Expectations were high for NC State men’s basketball when No. 19 Kansas came to town. Fresh off a 40-point blowout victory and preparing to play in front of a striped-out home crowd, even the sportsbooks favored the Wolfpack.
Featuring 13 ties and 15 lead changes, neither team could pull ahead of the other. Senior guard Quadir Copeland had a chance to win the game at the regulation buzzer with a short floater, but it was just off, leading to five minutes of bonus basketball.
But the Jayhawks overwhelmed the Wolfpack, who missed both opportunities at a go-ahead shot in overtime, and fell 77-76.
NC State’s (7-4) continuous poor shooting proved to be the nail in its coffin, making just nine of its 34 attempts from beyond the arc while Kansas (8-3) made 11 of 30. The Wolfpack now sits at 7-4 in non-conference play, which may look manageable on paper, but the red-and-white still has yet to record a win against a Power Four team with less than three weeks until ACC play.
While star Jayhawks guard Darryn Peterson — who many regard as the No. 1 freshman in the country — put up 17 points, he sat the final six minutes of regulation and all of overtime with tightness in his hamstring, leaving the scoring duties to senior guard Melvin Council Jr.
When a player comes into Lenovo Center shooting 18.5% from beyond the arc, it sounds reasonable to give him space and let him shoot. But in the case of Council Jr., it backfired on the Pack, as he erupted for a career-high 36 points and nine 3-pointers — the second-most in a game in Kansas history.
“The scouting report on him was to sag off him a little bit,” said senior forward Ven-Allen Lubin. “Coaches saw that he wasn’t a good 3-point shooter, so we wanted to dare him to take those shots because we thought it would be good for us. Once he started knocking them down, we had to make some adjustments.”
But even with the adjustments in the second half, Council Jr. couldn’t be stopped. He scored 18 points in the second half, including 13 straight to end regulation and five more in overtime.
“We had one guy that was probably the best performer that I think that I’ve had on the road in my 23 years in Kansas,” said Jayhawks head coach Bill Self. “He was unbelievable and made hard shots.”
Star senior forward Darrion Williams has a long history with the Jayhawks, playing them twice during his time at Texas Tech. Most notably, during the 2023-24 season, Williams made all 12 of his shot attempts for 30 points to knock off then-No. 6 Kansas.
“He’s been a KU killer for years,” Self said.
Williams was dormant for most of regulation, scoring nine points on 4-of-12 from the field, but when five minutes of overtime were added, the Self-dubbed “KU Killer” put on a Herculean effort, knocking down three shots for eight points. However, when the Pack was given a final opportunity with 1.1 seconds left on the clock, Williams couldn’t get a contested, long-range shot to fall.
“The play was for me,” Williams said. “I just got it, and I missed it. I’m gonna make it next time.”
Copeland led the Pack with 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists. He did everything for the red-and-white, ending scoring droughts with a contested layup or finding a wide-open man in the corner for a 3-pointer. However, Copeland recorded six of the Pack’s eight turnovers.
“The six turnovers were pretty detrimental to our cause of winning,” said head coach Will Wade. “There’s a fine line there. But you take the good with the bad, and it’s been more good than bad for sure.”
“We’ve scheduled these games, and we haven’t won them,” Wade said. “We’ve also played the toughest non-conference schedule in our league by a pretty wide margin. But we haven’t won the games that we needed to, that’s just a fact.”
NC State looks to right the ship, hosting Texas Southern at Reynolds Coliseum on Wednesday, Dec. 17. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and will be streamed on ACC Extra.
