Burns, Wolfpack have little to say after loss to Pitt. Now, about those free throws...
It was hard to say if N.C. State’s D.J. Burns was mad, frustrated, disappointed or just in an “I’m-not-talking” mood after the game.
Regardless of the reason, the Pack’s big man had little to say.
The Wolfpack had just been beaten 67-64 by Pittsburgh at PNC Arena. The Panthers had made 18 of 20 free throws while the Pack had missed nine of its 15 and the end result was State’s two-game ACC winning streak ending with another homecourt loss.
Burns is never chatty after a loss — not that he’s the only one — and was not Wednesday.
How frustrating has the season been for him, Burns was asked.
“Not very,” he said.
Told it seemed he was taking a physical beating every game, Burns said, “I’m used to it at this point.”
Asked if all he can do is battle on as best he can, Burns said, “They’re not going to call it, so it don’t matter. It will be all right.”
So it went, and his reticence to speak in the locker room came after he had scored a season-high 19 points in his 21 minutes. Burns got his touches this game and made nine of his 16 shots from the field, often after near-skirmishes under the basket, yet had just two free throws in the game and made one.
I’m used to it at this point.
They’re not going to call it, so it don’t matter.
Such apparently will have to be his approach on game days — at Wake Forest on Saturday and the rest of the season. At 6-9 and a listed 275 pounds, Burns will continue to work with double-armed crosschecks in the back or against defensive double teams with many teams looking to bring a second defender and force him to give up the ball.
Some ACC coaches have called it “picking your poison” as Burns does have good court vision. But making Burns pass and possibly make a bad read or decision appears to be the best option once he has the ball and is headed to the paint.
Did it matter that the Wolfpack (15-8, 7-5 ACC) was so bad at the foul line Wednesday that Michael O’Connell’s intentional miss on the last one, with three seconds left, wasn’t much worse than some of the others the Pack put up?
N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts tried to reduce the three-point loss to a failure to convert at the line, using the “six for 15” line a few times with disgust.
“That’s just not good enough,” he said. “We have to step up to the line and make them. We won pretty much every category. We had more 3-pointers than them. We had 11 assists and six turnovers and they had nine and 10.
“I can go back and watch tape and I can evaluate and say, ‘We could have made this possession or we could have got this rebound,’ but at the end of the day we have to step up and knock our free throws down.”
Pack guard D.J. Horne, who had a game-high 25 points, had another explanation. In a three-point loss, the Pack trailed by eight points at halftime, going scoreless the last 3:41 of the period after a 30-30 tie.
“We needed to pick up our intensity,” Horne said. “We were kind of out there lackadaisical and not playing N.C. State basketball.”
Ben Middlebrooks came off the bench to give the Pack some juice in the first half with his usual rambunctious play, but Jayden Taylor was “off” defensively, Keatts said, and Casey Morsell was off with his jumpers and offensive game.
“The energy just wasn’t there,” Horne said. “The way we started off in the first half was absolutely just not good.
“To come out in the second half and make it a game, I thought we did really good. But when you look at the overall score and we were six of 15 free throws and they were 18 for 20 and we only lose by three, it shows you right there what could have won the game.”
Burns had arguably his best game of the season at Wake Forest last season, igniting for 31 points as the Pack won. It would have been interesting to hear him talk about going back to Winston-Salem.
But not this night, not after this Wolfpack loss.
This story was originally published February 8, 2024 at 6:15 AM.
