Hot shooting, strong defense lead NC State to exhibition win while star player sits
N.C. State doesn’t want to imagine a life without Manny Bates this season.
They didn’t have to imagine it Monday. It was real.
Bates, the 6-foot-11 forward for the Wolfpack and the team’s main post presence, was in street clothes as N.C. State took on Elizabeth City State University in an exhibition game at PNC Arena.
Bates was held out as a coach’s decision by Kevin Keatts. The junior could have played, but Keatts wanted a closer look at what his young bigs would look like. Meanwhile, it was the guards, not the post players, who shined the brightest in an 87-68 win over the Vikings.
Five players scored in double figures, led by senior Jericole Hellems, who finished with 16. Freshman guards Breon Pass and Terquavion Smith each had 12 in their first college action, while Thomas Allen (11) and Dereon Seabron (10) rounded out the double-digit scorers.
The post players — sophomores Ebenezer Dowuona and Jaylon Gibson — combined for seven points.
If NC State ever gets in a situation where they have to play without Bates, at least Keatts knows what he has to work with.
“Open exhibitions are a little bit different,” Keatts said. “I wanted everyone to play. I put out there some different combinations. I put out there some different combinations that we haven’t even had in practice.”
Without Bates, Keatts started Cam Hayes, Casey Morsell, Dowuona, Hellems and Smith. Six different players logged 20 or more minutes.
At times he put Pass, also a point guard, on the floor at the same time as Hayes. Keatts wanted to get Morsell, one of the team’s best defenders, and Seabron on the floor at the same time, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do it.
With or without Bates, Keatts will lean heavily on his guards. This is the first roster he’s had in a while where he can go 10 deep (11 or 12 when Bates and Greg Gantt return) and press full court the entire game.
That’s what they did against the Vikings, forcing 27 turnovers. N.C. State scored 30 points off those forced turnovers.
“I think (Seabron) got a dunk (off a turnover) late in the first half and they called a timeout,” Allen said. “That started the energy from there. Just creating everything. Breon did a good job pressing the guards.”
N.C. State also got 43 points off the bench, an area that’s been lacking in past years. The one area of concern, all the players agreed, was rebounding. ECSU, the smaller lineup across the board, did start two players at 6-10 and took advantage of Bates’ absence, outrebounding the Wolfpack 38-35.
Surely the return of Bates, who’s expected to play in the opener against Bucknell on Nov. 9, and Gantt (questionable) will help those numbers.
“This guy (Bates) is the best defensive player in the country,” Keatts said. “He’s long, he’s athletic. Not only that, he’s a leader, he knows where to be, he can put people in different places. You lose that when you don’t have him out there.”
Seabron led the team in rebounding with six boards. Freshman Ernest Ross had five and three different players had four, proving the team had to go with a rebound-by-committee approach without Bates.
One thing Keatts doesn’t have to worry about is shooting. The Wolfpack shot 41% from three, with three players — Smith, Hellems, Pass — hitting at least three triples. Keatts wouldn’t go as far as saying this is his best three-point shooting team, but he does have “shot makers.”
“I won’t necessarily call them three-point shooters,” Keatts said. “But those guys can make shots.”
Smith, the high-scoring freshman from Farmville, made his first three and the hot shooting spread throughout the lineup.
“We have a lot of shooters,” Hayes said. “Once they get started, they (defenses) probably try to contain this one, but this one can shoot the ball as well. Once someone hits, everyone else will hit.”
N.C. State shot 44% from the field against ECSU’s zone defense.
Chances are, the Wolfpack won’t see a lot of zone once they start ACC play, but Monday’s exhibition was a good experience for when they do. Hayes, who played 19 minutes, said he was hoping to see man-to-man, but Keatts was glad he got a chance to see his guys fire away from deep.
“It’s so tough because we had to shift,” Keatts said. “We went to bigs and our best three-point shooter was Braxton Beverly and he could barely sit down during timeouts, so we got some shot makers this year.”
N.C. State opens the 2021-22 season at home versus Bucknell next Tuesday at 8 p.m.
This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 10:50 PM with the headline "Hot shooting, strong defense lead NC State to exhibition win while star player sits."
