NC State brings joy to court in win over Pitt
NC State graduate point guard Michael O’Connell surveyed the court in transition early in the second half against Pitt. He looked to his left and found a streaking senior guard Dontrez Styles on the left wing. As Styles drove downhill, there was nothing in between him and the rim.
The former Georgetown and North Carolina transfer seemed determined to finish with an emphatic dunk. And as he cocked his right arm back for a one-handed jam, freshman guard Bryce Heard and the rest of the Wolfpack’s bench jumped with joy.
A premature celebration? Slightly. But that sequence is what NC State coach Kevin Keatts wanted to see from his team in the penultimate game of the season. Although the Pack’s postseason hopes required a win over the Panthers, the eighth-year coach wanted his team to just have fun and play loose on Senior Night.
Message taken. The bench was the liveliest it’s been all season and NC State’s seven seniors fed off it in the 71-63 win over Pitt on Wednesday night at the Lenovo Center.
The Wolfpack’s seniors and graduates that were celebrated in a pregame ceremony seemed to take their final home game to heart. That group scored every single point for the Pack in its must-win game, led by O’Connell’s 15 points and eight assists.
“We needed this win, so it’s big-time that everybody came prepared,” O’Connell said. “It’s easy when you’re losing a lot of games and the season’s not going the way you want, to just give up and not try your hardest. But we came out prepared and tried our hardest.”
Senior guard Jayden Taylor believed the Pack played with “nothing to lose.”
“We just wanted to have fun,” Taylor said. “We know it’s our last game we’ll play here. We just came out here, wanted to have fun with a lot of energy and let that take care of itself.”
While Taylor could feel it as the team used its joy on the court, senior guard Breon Pass, who tied his season best with 14 points, thought it was the happiest that anyone has been on the floor this season.
“I felt like you saw more smiles on the court today than anything,” Pass said. “Everybody was out there having fun.”
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NC State had won just three games since New Year’s Day, which left the ACC’s defending tournament champions on the outside looking into the field in Charlotte next week. But instead of packing it in, the Pack decided to play free against the Panthers. That paid dividends.
The Wolfpack’s postseason hopes continue to hinge on Notre Dame losing its last two games, while NC State still needs to win its season finale. Keatts, who helped engineer the miracle in March en route to the Final Four last season, is looking for similar magic just to make the league tournament.
His squad, so far, hasn’t given him any reason to believe they’re going to give up on him or themselves.
“We’re still fighting,” Keatts said. “It’s the next to last game of the year, and we’ve lost a couple games, you would think we would have come in here and rolled over,” Keatts said. “There’s no quit in these guys.”
NC State has a seven percent chance of making the ACC Tournament, according to playoffstatus.com. The Pack doesn’t care about the numbers. All it wants is a chance, which it was able to buy itself with a win — as long as Stanford beat Notre Dame later on Wednesday night.
“We’re not giving up,” said Styles, who posted 13 points and a career-best 13 rebounds against Pitt. “I feel like any other team would have given up by now. The fact that we didn’t, it tells us a lot about a team as people and we’re going to continue to go out there to compete against Miami.”
