NC State an NCAA winner and gets some bracket luck. Everything’s coming up Wolfpack.
By the second half, the entire arena save the Texas Tech contingent — the leftover Oregon and Creighton fans, the few ecstatic Oakland fans who weren’t already out on the town for the night of their lives, random dudes in Wisconsin and Xavier jerseys, even the stunned and morose Kentucky fans — were rising to their feet and not cheering but yelling, howling every time D.J. Burns touched the ball, like he was the fifth Beatle or something.
The Wolfpack would throw the ball into Burns. The roar would gather. And sometimes Burns would score or draw a foul, and sometimes he wouldn’t, but at that point, it was starting not to matter, with N.C. State up double digits. It was showtime for Burns. And more good times for the Wolfpack.
Once again, we have to stop and ask ourselves, will N.C. State basketball ever stop getting all the breaks? First the Wolfpack, as the 11th seed, drew a No. 6 seed without the inside strength or depth to handle Burns, or Ben Middlebrooks, for that matter. Then 14th-seeded Oakland knocked out third-seeded Kentucky, opening a wider path for whoever won Thursday’s late game between the Wolfpack and Red Raiders.
N.C. State pulled away in that one, taking a double-digit lead halfway through the second half and never looking back on its way to a 80-67 win and a date with the upstart Golden Grizzlies on Saturday.
As if winning an NCAA tournament game for the first time since 2015 — also in Pittsburgh — wasn’t prize enough for a group that had to win five games in five days just to get here, Oakland’s upset of Kentucky is the kind of bracket luck that cannot be manufactured.
Then again, if there’s one thing you think of when it comes to this program, it’s decades of good fortune.
“That’s kind of been the story of our whole season,” N.C. State guard D.J. Horne said. “Every other game we got somebody different stepping up for us. ... It just shows on the biggest stage, we’ve got somebody who maybe averages like 5-6 points come in and have a breakout 20-point game. That’s what we need.”
N.C. State took a 37-33 lead into the half thanks to the interventions of Middlebrooks, who took advantage of Texas Tech’s lack of size inside to post up and get to the line, with nine of his career-high 21 coming on free throws. And Mohamed Diarra continued to be a rebounding machine. And Horne continued to make clutch buckets, all three among four N.C. State players in double figures.
Then Burns, the fourth in double figures, re-entered with three fouls to lock it down, unstoppable on the baseline, as the suddenly far-from-neutral-partisans started to take sides. Every touch, every spin, every foul drawn was met with rock-star applause.
“He was a local star for a whole year and now everybody in the national media is starting to understand that,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “I mean, he’s just fun. He scores and he gets beat up all the time. And he’s almost gotta play through contact. But it is so fun to watch him. And you know, I consider him a closer for us. We put him in the game and he closes the game.”
It was all very familiar, an extension of the ACC tournament, when different Wolfpack players seemed to make big plays when N.C. State needed them.
But everything going forward is going to have to be an extension of the ACC tournament. That team, not any version that came before it this season, is the one that can win NCAA tournament games, that can upend expectations, that can change almost 40 years of history.
“I just thought they were tougher than we were,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “Middlebrooks, Diarra, their rebounding, their physicality, and then the combo of D.J. and D.J., scoring and inside and out. What a great team. They kept us on our heels.”
There’s something about this team, the way it has shaken off its past and embraced a new present, an ensemble cast sharing the credit and the glory and the points. It’ll be put to the test Saturday against the darlings of the first round, Oakland, with rumpled lifetime coach Greg Kampe and Division II transfer Jack Gohlke, who came off the bench Saturday to out-Reed Sheppard Reed Sheppard with 10 3-pointers, one short of the NCAA tournament record.
The Golden Grizzlies found some magic here. But N.C. State has found some magic of its own, and it may ride this wave for a while yet.
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This story was originally published March 22, 2024 at 12:30 AM with the headline "NC State an NCAA winner and gets some bracket luck. Everything’s coming up Wolfpack.."
