NC State continues NCAA Tournament run by believing in itself

PITTSBURGH — After NC State knocked off 14-seed Oakland to advance to the Sweet 16 Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, the Wolfpack’s veteran leaders were asked if they had a message for those that doubted the team before the postseason began. 

But before they could even answer, Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts was quick to slide in: “Be nice, Burns,” he said. 

Graduate forward DJ Burns, the Wolfpack’s emotional leader, stuck to what he has said through the team’s now seven-game winning streak. He welcomed the doubters back to the NC State bandwagon.

“I’m just saying welcome back,” Burns said. “They didn’t really believe in us. They probably still don’t but that doesn’t matter to us. We’re just going to stay together. If you’re supporting us, thank you. If not, that’s what it is.”

Before the Wolfpack hit its stride at the ACC Tournament, which won five games in as many days for the team’s first championship since 1987, it had lost 10 of its last 14 regular season games. That left the red and white tenth in the league standings, and social media stirred about the team’s future. 

Keatts’ name was brought up on the hot seat, which he understood, but he was not appreciative of his players’ being called out by the public. 

“I’m happy because the frustration was about the negativity that was about the team,” Keatts said. “I don’t care about myself. I’ve been doing this for a long time but we’ve got some good kids in that locker room that fight every day. And we didn’t have a bad year. We ended up with 17 wins. We were 9-11 in the conference.”

“But just the negativity … I’m going to always defend my kids,” Keatts added. “I’m old enough to know its college basketball and people are going to talk trash about the coach – that’s everywhere. At the end of the day my only disappointment was that stuff was directed at our players, and some were direct messaging our players and saying stuff that just wasn’t appropriate. So I’m happy for these guys because they handled in a professional way and we did our talk on the court. And it made us stronger as a group.”

Instead of folding, the team rallied within the locker room. That has led to a successful month of March for the red and white, which featured two NCAA Tournament wins this weekend in Pittsburgh. 

For graduate guard Michael O’Connell, who has appeared to find a new level as a scorer with the Pack in the postseason, leaning on one another in the locker room has been pivotal. 

“I think the biggest thing, honestly, is no matter what the outside noise is we gotta believe in ourselves and I think that’s what we’ve been doing to this point since before the ACC tournament,” O’Connell said. “We kind of left everything in the past and we had to take one game at a time. And I think that’s what we’ve been doing now.”

NC State embraced the underdog role this month, and it turned everything around for the 2023-24 campaign. The Wolfpack cleaned up its defensive mistakes that cost the program games down the stretch in the regular season, and in turn, became a more complete team. It can score the basketball with anyone, and the red and white has enjoyed clutch shooting from nearly the entire roster.

The Pack went from a team that, from the outside, seemed to be fighting for its season in each contest, to a squad that oozes confidence. This month could be renamed the month of the Wolfpack. 

It turned its season around, and Burns, the ACC Tournament MVP, believes the Pack took advantage of the beauty of college basketball. 

“I think that’s what March is about,” Burns said. “Some teams got here by winning their conference just like us and that doesn’t mean they’re a bad team. We executed, and shoot, we just kept playing for each other. I think that’s all it was about for us.”

The Wolfpack has grown in its seven wins over an 11-day span. It took the Wolfpack 65 days to win that many games to close the regular season. Now, NC State seems to be a new team on the floor and it has peaked at the right time.

Keatts, the Pack’s seventh-year coach, has won back-to-back games in the NCAA Tournament — the first victories in the Big Dance of his career. He was grateful for how far his team has come in the last two weeks. 

“I just think we’ve come together,” Keatts said. “Like we’ve been a good team all year long. We just hadn’t stacked games. We hadn’t stacked opportunities. …  I think one of the biggest things is that we believe and trust in one another. If you’re not having a good night, then you gotta trust your brother beside you and I think that’s one of the things that we’ve matured in.”

NC State’s players all have complete trust in each other on the court, and any game could be anyone’s night. As the team prepares for another week of basketball with the Sweet 16 in Dallas, the Wolfpack has taken the same approach it’s had the entire month: stay focused on itself. 

“We’re going to stay connected, no matter what goes on on the outside,” graduate guard Casey Morsell said. “For us it’s been a roller coaster of emotions, but we’ve seen a lot, and we’re not going nowhere. We’re here.”