NC State trying to make the most of the ‘next-best tournament’

C.J. Bryce watched the NCAA tournament “Selection Show” on Sunday and kept waiting to see the name “N.C. State” pop into the bracket.

Bryce went to the tournament his first two years at UNC-Wilmington, as a key player for the Seahawks and coach Kevin Keatts, and was a redshirt last year when the Wolfpack made the tournament in Keatts’ first season at N.C. State.

“All I’ve really known is going to the NCAA tournament,” Bryce said. “I couldn’t even get it through my mind our name not coming across the screen.”

It never did, which left the Wolfpack in the NIT. N.C. State figured out a way to put the disappointment of missing the NCAA tournament behind them on Tuesday with an 84-78 win over Hofstra.

It wasn’t easy, Bryce said. The team’s emotions vacillated between anger and disbelief. At No. 33 in the NET, the NCAA’s new metric, and with an 8-9 record in the top two quadrants, N.C. State believed its resume was tournament worthy.

The committee didn’t see it the same way. There were two ways go from there: pout and flop in the NIT or keep fighting.

“Overall as a team, we were just very upset and we just wanted to take it out on someone,” forward Wyatt Walker said.

Channeling that anger was easier said than done. Sophomore guard Braxton Beverly said Keatts talked with the team on Monday and put them in the right mindset.

“Everybody was still on edge and a little aggravated but we had a good practice (Monday) and we realized we still have something to play for,” Beverly said. “Of course, it’s not what we wanted but this is the next-best tournament.”

Understandably, N.C. State (23-11) got off to a slow start against a capable Hofstra team on Tuesday night at Reynolds Coliseum.

“It took us a minute to get going,” Walker said. “We were a little tight. We turned it over too much and we had defensive lapses but that’s a good team.”

The Pride (27-8), winners of the Colonial Athletic Association during the regular season, took advantage of the Wolfpack’s sluggishness. Hofstra led 42-39 at the half and its top scorer, senior guard Justin Wright-Foreman, kept firing and firing. Wright-Foreman finished with a game-high 29 points.

But N.C. State got 26 points from guard Markell Johnson and had a 29-9 advantage on second-chance points.

A “second chance” is how the players are treating the “next-best tournament.”

The win over Hofstra pushed them into the second round on Sunday night. The Wolfpack will be back in Reynolds for a matchup with either Harvard or Georgetown.

Two more wins would put the Wolfpack in the semifinals in New York. That’s the goal, Beverly said, to keep winning and make a trip to Madison Square Garden.

It’s not the Final Four, or even the First Four, but it’s a chance to play and that’s all N.C. State wanted.

“It’s not where we want to be but there’s still more basketball to play,” Bryce said.

This story was originally published March 20, 2019 at 10:57 AM.