Rob Kinnan/USAToday
Wolfpack Can’t Afford to Slip Up Against Deacons
Friday’s regular season finale against Wake Forest doesn’t have the same curb appeal as Monday’s showdown at Duke or spark emotion like a matchup against North Carolina.
But for the NC State basketball team, the game against the Deacons is by far the most important the Wolfpack has played this season.
It’s the last chance for coach Kevin Keatts’ team to add to its resume before the start of the ACC Tournament next week. It's also the final home game for seniors Markell Johnson and C.J. Bryce, along with graduate transfers Pat Andree and Danny Dixon.
While a Senior Day win won’t get State off the NCAA bubble and into the field of 68, a loss at PNC Arena would almost certainly force it to pull off a miracle in Greensboro to avoid a second straight trip to the NIT.
It’s a situation of which the players are well aware. That’s not to say Keatts would go out of his way to remind them, even if they weren’t.
“It’s always dangerous when you talk to a team about how important a game is because everybody in that locker room can't handle that,” Keatts said after last week’s win against Pittsburgh.
“So I'm like the dad with a teenage son that you don’t really want to have that tough conversation with because you’re like 'should I have the conversation now or should I wait?' It’s tough. I always tiptoe around. Do I tell them how important it is or do I say that's not important, it’s just another game and we need to win it?”
Taken at face value, it’s a game the Wolfpack should win. Those, however, are the games that have given It the most trouble this season.
State (18-12, 9-10 ACC) is a combined 0-4 against Georgia Tech and North Carolina, two of the three teams tied for last in the conference standings.
The Wolfpack also has a history of stubbing its toes against Wake. It’s just 6-5 in its past 11 meetings with Coach Danny Manning’s team since 2015, a span in which the Deacons have recorded only one winning season.
State has already beaten Wake once this season, winning 91-82 in Winston-Salem on Dec. 7. But even though the Deacons are just 13-16 (6-13 ACC), they’re 3-3 in their past six games — including a double overtime upset of Duke -- and they could be motivated to win one final game for their coach, who is reportedly in buyout talks with school athletic officials.
The Wolfpack, on the other hand, should have no problems maintaining its focus, given its precarious position on the NCAA bubble.
Although Keatts said it would take a little time to get over Monday's 88-69 loss at Cameron Indoor Stadium, in which State failed to build on a promising first half performance, his players had already put the game behind them almost as soon as the final buzzer sounded.
"(We've got to) get back to the drawing board and work on the things we need to work on and just take care of the next game ahead of us," sophomore forward Jericole Hellems said. "For us, it's hard to lose one like (Duke) that we know we can handle. But we've got to worry about the next game."
