Pitt? Pfft. NC State advances in ACC to face Duke, one step closer to NCAA tournament
N.C. State handled the “don’t mess it up” portion of the ACC tournament on Wednesday afternoon.
Now comes the “how good do you want to feel on Selection Sunday?” part.
Junior guard Devon Daniels scored 23 points to lead the Wolfpack to a 73-58 win over Pittsburgh in the second round of the ACC tournament.
The fifth-seeded Wolfpack (20-12) has won 10 straight games over the Panthers and will face Duke (25-6) in the quarterfinals on Thursday (3 p.m., ESPN).
A win over Duke, its second this season, would cement the Wolfpack’s place in the NCAA tournament. N.C. State’s players have tried not to talk too much about their NCAA tournament chances.
“But everybody understands it,” guard Braxton Beverly said. “We don’t have to talk about it. As long as we take care of business, everything else will take of itself.”
N.C. State’s resume stacks up favorably with the rest of the bubble but other teams will have the opportunity to improve in their conference tournaments. For N.C. State, another win over Duke is a chance to remove any doubt about its place in the 68-team field.
Last year the Wolfpack went 1-1 in the ACC tournament and fell short of the NCAA tournament. Beating Pitt (16-17) was a necessary first step for coach Kevin Keatts’ third team. Daniels had 15 points in the first half before he was slowed by foul trouble.
Pitt coach Jeff Capel borrowed a page from his mentor Mike Krzyzewski and went zone midway through the first half to try to make the Wolfpack one-dimensional. It worked for a stretch, as it did for Krzyzewski and Duke in a win over the Wolfpack on March 2, but C.J. Bryce (13 points) and Beverly (10) helped Daniels get the offense back in gear in the second half.
“It was good to see (the zone),” Keatts said. “I thought in the first half we were non-aggressive when they went to the zone, and we talked about at halftime continuing to drive and ball screening, and we got shots, and then we talked about offensive rebounding and I thought we did a good job.”
N.C. State shot 48.4 percent in the second half and was able to pick through the zone. Junior forward D.J. Funderburk had some post-scoring opportunities and added 10 points. Senior guard Markell Johnson had 11 assists to go with seven points.
“We’ve faced a lot of zone here lately,” Beverly said. “We’re getting more comfortable with it and understanding how to attack it.”
And one
Justin Champagnie scored 31 points in Pitt’s first-round win over Wake Forest on Tuesday. The freshman wing was held to nine points and was primarily defended by Daniels.
“He played a great game (Tuesday), and we just concentrated on defending the way we did,” Keatts said of the Pitt freshman. “I did tell our guys that he had 31 (Tuesday) and played great. But I thought we did a really good job not just on him but most of their guards, forcing them into tough shots. Even the shots they made were tough shots.”
Lane violation
N.C. State didn’t shoot well from the 3-point line (4 of 16) but wisely reduced its attempts in the second half after the Panthers went to the zone.
ICYMI
The 10-game winning streak over Pitt is N.C. State’s longest ACC winning streak since it won 12 straight over Florida State from 1999 through 2004.
Making sense of the numbers
8 Xavier Johnson had eight turnovers, including a “flagrant 1” foul for extending his right arm and hitting Daniels in the face in the second half.
27 Xavier Johnson (15 points) and Trey McGowens (12) combined for nearly half of Pitt’s scoring.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 4:19 PM.
