If this was Terquavion Smith’s last college game, then he left it all on the floor for NC State men’s basketball.

The sophomore guard gave it all he had, posting a game-high 32 points and nearly single-handedly willing his team to victory, but it ultimately wasn’t enough as the 11-seed NC State fell to the 6-seed Creighton 72-63 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Denver.

Smith’s 32 marked his fourth 30-plus point performance of the season, and he was about the only member of his team who posed much of a scoring threat throughout the contest.

The Wolfpack (23-11) only shot 37.5% from the field and trailed for nearly the entire game against the Blue Jays (22-12), who relied on the play of star big man Ryan Kalkbrenner and pulled away from the Pack down the stretch.

“Give Creighton a lot of credit — very good basketball team, and every time we made a run, I thought they made a run, and obviously they made some plays down the stretch,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “I am super proud of my team. When you look at where we were at last year to where we’re at now and how hard our guys worked, what a season we had with 23 wins and guys playing their butts off.”

Kalkbrenner proved to be too much to handle, putting up 31 points on 11-14 from the field. Most of those came in the second half — the seven-footer scored 20 in the final 20 minutes to help his team to the second round.

While Smith and Kalkbrenner did their thing, it was up to each team’s supporting cast to help out their stars. In the end, the Pack just couldn’t get enough from everyone else.

NC State’s only other double-digit scorer was graduate guard Jarkel Joiner, who put up 13 on a meager 5-18 from the field, including 1-5 from downtown. Much of the credit for that has to go to Creighton’s defense, which held Joiner to just four points on 1-7 shooting in the first half.

In a game that will go down as a low point in an otherwise stellar breakout season, graduate forward DJ Burns was almost nonexistent, scoring a mere two points on 1-5 from the field. The big man’s playing time was limited to 18 minutes due to foul trouble for a majority of the contest, a common theme of the season.

Not going unnoticed was senior guard Casey Morsell, who scored nine on an efficient 4-6 from the field and also grabbed eight rebounds. Other than Morsell, Smith and Joiner, nobody else for NC State scored more than three points.

The Pack trailed for the entire first half and didn’t score its first bucket until over four minutes in. It may have seemed the drought would go on forever after Smith picked up two fouls less than two minutes into the game — earning him a trip to the bench — but Keatts took a gamble and quickly put his star back in, which paid off. Smith ended up scoring 14 points in the first half, helping his team head into halftime facing just a two-point deficit.

“If I’m going to go down, I wasn’t going to have [Smith] sitting on the bench with two fouls,” Keatts said. “We were going to go out, and if we were going to go out and we’re going to win the game, it was because of our guard play.”

A 3-pointer by Morsell gave NC State its first lead of the game as part of an 11-0 run near the start of the second half, which put the Pack up 37-30. However, the Blue Jays quickly countered with a 9-0 run of their own — seven of which came from Kalkbrenner — to retake the lead, and it was back-and-forth for the rest of the game.

During this time, Burns picked up his third and fourth personal fouls, and it also didn’t help that junior forward Ebenezer Dowuona picked up his third and fourth personals as well. With NC State’s big men in foul trouble, Kalkbrenner took advantage of the Pack, working inside to help the Blue Jays reestablish themselves.

Creighton’s lead got as large as nine down the stretch, but the Pack hung in it largely due to Smith, who threw down a posterizing jam with under six minutes left to try and give his team a jolt of energy.

Smith did all he could, scoring 11 of NC State’s last 15 points, but after two of his free throws cut the lead to four with just over two minutes left, Creighton went on a 6-0 run over the next minute to pull out to a 10-point lead. That ended up being the death blow as the Pack’s season came to an end.

This could very well have been the last game in an NC State uniform for Smith, who may try his hand in entering the NBA Draft. After opting to return after a standout freshman season, Smith fulfilled his goal of making it to the tournament and ended up having a year for the books with the Pack.

“I’m just blessed and glad that I got to play with the group of guys I got to play with, and I’m glad I got the coaches I have and I’ve got the staff that I have, and I’m glad I chose NC State,” Smith said. “Every time I talked to Coach and when he was recruiting me all the way till now, everything he told me that would happen happened. I just had to believe in it and put the work in for it. I’m just glad to have this group of guys and the coaching staff that I have.”

This result marks the end of what has truly been a remarkable turnaround season for NC State, who played in its first NCAA Tournament game in five years after posting a school-record 21 losses in the 2021-22 season. Keatts has proven that he’s the man for now in Raleigh, and just like nearly every game he’s coached, he got the maximum effort out of his players in this one.