D.J. Horne lifts NC State basketball past Clemson. 3 takeaways from Pack’s big road win
N.C. State finally has the big signature victory it has badly needed this season.
The Wolfpack took a 78-77 win over Clemson at Littlejohn Coliseum on D.J. Horne’s one-hand floater from the lane with 9.8 seconds left Saturday.
After the Pack stopped a final Clemson drive, Chase Hunter missing the shot, the Pack’s Michael O’Connell grabbed the loose ball and sailed it high and down the court as the final seconds ticked off.
Just like that, it was over. Horne again led the Pack (16-9, 8-6 ACC) with 27 points and D.J. Burns had 14 as State, No. 83 in the NET rankings used by the NCAA to determine the tournament field, made away with its first Quad-1 win of the season.
Joseph Girard III, never hesitant to shoot, had 23 points and P.J. Hall 18 for the Tigers (17-8, 7-7 ACC), who were outscored 28-17 in the final 12 minutes.
“I’m just happy for our guys,” NCSU coach Kevin Keatts said. “We have fought all year long. We’ve got eight (ACC) wins and there’s a lot of basketball left. We’re still fighting for seeding in the ACC Tournament.
“We’re sticking to one game at time. I know for a lot of people, they look at it as a sprint. For us, it’s a marathon and this team doesn’t need anybody to believe in them but the guys in the locker room.”
The final minutes were stressful for both teams. O’Connell had a critical driving layup, Mohamed Diarra’s free throw got the Pack within 77-76, and State then forced a Clemson turnover.
Horne had 31 points but missed a shot last week against Wake Forest that would have tied the score in the final seconds. But he slipped around a screen from Ben Middlebrooks and got off the runner in the lane to beat the Tigers.
It was the fifth consecutive game Horne has had 24 or more points, the transfer from Arizona State knocking down 10 of his 20 shots in the game and scoring 16 in the second half.
It was a victorious homecoming of sorts for Middlebrooks, the 6-10 junior who transferred from Clemson to NCSU after last season and heard a smattering of boos Saturday. In an odd twist, forward Jack Clark left State for Clemson and was playing against his former team and had eight points and seven rebounds.
Three takeaways from the game:
Pack able to re-set
N.C. State had a week to prepare for the Clemson game and made the most of it. The Pack came into Littlejohn with a refreshed look to it and seemed hardly fazed by the setting or playing a team that had won three straight and upset North Carolina and had the confidence of having pounded the Pack three times last season.
“With this team, this week they focused on being the best version of themselves and I thought we were,” Keatts said.
Keatts called it a “good week” of practice. It was good to have a few days of rest. It was good to try and clean up mistakes, especially end-of-game mistakes.
“People always ask about taking a few days off and as a coach the only guy I didn’t want to take a day off was D.J. Horne, because he’s playing so great,” Keatts said. “But with everybody else, we kind of re-set ourselves. We started working on game situations. I felt like the end of the games we were making too many mistakes. I think it paid off for us.”
Close losses can wear out a team, physically and mentally. The Pack absorbed a body punch at Wake Forest but Keatts said he stuck to a simple message during the week.
“All week, heart,” Keatts said. “Heart, heart.”
Horne needs help, got some
The Pack often can appear too one-dimensional on offense. If Horne is hitting, things are OK. If not, there are problems and they don’t go away.
The Wolfpack began Saturday’s game by running its offense through DJ Burns, who backed in and hit his first two shots, causing a defensive change by the Tigers. But the big man can only handle so many minutes -- he had 25 Saturday before fouling out -- and the thrust of the offense quickly reverted to Horne.
Horne hit three times from the 3-point line in the first half including a “logo 3” that Iowa’s Caitlin Clark would have admired. The Pack took a 10-point lead late in the half before the Tigers trimmed it to 39-35 at the break.
But everybody did their part for the Pack. Burns had 14 points and four assists. Diarra, always energetic, had 11 points and nine rebounds and showed off his 3-point touch by hitting three. O’Connell made some timely plays.
Another example of ACC parity
Keatts was standing outside the Dail Basketball Center this past week, talking about the ACC and its parity.
‘Any team, on any night, can win in this league,” Keatts said.
Sounded like standard coaching rhetoric at the time, but the Wolfpack was that “any team” Saturday and a look at the ACC standings backs him up.
State, Wake Forest and Pitt all are 8-6 in the league and Clemson and Florida State are 7-7. Syracuse, which plays at N.C. State on Tuesday, is 7-8. That tight.
Keatts had to like most of the numbers this night. The Pack shot a solid 49% from the field, went 9-of-20 on 3-pointers, had 12 assists and seven turnovers.
“I think our focus was there,” Keatts said. “We could easily have 10 wins. I thought we had too many focus breakdowns at the end of games. I thought for the first time we got these guys locked in and executed. And they did.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2024 at 12:00 AM with the headline "D.J. Horne lifts NC State basketball past Clemson. 3 takeaways from Pack’s big road win."
