NC State Has No Answers in Blowout Loss to Louisville
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Things change quickly in college basketball and NC State learned that the hard way on Monday. The Wolfpack ran into a buzzsaw when visiting No. 24 Louisville, as the Cardinals exploded offensively en route to a totally dominant 118-77 victory over Will Wade's team.
The quick turnaround put the Wolfpack's six-game win streak at risk, especially going against a Louisville team desperate to get back into the mix at the top of the ACC standings. There were no answers for the Cardinals' red-hot shooting for Wade's side, setting the team back in confidence after a nice stretch.
Tre Holloman and Ven-Allen Lubin were the lone bright spots for the Wolfpack, as Holloman added 19 points to lead the team, while Lubin chipped in 20 points and six rebounds in the ugly loss. Their performances were no match for some sizzling shooting from Louisville's backcourt.
Nightmare start strikes at the worst time
Riding its six-game road win streak into Louisville, the Wolfpack needed to avoid one of the slow starts that plagued it against lesser competition. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, as the Cardinals shot out to an early 10-point lead before the first media timeout hit. The slow start forced ACC Player of the Week Quadir Copeland into action.
What made the slow offensive start even more concerning was how sharp the Cardinals looked out of the gate. Senior guard Isaac McKneely wasted no time finding his rhythm from 3-point range, knocking down a pair of triples in the first four minutes. In addition to McKneely’s 3-point shooting, Louisville had no issues picking apart the back line of the Wolfpack defense.
While NC State cut the lead to as few as five, Louisville freshman guard Mikel Brown heated up around the midway point of the first half, burying three triples. He didn’t stop there, barraging the Pack with 21 points in the opening 20 minutes, including five makes from beyond the arc.
The buzzer finally sounded mercifully for a Wolfpack team that desperately needed to regroup after being thoroughly outclassed in the first half. State walked into the locker room trailing by 20 points, as the Cardinals blitzed the Wolfpack with a 56-point half while shooting 58% from the field.
Complete domination on the glass
Rebounding hadn’t exactly been a strength for NC State throughout the first 24 games, but Louisville leveraged the Wolfpack’s weakness on the boards better than any team all year. State failed to apply any pressure on the offensive glass, hauling in just one offensive rebound in the first half and six in the game. The Cardinals outrebounded NC State 42-28 in the game.
With Ven-Allen Lubin engaged with blocking out the flotilla of Cardinal big men, it was up to the guards to rebound down and support the frontcourt as best as possible. They failed miserably throughout the first half, as Brown collected six rebounds himself to lead Louisville. Louisville controlled the rebounding battle with a 24-to-11 margin in the opening 20 minutes.
Total defensive breakdown
The complete defensive breakdown looked similar to the one NC State experienced against Virginia earlier in the conference schedule. After playing against some of the lesser competition in the ACC, the team’s confidence grew, but Wade knew it was still making numerous mistakes that would be exposed by the higher-level competition later in the year.
Monday was the latest example of just how far the Wolfpack could fall if it played without urgency, especially against a team more than capable of matching it offensively. Louisville was quicker to the ball and unafraid to fire shots quickly before NC State’s defense could rotate and switch. It all pointed back to something Wade said during an appearance with Jeff Goodman on the “Field of 68” after the Virginia Tech win.
There's a new sheriff in town
— Louisville Men's Basketball (@LouisvilleMBB) February 10, 2026
The Louisville freshman single game scoring record belongs to MBJ #GoCards pic.twitter.com/77OPnU9I48
“We're not dominant where we can play a B or a C game and beat anybody. We've got to be a B+ to A every night, so that's the challenge: to maintain the consistency these last seven games,” the coach said.
It was also a reversion to the struggles in adjusting to one player getting hot, as Brown totally exploded in large part because of the Wolfpack’s inability to get hands up. By the 15-minute mark of the second half, Louisville led the Pack by 35 points, with Brown up to 32 points. He finished the night with a new career high of 45. Brown wasn't alone, as his backcourt partner, Ryan Conwell, tallied 31 points of his own.
Final word
NC State's countless defensive breakdowns and inability to keep pace offensively created the perfect cocktail for a disastrous road outing. Wade warned of a moment like this being possible multiple times over the last two weeks, but the Wolfpack skirted away from losses. There was no chance of that happening against a blisteringly hot Louisville team.
The loss will be a tough one to swallow, as it will undoubtedly create some serious ripples in both the NET rankings and some of the other metric systems with such a poor performance. The Pack heads back to Raleigh and has a week to regroup before hosting a bubble team in the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday.
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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