‘Beats being at home’: NC State basketball aims to extend season in First Four
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Wolfpack views First Four as chance to extend season and prove themselves.
- Players cite urgency, execution, pride and grit as keys in March.
- Team sees rematch with Texas as a reset to fix effort and close plays.
Will Wade sat at the podium on Feb. 14 after his team blew a two-possession lead against Miami in the final 67 seconds.
“We’re a long way from the NCAA Tournament … I just hope we get to Dayton,” Wade said, referencing the First Four games in March Madness.
Thirty days later, the N.C. State men’s basketball team sat in the University of Dayton locker room ahead of its First Four matchup against Texas on Tuesday.
The team isn’t necessarily happy it has to play into the Round of 64, but it has enough maturity and perspective to appreciate the position it is in, especially considering how the regular season ended. Playing in the First Four and having an opportunity to be an NCAA Tournament team “beats being at home,” Wade said.
His players agreed. The team knows the position it put itself in.
“A lot of people ain’t here. A lot of teams ain’t here, so it’s a blessing to be here,” sophomore guard Paul McNeil said. However we got here, we gotta do it that way. That’s the cards we play. That’s the hand we’re dealt. We’ll be fine. Win or lose, we’re blessed to be in this position.”
To clarify, the team wants to win. The players don’t want Tuesday to be the final time this team suits up and takes the court together.
In fact, that reality has pushed the Wolfpack to play harder, have a greater attention to detail and stay together. From this point forward, it’s win or go home. The sand is running out; there aren’t going to be any more chances after this. Senior Ven-Allen Lubin said he’s been thinking about the end of his college career for a while. He’s performed this season with that in mind.
But not everyone has. It shouldn’t have taken this long to reach this point, for things to fully click and the urgency to kick in. The players, however, are in agreement that it’s better late than never.
“I feel like it’s March, man. It’s getting real,” McNeil said. “On March 17, a lot of these guys are gonna have to figure out their life after this, and that’s probably the hardest thing you have to figure out. The more we win, the more everybody wins, everybody has a better future for themselves. So, I think just because it’s March, that changed a lot.”
What will a March Madness run take?
With this opportunity, the question becomes: What does it take to make a run in March? For the Wolfpack, it’s not just execution or details.
Players say that comes down to mental toughness and grit. Senior Jordan Snell — a member of the 2024 ACC Championship and Final Four team — said his teammates have been through adversity in their lives, not only on the court, which developed that resilience.
It requires pride to dig that out, especially in these kinds of situations.
“You’ve got to have a type of pride in yourself, and pride for your teammates — to want to play hard for them — to keep the season going,” junior guard Terrance Arceneaux added. “I feel like grit is like the main thing we got to focus on. We’ve got to continue to try to make the winning plays, because a lot of our games down the stretch came down to one or two plays, and we kind of just lost it from there. … This is like a reset for us.”
N.C. State will get to reset against a team to which it lost in the regular season. The Wolfpack faces Texas on Tuesday night looking to continue its season.
The Longhorns won the teams’ first meeting this season, 102-97, during the Maui Invitational. It was their third game in three days, but the team doesn’t think Texas was necessarily better. Both teams hit shots, both teams struggled on defense. The result came down to effort, and if that can change this week, there could be a different outcome.
Both teams come into the week having lost five of their past six games, and with plenty to prove. N.C. State would like to be the team making a statement in Game 2.
“We just definitely got outplayed,” Arceneaux said. “I feel like they just played so much harder than us, and then we were a step behind. We were watching film, a couple rebounds, we could have gotten a couple of loose balls. I feel like it’s just one or two plays, and I think we could definitely have that edge over them.”
