RALEIGH, N.C. — In the wake of the big win over North Carolina, with the 1983 champions in town, against Wake Forest, with an ACC tournament double-bye suddenly within reach, and a 9 p.m. start, even Kevin Keatts knew the score.
This was the kind of game, historically, when N.C. State has struggled. Keatts knew it. The fans knew it. Everybody knew it. Some programs have trap games. N.C. State has these.
All of which only makes the fact that the Wolfpack pulled away to a comfortable win in the second half, despite all those headwinds, all the more impressive.
This team is doing things its predecessors haven’t. It got swept by Wake Forest last year. It swept Wake Forest this year, going 4-1 against the Big Four with one game at Duke still to go. It has the explosive talent of Terquavion Smith, the veteran two-way game of Jarkel Joiner, the unicorn that is D.J. Burns and the versatile Casey Morsell.
It has, in other words, a lot of what it needs to break the 36-year ACC championship drought and make a run in the NCAA tournament, and those parts are starting to fit together at the right time. There’s no clear favorite to win in Greensboro — certainly not after Virginia lost at Boston College — and the Wolfpack is right there with the Hoos and Miami and Duke among the teams with the best chances.
“They’re going to make some noise in the ACC and NCAA tournament,” Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes said. ‘They’ve got a lot of talent. They’re going to win some games.”
And this was precisely the kind of game where N.C. State in the past has looked good fortune in the eye and said, hey, no thanks. The entire living 1983 team had been in town for a few days, even Thurl Bailey and Sidney Lowe, the latter making his first return to PNC Arena — fully red-blazered — since he was in charge. Keatts encouraged players to share their numbers with the legends, some of whom were familiar and others less so.
Before he even arrived at N.C. State, Joiner said he had watched the famous 30 for 30 documentary on the 1983 Wolfpack three or four times with this father. Smith has met Dereck Whittenburg several times, but now has a new appreciation for Whittenburg the player, not merely Whittenburg the forever celebrity after watching the documentary this week.
“Seeing him now and seeing him on TV, it’s crazy,” Smith said. (“He called it a pass but we know he shot the ball,” Joiner added.)
As good as it was to have all of those guys around, even without the late Jim Valvano and Lorenzo Charles, it wouldn’t do to ruin the week by failing to put on a good show.
That’s exactly the kind of show Wake Forest and N.C. State put on in the first half, the kind of up-and-down shotmaking that was far more common in the early 1980s than the early 2020s. At least, nostalgia tells us so. N.C. State dialed up its defense and pulled away in the second half, less entertaining perhaps but more clinical, the kind of thing teams that win in March do.
“There were a lot of things going against us,” Keatts said. “Wake’s good, they’d won three of four. It’s a 9 p.m. game. We enjoyed having the 1983 team around, and this was a game I wanted us to get. I was worried about a lot of stuff I can’t control.”
Oh, and the small matter of staying motivated after beating your biggest rival.
N.C. State needs some help to get a top-four seed in Greensboro, but it’s not out of the question with wins over Clemson (Saturday) and at Duke (Tuesday). Then the Wolfpack will sit and watch the final weekend, knowing this season that its future truly lies ahead of it.
