NC State basketball’s NCAA opener against Creighton may come down to battle of big fellas
Ryan Kalkbrenner was on a stationary bike Thursday in the Creighton locker room at Ball Arena, his back to a large-screen TV.
Suddenly, a big roar went up.
“What happened, I didn’t see it,” Kalkbrenner said.
Told Maryland had just squeezed past West Virginia in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, Kalkbrenner smiled and kept pedaling.
Moments later, another, bigger roar in the room.
Kalkbrenner bolted off the bike this time, wanting to see the replay of Furman upsetting Virginia.
“It’s the crazy thing about March, man,” Kalkbrenner said. “Anything can happen. Anyone can win any game, no matter what.”
Creighton, the No. 6 seed in the NCAA South Region, is just hoping that “anyone” isn’t N.C. State on Friday. The Wolfpack (23-10) comes in as the No. 11 seed, the underdog, excited, motivated, the team looking to have that big March moment.
“I like to play emotional,” Pack guard Jarkel Joiner said Thursday. “And while we’re here, we might as well try to win some games.”
While the game at Ball Arena figures to be a shootout given the pace and the volume of 3-pointers that might be launched, it could be decided by what goes on in the paint, in that basketball war zone near the basket.
Kalkbrenner is known as “Big Fella” at Creighton, fitting in that the junior is 7-1 and 260 pounds.
But “Big Fella” will be running into “Big 30” on Friday — a real battle of the bigs.
That’s D.J. Burns, No. 30 on the Wolfpack roster. He’s listed at 6-9 and 275 pounds, but both of those measurements might be off a bit.
“He’s a big fella, too,” Kalkbrenner said, smiling.
Kalkbrenner was named first-team All-Big East and has been the league’s defensive player of the year the past two seasons. But he said Thursday he has never faced a player quite like Burns, an honorable mention All-ACC pick who is nimble on his feet and has a soft shooting touch.
“Just looking at him, he’s just a big dude and he also plays such an old-school kind of big, where he just kind of backs you down, takes his time, works for angles,” Kalkbrenner said. “There’s not a ton of bigs who play like that anymore.
“But he’s definitely good at what he does. You have to play him a little different than other people because there’s not a lot of bigs like him. He’s unique. I don’t think there are many people in the country, much less the Big East, quite like him.”
Kalkbrenner is almost automatic near the basket. He leads the country in field-goal percentage at 71.4% and he knows his range — he has taken 17 shots from 3-point range, hitting five, on a team that has unloaded 817 in 33 games.
“He’s tough. He may be the most all-around big guy that we’ve seen the entire season,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said Thursday.
The Bluejays (21-12) have balanced scoring, with the five starters all in double figures. Kalkbrenner leads the team at 15.4 points a game although fifth in shots (262). He led the Big East with 65 blocked shots, with six against Seton Hall.
“He’s a great player,” Burns said. “I want the matchup. That’s what I love. I thrive off that kind of stuff.”
The NCAA Tournament was one mostly of dejection for Kalkbrenner last year. The Bluejays used a last-gasp 9-0 run in the opening game against San Diego State to force overtime and then won, but Kalkbrenner suffered a knee injury in the OT.
Kalkbrenner could only sit and watch as the Bluejays lost to Kansas, the eventual NCAA champion, in their second game.
The game against the Wolfpack will mark one year to the day since he was knocked off balance in the NCAA game and his left knee buckled. He was “pretty lucky,” he said, in that it was a partial tear of the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).
He had to go through all the rehab, as he put it, “to get back in a good spot.” By the start of preseason practice, he had the brace off and was ready.
The Bluejays were ranked No. 9 in the initial AP rankings. After losing six straight games in late November and early December, they had a 7-6 record and were no longer ranked.
“A lot of teams might have packed it in,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “We kept fighting.”
Creighton regrouped, started winning and finished 14-6 in the Big East. The Bluejays were beaten by Xavier 82-60 in the Big East tournament but have come into the NCAAs with a team that has significant tournament experience and is confident it can make a run.
“For us, it was about getting back to doing the little things,” Kalkbrenner said. “When you’re in a slump, the best thing to do is simplify the game, and I think that’s what we did. We got back to the fundamentals. It led to wins.”
And now an intriguing matchup of bigs Friday in the NCAAs.
This story was originally published March 16, 2023 at 5:13 PM.
