NC State basketball works overtime, beats Boston College 84-78 to open ACC schedule

Coach Kevin Keatts, give the players on the N.C. State men’s basketball team their ice cream.

It took overtime, but the Wolfpack started ACC play on a positive note, sneaking past host Boston College with an 84-78 win Saturday at Conte Forum.

In the postgame handshake line, a few players shouted for Keatts’ road win tradition — postgame ice cream — and minutes later, a Wolfpack staffer finished placing an order from the hallway outside the team’s locker room, much to the delight of graduate student guard DJ Horne, who posted a game-high 21 points.

“I think this one was a big one for us having just dropped two,” Horne said. “To start off ACC play 1-0 is perfect. It’s a big one for us.”

The Wolfpack (5-2, 1-0 ACC) led the Eagles (5-3, 0-1) for nearly 80% of game play but never quite pulled far enough ahead to coast.

Horne, who added 5 rebounds and 5 assists, led a quartet of Pack players in double-figure scoring, joined by junior guard Jayden Taylor (18 points, 7 rebounds, 4 steals), graduate student forward D.J. Burns Jr. (17 points) and graduate student guard Casey Morsell (12 points).

Boston College got 20 points from Jaeden Zackery and 18 from Quentin Post. Claudell Harris Jr. had 14 points, Devin McGlockton 13.

Save for one minute played by freshman Dennis Parker Jr., all N.C. State players who saw the floor are at least juniors. Savvy veterans, who, as Horne said, “don’t get rattled or sped up.”

Keatts said the team “got down on each other” after losing by 20 to Ole Miss in the team’s last game. Not Saturday afternoon.

“We talked about positive energy going into this game,” Keatts said. “I thought our guys played together. I thought we played tough, and I thought we played all the way through the [final] stretch of the game.”

The Wolfpack will sit atop the ACC for at least a month. It plays five more non-conference games before closing the season with the remainder of the league slate beginning with a Jan. 3 game at Notre Dame.

“Nobody wants to play these ACC games this early, but if you play them and win them, it’s good,” Keatts said. “We’re glad to get here and not just get an ACC win but a road win.”

N.C. State’s game plan started with dominating the Post — not the spot on the court, but Boston College’s leading scorer, Quentin Post, a 7-foot graduate student stretch forward who came into the game tied for the league’s scoring lead (21.3 points per game) with incredible efficiency (better than 50-50-90 shooting splits). Post didn’t score a basket until nearly four minutes into the second half, but collected 15 of his 18 points in the second half and overtime to keep BC in it.

Keatts assigned three different defenders to Post, who came in averaging 21.3 points per game on better than 50-50-90 shooting splits. Ben Middlebrooks, who made his first start of the season (and with the program after transferring from Clemson, Mohamed Diarra and Ernest Ross all defended the reigning ACC Most Improved Player and one of the league’s most challenging matchups. Diarra had perhaps the best performance, playing 34 minutes off the bench and hauling in a game-high 18 rebounds.

“We wanted [Post] to see different bodies,” Keatts said. “I wanted everybody to lean on him. He can shoot the three, pick and pop and roll, and we didn’t want him to beat us in both ways.”

While that trio won the defensive matchup with Post, Burns Jr. exposed Post down low with the ball in his hands. The 6-foot-9, 275-pound Burns Jr. out-muscled the 240-pound Post on numerous occasions, like a nifty — and textbook — drop step where he caught Post leaning left and spun right and bumping Post off his spot to corral an offensive rebound followed by a putback.

Despite some optimism earlier in the week, Pack sophomore M.J. Rice remained sidelined due to personal reasons. The former four-star recruit and Kansas transfer has yet to make his N.C. State debut.

As for his postgame treat, Horne hoped for cookies and cream. If he’s limited to a choice between chocolate and vanilla, Horne prefers the latter.