Too big, too strong: NC State can’t handle Duke’s power inside, but not many can
Somewhere around the time Mark Williams chose violence to volleyball-spike Casey Morsell’s shot directly down into the floor to carom into the fifth row of the stands, it became clear that N.C. State’s matchup issues inside against Duke were indeed the fatal flaw anyone and everyone expected them to be.
Which, given just how much size, talent, experience and power the Wolfpack was giving away, makes it mildly impressive that N.C. State didn’t lose by 30. Or more.
This didn’t end up being another of the Wolfpack’s run of single-digit losses — Duke’s talent held a steady advantage throughout in an 88-73 win — but the Wolfpack was within striking distance of Duke for almost all of the game.
N.C. State desperately needs victories, not moral victories, but as Duke continues to look more and more like the pre-COVID version of itself, not many teams are going to be able to claim even that.
“I thought we did a good job with the guards when you look at it, I thought the guard play was even,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “What I didn’t know coming in, I knew it but I didn’t realize it, that frontcourt, that’s an NBA frontcourt line. You talk about a 7-1 guy and a 6-10 guy who both are good at what they do. They completely dominated us.”
It’s hard to say it any other way. N.C. State showed heart and hustle on the boards, but there’s only so much anyone can do under the rim faced with the strength and length of Williams and Paolo Banchero and A.J. Griffin. Ebenezer Dowuona probably overachieved and it still wasn’t close to enough with Manny Bates, the best answer the Wolfpack would have had, again watching from the bench.
The Wolfpack had lost only one other game this season in regulation by double digits, and might not have this one, either, if it had scored in the final 170 seconds. But Duke showed off yet another wrinkle, a five-out lineup with Banchero as a ball-dominating point forward at the top of the key.
There was a closing of the circle there. Duke has gone from running out of breath to evolving new mutations, with its COVID pause increasingly behind just about everyone but Wendell Moore Jr., who isn’t quite the same player he was. Still, Duke is back in soul-taking mode. The Blue Devils did it at Wake Forest on Wednesday, even worse than this.
“I thought they were just really good today,” Keatts said.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, back after missing the Wake game through illness, went out of his way to compliment Keatts and N.C. State’s backcourt of Dereon Seabron, Terquavion Smith and Jericole Hellems, but he knew the score from the start.
“I think they’re really a good team,” Krzyzewski said. “A lot of teams losing close games would lose heart or kind of splinter a little bit. To me they’re a together group. They played hard. Our big guys were the key factor in tonight’s game, there’s no question.”
N.C. State might have had a chance if it had come into Cameron when Georgia Tech or Miami did — or if Krzyzewski had gotten sick before this game instead of the Wake Forest game, since N.C. State’s two wins in this building the past 34 years came against Pete Gaudet and Jeff Capel — but once the Blue Devils got going Saturday there was little the Wolfpack could do about it.
Which is going to be true of just about everybody in the ACC. Duke’s next game, at Florida State, is one of only a handful left on the schedule that will definitely pose a test for the Blue Devils. There are always a few no one expects, to be sure. Saturday did not turn out to be one of them.
This story was originally published January 15, 2022 at 5:21 PM.
