Rob Kinnan/USAToday sports
Wolfpack Looks to Repeat History Against Duke at PNC
NC State's last best chance at playing its way into the NCAA tournament begins Wednesday with the first of two straight games at PNC Arena against top 10 opponents.
Win one and the Wolfpack will be back in the bubble conversation. Win both and coach Kevin Keatts' team will be back in the field of 68 after coming up just short a year ago.
Losing both -- to No. 6 Duke on Wednesday and No. 8 Florida State on Saturday -- wouldn't officially end State's tournament hopes. But it would mean it would have to either win at Cameron Indoor Stadium in two weeks or put together a miracle run at the ACC tournament next month in Greenville.
Either way, it's an important week for the Wolfpack.
So important that Keatts isn't even trying to downplay it, as he usually does.
"When you look at where we are at right now, we’ve got a couple good nonconference wins," the State coach said Tuesday. "We’ve got a very good win against UVa on the road. But the two games this week can certainly help our resume. We talk about that. We talk about staying in the moment. I don’t get into the next couple games. All we talk about is our next opponent, which is obviously Duke."
The game will mark the Wolfpack's return home after an 18-day absence during which it went 2-1 on the road with wins at Miami and Syracuse.
The trip ended on a sour note, however, with a 71-68 loss at Boston College on Sunday in a game that saw State come all the way back from a double-digit deficit, only to let a late lead slip away.
The good news is that the loss probably didn't do significant damage to the Wolfpack's NCAA tournament chances. It would likely have had to win one of these three upcoming games against Duke and Florida State to get in, anyway.
The even better news is that State (16-9, 7-7 ACC) has had success in the past against top-10 ranked Blue Devils teams at PNC.
The Wolfpack has won four of the past six meetings with Duke on its home court, including a 96-85 upset in the most recent game on Jan. 6, 2018 -- a win that earned Keatts his first ACC coaching victory.
"We played well. We were able to make some shots," Keatts said of the court-rushing win against coach Mike Krzyzewski's then-second ranked team. "That was my first year here, and we were coming off losses at Clemson and at Notre Dame. It was our first ACC game here. We just played well. We made some shots, we got out in transition. We were able to get some easy baskets."
It's going to take the same kind of formula to pull off another upset this time around. But it won't be easy.
The key matchup figures to be the one between star point guards Markell Johnson of State and Duke's Tre Jones, who rank 1-2 in the ACC in assists this season and are both among their teams' leading scorers.
According to Keatts, this Duke team is even more dangerous than the one that beat the Wolfpack by 16 last year at Cameron -- a team that included first overall NBA draft pick Zion Williamson and fellow first rounders R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish.
Duke is 22-3 (12-2) and comes into Wednesday riding an eight-game winning streak.
"When you look at last year’s team, they had a really good team but it was full of superstars," Keatts said. "They’ve still got really good players, guys that are obviously going to be able to play in the NBA in the near future.
That being said, with this particular team I think it’s a better overall team than the individual guys that they had last year. That makes it tough because they are starting to play well together."
With the exception of the first half at BC, the Wolfpack appears to be hitting its stride as well, not that all of its key players are healthy and back in the lineup together.
Redshirt senior wing C.J. Bryce said that he and his teammates understand the gravity of their situation regarding the NCAA bubble and are approaching their remaining six games -- especially these next two -- with the appropriate level of urgency.
"I’m very satisfied with how hard we are playing and the willpower that we’re giving," Bryce said. "Even with the Boston College game, we played very hard. A couple plays at the end didn’t go our way, but like I said, we’ve got Duke next and I’m looking forward to the next game.
"Duke’s a very good team, a very well-coached team with Coach K. I believe in the guys that we have in our program and I’ll take us against anybody in the nation."
