That’s not David Thompson, and that’s not N.C. State basketball
The crowd started roaring, almost reflexively, as the public-address announcer asked the N.C. State fans to welcome Wolfpack legend David Thompson to PNC Arena, but the applause turned quickly to murmurs because something wasn’t quite right.
Ernie Myers looked up at the scoreboard to see … himself.
“Same height,” Myers, a member of a different N.C. State national championship team, said at halftime. “Not the same talent.”
Myers said he does get mistaken for Thompson around town, all the time. But it’s one thing at North Hills, another in N.C. State’s own arena with the real Thompson, only the greatest player in school history, no big deal, somewhere in the building.
Fate, not merely tempted but outright taunted, intervened to summon a Wolfpack basketball performance – along with Virginia Tech, combined ACC basketball – as historically bad as Thompson was historically good.
The only way to satisfy the karma police may have been to find Thompson, put him on the scoreboard and welcome “Wolfpack legend Ernie Myers.”
In summary: N.C. State’s shooting and defense were terrible, but at least the effort wasn’t there.
You could almost have counted the Wolfpack’s points on fingers and toes in a 47-24 (that’s twenty-four) loss, the lowest-scoring effort ever by a ranked team, not that No. 23 N.C. State will be ranked much longer.
“It’s almost a loss for words,” Wyatt Walker said, then found a word. “Embarrassing. It’s the worst loss I’ve ever been a part of. Just embarrassing. … We’d be lying to ourselves if we said that effort wasn’t a factor. I don’t know if it’s just because guys aren’t used to being in that situation, where we’re not making shots like that and we’re down. I’m not really sure where to pinpoint it.”
Braxton Beverly was 0-for-12 – finishing with the same amount of points as Justin Robinson, in a track suit and a walking boot for Virginia Tech – and yet that was still somehow better than Markell Johnson’s invisible 0-for-5. C.J. Bryce missed 10 shots to lead N.C. State with seven points. The football team scored more points in 10 of its games (and also lost the three it didn’t). It also had more than nine field goals.
N.C. State was down six at the half, 20-14, and Kevin Keatts told his team to laugh and regroup. The Wolfpack did not. Afterward, he kept the team in the locker room for more than 25 minutes. There was no laughing then, although Keatts said he spent most of that time trying to collect himself before speaking to his players.
It wasn’t just the worst performance of the season, sloppy and lazy against a Virginia Tech team missing its point guard and best player. It was the worst in years, as bad as anything under Sidney Lowe or Mark Gottfried. Perhaps even Bzdelikian, and therefore completely out of character with everything Keatts has done at N.C. State, other than being 0-fer against ACC teams from the commonwealth.
“I don’t know I’ve had a game where I thought every guy on the team played bad,” Keatts said. “Typically, you’ll say, ‘All right, here’s a silver lining in this.’ Or, ‘Here’s a positive about it, you have a guy who plays extremely well.’ When you look at these numbers, there’s not one guy I can point at that played well.”
N.C. State was so bad, it let Virginia Tech sneak away with a performance that might have gone viral itself. The Wolfpack and Hokies produced the lowest-scoring ACC game in the shot-clock era, shooting a combined 24.9 percent, missing 74 shots. It was 5-2 at the second TV timeout. Someone might have gotten a point for a rouge in there somewhere.
These weren’t just crimes against basketball. They were felonies. Equally criminal: Buzz Williams’ attempt to polish his team’s only-slightly-less-dismal performance.
“I thought it was beautiful,” the Virginia Tech coach said. “I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but respectfully, we shot double what they did.”
Twice the garbage is still garbage. Then again, if you’re going to be bad, you might as well get it all out at once – although even by that standard, this was extreme. The Wolfpack had everything against Virginia and nothing against Virginia Tech, and guess who’s right around the corner on Tuesday: North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
By the time they finally located and correctly identified Thompson on the scoreboard, N.C. State was down 20 with 5 ½ minutes to go. The Wolfpack didn’t make another shot, and Williams afterward administered the coup de grace directly to the Wolfpack pericardium.
“I think we may stop and get some ice cream,” Williams said, scorching whatever earth had been left unscathed on his way out of town.
This story was originally published February 2, 2019 at 3:24 PM.
