Friday night’s NIT game against Marist was tense, hard-fought and downright hostile. There were technical fouls, intentional fouls and numerous eruptions from the raucous Reynolds Coliseum crowd — mostly directed at the referees.
But amidst all the chaos, there was N.C. State’s senior point guard Engin Atsur pulling the team together and making sure everyone stayed focused on what was really important — winning the game.
“When we get fired up, he’s always there to grab our jersey and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a basketball game to play,'” sophomore forward Ben McCauley said. “He puts us in our place, and we listen to him.”
And Atsur takes that role very seriously.
“That’s the point guard’s role,” Atsur said. “And I’m a pretty calm guy, so I take responsibility for that.”
But for 12 games this season there was no senior leader there to settle the team down and put guys in their place when things got tough. And boy did they get tough.
After a 5-0 start to the season, Atsur went down in the win over Michigan on Nov. 27 with a severe hamstring pull and missed 12 of the next 13 games. During that span the Wolfpack went 6-7 and began ACC play at 0-4.
And during the Atsur-less stretch State committed more than 15 turnovers in seven of the games — something the Pack had done only once before and have done only six times since.
“We’re a totally different ball club,” coach Sidney Lowe said of his team when Atsur’s in the game. “The calming effect he has on our team means a great deal to us.”
Atsur returned against Virginia on Jan. 24, but was still noticeably hobbled with the injury, and the benefits of having him back in the lineup didn’t translate into a lot of wins immediately.
But toward the end of the regular season and into the ACC Tournament, Atsur’s health had improved to where he was before the injury.
Then against Virginia it happened again. He went down, clutching his leg and had to leave the game. But that time, instead of being unable to play, he returned to the game and has played his normal minutes since, leading the Pack to the ACC championship game and the quarterfinals of the NIT.
Only Atsur knows how bad it’s hurting him. But for the sake of the team, now is not the time for its leader to be sitting out.
“To have him out there is just kind of a cool, calm, relaxed feeling,” McCauley said. “And it’s really good for the rest of us because we’re so young still. We’re not used to playing in these big games.”
But Atsur is used to it. In his career he’s started 114 games and played in the NCAA Tournament every season except this one.
And now, even in the lessened setting of the NIT, he’s provided his team with yet another reason to win — prolonging his college career.
“We don’t want him to leave,” McCauley said. “To keep playing in these games is great to have him around. He represents N.C. State to the fullest. We just want to keep playing hard and give as many games as possible.”
Atsur realizes, too, that this tournament is it for him. And though it’s not the NCAA Tournament, he really wants to keep going and try to win it.
“I want to make it as long as possible,” he said.
As for thinking about what might have been had the hamstring injury not kept Atsur out of so many games, Lowe said he had allowed himself to fantasize about it once.
“We won every game we played,” Lowe said with a big smile on his face.
