How is there not a thread yet?!

Are y’all in route to Hillsboro St?!

Michigan has fired coach Juwan Howard.

Some other openings:

Stanford
Washington
Ohio State
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma State
West Virginia
Louisville

I know there is probably a few threads expressing their anger towards the direction of the basketball program and I said I would not judge this team until end of the season. All understandable, however, I need to get this off my chest. NC State was in position to really take the lead in basketball superiority in the triangle. Keatts was youngish hire with Coach K and Roy Williams on there way out!! I know Keatts came in under duress with what Gott created. However, I believe the ACC is over his head. All his teams never have a positive identity. Lacks defense and can't recruit top tier talent. Keatts harped on being a hands on coach and helping develop his players. I honestly don't believe he gets the best out of most his players. I think of the potential of DJ Funderburk. He is a modern day stretch 4 and I think at best we got 75% of his potential. I know some of it is on the player themselves but also coaches have to put the players in best situation to thrive and develop confidence. I think Mo Diarra has loads of potential but was given erratic minutes throughout the season so is Dennis Parker. Maybe these huge roster turnovers are part of the issue but we can't keep sacrificing wins for at best a bubble team.

Time for a new coach and I can rattle a few names that come to mind. And I know buyout will be an issue but I think we could get a low risk, low cost (initially) high reward with Chris Mack. He has had success (in acc) and has learned his lesson with the Dino Gaudio situation

Fyi, I was a Keatts fan even up to this season but the truth is in front of our eyes. Time for Boo to earn his paycheck

Link has some additional X/twitter links Let's f*cking goooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CBS Sports

WASHINGTON -- NC State walk-on Jordan Snell spent Friday morning watching March Madness buzzer beaters, seeing the most unlikely of shots go in.

But this one? No, this couldn't go in, could it?

"I thought it was gonna roll out."

Like Snell, Alex Nunnally has not seen the court this ACC Tournament, but he's seen it all when it comes to the Wolfpack. Heartbreaking losses. National championships. No, he was not alive for the program's magical 1983 run, but the lifelong fan has watched the documentary "so many times in my life."

But you'll have to forgive even the most dyed-in-the-wool NC State supporter if he didn't believe it would be even close.

"I thought it was gonna hit the other side of the backboard."

But it didn't hit the other side of the backboard. Oh, it hit the backboard, sure, and hit it hard. It hit the rim, too, and spun around for good measure. And then it dropped, and Michael O'Connell's name was etched into NC State and college basketball lore.

"I just got the outlet from Casey [Morsell], and I just wanted to push the ball up court and try to get a shot myself or for a teammate, and I just felt some room and tried to step into it with confidence, try to knock it down," O'Connell said.

NC State's 73-65 overtime triumph over Virginia -- its fourth win in four days -- was the best of what March has to offer. Call it magic, miracles, madness. NC State has it all on its side. The Wolfpack trailed by six with 43 seconds left when Ryan Dunn fouled Morsell on a 3-point attempt. Morsell made all three free throws. After empty possessions by both teams, Isaac McKneely, Virginia's 87% free-throw shooter, missed the front end of a one-and-one, the Cavaliers' fourth miss in their final five trips to the free-throw line at the end of regulation.

Virginia -- perhaps spooked by Dunn's foul -- opted not to foul, even with three fouls to give and leading by three. Several NC State players were surprised by the decision, but O'Connell didn't give it much thought. And it's a good thing he didn't. Perhaps if he had, it would have spun out. Or it would have hit the other side of the backboard. Or a million other things could have happened. But, like this tournament has gone so far, the one thing that NC State needed to happen did.
The job, of course, wasn't done. As if 160 minutes of basketball over four days wasn't enough, the Wolfpack needed five more.

And for those five more, they turned to DJ Burns Jr. The imposing lefty scored seven of NC State's first nine points in overtime, with the final three coming on an and-one plus the free throw which gave his team the lead for good. The back-and-forth between Burns and Virginia's Jordan Minor was as throwback as it gets. Burns getting the opportunity in the biggest moments and converting time after time was a bit of a full-circle moment.

