustle plays. The offense has not looked polished and in turn puts the Pack into losing situations.

At the head of its struggles is a lack of go-to scoring in crunch time. The Pack’s leading scorer is senior guard Marcus Hill, who averages 13.2 points per game. While Hill is able to produce looks for himself, most are highly contested and seem to disappear at the end of games when the defense tightens up. Despite being the main offensive threat for the Pack, Hill has just six attempts in the final two minutes of the last seven games. In his six attempts, he has converted half of his shots.

Hill’s close range and contested layup scoring abilities set him apart, but his relatively low shooting percentage from deep at just 25% caps his scoring capabilities in crunch time. With no 3-point threat, defenses are better able to anticipate his moves to the basket.

Thus, the ball often ends up in the hands of senior guard Jayden Taylor because he can both make jump shots and get to the basket. Taylor has made the most 3-pointers for the Pack, sinking 29 shots from beyond the arc at a 34.1% rate.

In the last seven games, Taylor has had the most end-of-game attempts, but only sank one of seven field goals in the final two minutes. During the postseason run a year ago, Taylor was mostly a corner 3-point threat and defensive specialist. As his role has elevated at the end of the game, the Pack has struggled to produce good looks.

To find success at finishing games, the Pack has to set up plays to put Taylor in a spot-shooting role and find ways to get Hill near the basket where he thrives. Senior forwards Ben Middlebrooks and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield must also find a way to get going in the final minutes. In the Pack’s one win in the past seven games, Middlebrooks found his way to the basket and scored three important free throws to put NC State ahead.

In any case, the Pack has to find a way to put its scorers in the roles which they are best suited for, or the offense will continue to fall apart at the end of games.