NC State basketball falls to Creighton despite 32-point effort from Terquavion Smith
This is the way an NCAA Tournament game should be played.
Both teams wanting it, badly. Both teams playing hard, relentlessly. All effort, all the time.
N.C. State did not beat Creighton on Friday in the opening round of the NCAA South Region at Ball Arena. The sixth-seed Bluejays emerged with a hard-fought 72-63 victory, advancing to the second round to face Baylor, the No. 3 seed.
But the Pack (23-11), in its first NCAA game since 2018, battled to the end. It overcame a nightmarish, jittery start, took the lead in the second half and kept pushing.
Terquavion Smith, in what should be his last game for the Wolfpack, had 32 points and was the best player on the court. The sophomore guard also had the most jaw-dropping moment of the game, rising high, slamming the ball over Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner in the second half.
Kalkbrenner got his points — 31 for the Bluejays (22-12). The junior center made 11 of his 14 shots from the field and eight of nine free throws.
It looked bleak for the Wolfpack in the second half when Creighton built a 56-47 lead. But NCSU coach Kevin Keatts used a timeout and the Pack responded.
Smith hit a 3-pointer from the key, Jack Clark did the same and it was 56-53. Soon, Smith had his big dunk
It was 62-59, Creighton, and the shot clock running down on the Buejays when Baylor Scheierman knocked down a 3-pointer. Big basket.
The Pack, after trailing 28-26 at half, used an early 11-2 run early in the second half to take its first lead. But foul trouble by the Wolfpack’s big men quickly became a big problem.
D.J. Burns picked up his third blocking out on a rebound — the ref’s whistle coming late and an angry Keatts nearly running onto the court.
A 3-pointer by Kalkbrenner, only the sixth of the season by the big guy, tied it up 37-37 five minutes into the second half and gave the Bluejays a lift. Burns picked up his fourth foul moments later and again made an exit to the bench.
The Bluejays turned to Kalkbrenner, the biggest man on the court, in their halfcourt set and slowly built a lead — 56-47 with 6:40 remaining on a Kalkbrenner layup off a lob,
The anticipated showdown between Kalkbrenner and Burns never came — it was all Kalkbrenner this game. Nor did either team crank up their 3-point shooting as some expected until the late 3s by Smith and Clark,
The Pack had a miserable start in the game, with Smith picking up two early fouls and no one able to hit a shot until Joiner scored on after a scoreless first four minutes.
Keatts decided he could not keep Smith on the bench against the Buejays, who scored the first seven points of the game and never trailed in the first half as Kalkbrenner scored 11 points.
