Wolfpack Heads Into Christmas Break With Needed Win

Markell Johnson's triple double leads State bounce back from Thursday's loss at Auburn with an 83-63 win against The Citadel

Mr. and Ms. Wuf were decked out in Santa suits, members of the NC State dance team wore festive "ugly" sweaters and the band even played Christmas carols during timeouts.

Everyone at PNC Arena on Sunday, it seemed, was in the holiday spirit. Everyone, that is, expect for the team they all came to cheer. 

The Wolfpack was still grumpy from a loss at Auburn on Thursday its players thought they should have won. But after an 83-63 victory against The Citadel highlighted by Markell Johnson's triple double, coach Kevin Keatts and his team were in a much more jolly mood heading into their week-long Christmas break.

"I want our guys if we drop a game to feel a little bad about it," Keatts said. "We always talk about getting well. If you lose a game, you're sick. So get well. I thought they bounced back and we got well today."

No one on the Wolfpack did more healing than Johnson, who took the loss to the Tigers particularly hard after going just 4 of 10 with five turnovers on Thursday.

The senior point guard didn't have his best game on Sunday. But he did a little of everything in finishing with 11 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds for only the fourth triple-double in school history -- joining Julius Hodge in 2002 and former teammate Dennis Smith Jr. twice in 2017.

His contributions took on even more significance midway though the first half when backcourt mate Braxton Beverly left the game with a bruised back and didn't return.

Keatts said after the game that Beverly should be fine by the Wolfpack's next game, next Sunday against Appalachian State. Everyone on the team is feeling a lot better, too, now that they won't have to spend the next few days at home with their families with a loss weighing on their minds.

"We don't want to dwell on things like that," Johnson said of the Auburn game. We know what an opportunity we had, so we just have to move past it. Like Coach Keatts said, we're going to get better from it and we can deal with it.

"It was kind of hard getting everytbody motivated (on Sunday) with everbody getting ready to go home. But I feel like we did a good job of staying on track and getting the job done.

State (9-3) was especially focused during a first half in which it outcored the smaller Bulldogs 26-10 in the paint, forced them into shooting a frigid 28.1 percent from the floor and held an opponent that had put up 100 or more points in each of its past three game to just 22 points.

Although the Wolfpack's concentration wandred at times over the final 20 minutes -- a period in which it only outscored The Citadel by a 43-41 margin -- Keatts was satisfied with the effort his team put forth.

Especially under the circumstances.

In addition to Johnson, four other players scored in double figures. Devon Daniels, who started in place of C.J. Bryce, led the way with 18. Bryce, the team's leading scorer, came off the bench to get 13 points. 

Six-foot-10 D.J. Funderburk took advantage of a huge size disparity inside against the Bulldogs, whose biggest regular was three inches shorter, to finish with 14 points  while Jericole Hellms played his best game since suffering a mild concussion two weeks ago at Wake Forest with 13 points on 5 of 10 shooting.

“I thought our guys did some really good things," Keatts said. "This is always the toughest game to play right before you go home for Christmas, because you just don’t know where their minds are at. I thought our guys did a tremendous job, especially in the first half of defending. 

"We knew that they were a team that came in here and if they made threes it could be a tough night for us," Keatts added. "I wasn't particularly happy that they made 14 threes, but if they were going to make 14, they had to take 45 (shots]. So I'm okay with that. I was excited about the balanced scoring we had. I was happy to get everybody in the game."

Among those that got some extended run in the game was reserve center Danny Dixon , who hadn't played since the Memphis game on Thanksgiving Day because of a foot injury. He ended up with two points and a rebound in 10 minutes of court time.

Walkon guard Chase Graham also had a big moment, hitting a long 3-pointer for the game's final basket and his first points as a member of the Wolfpack -- just one more thing to help make the Wolfpack's spirits bright this holiday season with only one more tuneup remaining before starting the bulk of the ACC schedule.

 It was great for us," Bryce said of the victory. "It was a tough one against Auburn that we dropped. We definitely wanted to get that one. But for us to get this one before the break is special for us. 

"Shout out to Markell Johnson with the triple-double. We're looking foreward to getting our guys back going, especially Jericole Hellems coming off his injury. I just want to get all the guys back on track and focused to finish the season off."