CHARLOTTE — The men’s basketball team has seen this scenario before. In fact, it was just a year ago that the team was in a situation quite similar to its current state of affairs.
A year after redshirt sophomore forward Brandon Costner scored 90 points in the ACC Tournament and the team won three games before losing to North Carolina in the championship game, N.C. State is once again low in the pecking order heading into the tournament. Still, the Wolfpack is hoping to rise above that distinction by weekend’s end.
State entered the tournament at 15-14 overall and 5-11 in ACC play in 2007, and the Pack is 15-15 and 4-12 this season. Costner said he hasn’t thought much about last year’s run through the ACC Tournament.
Costner, junior guard Courtney Fells, senior forward Gavin Grant and junior forward Ben McCauley were four of the starters on the team that beat Duke, Virginia and Virginia Tech in consecutive days last March, a fact Fells said could bode well for State.
“It’s big for us because we’ve got key guys back that helped us get to that championship game,” Fells said. “So I think we can use our leadership in that way and try to motivate the guys to get back.”
And Fells, for one, is hoping Costner gets into a shooting groove again this year.
“Hopefully he can bring that same ‘A’ game that he brought against all the teams last year and carry us,” Fells said. “But if not, I just hope that everybody will be able to bring something, contribute.”
While the team has added three freshmen — big men J.J. Hickson, Tracy Smith and point guard Javier Gonzalez — as well as Tennessee transfer and point guard Marques Johnson to the mix, McCauley said the team can still take a lot from last season’s improbable run.
“Sure it’s a different team, but you can feed off that,” McCauley said. “You realize that you did that last year. You can do the same things and even more this year. We need to kind of get on the same path that we were on last year and make a run and don’t leave anything behind.”
With the Pack coming into the weekend as the No. 12 seed and having to win four games to earn an ACC championship, it’s easy to see the team as an underdog facing no pressure. But that’s not how Fells sees it.
“It might not seem like it’s a lot of pressure because we’re the 12th seed, but it is a lot of pressure because we want to get to .500 and finish the season strong. We have been underachieving all year, but it’s a chance for us to go out there and prove ourselves, once again try to make a run for the ACC championship.”
While the team has struggled, the players and Lowe said the ACC Tournament provides a new start. McCauley said the tournament will also force him and his teammates to be more disciplined.
“We have to run our offense — don’t take bad shots. In this tournament, you can’t really make too many mistakes,” McCauley said. “You can’t turn the ball over. You can’t take bad shots.”
It all starts against No. 5 seed Miami, which State faces at 2:30 p.m. today in the tournament’s opening round at Charlotte Bobcats Arena. And with the team’s dramatic 79-77 victory against the Hurricanes on Jan. 19 on a late steal and layup by Grant, Grant said Miami won’t be lacking for motivation.
“I would be wanting [to play] N.C. State if I was Miami,” Grant said. “That was a tough game, a tough way to lose.”
Even with that dynamic and the team’s run last year, Lowe said he is stressing to his team the importance of this weekend, not the past.
“We had a tough regular season, but this is a new season. For Miami it’s a new season: I told our guys, ‘What are you going to do tomorrow?'” Lowe said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