"My whole life," Burns said about how long he's spent working on his footwork and touch. "I still think I'm still finding a social life due to how much I've spent in the gym."


The social life -- err, social media, rather -- took care of itself. He was trending and got a shout out from Donovan Mitchell. His reaction? Subdued.

"That's pretty cool. That doesn't happen too much, so I appreciate the respect."
What NC State is doing right now doesn't happen too much either.

Only one team has ever won five games in a single conference tournament: the Kemba Walker-led 2010-11 UConn Huskies, whose March run is the stuff of legends. After storming through the Big East Tournament, they stormed to the NCAA Tournament title, too.

But this NC State team doesn't have a Kemba Walker, nor can it even begin to think about further March goals. Saturday night's final against North Carolina is the only way to guarantee an NCAA Tournament berth. What this team does have is guys who buy in, who didn't care about the odds, who didn't fret when they lost seven of their last nine regular-season games. Burns said even some team parents didn't think they'd advance this far.


"This team is hard," Mohamed Diarra said. "We've got hard, hard mental. We can't quit, even if we lose by 20, we don't quit. That's who we are."

Perhaps the spirit of the team is best encapsulated by the chain that hangs across Burns' chest, with an iced-out sun, cloud and raindrops.

"Tonight's the perfect example of that, man," Burns said. "To me, it's like a little reminder that even if it's raining, there can still be sunshine. Don't ever get too high, get too low. Just be consistent, be yourself, and everything will work out, as it has been."
When legs are tired and odds are long and games seem all but over, that's what NC State has clung to.

"I can't say I don't believe it," Diarra said. "Because everybody believes in this moment."

Keatts has a 9-41 ACC record against teams that finished in the top 5 in the conference since he was hired.

His average finish is 8/9. Can someone please give me a logical argument to bring him back for another year? I’ve yet to see one. Maybe because there isn’t one….

Ron Groover, Bill Covington and Clarence Armstrong the officials for NC State vs. Duke on ESPN.

Running box score and play-by-play.

Oklahoma State has fired Mike Boynton and Vanderbilt has fired Jerry Stackhouse.

The Cowboys went 12-20 overall and 4-14 in the Big 12. The Commodores went 9-23 overall and 4-14 in the SEC.

Javon Small was someone the Wolfpack pondered at point guard after he left ECU, but it never went anywhere and he picked Oklahoma State and averaged 15.1 points and 4.1 assists per game.

Vanderbilt sophomore post player Ven-Allen Lubin, who transferred in from Notre Dame, would have a market in the portal.

Roger Ayers, Tony Henderson and Jemel Spearman the officials for NC State vs. Syracuse at the ACC Tournament.

Dave O'Brien, Cory Alexander and Angel Gray on the call on ESPN2.

18-3 Loss!
Looks like another long season for the Pack9!

Today this story was posted on Google news. https://www.si.com/college/2024/03/...-later-acc-tournament-final-nc-state-maryland

I have a CD of the 73 ACC game with Bill Jackson and Wally Ausley calling the game with State finishing 27-0. I asked Steve Nuece ( sorry if I might have spelled his name wrong) about the game and he said the team that won the title was actually better than the 73 team. I am fortunate to have the audio of the UCLA NCAA game also.

Opening Statement:

Keatts: "Well, give Syracuse a lot of credit. [Syracuse coach] Red [Autry] has done a tremendous job at Syracuse obviously taking over for a Hall of Famer.

"To be quite honest with you, they won two really good games against us, and we talked about it.

"I give our guys a lot of credit. I thought we locked in and understood the scouting report. I thought we did a better job of knowing how to guard certain people. Judah Mintz has killed us every time we played him, and we wanted to do a good job of making him — backing off, keeping him out of the lane, and I thought we did a really good job with that.

"We knew going into the game that we would have an advantage in the post. Obviously with DJ, Mo and Ben, and we wanted to throw the ball to those guys and obviously play inside out.

"Proud of our guys. Another win. When you get to this point, we understand that if you win, you go home, and obviously for us, it's a good win for us, and we stacked a win, and obviously now we've got to prepare for a really good Duke team."

