And so, a pandemic season — paused twice and resurrected once — comes to an unsatisfying end.
NC State climbed out of a 4-8 ACC hole, with wins in its final five regular-season games, only to get to Greensboro and fall flat in a 89-68 loss to Syracuse on Wednesday.
Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts had a 3-0 record against Syracuse in his first three seasons. The Orange with its zone, which is more or less a quarter-court trap, swept through all three games this season.
The Orange (16-8) find themselves in Greensboro, where Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim once whined that Denny’s qualifies as haute cuisine, with a crack at top-seed Virginia in the quarterfinals on Thursday and a chance to play its way into the NCAA tournament.
That was the plan for NC State (13-10) after it had ended the regular season on a heater. The interior parts, who pushed this team across the finish line in the absence of guard Devon Daniels, were either out of place (Manny Bates) or ineffective (Jericole Hellems) on Wednesday.
Boeheim might not care for the ACC tournament being in Greensboro but his son, Buddy, sure does. The younger Boeheim knocked NC State to the mat with 20 points in the first half and then knocked the Wolfpack out with a four-point play with 16:26 left in the game to give the Orange a 57-41 lead.
It was elemental from there. NC State’s defense was too soft, particularly on the younger Boeheim (who finished with 27 points), and the passing through Syracuse’s zone was unusually flaccid.
The final relatively meaningless 15 minutes gave the Wolfpack a moment to reflect on a most unusual season and what the future holds.
A resilient group, NC State won five straight ACC road games for the first time since 1974 and had a five-game ACC winning streak for the first time since 2004.
Given both of those streaks happened after NC State was flattened by Duke at home on Feb. 13 and could have shut it down for the season right there is significant.
In Year 4 under Keatts, with leading scorer Daniels going down for the season with a knee injury on Jan. 27, NC State rode the COVID roller coaster with forward D.J. Funderburk guard Cam Hayes going through their own bouts with the coronavirus and through stops in early December and mid-January.
The bones are there for Keatts to mold a winner and legitimate NCAA tournament threat next season. That’s the same situation Keatts thought he was in last March and then the pandemic turned the college sports world upside down.
Keatts, with a 39-34 ACC record, has shown he is a capable coach and now he has chance to show how well he can develop talent. Young guards Hayes, Shakeel Moore and Dereon Seabron have the potential to be top-line ACC players over the next two years.
The biggest question hanging over the program is what will happen with the NCAA violations case connected to former star Dennis Smith.
The case is in the hands of the NCAA’s independent review board. NC State still might be able to self-impose a post-season ban for this year to avoid future punishment. (the NCAA runs the NIT, so it still counts as the “postseason.”)
NC State should hear back from the NCAA’s IARP before the start of the next season, if not this spring. That’s for down the road.
Wednesday’s disappointment leaves a sting for this hard luck, well-meaning group which had its season end in the NIT in 2019, had the NCAA tournament canceled in 2020 and now this “not quite” effort.
Keatts has shown an ability to regroup and bounce back. Going into Year 5, he’ll have to do that again. No one wants to hear “wait til next year” but that’s where NC State is.
With the expected core returning, at least Keatts won’t have to start over again in ’22. Or deal with a pandemic (knock on wood).
