The NC State men’s basketball team (16-7, 4-6 ACC) has now dropped three games in a row, all to ranked opponents, and since the loss to No. 3 Virginia has put up a pair of pitiful losses. The miserably infamous loss to then-No. 12 Virginia Tech cost the Pack a spot in the AP top 25, where it had resided for most of the season.
The exact cause of these losses is hard to pinpoint, because the Pack played solid defense with horrible offense versus the Hokies on Saturday, but strong offense against the Tar Heels with terrible defense. The best guess for the flip-flopping experienced by the roster is the mentality that the team plays with.
Basketball is as much of a mental game as it is a talent-oriented game
Head coach Kevin Keatts’ ragtag team of basketball players that can switch on a dime is chock-full of talented players that has been uber-competitive with strong teams from Auburn, Wisconsin and Virginia. This makes it all the more confusing when they only muster 24 points to a team that was missing its starting point guard. The best explanation for this was the Pack entered the game with either too much or too little confidence in itself and misjudged the level of competition it was facing up with.
The Pack’s mental toughness is something that will have to be dealt with internally by each player, and is something that is incredibly difficult to coach. This is not to say that the Pack is mentally weak, either, but having a perfect blend of confidence and high-IQ plays is key for teams, and the Wolfpack mentally exhausted itself in the losses to Virginia Tech and UNC-Chapel Hill. Once the Pack hits its stride again and continues to make smart plays, the team will prove difficult to defeat and could be a tough matchup for any team in a possible NCAA tournament appearance.
The Pack cannot afford to beat itself
The Pack’s wildly alternating play between the Virginia Tech game and the UNC-Chapel Hill game is confusing in and of itself, but when one delves into the style of play in each game, it gets even more baffling. Compare the 24 points and 96 points scored by NC State in the Virginia Tech and UNC-Chapel Hill losses, respectively; that is a 72-point difference in the same amount of game time.
The amount of points given up in each of those games makes no sense, either. NC State only gave up 47 points to Tech, but then turned around and allowed the second-most amount of points scored on it in team history, at 113 points, to UNC.
When you play a great game defensively and then a great game offensively, with the other side of the game lacking, something is clearly wrong. This is the fact that the Pack is beating itself. In the Tech game, the team did not execute strong enough plays and its shots were not falling, so the solution was to take even more shots. The Pack had over 80 attempts on the basket in that game, 28 of which were 3-pointers, despite its 7 percent shooting clip from deep in the game.
Then in the Chapel Hill game, the Pack fouled a whopping 28 times, which allowed the Tar Heels to take 37 free throws, making 31 of them. If you remove free throws from the equation for both sides, NC State loses 82-81, a one-point loss. Obviously, free throws are a crucial part of the game, but the Pack could have easily avoided many of the fouls that plagued it throughout the game.
The Pack needs to work on its 3-point shooting
The Pack shot well from downtown in the loss to Chapel Hill, but even including its 41.2 percent shooting from 3 on Tuesday night, the team is shooting 25 of 95, or 26 percent, from 3-point land in their last four games. While the Pack is not an excellent 3-point shooting team, this number is terrible for a team that has many capable shooters such as sophomore Braxton Beverly and redshirt sophomore Devon Daniels.
Before this number, the Pack was shooting 51 of 153, or 33 percent, from 3-point range in ACC games. This number is not good, and is only 5 percent better than the last few games. However, the Pack’s shooting against UNC is one of its best performances of the season and inflates the numbers from the past few games. In the three games before the Tar Heels loss, the Pack was shooting 18 of 78, or an abysmal 23 percent. 3-point shooting is mandatory for success in any form of basketball today. If the Pack can get a consistent 3-point shot going as a unit, and it definitely has the means to, then it will be competitive with higher-ranked teams once again.
Conclusion
Much of the Pack’s rotation was not a part of the team last season, so any time that many new faces are introduced to a team, there are bound to be issues and rough patches. For a team that started as hot as it did, it was just awaiting a stretch like this. The most interesting thing to see will be if the Pack can bounce back, and under coach Keatts, this seems likely. Keatts has proven successful with his near-positionless roster, and his success will continue if the Pack can overcome its most difficult enemy: itself.
