NC State relishes the opportunity to face No. 1 Purdue on Sunday
Posted December 10, 2021 3:17 p.m. EST
If NC State head coach Kevin Keatts had to choose, he surely would have rather No. 1 Purdue come into their matchup in the Basketball Hall of Fame Invitational on Sunday off of a win instead of an upset loss at Rutgers Thursday night.
But to him, the challenge the Boilermakers present would have been considerable either way.
"Regardless if they won or lost, it's still a really good basketball team," Keatts said. "I was up late last night and early this morning watching a lot of film on those guys and man, they're a special team when you look at them. They are almost two-deep at every position. The two centers, both of them could average 20 points a game if they played on separate teams and then we don't have to touch talk about (Jaden) Ivey and how special he is and the great shooters that they have around him."
Purdue (8-1) got to No. 1 in the country for the first time in program history this week after decimating Florida State in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and then beating Iowa. The Boilermakers also beat North Carolina earlier this season in Connecticut and knocked off No. 6 Villanova, too.
It looked like Purdue would escape with a win over Rutgers on the road until Ron Harper Jr. hit a long 3-pointer at the buzzer to hand the Boilermakers their first loss.
But NC State can't exactly copy and paste Rutgers' game plan.
"That was one of the most physical games that I watched and some of that comes down to how the referees will call the game," Keatts said. "It was a great game. It was a great home court environment. You could tell that the fans and the student body were excited about playing a No. 1 Purdue team, especially to be in a conference game. But I don't know if there's anything that I can take from it. Rutgers is a little bit different than us. We don't play the same."
And there are style differences because of personnel, too.
Purdue's centers that worried Keatts — 6-10 Trevion Williams and the 7-foot-4 Zach Edey — have helped the Boilermakers become one of the best rebounding teams in the country.
NC State lost its best interior defender and one of its better overall players in Manny Bates barely a minute into the season. Without him, NC State's tallest player in the rotation is the 6-11 Ebenezer Dowuona, a sophomore who's a good shot-blocker and a promising rebounder. But that's it. Jaylon Gibson is 6-10, but the sophomore has played a total of 15 minutes in the last three games. The 6-9 freshman Ernest Ross' career high in minutes was nine in the four-overtime win over Nebraska.
Having Bates would certainly help, but only so much.
"It would be a big challenge if Manny was playing and unfortunately, we know he's not," Keatts said. "We've got our young bigs and they've got their hands full. But more importantly, I think our guards have got to do a great job in this game particularly of helping rebound.
"It's got to be a team effort opposed to those two guys because those guys are going to be having their hands full just trying to keep those two big centers off the glass. And so I think it's got to be a tremendous team effort from everyone. I'm going to ask everybody to give me a couple more rebounds per game in this game because we're going to need it."
Guard play will be important in this game, and NC State is eager to get Virginia transfer Casey Morsell back in the mix. He's been out since the Nebraska game, and Keatts said he'll be a game-time decision on Sunday. The injury came after it seemed he was playing his best, shooting 5 of 11 from 3 in his most recent two games played after starting the season 6 of 18.
Morsell warmed up before the Bethune-Cookman game on Thursday, but he wasn't quite ready. Keatts hopes the rest will help.
Freshman Terquavion Smith has seen his minutes tick up in Morsell's absence. He's scored 31 points in the last two games. But Keatts doesn't want all the pressure to be on Smith.
"With Casey out. It makes us incredibly young, puts a lot of pressure on the young guys and Terquavion (Smith) is playing well. But as a young guy, you're going to make certain mistakes and as a coach, we have to live with some of those," Keatts said.
"But I need a couple of veteran guards to be in the lineup to be able to play to help us win games, one being Casey, and then hopefully to get something out of Thomas Allen to play better. I thought Cam (Hayes) last night had one of his worst games as far as shooting the basketball and hopefully you don't have many more often in games like that. I think he'll be better and we'll get back in the gym and work on some stuff for whatever reason shot just wouldn't go."
Dereon Seabron has been playing as well as anyone in the ACC and can score seemingly at will. But he can't beat a team by himself, and especially not the No. 1 team.
NC State likes to pressure the ball, and obviously there are pros and cons to that. NC State doesn't have a lot of depth right now with the injuries, and Purdue has veteran guards.
"(Purdue does) such a great job when they can come down and just run their offense. And if you can do anything to disrupt their offense, it will certainly help you. But it's the way we play. We're a pressing team and we want to obviously try to speed people up or make them take quick shots or force them into some tough turnovers and those type of things. And so for us, it's two different things. When Purdue can run their offense, which they're really, really good at it, I don't know that anybody stop them from running their offense. They're at their best and if we can do anything to just try to disrupt it a little bit, it could certainly help us," Keatts said.
"A lot of it is going to come down to if we get a guy like Casey Morsell back so we'll be able to play more guards. Earlier in our season we've been extremely guard-heavy, which is great. But when you don't have as many guards are put out there, it kind of changes how you press and how much you can press and how hard you go on the press. But certainly Purdue won't be afraid of our press. They obviously are a good, veteran team. They know how to play. They've got really good guards and uh, but that's something that we do and we'll try to play the way we play."
The odds don't favor NC State in this matchup, of course. But Keatts is savoring the opportunity nonetheless. It will be the first time in his tenure that his team has faced the No. 1 team in the country.
And the early upsets in college basketball so far this season have given him reason to believe.
But so has his team this year. In the last two years especially, Keatts' program has built an identity not just around the press or the pace of play, but also around its toughness.
NC State's four-overtime win over Nebraska was an example of that, but so has the way this team has fought through major injuries to some of its best players and team leaders the last two years.
"I'm excited. It's a really good team. It's a great opportunity, but a huge challenge for us, especially in the areas where they're really strong," Keatts said. "Obviously with Manny being out, that's one of the areas that we're getting better at, but we're still not where we need to be. But I'm excited about the opportunity. I look forward to it. Our guys, obviously I think they'll be excited."
