NC State fought off fatigue and a feisty Charleston Southern team as they improved to 2-0 in the Kevin Keatts era with a 78-56 victory.
The Pack, once again, used a balanced attack (5 guys in double figures) to propel their offense.
Al Freeman – 18 pts
Torin Dorn – 14 pts
Markell Johnson – 12 pts
Omer Yurtseven- 11 pts
Sam Hunt – 11 pts
NC State’s defensive intensity wasn’t quite as good as it was in the opener, but with that pace of play and a quick two-day turnaround, it should have been expected.
Offensively, NC State struggled to get things going. Although they forced 24 turnovers, they weren’t really able to play as fast as they did against VMI. This allowed Charleston Southern to get set in their defense and really pack the middle.
Lucky for NC State, Al Freeman and Sam Hunt were able to stretch the defense enough to keep the offense rolling.
The Wolfpack shot 48% from the field, but only 59% from the FT line (we’ere looking at you Dorn .. 3-7) while holding the Buccaneers to only 40% shooting
State shot 39% from beyond the arc, which is pretty good, but all of that was thanks to Al Freeman’s 3-5 and Sam Hunt’s 3-8.
Markell Johnson just missed a double-double for the second straight game. He finished with 12 points and 9 assists, however, he coughed it up 7 times, which is not going to sit well with Keatts.
Charleston Southern did a good job of slowing down the Wolfpack and clogging up the lane. Lennard Freeman ended up with 7 points and 8 boards, but only finsihed with 2 FGs (he was 1-2)
Omer Yurtseven’s second game was much like the first. He finished with a nice stat line of 11 points (on 5-8 shooting) and 4 boards, but you couldn’t help but notice his struggles to corral rebounds or fight through contact. We don’t want to keep harping on this because Yurt is putting up some solid stat lines, but it’s just that this is going to be an issue down the road for NC State. These teams have very weak front lines and they are still outmuscling the 7-foot sophomore. Yurtseven has NBA level talent. He is showing that he can be a big factor knocking down the 10 footer, or hitting his defender with a quick little hook shot, but this team needs to be able to win battles in the paint if they are going to win in the ACC and they also need Yurts height in the middle. It’s going to be up to Keatts to teach him how to throw his weight around and invite contact from the blocks.
At the end of the day, this was still a 22 point win. It wasn’t pretty and it probably didn’t please Kevin Keatts, but it was a win. It’s no wonder that Keatts preaches conditioning. His teams go 100% all the time, and when you have a 2-day turnaround, the guys are bound to be a little heavy in the legs.
Now, the bad news is that they have another two-day turnaround coming up. They will face Bryant on Tuesday, followed by yet another two-day turnaround where they will face Presbyterian.
These aren’t big names teams, but this will be a trying stretch for a Wolfpack team just learning how to sustain effort night after night.