Second-half fade against Duke another disappointment in a month of them for NC State
The final seconds of N.C. State’s final home game of the season were conducted to the swelling sounds of a “Let’s Go Duke” chant, one final indignity at the end of a second half full of them, at the end of a month with too many of them.
By then, D.J. Burns and D.J. Horne and Casey Morsell had been removed from the court in ceremonial fashion, and reserve Alex Nunnally was in the game — he got his shot, but missed — going through the Senior Night motions with the outcome long not in doubt.
Its last home game concluded, N.C. State is running out of time. Duke, meanwhile, appears to be hitting its stride.
An 0-for-15 drought sunk N.C. State at North Carolina on Saturday. Forty-eight hours later, the Wolfpack was sunk by a second-half Duke run that saw the Devils make eight straight shots and 10 of 11 on their way to a 79-64 win.
When the Blue Devils play like that with the ball — dominating the offensive glass, banging in transition 3-pointers and scoring almost at will even with Kyle Filipowski a non-factor after D.J. Burns got him in foul trouble early — there aren’t many teams in the country that can beat them.
“You play the whole first half without Flip, and you end up having the lead,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said. “You hope that doesn’t happen, but it did.”
One of the teams capable of beating Duke even at its best is down the road in Chapel Hill, and Saturday’s rematch in Durham will not only be a Top 10 matchup, but one for the ACC regular-season title. That had created the somewhat odd scenario of North Carolina fans pulling for N.C. State on Monday, as a Wolfpack win would have given the Tar Heels a chance to clinch the top seed in the tournament on Tuesday and make Saturday’s rivalry redux moot.
Still, if UNC was disappointed in the result, that’s exponentially true for N.C. State, which opened ACC play 5-1 but has been on a long, slow spiral to a disappointing finish. This was actually the largest margin of any of the Wolfpack’s 10 ACC losses, despite a season-high 27 points from Burns. But close losses are still losses, and N.C. State has still lost six of its past eight, including two of four at home.
“You wouldn’t think the score was what it was,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “It kind of got away at the end. We play with the best of them. We’ve beaten three or four of the top teams in our league.”
The Wolfpack wraps up the regular season Saturday at Pittsburgh, potentially needing a win to avoid starting the ACC tournament on Tuesday, absolutely needing a run in Washington to reverse course and salvage something from a season that once showed so much promise.
After the no-show in Tallahassee, and watching winnable games slip away against North Carolina and Duke, there was no “we’ve still got one game to play” posturing from Keatts. He knows the score.
“I think the tournament is completely wide open and we have to prepare for the tournament,” Keatts said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s that way, but it’s also our league that’s that way. We’re no different than anyone else. There are four guys that are locked in (to the NCAA Tournament) and there are 11 folks that have to win the tournament to get in.”
Duke, its NCAA position long ago secured, is one of the four (and Keatts may be giving Virginia some credit it might not deserve.) N.C. State’s chances actually looked decent a month ago, before the Wolfpack’s stumble to the finish. Monday was more of the same. For both.
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