The NC State men’s basketball was blown out by the Syracuse Orange in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Wednesday, March 10, 89-68. The Orange shot 56.7% from the field en route to snapping the Pack’s five-game win streak.
This loss will put a cap on any fleeting NCAA Tournament hopes for NC State, meaning this will be the third consecutive year that the team has failed to reach the dance, although last year’s field was never announced.
“Well, just like everyone else, all my team, very disappointed that we lost,” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “But I’m not disappointed at the fight that these guys have shown the entire year, obviously leading up to this tournament.”
Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim torched the Wolfpack, scoring 27 points while shooting 6 of 12 from deep. That performance headlined an unbelievable afternoon of shooting for the Orange, as the team finished shooting 48.3% from deep.
“A shooter like Buddy Boeheim, it’s contagious,” said senior guard Braxton Beverly. “It can even be contagious for the other team sometimes. That’s how good of a shooter he is. So definitely seeing like him being their main guy, seeing him, you know, two or three shots and just seeing the energy that he had, the other players are definitely going to feed off of him. And I think that’s definitely a big part in their success today.”
Comparatively, the Pack finished the day shooting 36.2% from the field, led in scoring by redshirt senior forward D.J. Funderburk, who finished with 14 points and six rebounds. NC State committed 12 turnovers in the game, and while it forced 11 from the Orange, it only mustered eight points off those turnovers.
“We didn’t hit shots,” Funderburk said. “We were flustered by their defense, and the turnovers carried over to us thinking about it later on in the game in different possessions, and I feel like that factored, too.”
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore forward Manny Bates hit a couple of jumpers early, a good sign of growth from him, and redshirt freshman guard Dereon Seabron had 11 points and eight boards, showing off some exceptional hustle plays fresh off winning ACC Freshman of the Week.
Outside of Boeheim, the Orange had four other players reach double digits in scoring with Alan Griffin and Quincy Guerrier serving up numerous highlight plays and Robert Braswell hitting a couple circus shots.
Boeheim’s performance in the first half may have been enough to change his father’s perception of Greensboro, with the Syracuse guard accounting for an absurd 20 points by the end of the first half. The Orange’s all-around performance by the end of the first period was out of this world, with the team hitting 58.1% of its shots from the floor and 42.9% of its 3-point attempts. Boeheim had four of the team’s six 3-pointers at the break.
“When you go back and you look at it…we surely had some breakdowns,” Keatts said. “But they made some tough shots. I mean, two or three of them were when the shot clock went down. Buddy Boeheim was just raising up, making shots, and give that kid credit.”
On one hand, NC State didn’t play horribly in the first half, it got scrappy when it needed to and had stints of defensive greatness despite Syracuse’s logic-defining performance. Seabron was remarkable in the first with four offensive boards.
Junior forward Jericole Hellems struggled to open the game and had four turnovers by the end of the first half. Along with Beverly, Hellems eventually helped the Pack battle back into the game after going down by double digits but finished shooting just 3 for 11 from the field. Beverly was NC State’s best offensive player in the first half, hitting two 3-pointers and getting fouled on a third attempt.
Despite the loss, Beverly ended the game as just the 54th player to reach 1,000 career points for the Wolfpack.
“It would have been a whole lot better if we would have got the win with it,” Beverly said. “I mean…it’s really a blessing and an honor to have my name in that kind of category at a university like this and a program like this.”
After battling back to bring the game to within five points at the end of the first, it looked as if the Pack was primed to come out of the gates on fire to open the second. That’s the exact opposite of what happened, as Syracuse instantaneously took a chokehold on the game behind horrid play from NC State’s offense.
“Second half, I thought we came out of the locker room with a lot of energy,” Keatts said. “But we had two bad turnovers at the beginning of the second half…we kind of played catch-up from that point. Never really got a flow of the game. I think the first media, they had scored 14 points, and we had scored four in the second half, and that’s not a good formula.”
Syracuse outscored the Pack 46-30 in the second half, scoring 10 straight points to open the half off four NC State turnovers. The Orange shot 53.3% from 3-point range in the half to close out the blowout win.
“I’m proud of these guys,” Keatts said. “It’s hard for me to get mad at a bunch of guys because of one game in the ACC Tournament, the way they’ve played and the way they’ve responded to me the entire year, especially with all the adversity that we’ve had.”
Next up, NC State will determine if it will play in the NIT, where 16 teams will participate this season. If NC State does not play in any postseason tournaments, it will head into the offseason with an incoming loaded recruiting class and a significant amount of young talent already onboard.
“I think it’s going to be very exciting to see in the upcoming year what these guys develop into,” Funderburk said. “Right now, they’re super excited to keep playing. There’s an exciting group of freshmen right now and freshmen coming in next year, and I’m just looking forward to them gelling as a team and seeing what they can offer the team next year.”
Syracuse’s Quincy Guerrier (1) secures a defensive rebound over N.C. State’s D J Funderburk (0) (10) during the second half on Wednesday, March 10, 2021 during the ACC Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C.
