No F for effort in loss: NC State bounces back and Kevin Keatts is ‘(expletive) proud’
This was the N.C. State we know, for better or for worse, in every way. The Wolfpack battled to the end, its play was exciting and wildly entertaining at times, and it lost a close game at home.
Welcome back, sort of.
Almost everything was back to normal after Saturday’s bizarro no-show at North Carolina. There was a lot to like from the Wolfpack, from the explosiveness of Terquavion Smith and Dereon Seabron to an unexpected cameo from Jaylon Gibson, the last big man standing. There just wasn’t quite enough of it.
N.C. State was within a point with two minutes to go against Syracuse on Wednesday, and got out-finished at the end, more growing pains for a team that has had so many of them. But it was also, in a strange way, a step forward.
It would have been easy, after Saturday, for the Wolfpack to fold, to let that one loss define the rest of its season. The Wolfpack had the right answer for that Wednesday night, even if it didn’t have the right answer at the end of an 89-82 loss.
If Saturday was an outright F in every respect, the only F on Wednesday came from the podium.
“Man, I’m (expletive) proud,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “I’m telling you now. I’m proud of our guys. Those guys had every reason to put their head down and say it’s not going our way. It didn’t happen.”
Keatts didn’t even have to be asked. Saturday hung over everything like a cloud.
There was no question, and had been no question for the previous 72 hours, that this was going to be some kind of turning point for the Wolfpack, one way or another. The debacle in Chapel Hill was jarring not only by the scope of it but the manner. Even in N.C. State’s worst moments, even in a run of nine losses in 12 games, the Wolfpack had always managed to put up a fight – sometimes without that much to show for it, but still.
Whether cowed by the atmosphere or North Carolina’s size and strength, there was no fight in the Wolfpack on Saturday. It was an odd capitulation, highlighted by the disappearance of Dereon Seabron, first figuratively, then literally.
Keatts maintained Saturday and again on Monday that Seabron’s benching was not punishment, per se, but a measure of Seabron’s ineffectiveness against the Tar Heels. Given his importance to the team, it was hard to separate the two. Seabron has struggled at times against bigger teams like North Carolina that can put a big body in his way after he turns the corner and heads down the lane. So was Saturday just that, and a failure to adapt that became a teachable moment? Or was it more than that?
Seabron’s emergence – his massive leap from tentative freshman to slashing sophomore – has been one of the stories of the ACC this season and absolutely essential to whatever success N.C. State has had and will have. That made Wednesday night a pivotal moment for both Seabron and the Wolfpack.
Either N.C. State would demonstrate that 20-point loss was an aberration or it would become the moment the Wolfpack started leaking from all seams. Losses like that often have a propensity to multiply once teams slip below .500 and hope starts to run thin.
This one did not, for N.C. State or Seabron.
The Wolfpack was engaged, attacking, moving the ball well against Syracuse’s zone, even forcing a turnover or two on defense. Seabron, after finding himself walled up under the basket, kicked the ball outside for a Thomas Allen 3-pointer instead of forcing up a bad shot as he had against UNC.
N.C. State shot 41 percent from long range — making 16 3-pointers — only to get beat by a team that shot 58 percent and made 11.
“They’re shorthanded and competed their tails off,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “They moved the ball just about perfectly.”
And there was even a surprise star. Already without Manny Bates and Ernest Ross and now without Ebenezer Dowuona, the little-used Gibson was the Wolfpack’s best post option. He was the Wolfpack’s only post option. And with Jericole Hellems, who practiced as the “big” man in N.C. State’s small lineup, benched in the second half, Gibson ended up playing 37 minutes. And 37 good minutes.
Still, 3-9 is 3-9. There’s no getting around that. But the Wolfpack had reached its breaking point, and it sprung back to where it had been: undermanned but not overmatched; always worth watching, if not always winning.
“You wouldn’t know if we were 3-and-something or undefeated in the locker room,” Keatts said. “We’re not having a great season but I can sleep at night.”
The hope is that this all pays off down the road somewhere, this season or next, although in the here-today-portal-tomorrow world of college basketball there isn’t always a future to build toward. Sometimes, there is only the present, where N.C. State is back to giving itself a chance, even if a chance is all it is.
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 12:00 AM with the headline "No F for effort in loss: NC State bounces back and Kevin Keatts is ‘(expletive) proud’."
