With history in sight, NC State suffers ugly loss at Georgia Tech

Nearly to the finish line, with historic accomplishments so close, N.C. State stumbled.

Heading into Thursday's game at Georgia Tech, N.C. State had won four consecutive ACC games for the first time in regular-season play since 1986. Already with 10 ACC wins, the Wolfpack had a chance to finish the season with 12 league wins for the first time since the 1974 team did it before going on to win the NCAA tournament .

Georgia Tech, a stumbling, beat up team had lost seven straight heading into its game against the Wolfpack.

But after leading the entire first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half, N.C. State (20-10, 10-7 ACC) did something it hadn’t done much of this season -- it fumbled late in a game.

Georgia Tech (12-18, 5-12) played the better final 10 minutes to rally to a 78-75 win.

“What we’ve been doing to win these last four games, we got away from that,” N.C. State freshman guard Braxton Beverly said. “I just think we were overlooking it. We were just excited with the way we were playing and I think we got a little too ahead of ourselves, thinking maybe we were too good. In a conference like this, you can’t take any game off.”

That’s true even against a struggling team.

For the most part, N.C. State had avoided losses like this during its first season under coach Kevin Keatts.

It followed up wins over No. 2 Duke and No. 2 North Carolina with wins over No. 19 Clemson and Notre Dame. The Wolfpack won at Syracuse on Feb. 14 and, three days later, beat a struggling Wake Forest team 90-84 on the road.

It appeared Keatts had found the magic to steer his Wolfpack through the dangerous places that had tripped up previous N.C. State teams.

Then, on Thursday night, the Wolfpack ushered in March with a maddening loss.

N.C. State remains far ahead of preseason predictions of a 12th place ACC finish. A Wolfpack team that lost its first two ACC games by a combined 46 points is still in good shape to make the NCAA tournament.

But this loss was a bad loss.

Georgia Tech entered Thursday night’s game at No. 163 in the RPI. Only Pittsburgh, at 208, is worse among ACC teams and the Panthers lost all 18 of their ACC games this season.

The Wolfpack had shown toughness and togetherness in winning its previous four games before the Georgia Tech game. N.C. State lacked that cohesiveness against the Yellow Jackets.

“We didn’t play as a team tonight,” said N.C. State junior forward Torin Dorn, who scored 18 points. “We didn’t share the ball like we had been doing. You can’t win that way. We have to share the ball a little more.”

N.C. State’s 15 assists against Georgia Tech marked just the second time in the last 12 games it had fewer than 17. The Wolfpack shot 44.6 percent, ending a streak of five consecutive games at 50 percent or better from the field.

On defense, the Wolfpack failed to help each other close the driving and passing lanes. Because of that, Georgia Tech 6-10 senior center Ben Lammers scored 20 points -- 14 in the second half.

Senior guard Tadric Jackson scored 22, finding success with dribble drives into the lane.

“We’ve got to be helping guys out,” Dorn said. “If they have got a guy that’s getting to the rim or a guy that’s killing us we’ve got to help guys out. We can’t let one guy go for 22 points and kill us like that.”

The Wolfpack doesn’t have long to wallow in this loss. By 6 p.m. on Saturday, N.C. State will be on the court against Louisville in its regular-season finale.

Beating the Cardinals would ease the sting of the Georgia Tech loss and restore needed confidence heading into the ACC tournament.

All is not lost for N.C. State -- unless it doesn’t learn from this ugly defeat.

This story was originally published March 2, 2018 at 12:09 AM with the headline "With history in sight, NC State suffers ugly loss at Georgia Tech."