NC State suffers its first loss of season to BYU in Vegas Showdown championship

NC State led for more than 29 minutes against BYU in the Vegas Showdown championship game, but a 3-point shooting barrage from the Cougars was enough to down the Wolfpack on Friday night. 

The Pack had the momentum for a majority of the contest, but BYU jumped on a 19-3 run over four minutes late in the second half to give the Cougars a 13-point lead. That advantage was all BYU needed to win 95-86 at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, which marked the Pack’s first loss of the season. 

“I think this was the first game that we didn’t do a really good job at comprehending the scouting report,” NC State coach Kevin Keatts said on the NC State postgame radio broadcast. “Coming into the game, we knew that they were a really elite 3-point shooting team. … We gave up 14 and it was not acceptable.”

NC State’s defense allowed BYU to shoot 70% from the field in the second half, including 9-for-15 from three in the final 20 minutes. That alone allowed the Cougars, a great 3-point shooting squad, to fight their way back after the Wolfpack led by as many as 12 points in the first half. 

“We got to do a better job at taking away a team’s strengths,” Keatts said. “We had a really good weekend where our guys played extremely hard, I just thought tonight we let BYU play to their strengths. … We didn’t do a great job communicating, and we gave up some open shots that kind of blew the game open.”

The Wolfpack was paced by graduate guard Casey Morsell’s career-high 28 points, while Butler transfer Jayden Taylor added 17 points and graduate forward DJ Burns chipped in with 16 points. 

BYU made the first basket of the night, a Noah Waterman 3-pointer, but NC State responded with its first run of the night. The Wolfpack blitzed the Cougars with a quick 9-0 outburst, which included three forced turnovers that led to four points off the errors. 

The Wolfpack then went on a 7-0 run moments later to take a 16-5 lead to force the Cougars to burn their first timeout five minutes into the contest. Those two runs proved to be crucial in the first half as BYU and NC State traded blows in the waning minutes of the half, and the Pack, which led by as many as 12, only led by five at the break after it missed its last five field goal attempts.

NC State’s ability to keep its distance from BYU in the first half was aided by its defense. The Wolfpack forced nine Cougar turnovers — BYU averaged just over 10 a game entering the night — which turned into 11 points in the opening frame. 

Not only did the Wolfpack find a way to get the Cougars out of sync on the offensive end in the first half, NC State was able to find success beyond the arc against BYU — something most teams can not do. The Cougars entered the contest allowing just over 17% from deep, but the Pack made five 3-pointers in the opening 20 minutes.

Arizona state transfer guard DJ Horne was pivotal in the Wolfpack’s ability to knock down threes in the first half. Horne went 3-for-4 from deep in the first 20 minutes, and he finished with a team-best four made triples to pace the red and white.

But all the things that NC State found success with in the first half, the wheels fell off in the final 20 minutes. The Cougars scored 57 points in the second half, while the Wolfpack scored 43 points in each period. 

“They moved the ball around, they got some guys that make shots — at any point they had four three-point shooters on the court at the same time,” Keatts said of BYU, which logged 20 assists on 34 made baskets. “And that’s the difference in the game, to be honest with you.”

NC State had three players ejected from the contest — Clemson transfer forward Ben Middlebrooks and guard KJ Keatts were tossed for leaving the bench during an on-court altercation, while Taylor picked up two technicals in the second half. Kevin Keatts was also ejected from the playing floor after Taylor was sent to the locker room early. 

“It was a very competitive game,” Keatts said. “It felt like a late-February ACC game. It felt like we were battling, we were fighting. It was a heated game, and that’s what you get when you get a couple teams that are really competing.”

The Wolfpack will continue its four-game road swing at Ole Miss on Tuesday night in the ACC/SEC challenge.