NC State started their 2023-24 ACC slate with a 84-78 win over Boston College. Her’s a look at the victory BY THE NUMBERS.
Let’s start with team numbers.
NC State won in 3 of the 4 Factors, which is a good recipe for a victory. All 4 factors matter, but they are ranked in level of importance from left to right. Obviously, shooting the ball better than your team is of the utmost importance, which NC State did. In a category the Wolfpack normally excels in, they lost the turnover battle in Chestnut Hill. Turnover Percentage was the only Factor that NC State wasn’t superior in. They also grabbed a higher percentage of possible offensive rebounds, and clearly won at the charity stripe in Free Throw Rate.

(SportsRef)
Now lets look at some individual numbers.
- NC State had 4 players score in double-figures.
- D.J. Horne had a season high of 21 points, and he also led the team with 5 assists, turning the ball over only once. Horne also had 5 rebounds.
- NC State was +13 when Horne was on the court, which was a team high.
- Jayden Taylor had 18 points, shooting a clean 5 of 8 from the field, and was 2 of 3 from three. Taylor also had 7 rebounds and a team high 4 steals.
- On the year, Taylor is blistering the net from beyond the arc, shooting 48.1%
- D.J. Burns had 17 points, but shot under 50% from the field for the second straight game, making only 8 of his 19 shots. He also led the team with 5 turnovers. Despite that, the Wolfpack were +10 when Burns was on the court, which was the 2nd highest on the squad.
- Burns did foul out of the game.
- Casey Morsell had 12 points.
- He shot poorly from the field (3-9), but great from three (3-6).
- Mohamed Diarra had freaking 18 rebounds.
- That’s the most since Dereon Seabron had 19 back on December 1, 2021.
- Boston College shot 53.8% from the free throw line.
- They also shot 28.6% from three.
- Both of those numbers are the worst an opponent has shot against NC State so far.
- NC State shot 44% from beyond the arc, which is a season high for the Pack.
- They also shot 85.7% from the free throw line, which was also a season high.
Looking at historical win records, we are at 19-5 / 9-4 right now. 7 regular season games to go.
Post Norm Sloan, the most wins in a season is Valvano’s championship season at 26 wins. Nobody got 25. Keatts got 24 once, Gottfried got 24 twice. Sendek peaked at 23.
We play more ACC games now, but since Sloan, the most ACC wins in a season is 11 which Keatts, Gottfried, and Sendek each did once. It’ll have an asterisk, but this one is definitely within reach.
On Twitter Josh Goodson said ‘Tomorrow is State’s biggest regular season game in years. And then BC will be State’s biggest regular season game in years. Then the game after that’. (etc, you get the idea)
February has the potential to fall anywhere on the scale from ‘one of the best regular seasons ever to CHOKE!!’. As long as DJ is playing this well, and keeps getting that tough basket when we need it, I tend to think we’ll trend toward the positive end of the scale.
Everything is so bunched up right now that there are likely going to be a lot of tiebreaker seedings. That creates even more urgency playing those teams we are bunched up with, UVA being a key one.
After the weekend’s festivities, looking at the Monday morning rankings, we rank 4th in the ACC, and are the 4th ranked team in the ACC in both NET and KP. Surely (don’t call me Shirley!) they will take 4 teams from the ACC, at least. At this point, I think we are solidly in the tournament. But still plenty of tough games that could mess this up. If we can avoid stumbling at Chestnut Hill (Q3), that should prevent a catastrophic fall in the rankings. Winning any of the other games (I think 3 Q2 and 3 Q1) should either… Read more »
At this point, it would be great to finish in the top four of the ACC. going from not playing at all, to double bye…priceless.
Several opportunities in front of us to boost this rating. GT was our last Q4 and BC will be our last Q3.
Three game northern road trip staring us in the face. Have to win 2 of 3, winning 3 of 3 would really put us in a strong position, but we won’t be favored at UVA.Then a three game home stand, UNC, WF, Clemson. Winning 2 might lock us into the NCAAT and seat us well. All three will be brutal games.Then we finish at Cameron. I thought that was UNC’s gig?
Was looking for comments from others but. This game gives me the hope that, despite our record, I have been reluctant to let out. Watching Grant score and defend early and Ross really have a great game is rewarding beyond my wildest dreams. Having suffered through way too many mediocre even horrible seasons, it’s tough to let yourself think about anything but the next game. Morsell is an unsung hero. Burns, what can you say? He seems to have set the tone of this team…. Don’t worry, be happy. Last time JJ and Smith shot this poorly, they kept shooting… Read more »
Apologies to Gantt. I am going to plead spellchecker or typo.
I’ll say it again, there’s no way those other conferences are that much better than the ACC. The entire this is biased on initial assumptions and rankings. Since we don’t play between conferences late in the season, that bias remains. If Duke or Miami won every remaining game through the ACCT they might still not be ranked top 5.
Still, we may get 7 teams in and get a chance to prove things.
I hope we get 7 in. However, I watched the Duke Wake game while on the airplane Tuesday and they looked awful. Both teams looked poorly coached. Maybe I am being harsh, but I don’t think it was a defensive struggle. Wake couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean that night. Duke recovered and the beat the Holes, so we will just have to see how all this turns out. We definitely control out own destiny ( except for teams we defeated falling in the NET ).