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NC State needs another miracle just to get into the ACC Tournament … and time is running out
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RALEIGH, NC – A year after going on a miracle run to win the ACC Tournament, NC State is going to need a miracle just to make it into the field this season.
The Wolfpack’s hole got considerably deeper Wednesday with a 91-66 pounding from Louisville. State is 2.5 games behind Syracuse and Cal for the final spot in the conference’s new 15-team bracket. Notre Dame, Pitt and Virginia are 3 games ahead of the Pack.
With only 7 games remaining.
It’s a dire situation, especially for a team that has lost 9 straight and is coming off by far the worst performance of its rapidly deteriorating season.
And yet, it’s more than just the predictable coachspeak when Kevin Keatts says he’s not ready to give up on either his Wolfpack or their chances of getting to Charlotte for a shot at pulling another rabbit out of their hat.
If Keatts learned anything from the lightning State caught in a bottle last March, a month-long joyride that gave new meaning to Jimmy V’s mantra of “don’t give up, don’t ever give up,” it’s that nothing is impossible.
Until it actually is.
“If you get playing basketball at the right time, anything can happen,” Keatts said. “We’ve just got to start the right time now. It’s a little bit different.”
In some respects, the task facing Keatts and his team isn’t as daunting as the one they faced a year ago. It took 5 wins in as many days to cut down the nets for the first time in 37 years and earn the opportunity to go on an even more improbable 4-game run to the Final Four.
This year’s team will at least have some time between games to go back to the practice floor and work on correcting some of the mistakes that have been haunting them since the start of the new year. But even that might not help.
Because at 2-11 in the conference (9-15 overall), State no longer controls its fate. It could conceivably win out and still not avoid the indignity of being 1 of the first 3 teams left uninvited to the ACC’s annual postseason party.
It’s a reality senior guard Breon Pass has already begun coming to grips with.
“I’m definitely worried,” he said after scoring 12 points in his team’s latest losing effort. “Seeing where we stand in the rankings, you definitely get to worrying in your head. But you gotta control what you can control.”
That’s no easy task when everything seems to be spiraling out of control. As it is for the Wolfpack right now.
Pass said he could feel it during the team’s pregame shootaround Wednesday.
Maybe it was lingering jet lag from last weekend’s trip to California. Or perhaps the grind of the losing streak is beginning to wear the team down. Whatever it was, State’s longest-tenured player was concerned that his teammates “weren’t as locked in as we usually are going into a game,” adding that “I just felt like today wasn’t our day.”
And it wasn’t.
State turned the ball over 12 times, 3 more than its season average. And it shot just 36% from the floor. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The defense that has served to keep most of its games close during the slump – 6 of the 9 losses have been by 6 points or fewer – was nowhere to be found, allowing Louisville to make 64% of its field goal attempts. Including 11-of-19 from beyond the 3-point arc.
Things got so bad that the biggest cheer of the night from the sparse gathering at Lenovo Center came when last season’s postseason hero DJ Horne was shown on the Jumbotron watching from the stands.
When Horne asked Keatts if he could talk to the team before the game, the coach said absolutely, before only half-jokingly asking his former player if he could put on a jersey and play, as well.
Horne’s presence in the building only served to call attention to the Wolfpack’s biggest problem.
While their roster has a nice set of complementary parts, there’s no go-to guy who can take over when things start going sideways the way Horne and that other DJ – super-sized big man DJ Burns – did for last year’s team.
That’s led to a situation similar to Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get from one game to the next.
Last week at Cal, Marcus Hill led the way with 20 points. Saturday at Stanford, Dontrez Styles had a big game with 19 and on Wednesday, it was freshmen Trey Parker and Paul McNeil with 13 and 12, respectively.
Figuring out a way to get all of them playing well at the same time is a mystery Keatts has yet to solve.
“We can throw a dart and see who played well in each game,” the Wolfpack coach said. “That’s been our major issue thus far. We don’t have consistent play from anybody.”
And they’re running out of time to find it.
Still, Keatts remains optimistic. If there’s any solace, the only 2 of the 7 teams remaining on the schedule have a winning record in the ACC. Boston College and Miami are 2-11 in league play; Syracuse is 5-9, Pitt is 5-8 and Georgia Tech is 6-8. The schedule at least allows the possibility for a late run.
“Anything can happen,” he said, “if we can push the right buttons.”
Nobody knows that better than Keatts. Then again, he also understands that hoping for miracles is never a sustainable strategy. Even for a program that has made them its trademark.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
