NC State basketball needs late push to defeat Texas Southern
N.C. State found itself in a battle that many Wolfpack fans did not expect.
Texas Southern came into Raleigh on Sunday with an 0-4 record from games played against some pretty stiff competition. N.C. State, fresh off a tough loss Wednesday, had its hands full with the Tigers.
The Wolfpack (4-1) showed some grit when it mattered the most, finishing strong in the final five minutes and holding on for a 65-57 win.
Texas Southern (0-5) led late in the second half as it attacked the glass to keep up with its ACC foe..
“I thought our team found a way to win a game when our offense wasn’t necessarily clicking,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said. “I was very proud of our guys holding a team to 30 percent. I thought we did our job on the defensive end.”
While the N.C. State offense wasn’t going, the Pack found a way to force 13 turnovers that led to 10 points on the other end. While the young, inexperienced players figure it out on offense, they were able to force TSU into 9-of-27 shooting from the floor in the second half.
This could be the case most of the season as the undermanned Pack gets into the teeth of its schedule. N.C. State will have to find creative ways to win games. Against Texas Southern, the creative way came from some key foul shooting in the second half and a 10-0 run.
The Tigers didn’t go quietly, making it a two-point game with 8:24 remaining. But Dereon Seabron scored five in a row to give State some breathing room. Transfer guard Casey Morsell also got into the scoring act, hitting a pair of free throws with 5:18 remaining to put N.C. State up eight.
The Wolfpack got all of this done while its senior leader, Jericole Hellems, watched from the bench in the final 15 minutes. Hellems, who finished with 10 points, was called for his fourth foul and — on his way to the bench —was called for a technical, ending his night. With Hellems as a spectator, Seabron, Hayes and Morsell took over.
After a three-pointer from Jordan Gilliam made it a five-point game, Seabron muscled his way to the basket, completing an old-fashioned three-point play and putting the team up eight.
Hayes followed with a foul and bucket of his own, bringing some much-needed life to PNC Arena. His long 3-pointer with less than two minutes remaining was the final dagger the Pack needed to put TSU away.
Hayes only played eight minutes in the first half and had zero points to show for it. He had three during a 10-0 N.C. State run in the second half. That run allowed the Pack to battle back from a five-point deficit, the biggest of the game for the Tigers.
Texas Southern, out of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, has tournament pedigree, having advanced to the NCAAs three times in the past five years. The Tigers weren’t going to back down to the Wolfpack and it showed, as TSU led by three at the half. Texas Southern came into the game averaging 15 offensive rebounds a game and had 13 at the half.
“I thought we did a good job limiting them to five (offensive boards) in the second half,” Keatts said. “It’s a good win for us, it’s a good early win that we have to build on.”
Hayes said the main talking point at halftime from Keatts was to get on the boards. Hayes laughed when asked if the halftime speech was animated, and couldn’t share too much of what came from his coach.
“You don’t want to know what it was,” Hayes said about the coach’s message. “But it was definitely animated.”
As Keatts explained, Texas Southern was playing tougher than N.C. State.
“I don’t want any coaching staff to be tougher than mine, and I don’t want any team to be tougher than our players,” Keatts said. “I thought we got pushed around and we didn’t make physical block-outs, we didn’t finish our possessions. In a really nice way, I said we need to get tougher, and I thought we did in the second half.”
Hayes had all 11 of his points in the second half and Seabron had his fourth double-double this year, finishing with 21 points and 11 rebounds.
“I was just being aggressive and making the right play the whole game,” Hayes said. “Cole (Hellems) went out, that’s a big part of our team. I might have stepped up offensively today, that’s about it. I didn’t want to settle today.”
The win over Texas Southern extends N.C. State’s streak of consecutive home wins over non-conference opponents to 26 games. Keatts is now 33-1 in regular-season home games versus non-conference opponents.
This story was originally published November 21, 2021 at 8:16 PM.
