NC State’s depth overwhelms Charleston Southern, 95-61

NC State needed a few minutes to steady itself against a shorthanded Charleston Southern team on Wednesday night, what with the addition of so many new pieces compounded by the absence of a normal preseason. But State did find its footing by the latter portion of the first half and cruised from there to a 34-point win over the Buccaneers.

Devon Daniels scored the first five points of NC State’s season, which was plenty foreshadowing, as he finished the night with a career-high 29 points on 11-16 shooting. He scored 20 in the first half, which is when State’s offense needed him the most.

Charleston Southern played without leading returning scorer Phlandrous Fleming as well as veteran guard Deontaye Buskey, and while these were obvious death blows, the Buccaneers played oblivious to the fact early, limiting State at the defensive end while finding a spark offensively thanks to a run of good jump shooting.

As NC State struggled in its halfcourt offense with some poor shot selection, the Bucs shot it well—when they weren’t turning the ball over—and it was a three-point ballgame with five minutes left in the first half.

From there, circumstances unraveled in a hurry for CSU, and those turnovers, good sweet god the turnovers, well, they caught up with the Bucs and overwhelmed them over those last 25 minutes.

NC State’s depth was bound to wear out the Bucs over the long run; there was no way around it. The Wolfpack brought selective pressure and sometimes needed none in particular to force turnovers, or rather just accept gifts, because Charleston Southern is not a good passing team and anyway had to plug in too much inexperience in too many places.

As the Bucs wore down, NC State’s freshmen were getting over their debut-game jitters, and we saw a good bit of promise among the inevitable mistakes of inexperience. Cam Hayes looked really comfortable in transition; Shakeel Moore is obviously a freak athlete who can deliver some quick strikes to the bucket; Dereon Seabron can just kinda be everywhere all the time.

That was fun. Let’s do it again in a couple days.