State fans know that Wake Forest can be a real spoiler game. This is true of both football and basketball. When the NC State basketball team walked into Winston-Salem, many Wolfpack fans were concerned. The pack is currently missing Dusan Mahorcic and Jack Clark, two quality pieces in the front-court.
Missing key players at the four and five positions can be fatal to a team’s postseason aspirations. This made the win today all the more impressive.
The pack started out the game strong. Terquavion Smith came out of the gates running with his traditional high volume, low efficiency attack. However, by halftime the pack was down by six points due to untimely foul calls and cold shots to end the first half.
In the first half, N.C. State head coach Kevin Keatts’s offense had all but stalled out. The second half however, was a completely different story. DJ Burns decided once again to bail the pack out. He had thirty-one points, shooting fourteen of twenty-six and out-scoring the second highest scorer by fourteen points.
Burns will determine the answer to the question of how far NC State basketball can go this season. Although he may be the heaviest center NC State has had in years, he has the silkiest finish of any player his size I have seen this year. I would go so far as to say that he has the silkiest finish of any person I’ve seen at his size ever. God surely did not intend for people over 300 pounds to be able to hit Skyhooks and yet here he is, DJ Burns, the exception.
We will end up being a top-tier team in the NCAA. It will serve to build our résumé as we attempt to enter the NCAA tournament this March. NC State went six and one in January this year and the only challenges in February will be to defeat Duke and Carolina. Assuming we carry a similar record for the one we have now, NC State can expect to be a top-ten seed in the tournament.
