NEW YORK — Despite a second-half comeback effort that saw NC State tie the game after being down 17 points, the Wolfpack men’s basketball team came up short against Boston College, 91-87, Wednesday in the second round of the ACC Tournament in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
It was a tale of two halves for the fifth-seeded Wolfpack (21-11, 11-7 ACC), as a dismal all-around performance in the opening 20 minutes ultimately doomed NC State. The 12th-seeded Eagles (19-14, 7-11 ACC) came to play early, jumping out to a 45-31 halftime lead that they held onto late behind the play of two North Carolina natives; guards Ky Bowman, from Havelock, and Jerome Robinson, from Raleigh, led the way with 24 and 26 points, respectively.
“Obviously we got in a big deficit early, and we had to battle back at halftime,” head coach Kevin Keatts said. “Certainly we put ourselves in a situation to be able to win the game at the end. Very unfortunate. I think those guys in the locker room battled extremely hard, obviously, for the win, and came up a little bit short.”
The Pack was able to tie the game five times in the final 4:17, but never took the lead. Graduate transfer guard Allerik Freeman, who led the Pack with 21 points, made two huge 3-pointers late to keep NC State in the game. Graduate transfer guard Sam Hunt also had a key play late, drilling a corner 3-pointer and a free throw for a four-point play.
However, Boston College was able to seal the victory after forcing a steal on an inbound from Freeman, as Bowman sunk both free throws after the Pack fouled him to stop the clock.
State sophomore guard Markell Johnson followed with a made layup, but had a lapse in judgement and was assessed a technical foul after trying to call a timeout that the Wolfpack didn’t have. Robinson would make both free throws to push the Eagles lead to 91-87, and NC State failed to foul a Boston College player as time expired.
“Markell Johnson got caught into emotion. He’s not to blame on it,” Keatts said. “Every time we made a basket, they would come down and make a basket. If you were a fan, the last three minutes of the game was pretty exciting. For us, we just couldn’t get over the hump.”
The first half could not have gone much worse for the Wolfpack, as NC State couldn’t get a shot to fall. The Pack shot just 35.3 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes, and also went only 3 for 7 from the charity stripe.
In contrast, Boston College had the hot-shooting hand in the first half. The Eagles hit 51.4 percent from the field, including dominating the Pack in the paint. BC outscored State 26-12 down low in the opening frame, and 46-36 for the whole game, in what ended up being a huge factor in the outcome.
As bad as the Pack started the game though, it caught fire in the second half. As a team, NC State shot 73.3 percent from the field in the back half of the game, including going 7 of 10 from 3-point range.
A big part of the improvement for NC State was the improvement of sophomore center Omer Yurtseven. Yurtseven, the Pack’s third-leading scorer on the year, started the game 0 of 5 from the field and made just one field goal in the first half. However, he bounced back and put together a big game, finishing with 20 points and nine rebounds while shooting 50 percent.
“I just kept shooting,” Yurtseven said. “That was the mentality. I just made the regular shots that I would. They didn’t fall down in the first half, but I just stuck with it.”
NC State’s ACC Tournament run in Brooklyn is over after its first game for the second year in a row, but this season is different for the Pack. With a handful of impressive wins and 21 victories overall, NC State is still a likely lock to be selected for the NCAA Tournament. The Pack, along with every other team in the country, will figure out its fate this Sunday.
“I’m excited about our team,” Keatts said. “Our body of work is pretty good when you think about what we’ve done in a short amount of time and look at winning. Beating five top-25 teams and winning on the road and a couple wins against the No. 2 team in the country.”
Graduate guard Sam Hunt covers his mouth as he walks off the court. Hunt was his usual sharp-shooting self with 4-6 from deep, including a four-point play. Hunt's play was not enough as the Pack suffered one of the worst first halves of the season having to fight an uphill 17-point deficit nearly making it, but falling 91-87 on Wednesday, March 7 in Barclay Center in Brooklyn, NY.
