What went wrong with NC State’s late-game execution in loss to UNC

NC State coach Kevin Keatts stood at midcourt inside the Lenovo Center with his arms raised above his head. He remained there, frantically looking for a review on the Wolfpack’s final shot, but the officials didn’t oblige and North Carolina’s players celebrated a 63-61 win on Saturday afternoon. 

Keatts wanted the referees, led by Ron Groover, to take a look at the final play of the game for goaltending as senior guard Jayden Taylor got to the rim but had his shot blocked by the Tar Heels’ Jalen Washington with  seconds left. The look would have tied the game, but instead, it ended it in disheartening fashion. 

“I’m a little disappointed at the end of the game that they didn’t at least review it,” Keatts said afterwards. “We had probably three or four goaltendings in the game and I thought before the referees would run off the floor, they would review it. That’s my disappointment.”

But how did NC State (9-7, 2-3 ACC) even get into a situation where it was hoping for a review? The final two possessions of the game were where the game, which was played relatively even for the first 39 minutes, was decided. 

The Wolfpack, which trailed by as many as 9 points with 5:53 to play, manufactured a 12-2 run to take a 1-point lead in the final three minutes. The Tar Heels responded with an Ian Jackson 3-pointer, but senior guard Marcus Hill answered as he hit the game-tying layup with 89 seconds to play. 

While NC State was able to pull its way back, a frantic turnover with 41 seconds to play gave UNC a chance to take the lead in the final minute. That’s where things went south in the Pack’s bid to steal a game from the Tar Heels.

UNC caught NC State out of position as point guard Elliot Cadeau dribbled around the paint, which caused both graduate guard Michael O’Connell and senior center Ben Middlebrooks to gravitate towards the ball. NC State, which usually switches everything, seemed to have a miscommunication as O’Connell let Washington leak out all alone.

The Tar Heels’ 6-foot-10 post had free reign under the basket and Cadeau found him with ease. Washington finished at the rim with an emphatic dunk to give UNC a 2-point lead with 24 seconds to play. 

UNC’s go-ahead bucket forced Keatts to take a timeout to draw up a play to either tie or take the lead with the in-bounds pass coming from in front of the NC State bench. The Wolfpack wanted to run its push play, which would have gotten a ball screen into a roll and replace, but Cadeau sniffed it out as O’Connell looked to get the ball screen going. 

NC State had to ditch what its eighth-year coach drew up, which led to Taylor taking the ball to the rim himself. The former Butler transfer had the hot hand in the second half, scoring all 12 of his points in the period, so he felt it was his play to make once the ball came his way. 

Taylor drove from the right wing with Cadeau on him, a size advantage for the Pack, but as NC State’s slashing guard released the ball on the left side of the rim, Washington was there to meet it at its apex. 

“I just timed it up really well,” Washington said. “I saw Elliot kind of square him up a little bit, and I knew Taylor wasn’t going to be able to get all the way to the rim. Once he put it up in the air I was going to go get it. As soon as he put the floater up, I was going to go spike it.”

On replay, it appeared to be a clean block, but before he was able to see it again, Keatts believed he should have at least gotten a review from it. That play, however, wouldn’t have mattered if the Pack’s defensive breakdown didn’t happen 22 seconds before. 

“We came up two possessions a little bit short,” Keatts said. “Defensively, they made the one play at the end and then offensively, we couldn’t score at the end or whatever happened or whatever needed to be reviewed.”

As the Wolfpack looked to deal with the final-minute loss to its arch rival, the locker room was in a somber mood. NC State’s players felt as though they played well enough in the second half to win the game — it outscored UNC 41-37 — but the final two possessions showed the Wolfpack had work to do in its late-game execution. 

NC State didn’t want to take a moral victory from the game, but it was able to eliminate the three-possession hole it found itself in late in the second half. That, the Pack thought, was something it could build off of moving forward. 

“I think the biggest thing is the fight we all had,” Middlebrooks said. “To be able to have the chance to win the game in the last minute, it didn’t go our way today, but to see that moment, it’s going to help us later on in the season, I’m sure.”

The Wolfpack split its two-game homestand and will hit the road to visit Virginia Tech on Wednesday night. NC State’s loss to the Tar Heels stung after, but Taylor thought it would be a motivator for the next four days inside the Dail Basketball Center. 

“We gotta keep fighting, move on from it, learn from it and just take this feeling out on Virginia Tech,” Taylor said. “And try not to let the game be a 2-point game or that close.”

Keatts, who also believed it was an opportunity for his team with eight newcomers on the roster to continue to learn, was still hung up on what happened after the final shot.

“We will build, we will get better from it,” Keatts said. “I’m not going to take anything from Carolina because I’m disappointed in the last shot that we didn’t get a chance to see. We’ll move on, we’ll get better from it, we’ll learn from it.”