NC State ‘trying to keep the same mindset’ in ACC title game against UNC

WASHINGTON — This time in 2007, NC State graduate guard DJ Horne wasn’t too focused on making a career in basketball. Instead, he spent a lot of time skateboarding in Raleigh. 

While Horne was pushing a wooden ride around with his feet as an elementary schooler, that year’s NC State squad was the 10-seed in the ACC tournament and it won three games in a row to face off with top-seed North Carolina in the title game. 

Now, 16 years later, the Wolfpack is the 10-seed yet again and ripped off four straight wins to set up its first ACC title game appearance since that 2007 afternoon in Tampa. And just like its last trip to the league championship contest, the Tar Heels will be on the other side of the court.

Horne has traded his skateboard for basketball shoes and is a key reason why the Wolfpack has an opportunity to cut down the nets inside Capital One Arena if it can supplant the Tar Heels on Saturday night. It’s a complete 180-degree spin for Horne, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“I probably would have been X Games,” Horne said with a laugh, “but I gave it up, getting hurt too often.”

Though Horne isn’t trying to do kickflips and 360-turns on a skateboard, he has been playing through a hip injury in this week’s tournament. He scored 16 and 18 points in limited action during the first two actions, while he played 40 minutes in the semifinal win over Virginia. He ditched the wrap around his hip against the Cavaliers to run around the court as one of the Pack’s primary ball handlers.

But for Horne, the chance to play North Carolina for the league title, is the setting for a legacy game for the Raleigh native. He knows what is riding on this game — the Pack’s first men’s title in 34 years. 

“This potentially being my last college game, to play against Carolina and know that a win over them would basically stamp me in the city, it means everything,” Horne said. “But it’s bigger than me. It’s for this team, man.”

Horne has helped will this team into the title game, alongside the rest of the Pack’s roster, which has all seemingly stepped up to make plays at various points in the tournament this week. While the Wolfpack does not have the singular star player that is carrying the team with 30-point efforts each night, its ability to win with balanced scoring has been a weapon. 

NC State was compared to the 2011 UConn team in the postgame locker room after it advanced to the title game Friday night. But it doesn’t have a Kemba Walker. Instead, it has a group that is playing connected basketball — nearly just as lethal as one cold-blooded shooter. 

Graduate guard Michael O’Connell, who nailed the game-tying triple as regulation expired in the semifinal, pointed to the team’s ability to play as one unit. 

“We just have a bunch of talented guys,” O’Connell said. “All the guys have the same goal in mind right now, to win the ACC championship. We came here with we didn’t want to win just one game. We want to win it all, that’s why we’re here. Just trying to keep the same mindset, not getting too high on highs and too low on lows. Trying to stay steady throughout.”

NC State has a tall task in front of it with the trophy on the line. The Wolfpack dropped both contests against North Carolina in the regular season — a 67-54 loss at PNC Arena and a 79-70 defeat at the Smith Center. 

The Wolfpack was in the same boat against Syracuse in the second round of the ACC tournament, and it was able to avenge those losses with an 18-point win. 

Can it do that again? Graduate forward DJ Burns, who led the Pack with 19 points against Virginia, thought “it’s hard to beat a team three times.” But he was quick to lay out what went wrong in the first two meetings with the Tar Heels, and what the Pack needed to correct. 

“Better defense,” Burns said after the win over Virginia. “I think if we play defense a lot more consistently, it will be a lot harder for them then they think it will be. I think that we let them off a lot with a lot of the actions that they ran, we folded a little. I think that won’t be the case tomorrow.”

The Wolfpack was inconsistent on the defensive end in both games against the Tar Heels, but it has played clean basketball for four straight days in Washington, D.C. NC State has corrected the mistakes that cost it down the stretch in the regular season, which culminated in seven losses in nine games. 

NC State’s new-found mentality of playing as one unit and eliminating its errors has led the Wolfpack to the conference title game. Now, seventh-year coach Kevin Keatts has an opportunity to claim the red and white’s first league title since Jim Valvano’s squad won it in 1987. 

The most recent title came so long ago that the building it was played in — the Capital Centre in Landover, Md. — doesn’t exist anymore. It was replaced by Capital One Arena, the venue of this year’s ACC tournament, and now a metro station and hospital sit where the Wolfpack last cut down the nets. 

Keatts, who has been a champion for the Pack’s two national title teams, wants to create his own history at NC State. And now, the Wolfpack have the opportunity to do just that, even if nobody was expecting them to.

“In order to have the chance to win it, you’ve got to be able to be in the game, and just the opportunity to be able to play in the game, I think it means a lot to us,” Keatts said. “Everybody expected this to be Carolina and Duke. Well, it’s Carolina and NC State. We play pretty good basketball at NC State, too.”