ACC

Road Construction: Wolfpack takes apart Wake Forest

Adam Smith
asmith@thetimesnews.com
North Carolina State's Torin Dorn powers past Wake Forest's Doral Moore for a dunk.

WINSTON-SALEM — Another victory secured in an opposing building for North Carolina State, and this latest accomplishment was delivered in a place that could be considered a house of horrors.

The Wolfpack defeated Wake Forest 90-84 in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball Saturday at Joel Coliseum, earning its fourth road win in the league during the last 25 days and snapping a five-game losing skid in this arena.

“Winning on the road is always important,” N.C. State center Omer Yurtseven said. “It keeps building our confidence as a team, and when that happens everything starts going for you, because beating teams at their home is hard.”

N.C. State (18-9 overall, 8-6 ACC) didn’t meet much in terms of resistance on defense from that struggling Demon Deacons (10-17, 3-12), who were trying to put together back-to-back victories for the first time since December.

Allerik Freeman supplied 24 points and eight rebounds and Yurtseven, the 7-footer, turned in a comprehensive performance that included 21 points, five blocked shots and three 3-pointers as the Wolfpack picked up its second road victory of the week.

Torin Dorn added 14 points and Markell Johnson had 10 points and 10 assists, allowing N.C. State to overcome Wake Forest’s pair of career-high scoring outputs from Bryant Crawford, who pumped in 29 points, and Doral Moore, who collected 23 points and 12 rebounds.

“We know that every win is key for us,” Johnson said, “and this was a win that we needed. Winning two straight on the road, we’ve just got to keep it going, keep it rolling.”

N.C. State’s four conference road wins since Jan. 24 — at Pittsburgh, at rival North Carolina, at Syracuse and now at Wake Forest — equal the total number of ACC victories that it produced during the entirety of last season.

The Wolfpack, under first-year coach Kevin Keatts, arrived Saturday with a tortured recent history of stinging defeats at Joel Coliseum, where it hadn’t won since 2012.

Among those losses, the Demon Deacons’ 88-58 beatdown of N.C. State here last February effectively signaled the end of former coach Mark Gottfried’s tenure. He was fired days later.

“It’s a big difference from that game last year,” Johnson said.

“I don’t think you can compare the teams,” Yurtseven said, measuring last season against this season for N.C. State. “The coaching staff, the whole mentality, the whole atmosphere around the program has changed.”

How about the belief that’s working for the Wolfpack?

“You can’t compare that, either,” Yurtseven said, smiling.

N.C. State didn’t strengthen its NCAA Tournament credentials by beating Wake Forest and sweeping the regular-season series, but it certainly didn’t damage them.

The Wolfpack protected a shrinking margin down the stretch, after leading 76-64 with less than 3½ minutes left after Johnson’s strong put-back and flex of his arms in celebration at N.C. State’s approving bench.

Wake Forest rallied within five points several times, and trailed 86-82 and 88-84 during the final 16 seconds. On those occasions, pairs of free throws from Dorn and Braxton Beverly kept it from becoming a one-possession game.

“I thought they battled us all the way to the end,” Keatts said. “We found a way to win the game when we didn’t play well the last eight minutes of the game.”

Keatts said Yurtseven stood out to him, and a 42-second sequence encapsulated his praise. Yurtseven drilled his third 3-pointer, then ran the court to score on a stick-back in transition, before easily depositing a jump hook over Wake Forest’s Donovan Mitchell as the Wolfpack built a 65-51 lead by the 9:24 mark of the second half.

N.C. State connected at 50.8-percent shooting from the field, while sinking 11-for-24 from beyond the 3-point arc. Wake Forest coach Danny Manning was bothered by his team’s inability to deny the Wolfpack from deep.

“If we let teams shoot like that, we can’t beat nobody,” Wake Forest guard Keyshawn Woods said. “We couldn’t get them to get out of rhythm or nothing. The last game we played them, the same thing happened. We just couldn’t get stops.”

Woods chipped in 13 points for the Demon Deacons, but he took 13 shots from the field in doing so.

N.C. State led 40-34 at halftime. Crawford had poured in 19 points by that juncture, including the last six points half for Wake Forest, in a matter of 1:41. His 19 first-half points marked the most in a first half in five years for a Demon Deacons player.

“Teammates were finding me,” Crawford said. “I was hitting shots, not settling as much for the 3 in the first half, and getting to the basket.”