NC State basketball puts up a good fight in Wolfpack’s comeback win over Wake Forest

There is nothing, not even the final minutes of a blowout win over North Carolina or Duke, that brings PNC Arena to the fever pitch that questionable officiating does. The building may get louder during N.C. State games, but it never gets more intense, more heated or more furious.

The overflowing outrage on Tuesday night over Kevin Keatts’ quick-trigger ejection, and the prolonged adjudication of a late flare-up that saw two more players ejected and a third foul out, almost threatened to overshadow a remarkable comeback.

Either way, N.C. State had plenty of fight.

By the time Keatts came back out of the tunnel to celebrate an 83-76 victory over Wake Forest, and D.J. Horne was caught on camera flashing a double bird, all was forgiven, if not forgotten. But N.C. State was able to do against a very good Wake Forest team what it was unable to do against an extremely good North Carolina team six days ago, finally able to close the gap while trailing in the second half, and winning without making a single 3-pointer for the first time in almost 10 years.

“I’m fighting more,” Keatts said. “You guys like fight, don’t you?”

It was a landmark victory in many ways, with Keatts picking up his second ejection of the season, and N.C. State wasn’t prepared to apologize for any of it — except, perhaps, Horne, who wasn’t expecting anyone to see his dual one-fingered salutes, let alone screen-grabbed and, without a doubt, memed into submission long into the future.

“They just told me I got caught,” Horne said, gesturing to his laughing teammates gathered around phones to watch the video. “Just the emotion got out of hand right there.”

The emotion was out of hand everywhere. This was real Big Four basketball: A battle for every possession, and with every person in the building, on both sides, angry at the officials at some point. N.C. State’s 5-1 in the ACC for the first time since 1989, and that wasn’t the only throwback, with referee Jeffrey Anderson playing the part of Lenny Wirtz or Karl Hess, dishing out six technical fouls, including the bang-bang ejection of Keatts, the coach’s second dismissal of the season.

Keatts expected the first, was basically asking for it, after a no-call on a Dennis Parker Jr. drive under the basket, getting way out onto the court and letting Anderson have it as he ran past the N.C. State bench. But just as he thought he was getting his money’s worth, Anderson whacked him again, quickly.

“That’s something we will talk about,” Keatts said. “I absolutely knew what I was doing on the first one. But not the second one.”

An even more furious Keatts then wriggled out from under the outstretched arm of assistant coach Larry Dixon to get back at Anderson, Elliott Avent-style. The four free throws put State down 10 as assistant Kareem Richardson took over, but as so often happens, the head coach’s departure seemed to focus the Wolfpack’s effort, especially in the second half.

The 3-pointers still never fell, but N.C. State’s defense left Wake Forest flummoxed — Steve Forbes called it the worst half of basketball in his tenure — and the Wolfpack was able get to the rim even with an ill DJ Burns throwing up on the bench and generally ineffective.

The Wolfpack was down by as many as 11 in the second half but finally tied the score at 69 with 2:41 to go and never looked back.

“At the end of the day, we’re a very skilled offensive team, but I think our defense is really sort of overlooked,” said N.C. State forward Ben Middlebrooks, a Clemson transfer. “I mean, I think we are the best defensive team I’ve ever played on, for sure.”

The scuffle at the end, with Middlebrooks bumping Hunter Sallis and Mo Diarra jumping in and all three getting technicals, with Sallis and Diarra both ejected, came after the game was all but decided with 46 seconds to go.

Diarra waved his arms to the crowd as he exited, and the crowd roared and roared in response, both happy and happily angry.

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