PITTSBURGH — Like its opponent tonight, inconsistency has been the theme for eighth-seeded NC State (20-13) this season.
The Wolfpack, residents of the Atlantic Coast Conference, have some monumental wins on its résumé this season: a 87-75 upset of then-No. 2 Duke, a 12-point beatdown against No. 15 North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a top-10 win on the road against then-No. 9 Louisville.
But NC State also has some puzzling losses.
The Wolfpack dropped three games to ACC teams below .500 in league play, including a 68-57 loss at home to Clemson, which ended 8-10 in conference. Boston College shellacked NC State by 16 at home, which was the Wolfpack’s first game following its win at UNC.
“[Consistency is] probably the one thing that’s eluded us all year long,” said NC State coach Mark Gottfried. “We’ve had great moments. We’ve had some that we haven’t felt really good about when we’ve played poorly.”
As is the case for LSU, one reason for the Wolfpack’s back-and-forth play is its youth. Seven of NC State’s nine rotational players are freshmen and sophomores, and junior guard Trevor Lacey is playing for the first time in two years after sitting out last season following his transfer from Alabama.
“Sometimes you’re counting on young guys, you’re counting on freshmen, counting on sophomores,” Gottfried said. “Maybe that’s the one thing that’s kind of hard sometimes is for those guys to understand what it takes every single night to play.”
If the Wolfpack haven’t figured that out by now, its season may be over tonight.
Familiar face
The next time NC State senior guard Ralston Turner takes the court, he’ll be lining up against the squad he began his collegiate career with.
Turner came to LSU in 2010 and played for the Tigers for two season before transferring to NC State following former Tiger coach Trent Johnson’s firing after the 2011-12 season. Turner played in 60 games at LSU, averaged 10.5 points and connected on 99 3-pointers.
When he realized his new team would be playing his old team in the second round of the East Regional, Turner acknowledged he was taken aback.
“A few emotions came up,” Turner said. “I spent my first two years there. That was the place I started. It will be a place I never forget.”
But Turner has crafted a name for himself as a member of the Wolfpack, which has made the NCAA Tournament twice with the former LSU guard.
Turner has played in 69 games for NC State and has scored a program-high 814 points in the last two seasons (11.7 ppg). But Turner saved his best season for last, knocking down 88 3-pointers, which were three off the ACC lead, and averaging a career-best 13.2 points per game.
He said his success at NC State has made the decision to leave LSU a little easier to cope with.
“It was probably one of the toughest decisions I ever made, but I don’t regret it,” Turner said.
Two-player turnaround
NC State was riding high following a 87-75 victory against then-No. 2 Duke in mid-January, but that’s when things went south.
The Wolfpack lost six of its next eight games, and two of those defeats came against Clemson and Wake Forest, teams that went a combined 29-34 this season.
But NC State has gone 6-2 following its mid-season collapse, and two players who have been instrumental in the turnaround are sophomores Anthony Barber and Lennard Freeman.
Barber, a 6-foot-2 guard out of Virginia, is averaging 14.2 points and 4.3 assists during his last eight games, and he’s shooting 42.3 percent (11-of-26) from 3-point range during that span.
“When he’s playing that way, it makes everybody’s job easier,” Lacey said. “When he’s attacking and making shots, teams have to guard him.”
Though not statistically as dominant as Barber, Freeman has also made his presence felt. NC State’s mid-season struggles forced Gottfried to insert his sophomore forward into the starting five against Louisville on Feb. 14, and he said the move has paid dividends.
Though the Wolfpack is averaging a modest 66.8 points a game during its 6-2 spurt, it has assisted on more than half its field goals (94-181) during that span.
“We just became more efficient with [Freeman] in there,” Gottfried said. “Even though he’s not a great individual offensive player, he helped our team become a better offensive team.”
Don’t let postseason experience deceive
This year marks the fourth consecutive season the Wolfpack has made the NCAA Tournament. Its counterpart, LSU, hasn’t made the Big Dance in six seasons.
Advantage for NC State. Or is it?
The Wolfpack are without three starters from last season’s NCAA Tournament, including ACC Player of the Year T.J. Warren, who averaged 24.9 points and led the nation in field goals. Of the returning players this season, only Turner and Freeman logged more than 15 minutes in both tournament games for NC State in 2014.
But the Wolfpack’s slight experience in the March Madness is miles above what the Tigers bring.
Only LSU junior guard Keith Hornsby has played in the NCAA Tournament, and he was on the court for just seven minutes during his lone tournament appearance with UNC Asheville in 2012.
But Lacey doesn’t think experience will matter once the squads tip off.
“We can’t expect them not to bring their best since they haven’t been,” Lacey said. “We just have to come out, execute our game plan and we can’t worry about them not making it and their experience being here. We just have to come out, play our game.”
Gottfried said that’s the “magic of the tournament” — once the clock starts, it’s anybody’s game to lose or win.
“Everybody has a chance,” Gottfried said. “Just like our team this year, we have a chance. You’ve got to take one game at a time, and you’ve got to play for that one game and see what happens.”
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR