There are choked leads, and then there are complete collapses.
The NC State men’s basketball team experienced the latter in its crushing 82-72 overtime loss to the No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers on Sunday, Dec. 12 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Purdue (9-1) didn’t lead for a single second in regulation, even trailing by 13 points with just 9:10 remaining in the second half and yet still came away with the victory. Boilermaker big man Trevion Williams came up clutch for Purdue, coming one assist shy of a triple-double, posting 22 points on 10 of 14 shooting, to go along with 12 rebounds, nine assists, four blocks and two steals.
“Very, very happy with the fight of my team,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “We played against a very good Purdue team. Probably the best team I’ve seen so far in the early season, and we knew that coming in after we watched them on tape. What makes them so tough is that they’ve almost got two of everything. But those two big guys inside, they make the difference. And one night, it doesn’t matter which one it is, you got two guys that can start basically for any program in the country.”
NC State (7-3) had several opportunities to close Purdue out and pull off the upset in its first game against a No. 1 team since it faced Syracuse in 2014. Senior forward Jericole Hellems had a huge turnaround jumper with just under two minutes remaining to give the Wolfpack a six-point cushion, but the Boilermakers scored back-to-back three-point plays to tie the game for the first time since it was 0-0.
Redshirt sophomore guard Dereon Seabron was able to get a driving layup, but Purdue’s Sasha Stefanovic answered right back out of the timeout. Seabron went for the win but missed, giving Purdue a shot to knock the Pack off at the buzzer, but it botched the inbounding play, sailing the ball out of bounds and giving NC State the ball at halfcourt.
With just over two seconds left, Purdue was at risk of being eliminated at the buzzer for the second time in four days after Rutgers guard Ron Harper Jr. upset the No. 1 team in the country with time running out. However, NC State also botched its inbounding play, with sophomore guard Cam Hayes bounce-passing the ball on the out-of-bounds line, turning the ball over and ultimately sending the game to overtime.
Sophomore forward Ebenezer Dowuona, by far the team’s best interior presence following redshirt junior forward Manny Bates’ injury, fouled out at the beginning of the overtime period, which set the tone for Pack’s overtime collapse. NC State committed seven fouls in the extra period, watching helplessly as Purdue went to the line time and time again, outscoring the Pack 16-6 in those five minutes.
While the loss will certainly leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the team and fans alike, it isn’t like the Wolfpack had a poor performance against the No. 1 Boilermakers. As mentioned, Purdue didn’t lead at all in regulation, trailing for 38:33. The Boilermakers are the No. 1 team for a reason, beating No. 6 Villanova earlier in the season and going 3-0 against the ACC with today’s win, having previously beaten then-No. 18 North Carolina and blowing out Florida State.
“Purdue is going to win a lot of games and they’re going to make a deep run in the NCAA [Tournament],” Keatts said. “They may even win the championship. And we did a great job, we were toe to toe. If you watched the game you’d say, ‘Man, NC State basketball is going to be fine.’ I thought our guys fought. I thought we had our opportunities. I like where our program is at. We’re starting young kids. If you look at it, we’re starting freshmen and sophomores and we were really playing at a high level. And so we just got to build on it. The message is, ‘We don’t take moral victories in this program, but let’s build on it. Because if you’re going to play these guys like that, then certainly you can play with anybody in the country.’”
The Pack got out to a quick start in the first half, forcing Purdue to miss its first four field-goal attempts and getting out to a quick 8-0 lead, a lead it would hold for most of the rest of the game. Despite being severely outsized by the 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, NC State managed to not fall too far behind in the rebounding category, trailing 20-15 by the end of the first half, with the entirety of the difference being Purdue’s six offensive boards.
NC State’s lead guards came out to play against the No. 1 team in the country, with freshman guard Terquavion Smith registering a career day, going for 21 points on 6 of 13 shooting, including 3 for 7 from deep.
Smith, Hayes and Seabron combined for 22 of the Wolfpack’s 31 first-half points while star Purdue guard Jaden Ivey had just seven points on 3 of 8 shooting. The biggest area of concern for the Pack entering the contest was how it would be able to handle one of the passers in the entire NCAA in Ivey but the Pack’s young backcourt of Hayes and Smith was fantastic in outpacing Ivey in the first half. Hayes had eight points, four boards, two 3s and a steal by the end of the first and finished the game with 12 points.
Smith continued his nuclear streak in the opening minutes of the second half, getting a four-point play to go and getting nine of his 22 points in just over three minutes of game time in the second.
NC State also poured in a strong 3-point performance in the loss, shooting 38.1 percent overall from downtown. Entering its game against Rutgers, Purdue was allowing its opponents to shoot just 29.6% on deep-ball attempts. NC State and Rutgers shot a combined 15 of 35, or 42.9%, from deep against the Boilermakers.
Despite doing all of the little things correctly for the first half and the majority of the second, NC State still let Purdue sneak in in the second half and retake the areas of the game it was previously faltering in. After shooting 41.4% from the field in the first half, Purdue settled in and shot 58.1% the rest of the way.
Purdue also ended the game with a 43-30 rebounding advantage and Ivey, who was quiet for the first half, poured in 15 points in the second half and overtime period, ending the game with 22 points, seven rebounds, two assists and three blocks.
The Pack hasn’t beaten a No. 1-ranked team since it beat Duke in 2013 and it will remain that way following the disappointing loss. NC State has plenty to build on and its young corps likely won’t soon forget the depressing feeling of coming so close to upsetting a No. 1 team.
NC State gets a chance to bounce back against an experienced Richmond squad in Charlotte on Friday, Dec. 17 in the Basketball Hall of Fame Shootout. That game is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ACC Network.
“I thought our guys fought, it was a heck of a battle all the way to the end,” Keatts said. “The message to our guys was, ‘Hey, you’re playing the No. 1 team in the country, and you’re fighting all the way to the end, we had our chances, we can play with anyone in the country.’ So I love our guys’ fight, unfortunately, things didn’t go our way at the end, and we’ll just leave it at that.”
