NC State's ACC tournament run fueled by 'playing with confidence'

WASHINGTON — Take a step into NC State’s locker room in Capital One Arena, and it oozes confidence. That’s a complete 180-degree turn from the penultimate game of the regular season loss to Duke at PNC Arena on March 4.

That locker room was dejected. NC State was looking for answers, but it continued to fall short down the stretch of the regular season. That turned into dropping seven of its last nine games in league play. 

But once NC State arrived in the nation’s capital, the Wolfpack brought a new mindset with it. The red and white looked at the ACC tournament as a new season. So far, the fresh season has been nothing short of excitement for the Wolfpack. 

The latest edition of NC State’s new campaign ended with a 74-69 win over second-seeded Duke on Thursday night in the ACC tournament quarterfinals. NC State clinched a spot in the conference semifinals for the first time since 2014 and it became the first team in the league tournament to start the postseason on Tuesday and make it to Friday unscathed. 

Not bad for the Wolfpack. 

But how did NC State turn it around? Where did this version of the Wolfpack come from? That was the most-frequently asked question around Washington, D.C., and it came down to NC State correcting its mistakes that plagued it in the regular season. 

“I think the biggest thing is we have to not beat ourselves,” graduate guard Casey Morsell said. “We can’t be our own worst enemy. Throughout the season there’s been a lot of lineup changes, guys coming in and out, it was tough for us to adjust and find our groove. It’s good that we’re figuring things out, and in what better moment? This is March, baby.”

Correcting the regular season errors is easier said than done, but Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts pointed it out to his team in a film session this week. NC State had evolved throughout the season, but it hadn’t been able to play a complete game before it got to Washington, D.C. 

Once tournament play began, NC State appeared to be the same team. It fell into a 12-point hole in the first 10 minutes against 15-seed Louisville. But it quickly turned it around. After that, the Wolfpack have been nearly unstoppable. 

The Pack raced past seventh-seeded Syracuse before beating the Blue Devils in the quarterfinals

NC State is in a precarious spot. It wants to make the NCAA tournament, but raising a trophy on Saturday night is the only way to do that. That has created a sense of urgency for the red and white, and graduate guard DJ Horne thought that benefitted the Pack. 

“When you play with your back against the wall, with nothing to lose, I feel like we’re playing like that right now, but I also think this is the most connected we’ve been all season,” Horne said. “It’s no better time, with the season on the line, to be playing your best basketball.”

The Wolfpack logged 14 assists on 28 made baskets in its win over Duke, which continued a trend of sharing the basketball. NC State has appeared to have its best way of moving the ball around the perimeter to find open shooters and it has been uber effective in the ACC tournament. 

Graduate guard Michael O’Connell and graduate forward DJ Burns logged four assists each in the win over the Blue Devils. 

The Pack’s ability to share the basketball has been a byproduct of the team’s trust in one another, and it has created a sense of confidence among those in NC State uniforms.

“I think we just have the utmost confidence in each other,” O’Connell said. “At this point in the season, we got to rely on each other. When you rely on the other guy out there to do what he has to do, it just makes it that much easier.”

The Pack has made it look easy, too. NC State hasn’t fallen into the deep scoring droughts that hurt it in the regular season, and it has allowed the Wolfpack to keep going in March. 

By avoiding those droughts, NC State has become a very balanced scoring team. It helped against Duke, where the Pack had five players in double figures, paced by Horne’s 18 point effort. Junior forward Mohamed Diarra had 14 points and 16 rebounds, while O’Connell had 12 points. Morsell had 11 points and Burns logged 10. 

Horne was ecstatic to see the entire team clicking on the offensive end — another product of the added confidence. 

“Everybody’s stepping up, that’s something we struggled with all season — getting everyone on the same page,” Horne said. “I feel like everybody’s confident in their game and they believe in what we’ve got going on right now. That’s a recipe for success.”

It has been successful thus far in the ACC tournament, and the Pack has two more games between it and the NCAA tournament. 

NC State’s confidence continued to ooze when the players thought how well they’ve played to this point. 

“We just play with desperation,” Diarra said. “If we lose, we go home and we don’t want to go home. We’re going to stay here for the next two days.”

Burns, a veteran leader of the Pack’s frontcourt, agreed.

“We knew that once tournament time comes, we’re going to fight for it,” Burns said. “That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re going to fight in every single game [we have] left.”

“We have no plans on stopping,” Burns added. “Let’s see who wins this next game, scout them up and get ready for them.”