You never know what you’ll get from NC State. Good or bad, there’s no middle ground
This will go down as one that got away, undoubtedly, even if N.C. State hadn’t fought back to hold the lead in the final minutes. In what’s shaping up to be an even weaker ACC than anyone feared, these are the games that can end up swinging a season one way or another.
If anything, Saturday only reinforced that the fine margins are really going to matter for the Wolfpack. There was enough in this 73-68 loss to Louisville to suggest that N.C. State will be able to hold its own amid the very soft middle of the ACC, even without Manny Bates.
You really never know what you’re going to get with this N.C. State team, but there’s very little middle ground. When things are bad, they can be really bad. When things are good, the Wolfpack is capable of the kind of furious flurry it produced in the second half against Louisville to turn what looked like an impending blowout into yet another game that went down to the wire.
That’s been a sometime thing this season, not an all-the-time thing, and some of that is clearly the natural confidence issues of a young team that lost its most consistent and best defensive player a minute into the season.
The Wolfpack feels like it’s going to be an all-or-nothing proposition on any given night, and against a team like Louisville in a similar semi-identity crisis — which, honestly, includes about three-fourths of the ACC this winter — the Wolfpack showed again that it has another level it can reach when properly activated and inspired.
Which is less a question of motivation than circumstance, the result of a chain reaction that starts with one good play or two then ripples through the roster and the crowd like a wave. It spreads organically, but it doesn’t start that way. It takes some kind of spark, or you end up with the listless, somnolent first half the Wolfpack played Saturday.
Given that N.C. State was a mere 60 or so hours removed from playing a game and a half against Nebraska on Wednesday, it was easy to chalk that up to an empty tank. Surely the second half would be more of the same. What could the Wolfpack possibly have left to offer?
The spark came on the defensive end, forcing turnovers that led to easy buckets at the other end. Four steals and a 13-2 run later, the Wolfpack might not have thought it had much of a second wind in it but it found one, suddenly attacking the rim, drawing fouls and leaving Louisville entirely on its heels.
When Dereon Seabron and Cam Hayes and Terquavion Smith and even big Ebenezer Dowuonu get a little taste of success, it becomes contagious: Suddenly everyone is flexing, driving, yelling, making big shots and playing to a crowd that was suddenly engaged and on board.
PNC Arena wasn’t full Saturday — even for N.C. State’s ACC opener, even after Wednesday’s four-overtime marathon win over Nebraska — but it was absolutely loud, and the Wolfpack absolutely fed off it during its run.
It wasn’t enough against Louisville in the end, with the Cardinals making a pair of improbable 3-pointers at the end, each as the shot clock expired, the first from long-range to tie, the second while falling out of bounds after a cross-court inbounds pass — the kind of shot you hope the other team ends up taking.
The Wolfpack settled on a pair of shots that could have turned the tide, a hurried jumper by Jericole Hellems that was blocked and a Cam Hayes 3-pointer to tie, and that was that. Those were the kinds of static plays that got N.C. State in trouble in the first place, not the aggressive, attacking drives that got the Wolfpack back into the game.
Whatever mojo the Wolfpack conjured had by that point evaporated. It’s out there, though. This team has explosive potential. It’s more than capable of holding its own in the middle of the ACC bell curve, where just about everyone but Duke and Pittsburgh reside. It’s just impossible, at this point, to know what to expect on any given night, in any given half, on any given play.
This story was originally published December 4, 2021 at 5:38 PM with the headline "You never know what you’ll get from NC State. Good or bad, there’s no middle ground."
