Dennis Parker Jr. never got a call from UVa. The NC State guard left a message Saturday
It wasn’t the call that never came that stuck with Dennis Parker Jr. on Saturday. It was the call he wasn’t expecting to answer the N.C. State freshman will remember.
The ball, with 1.4 seconds left on the shot clock, was supposed to go to D.J. Horne. It ended up with Parker, standing on the edge of the snarling-wolf logo. All he could do was throw it up. His near-halfcourt heave went in. “It was one of my best play calls,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts joked afterward.
That seemed to take the air out of Virginia, on an afternoon when the Wolfpack’s shots were falling — unlike Wednesday night at Notre Dame — and Jayden Taylor harassed Reece Beekman into near-irrelevance. Virginia was up one with seven minutes to play in the first half when Parker conjured three points out of nothing. By the half, N.C. State was up seven and never looked back.
This was a big win for N.C. State, a 76-60 thumping of Virginia to move to 3-0 in the ACC for the first time since 2013, but it was an even bigger game for Parker, who tied Taylor with a game-high 15 points, going 2-for-4 from 3-point range beyond that answered prayer. Parker has been building toward this, his role growing game by game, his best performance since an out-of-nowhere, out-of-body 18 points against Vanderbilt over Thanksgiving. That it came against Virginia was coincident, but welcome, timing.
The Cavaliers might have been expecting Horne or Taylor or D.J. Burns to beat them. Certainly not Parker, who they never pursued coming out of high school in Richmond. His older sister is a nursing student in Charlottesville, and as an in-state star at Richmond’s John Marshall High, Parker had hoped for at least a courtesy call from Virginia, even if not an offer.
It never came.
“They didn’t. It is what it is, at the end of the day,” Parker said. “My sister went to UVa, so I mean, even if they didn’t offer me, it would have been nice to at least get like an unofficial call, something like that. But I’m not really shook. God put me in this place, North Carolina State, that I call home.”
Parker chose N.C. State over Georgetown and Oklahoma State, and over the past six games, he has become a fixture in the Wolfpack’s starting lineup. Having veterans like Taylor and Horne and Casey Morsell has allowed Parker to grow at his own pace, but that pace has certainly quickened.
“He’s just getting better,” Keatts said. “We’ve played 14 games, and I think he’s just growing up. He’s understanding what I’m looking for. He did everything great except for that long 3 he took on the wing. It’s because he’s getting reps in practice. He’s starting to feel comfortable the way we want him to play. He’s playing harder. As a freshman you hit the wall a little bit.”
There were contributions across the board for N.C. State, with Ben Middlebrooks, Michael O’Connell and MJ Rice all having big impacts off the bench, but Parker continues to add more and more for the Wolfpack. At 6-foot-6, he’s hard to guard when his shot is falling, and his length is an important part of the Wolfpack’s defense.
Virginia’s Tony Bennett was worried about Parker on the offensive glass, but Parker’s shooting added an unexpected dimension: “When he shoots the 3-ball, with his athleticism, that changes it,” Bennett said.
Parker even came out of nowhere to swat away a lob from Virginia’s Ryan Dunn at the rim in the second half, before Dunn could dunk it.
“I just saw the opportunity,” Parker said. “I’ve been doing stuff like that since high school. I like when people really try to test me and throw a lob on me. That’s a pretty good player and I think he got me one time. But honestly, I just seen the opportunity and I took it.”
Neither Dunn, nor Virginia, ever saw him coming.
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