NC State’s free throw inconsistency ‘cost us the game’ against Pitt

NC State coach Kevin Keatts walked into the Wolfpack locker room in the back hallways of PNC Arena after a 67-64 loss to Pitt Wednesday night, and the first thing he wrote on the whiteboard was a glaring issue from the contest: the team’s free throw numbers.

6-of-15. 

That was NC State’s made free throw total. Keatts wrote it on the board in the front of the locker room, and it was circled in black ink pen on his crinkled printed box score in the postgame locker room. It was also the key message of his postgame speech.

“Make free throws,” Keatts recalled telling his team. “That was it. I can’t say much. … I went in there and said, ‘We have to make free throws. If we don’t make free throws, it’s hard to beat anybody in this league.’”

While the Wolfpack (15-8, 7-5 ACC) struggled at the free throw line, the Panthers (15-8, 6-6 ACC) excelled. Pitt was 18-of-20 from the line, which was the biggest difference between the two squads in the 3-point result. 

NC State had just one player make more than one free throw in the contest: graduate guard DJ Horne. He was 4-for-5. Other than that, it was not easy sledding. Junior forward Ben Middlebrooks made one of his five attempts, while graduate forward DJ Burns split his pair of shots from the line. 

Outside of those three players, NC State had two that did not hit any of their attempts from the line. Graduate guard Michael O’Connell went 0-for-2 in his lone trip to the stripe, which included an intentional miss with three seconds left in the game, while freshman guard Dennis Parker Jr. missed the front end of a 1-and-1 try. 

In total, NC State had five trips to the free throw line where it did not leave the stripe with a single point. Three of those were a pair of attempts, while the other two were on 1-and-1 chances. 

The Wolfpack, which entered the contest with an 801.% clip from the line in ACC play, had a very uncharacteristic night. It had shot over 80% from the foul line in seven of its 11 ACC contests before it logged a 40% stinker against the Panthers. 

Pitt, meanwhile, had four players that were perfect from the free throw line — a combined 15-for-15 — and Blake Hinson went 3-of-4 from the line to round out the Panthers’ consistent shooters from the stripe. 

In a close game, the losing team’s deficiencies are exposed. For NC State that was the ability to make its free throw attempts. 

“The games come down to details, and we have to clean up the little things,” graduate guard Casey Morsell said. “The little things are what comes back to haunt us later on in the game. And tonight it was free throws and second-chance opportunities.”

NC State lost the second-chance point battle, like Morsell referred to, but it was not as drastic as its free throw differential with the visiting team. 

Morsell felt like the Pack left an opportunity to win the game at the line, where an uncontested shot is the only objective in that moment. 

“All of our games have been close and that means we have to value the little things,” Morsell said. “Tonight it was free throws. … That’s something we can control, and if we shoot different from the line, it’s a completely different game.”

While the Pack was unhappy with the effort from the line, Keatts was able to point to various players that gave the team a lift. Junior guard Breon Pass played three minutes with an assist, and Parker was able to be active defensively in his 13 minutes on the floor. 

Though he saw some positives in the game, Keatts continued to circle back to his team’s poor shooting performance from the free throw line. He, obviously, was not pleased. 

“But s—, we got to make our free throws,” Keatts said. “At the end of the day, we have to make our free throws. … It’s probably a different outcome, hopefully, if we step up to the line and we make them. But we didn’t. That’s a problem, we’ve got to be able to make our free throws down the stretch.”

Keatts found various ways to say the same thing throughout the nine minutes he was at the podium for his postgame press conference: free throws shooting was the difference. 

“You’re looking at someone who’s very disappointed because those are so valuable in possession games,” Keatts said. “Tonight, we didn’t step up and make our free throws. Honestly, that cost us the game.”