NC State’s Kevin Keatts explains why DJ Burns didn’t start at Syracuse, more

When NC State’s starting lineup at Syracuse was announced, one key Wolfpack player was missing from the starting five: graduate forward DJ Burns. 

Instead of the 6-foot-9, 275-pound bruising forward, NC State coach Kevin Keatts started junior forwards Ben Middlebrooks and Mohamed Diarra in the front court. It marked the first time this season that Burns was not in the starting five for the red and white. 

Why? The Wolfpack wanted to increase its presence on the glass. 

“I needed rebounding,” Keatts said on the postgame radio broadcast. “You look at Virginia, we got out-rebounded by 20. When you lose a couple games going into this game, you got to change some things up and look at some different lineups. … Ben and Mo are our best two rebounders on our team, so we were trying to get that part of it.”

NC State cleaned up its rebounding total — winning that battle 41-40 — with those two accounting for 10 boards combined in 13 (Diarra) and 12 minutes (Middlebrooks), respectively. Burns, meanwhile, was able to score 10 points with four rebounds in 28 minutes on the floor. 

But the rebounding improvement was one of few bright spots for the Wolfpack’s 77-65 loss to the Orange on Saturday night at the JMA Wireless Dome. 

Outside of the rebounding improvement, NC State’s shooting struggles from its 15-point first half at Virginia continued in the opening half against the Orange. The Pack (13-7, 5-4 ACC) shot 35.8% on the night, including a 20.7% clip in the opening 20 minutes. 

It snowballed into the defensive end, too, as Syracuse was able to get easy shots for a majority of the night and it logged a 57.1% clip from the field in the second half to win. 

“We didn’t play well,” Keatts said. “I think this was the only game where I didn’t feel like anybody on our team particularly played well.”

While Keatts was not pleased with his team’s effort overall, he noted the Wolfpack did not follow the scouting report on the defensive end. Priority No. 1 was likely Syracuse star Judah Mintz, the nation’s leader in free throw attempts and made free throws, but the night did not go according to plan there. 

Keatts said he stressed to his team not to let the Orange find their way to the charity stripe, especially through pump fakes on shot attempts, but that’s exactly what happened. Mintz paced the Orange with a 14-of-20 night from the line in what was a 20-of-32 free throw shooting night for Syracuse. 

The other part of the scouting report that went awry was the Pack’s transition defense. NC State gave up 21 fast break points to the Orange, the most an opponent has logged against the Wolfpack all season. 

“I’m disappointed because we’ve got some older dudes, and I thought today we were not as locked in on scouting reports as we’ve done in the past,” Keatts said. “That hurts you when you’re not locked in when you should be on those things. Instead of being angry right now, because I can turn into an angry side of it, I’m disappointed because we didn’t follow the defensive scouting report that we needed to follow.”

That was the difference in what ended up being a 12-point win for Syracuse since the Wolfpack made just nine of its 11 free throw attempts on the road. 

NC State’s performance led to its third straight loss, all in ACC play, which marks the first trio of consecutive defeats since it lost the last five games during the 2021-22 campaign. 

“For whatever reason, we didn’t have it tonight, and that’s on both ends of the floor,” Keatts said. “That’s not making an excuse, but when you look at that game, we didn’t play well. We didn’t follow scouting reports, we were a step behind on a lot of things. I didn’t feel like we had the energy and juice that we had in the other 18 games prior to that.”

The Wolfpack have a quick turnaround with Miami arriving in Raleigh for a Tuesday night tilt, and NC State has a lot of work to do before the contest. 

And Keatts is well aware of that. 

“Today we didn’t perform the way we needed to,” Keatts said. “We’ve got to be better. That’s my staff, that’s everybody else, we have to be better.”