NC State enters ‘must-win’ territory after blowout loss at UNC stings
CHAPEL HILL — It was a quiet walk into NC State’s locker room after yet another loss. This time, a 24-point defeat on the road against the program’s arch rival.
The 97-73 loss to North Carolina on Wednesday night seemed to hit home differently than the Wolfpack’s previous 12 losses over the last 15 games. This one had a unique vibe to it, in addition to it being the most points the Pack had allowed this season.
It stung for everyone involved. The coaching staff’s walk into the visitor’s dressing room was a somber one, while the players that followed behind weren’t any happier. Instead, they might have been even more ticked off.
Senior guard Jayden Taylor said the defeat “sucks.” Senior wing Dontrez Styles, who spent his first two collegiate seasons with the Tar Heels, thought it was the worst the locker room has felt all season after any loss. And there’s now 16 of them in the 2025 campaign.
“It’s a little different seeing my former teammates talking junk and doing all that,” Styles said. “But we put it on ourselves. We didn’t come out, we didn’t perform today. It’s on us.”
In all honesty, the game was over 10 minutes in as UNC led by 18 and outscored its first half from the January meeting between the two teams. It wasn’t pretty as NC State’s defense, a strength of the team for most of the year, was nearly non-existent as UNC shot a 57.4 percent clip for the game.
UNC scored 54 points in the opening frame, a season-most allowed by NC State, while the Tar Heels were able to lead in nearly every statistical category. Those clad in Carolina blue owned the glass and posted 17 second-chance points in the process.
And as the Tar Heels effectively won the game in the opening 20 minutes, it left a sour taste in the Wolfpack’s mouths — even though NC State was able to tie its season high in second half points (47).
Was Kevin Keatts, the Pack’s eighth-year coach, embarrassed by his team’s performance?
“I don’t use words [like] embarrassing,” Keatts said. They played better than us, they made more shots than us, they got more rebounds than us. We fought. They won the game. The game was probably won in the first half. … Are we proud of the way we played in the first half? Absolutely not.”
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Keatts did note he was “glad” NC State’s locker room felt as if it was its worst loss of the year because he felt the same way.
“In our program, we have shared responsibility,” Keatts said. “You’re never going to see me walk into a press conference and blame it on the players. I’m glad that they feel that way because that means we have to go back to work and figure it out.”
NC State is running out of time to figure it out. The Wolfpack remains in the bottom three of the ACC standings. If the Pack is stuck there at the end of the regular season, it will be left home for the league tournament — just a year after it claimed the title. Currently, NC State is in a tie for 16th, two wins shy of the final spot in Charlotte.
The Wolfpack didn’t respond well to the Tar Heels throwing the first punch and it cost NC State a game. Now its last five games became even more important as wins are at a premium at this point of the season.
“It’s tough, just how this game went and they came out and hit us,” Styles said. “We didn’t respond at all. It was over after that. We can’t afford to do that at all at this point of the season. We know in these next five games, we got to get wins.”
The team’s mindset is simple for the rest of the season: just win. That’s all it can do as the Pack will have to check and see where it stacks up with the rest of the conference by the end of the regular season campaign.
“Must-win,” Styles said bluntly. “We’ve got to win five and we know that. We’ll be ready.”
