The NC State men’s basketball team won a game it desperately needed to not lose in order to stay on the NCAA Tournament bubble Wednesday afternoon, beating Pittsburgh 73-58 in the second round of the ACC Tournament, just down the road from Raleigh inside the Greensboro Coliseum.
Playing in front of a friendly pro-NC State Coliseum crowd, the fifth-seed Wolfpack (20-12, 10-10 ACC) took care of business against the 13th-seed Panthers (16-16, 6-14 ACC), never trailing in the game as a big first half from redshirt junior Devon Daniels and a series of all-around contributions powered the NCAA Tournament bubble-residing Pack.
“Some of the keys to our game and our success today was we were able to get out in transition,” said NC State head coach Kevin Keatts. “We were able to make some shots. We were able to get some player and ball movement against the zone, and certainly that helped us get a win.”
Right from the tip, NC State played with a lot of energy, getting scoring contributions from six players before the under-12 media timeout and forcing four turnovers that led to six points. Senior guard Markell Johnson collected three assists by that point, often making the difficult but rewarding pass, like finding junior guard Braxton Beverly for an early 3-pointer.
Despite the hot start, the Panthers weren’t making it easy, connecting on three of its first five 3-pointers and narrowing the Pack lead to just two with nine minutes left in the half. Part of Pitt’s success stemmed from a great zone defense; as NC State had to settle for more and more jump shots, the Wolfpack went cold and didn’t score for almost four minutes.
“I feel like we got stagnant on offense,” Daniels said. “I feel like we started getting really aggressive on defense and were getting a lot of steals, a lot of deflections, not getting easy baskets. At the end of the half I feel like we got a little stagnant when they went in zone, weren’t looking for our shots enough, and I feel like we turned it around in the second half.”
On the other side, the Panthers capitalized off missed shots by getting in transition and going on a 9-0 run close to the end of the half. Although it was up 31-21 near the seven-minute mark, NC State took just a 35-32 lead into the break.
Pittsburgh was led by three players in the first half: Xavier Johnson with 11 points, Trey McGowens with 10 points and Justin Champagnie with nine points. For the Pack, seven of eight players to check in put points on the board, led by redshirt junior guard Devon Daniels, who scored 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting in just over 12 minutes of playing time.
In the second half, NC State was able to get over the hump, building a 10-point lead just five minutes in that it was able to keep for most of the second half. Its largest lead came with two minutes left in the game, a 20-point advantage for the Wolfpack, and the team was clicking on all cylinders, playing like the team that beat Duke by 22.
“We just wanted to come out and defend in the second half,” Johnson said. “We knew that once we started defending, the game would open up. Coach Keatts got in our heads and told us ‘If you come out and defend, we can get open shots, open breaks’ and stuff like that.”
Johnson continued to distribute the ball well, collecting his 10th assist just over halfway into the second half and ending with 11 dimes. Although NC State didn’t get much scoring out of him, just seven points, he was exactly what the Pack needed, especially with Daniels’ hot shooting game.
Daniels finished with 23 of NC State’s 73 points on 9-of-14 shooting, hitting a number of floaters in the paint and 1 of 2 3-point attempts. On the defensive side, the Pack was finally able to take advantage of the Panthers’ unbalanced attack, limiting Xavier Johnson, McGowens and Champagnie to four, two and zero second-half points, respectively.
NC State men’s basketball will take on the Duke Blue Devils in the quarterfinal of the ACC Tournament in the Greensboro Coliseum on Thursday, March 11 at 2:30 p.m. Duke and NC State split the season series at one game apiece.
“We play Duke tomorrow, so we had that loss to them last time,” Bryce said. So [we need to] go in there with [a mindset of] ‘we want to get this win’, and not just for it being Duke, but … we want to continue to advance, win and advance in the conference.”
Redshirt senior guard CJ Bryce looks for an open way to the basket during the 2020 New York Life ACC Tournament game versus the Pittsburgh Panthers on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 in the Greensboro Coliseum. Bryce scored 13 points and had 10 rebounds against Pittsburgh. The Wolfpack beat the Panthers 73-58.
