NC State is not letting Notre Dame loss invalidate its season

NC State went into this season picked eighth in the preseason ACC media poll. The Wolfpack was one of two teams still standing for Sunday’s conference championship game, joining Notre Dame on the final stage and falling 55-51. 

After spending significant chunks of this season ranked in the Associated Press Poll top five, coming within one game of a regular season conference title and defeating seven ranked opponents, NC State nearly capped off its conference slate on the highest possible note. 

Notre Dame finished its ACC championship win on a 12-2 run. The Pack led by 6 with 7:09 left in the game and scored 2 points the rest of the way. 

“Give credit to Notre Dame defensively,” head coach Wes Moore said. “We just struggled to score the ball.”

Over the first 2 periods, the second-seeded Wolfpack shot 28.1 percent from the field. NC State hit 3 of 17 threes Sunday— an inefficient number that limited the program’s offense when matched up against Notre Dame’s swarming zone defense. 

NC State played its best offensive basketball in the third quarter, shooting 53.3 percent and putting up 21 points. That was the highest-scoring period by either team. Graduate center River Baldwin led the charge with 10 points, finishing the game with a team-best 14, after shooting 1 of 6 in the first half. 

“I think I was down in the first half, and my teammates just picked me up at halftime saying ‘Use your body, use your physicality,’” Baldwin said. 

Both Baldwin and senior guard Madison Hayes took the post game podium with tears in their eyes. It was an emotional scene for the two upperclassmen leaders who chose to return for another run with the Pack this season. 

Hayes knows this loss does not invalidate the work they put in to reach the championship stage. 

“We fought to get here…Before the season even started, we were picked eighth, which we knew we were a better team than that, and we wanted to prove to everybody that we’re better than that,” Hayes said. “I feel like we did that.

“They know about us now. Obviously this hurts, but we’re fighters.”

Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld knocked down a three with 7:31 left in the third quarter to give the Irish its largest lead of the game. Hayes responded with her own triple 27 seconds later. She finished with 2 of the program’s 3 threes and grabbed 7 rebounds.

NC State played lights-out basketball in the third quarter to win the period by 8 and take its 2-point lead into the final 10 minutes. Hayes gave the Irish credit for knocking down 8 threes and playing well. Both she and Baldwin talked about preparing  for the NCAA Tournament, and the senior guard believes the Wolfpack has what it takes to make a deep run. 

“I feel like we have the team right now that can go really, really far in the tournament,” Hayes said. “We’ve just got to refocus and get back to what we do.”

Moore is going to approach this week the same way he has in his previous postseasons in Raleigh. The team will take a few days off to recover from playing 3 games in 3 days. Then, Baldwin said Pack will watch the film, take the needed adjustments to heart and attack the home stretch of the 2023-2204 season. 

NC State’s head coach said Sunday that he understands why the Wolfpack landed at No. 8 in the preseason poll after finishing the previous year 20-12. But, like Hayes, he did not share the media’s opinion. 

The program proved all year that, even with Sunday’s loss, the Pack is one of the ACC’s top teams. After finishing its non-conference schedule undefeated, the program has a chance to prove itself against 67 other elite programs in a couple of weeks. 

“I’m proud of our team for not only what they’ve done this week, but overall the year,” Moore said. “Even though it’s hard right now to think about, the good news is we still have an opportunity ahead of us, and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”