WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — NC State men’s basketball earned possibly its biggest win of the season against Wake Forest, downing the Demon Deacons 79-77 for a quad-one road victory.
It certainly wasn’t pretty, but the Wolfpack (17-5, 7-4 ACC) got the job done thanks in large part to a masterclass from graduate forward DJ Burns. His 31 points weren’t only a game-high, or season-high, but a career-high for the big man who rattled home 14 of his 26 attempts from the floor. Wake Forest (14-8, 6-5 ACC) looked helpless to try and stop Burns when he got going, proving to be the difference between a win and loss for NC State.
“Ever since I met DJ, there’s never been a day I’ve seen him not get a bucket,” said sophomore guard Terquavion Smith. “That’s what he do. It’s hard to explain.”
Burns finished the afternoon as the clear hero for the Wolfpack, adding nine rebounds, an assist, two blocks and two steals to his career-high point total. Graduate guard Jarkel Joiner came in as the Pack’s second-leading scorer with 17 points on 6-14 shooting from the floor and 3-5 from beyond the arc. Right behind Joiner was Smith, who ended the game with 16 points on 6-12 shooting from the floor and 3-4 from deep despite having to fight through foul trouble for the larger part of the afternoon.
In terms of win quality, it doesn’t get much better than this for NC State. Improving to 2-4 against quad-one teams with a hard-fought road win against a conference rival today goes a long way for Selection Sunday and ACC Tournament seeding. With the regular season’s end a month away, every game has an impact on what the Wolfpack’s postseason looks like — for now, winning is all that matters.
“As far as the biggest game of the year, I don’t think we count those — I think all games matter, regardless if we’re home or away,” Smith said. “I feel like this group that we have now, it’s more about the team. Compared to what we did last year, it’s more about the team this year. Everybody wants to win, so everybody puts the team first — that’s how we pull through and win games.”
The outcome of this game looked much different early with NC State shooting 33.3% from the floor, 36.4% from distance and an abysmal 25% from the charity stripe heading into halftime. Smith was well into foul trouble at that point, missing a chunk of time before the break due to picking up his third foul after failing to score since his two 3-pointers to open the contest. Joiner and Burns also looked far different than they did to end the game, shooting a combined 7-22 from the floor with eight points apiece at the end of the first half.
“We went into a timeout and [head coach Kevin Keatts] said ‘I don’t want you to start being timid,’” Burns said. “He said stay aggressive, and that’s exactly what happened. That alone gave me the confidence to keep going instead of starting to pass the ball early.”
Down 37-28 with under a minute remaining in the first frame of play, Joiner found a way to keep the Pack alive with a buzzer-beater beyond the arc to finish the period — a shot that reenergized an NC State team that was beating itself at any given opportunity.
Wake Forest didn’t lay off the gas pedal to start the second, getting out to its largest lead of the night, 10 points, at the 18:31 mark and again with 13:02 left. Having rattled home two of NC State’s last three buckets before that point, Burns took it upon himself to change the Wolfpack’s fate.
Accounting for 23 of NC State’s 48 second-half points, Burns made Wake Forest’s Matthew Marsh look like a high schooler on the floor. Whether he received the ball in the post, on the elbow or even at the edge of 3-point land, Burns received no resistance when he decided to back Marsh down to the basket. Whether it was turnaround hook shots, spin moves into layups or pull-up jumpers, Burns was laying down every move in the book at will.
“Once I got going, it felt like it was just gonna keep going,” Burns said. “I had zero intention of stopping once I started. It felt really good.”
A Burns jumper at the 5:01 mark gave NC State its first lead of the half and the Pack never looked back. Freshman guard LJ Thomas came in for Smith in the later moments of the second frame, making an immediate impact with a corner 3-pointer to set the Wolfpack lead at 67-64. Senior guard Casey Morsell followed suit after a massive jumper from Wake’s Damari Monsanto, nailing his own corner 3 to extend the lead to four points with 3:02 left to play.
Tyree Appleby gave it his best shot to keep Wake Forest in the game, knocking down multiple free throws in crunch time to keep the Demon Deacons in striking distance. But when Burns started making his free throws, it was curtains for the black-and-gold, falling in devastating fashion and jeopardizing Wake Forest’s postseason stock.
Even with inefficient shooting splits early on, an atrocious performance at the charity stripe and giving up a fair share of second-chance points, NC State found a way to earn its first impactful road game of the season. With matchups against Florida State and Georgia Tech at home to keep the team’s momentum on the upswing, the Wolfpack has a chance to do it all over again in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, Feb. 7 against No. 7 Virginia.
“We won today,” Keatts said when asked about how far this team can go. “We’re gonna continue to keep working. … I don’t allow this team to look ahead. … We got to stay in the moment. … You got to just focus on the next game and that’s all we’ve been able to do.”
