Senior Night is one of the most cherished traditions in sports.
It’s a time to honor the hard work and effort that players have put into the program, sending them off to their professional careers and beyond.
It’s a game that you’re meant to look back on and smile.
With its final game of the regular season against Stanford, a team lumped into the chaos that is the middle of the ACC, NC State men’s basketball had a golden opportunity to end its season on a high note and go into the postseason with momentum.
Instead, it will look back on Saturday evening with horror as the Pack (19-12, 10-8 ACC) fell 85-84 to the Cardinal (20-11, 9-9 ACC), a fitting end to a turbulent regular season.
“It’s extremely frustrating, knowing that we wanted to close out the second half of the season strong, come out with wins and show the amount of work that we put in,” said senior forward Ven-Allen Lubin. “We feel like we let our fans down.”
If it could’ve gone wrong for the Wolfpack, it did.
NC State was outrebounded, outassisted and simply outhustled by Stanford, but as of recent, that’s simply run-of-the-mill for the red-and-white. NC State hasn’t outrebounded a team since its victory over Wake Forest on Jan. 31, and it hasn’t had more than 15 assists since its road victory over SMU on Feb. 3.
“We haven’t been able to grab some loose balls, some rebounds,” said head coach Will Wade. “We just haven’t been tough enough to make those plays to deserve the opportunity to win. That’s why our record is what it is.”
Even the Pack’s star players couldn’t play up to par. Senior forward Darrion Williams marked just four points on 1-of-8 from the field, and senior guard Quadir Copeland — though he scored 16 points — recorded just two assists to his six turnovers, far from his usual playmaking standard.
“He’s been struggling, and I haven’t done a good enough job of helping him out,” Wade said. “We need him to play better for our team, and I need to do a better job of trying to reach him and get him to play up to his capabilities.”
NC State shot 34 free throws to Stanford’s 11, yet still fell short, due in large part to its nine missed shots from the charity stripe. The Pack’s inability to capitalize on easy opportunities ended up being the nail in its coffin.
“We’ve had some lapses that really hurt us,” Wade said. “This is the fourth game that we’ve lost like this, and it’s the difference between an okay year and a good year. We haven’t been able to close these out.”
On the other side of the ball, Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie had his way with the Wolfpack, scoring 33 points on 13-of-22 from the field. Highlighted by three-straight 3-pointers in the first half, Okorie joined Kansas’ Melvin Council Jr., Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. and Ryan Conwell, as well as Notre Dame’s Cole Certa as players to record 30 points or more in a win against NC State.
“We just got to be more disciplined,” Lubin said. “Trust and have each other’s back, knowing that we can take care of one-on-one matchups or any type of defense that we put out there.”
After a historic start to its ACC schedule, NC State has limped its way to the finish line, losing six of its last seven games. NC State has two losses to teams that won’t even make the ACC Tournament, and losses to multiple teams that won’t make the NCAA Tournament.
“You are what your record says you are,” Wade said. “Unfortunately for us, that includes a bunch of close losses and overtime losses. You don’t get any points for trying. You get points for winning, and we haven’t won enough.”
It’s now a one-game season for the Wolfpack, beginning on Wednesday, March 11, taking on either Stanford or Pittsburgh. Tipoff is set for noon at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, NC.
