NC State Wilts in Second Half of 69-61 Loss to Boston College

There are many cold realities to the unstoppable march of time, one of which is that more basketball is inevitable, thus the unpleasantries were dealt to us on Wednesday night as NC State lost to Boston College at home, 69-61.

The Wolfpack is now 1-9 at home in the ACC, which is just startlingly bad. This may have been the worst of the bunch too, with State proving pretty lifeless for most of the game save some bursts from the usual suspects. Terquavion Smith picked up two early fouls and State was down 14-4 in the blink of an eye. Throughout the rest of the first half and the early parts of the second, at least one person was doing something, which was enough to keep the Pack in the game against a pretty putrid Boston College team. But it did not last

State took its first lead early in the second and then totally wilted, giving up a lengthy 14-2 run that proved the deciding sequence in the game. The Pack was so bad all the way around I don’t even know what to point to as the biggest factor in the loss. There was the 18 turnovers, many of which were live-ball and led directly to BC buckets. There was the terrible shot selection, which stalled out NC State’s offense for a large chunk of the second half. There was the reliably terrible interior defense, which Keatts tried to mitigate with some zone looks, mostly to no avail. BC shot 61% from inside the arc. It was really all very bad.

Smith and Seabron tried to keep the Pack around, as is perpetually the case. Seabron loaded the rest of the team onto his back for a lot of the first half with Smith on the bench, and he did score 20 points, but 2 assists to 5 turnovers didn’t help matters. Smith brought great energy as he always does, but didn’t really have his fastball and ended up doing little of consequence outside of a personal 7-0 run late in the first half. Regardless, you shouldn’t need a herculean effort from these two guys to stay within a possession of Boston College at home.

The loss moves NC State to 4-13 in the ACC and 11-17 overall. Up next, the Pack hosts UNC on Sunday, which is happening guys. I can’t stop it.