WINSTON-SALEM – Winning ACC basketball games is never easy. It’s especially difficult when a team comes out of the gate flat, which is exactly what the NC State men’s basketball team has done in each of its four conference games this year.
Tuesday night against Wake Forest (8-8, 1-3 ACC) was the worst case yet of an ugly start for the Pack (14-3, 2-2 ACC), as NC State was down by 22 points to the Demon Deacons before mounting a comeback that ultimately fell short to lose 71-67. The Pack tied things up late in the game at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, but couldn’t right the wrongs of an abysmal first half.
“You can’t spot teams 22 points,” redshirt senior guard Torin Dorn said. “You can’t spot teams like that and expect to come back and win games. You’ve got play from start to finish.”
In the Wolfpack’s other ACC loss this year, a 90-82 heartbreaker at home against UNC-Chapel Hill, it was a 12-0 deficit to start the game that doomed the Pack. Like it did against Wake Forest, NC State tied that game in the second half but couldn’t overcome the terrible start.
“Obviously, our intent is not to get behind,” head coach Kevin Keatts said. “I know my team is going to fight. I told them in the locker room, but at this point because everybody knows we play hard, we won’t lay down. But at the end of the day, we cannot keep continuing to dig ourselves holes and getting out of it. We’ve got to do a better job as a staff getting ready to play when we come out of the locker room.”
NC State’s two conference wins also showed a Wolfpack team that came out of the gate slow. In the conference opener at Miami, the Pack took an eight-point deficit into the locker room at halftime before bouncing back in the second frame to win 87-82.
Last Saturday against Pittsburgh, NC State struggled in the first half against a vastly inferior Panthers team and was down a score late in the opening half before taking a one-point lead into the locker room.
The Wolfpack bounced back well against Pitt to win 86-80 in that one, but the trend of slow starts in ACC play is alarming for NC State. Tuesday night that trend was the most alarming it has been all season, as the Wolfpack couldn’t start hot against maybe the conference’s worst team.
“We played on the back of our heels in the first half,” Keatts said. “We didn’t make shots. What happens with this team right now, because obviously we are still a young team in terms of playing together, our defense takes the struggle a little when the ball’s not going in the hole.”
Keatts’ team is still in a decent position with a winning record overall, with lots of ACC games left to play. But it’s about to get even tougher for the Pack. NC State’s next two conference games come on the road against Notre Dame and Louisville before the Pack comes back home for matchups against three very good teams in Clemson, Virginia and Virginia Tech.
The talent on the Pack is abundant, and NC State is capable of winning a lot of games this year, but if Keatts and the Wolfpack want to find success in a tough ACC, the first-half woes have to stop.