Q. Just talk about your halftime adjustments because you outscored Syracuse 48-33 in the second half.

Keatts: "Yeah, we talked about getting back in transition. I looked at the stat sheet and I knew it was wrong because they only had them for two points in transition, and I thought they got out -- see, somebody else behind me believes the same thing. I didn't think we got back. I thought they drove the ball down our throats a little bit. We did a better job getting back, but we did a better job understanding scouting report and who could score and who couldn't score, and I think it was completely our defense.

"We're the type of team when our defense is really good, our offense tends to be elite, and I thought it got good because of that."

Q. Mohammad, DJ, you guys are both taller than Syracuse's tallest guy on the floor, Maliq Brown. Your coach said you won in the post. How did you use your size to get that battle and win it?

D.J. Burns: "I just wanted to focus on I knew he was their primary big, and he didn't want to get in foul trouble, so we just wanted to go at him as much as possible."

Q. Kevin, the two glaring stats to me are the rebounding and the points off turnovers. Were those an emphasis going into the game, and how did your team do so well when you created the turnovers? What was it about them that they were able to score?

Keatts: "Coming into this tournament, it's the team that makes the least amount of mistakes is the team that typically can advantage, and those were two areas that -- the last four games of the regular season we didn't do well. Another area is we lost the turnover battle those four games, and that's just not NC State basketball.

"So when you look at it tonight, we did a great job rebounding, 17 offensive rebounds. Mo had eight at halftime, and I challenged him to get 16, so he only got 14, so we've got to talk about that.

"But we wanted to get out and turn them over, and I think we did. We forced them into 19 turnovers, and we got 30 points off of their turnovers. I thought that was really good for us.

"Our team has made some adjustments in the things that we didn't do well finishing the regular season, and it's paying off for us in the postseason right now."

Q. You talked about that you did some things differently. You did get the turnovers. What specifically did you do to Mintz tonight that you didn't do in the first two games?

Keatts: "Yeah, blame that on me, idiot coach. We're a pressure team. Probably my ego more than anything. We were getting after him and trying to pick him up, and obviously pick him up full court 94 feet, you can't pick a guy up like that.

"We decided to drop back to the top of the key and let him operate and shrink the floor, and we were going to live on any of those threes that he made. He's one of the best paint touch guys in the country.

"Obviously at his size, he's the only guy at his size that gets to the free-throw line, so we talked about staying down on pump fakes, we talked about not pressuring him, don't flush him to the hole, and I think it worked for us."

Q. I'm curious, your team seems to have found some remarkable chemistry late in the season, and all of a sudden your players are believing. It's clear as day. What do you attribute that to, and how will that play into the next game against the Blue Devils?

Keatts: "We're fighting. We're fighting. I've got guys in that locker room that really believe, and we're talking at nighttime and every day about what it takes to win and the will to win, and I think our guys understand that part of it.

"It doesn't get any easier. Every team in this league can beat you.

"We've got to — obviously we've played two games in a row and they're coming in fresh, and we've got to try to figure out how to find some energy from somewhere else, and we will. I think our energy right now is our motivation."

Q. Your team is playing with their backs against the wall. They're playing really, really well. They started hot. They stayed together all game. I think you have seven players here with at least one assist. Talk about that teamwork aspect.

Keatts: "Yeah, I'm getting leadership from guys like DJ Burns. I'm getting leadership from guys like Michael O'Connor. I'm getting leadership from guys like DJ Horne. And we're asking those older guys to step up, and it's weird because most of these guys except for DJ are transfers, and so it takes them almost a year to feel like they've got a voice in the locker room, and I think they all have the mentality now that we don't want to go home, and obviously stay together, stick together, fight together."

Q. For the players, Coach talked about some of the adjustments that you guys made coming into the postseason, but how much of the last two games has just been the reset button that it's a new season and you can get that attitude back?

Burns: "Honestly, from our point of view, we didn't really lose it. We were just waiting until we played a complete game, and I felt like tonight was one of those nights where we handled business."