NC State
Baseline Thoughts: NC State's story ends at the Final Four but it will live on forever
Kacy Hintz and Pat Welter break down NC State's 63-50 loss to Purdue and put their magical run in perspective.
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Kacy Hintz and Pat Welter break down NC State's 63-50 loss to Purdue and put their magical run in perspective.
All right, let's give you some baseline thoughts from a 63 to 50 Purdue win over NC State. A magical run for the Wolfpack comes to a close Casey here in Phoenix. And what they told us, they like their game plan in this one. They thought they responded well to a lot of Purdue's punches. But ultimately, the big man Zack 7 ft four came as advertised and I thought he was the difference. Yeah, he was, you know, D BURNS was asked to describe his feelings immediately following the game. He said, I feel like I should have not let d get to his right hand in the first half. He had 14, 1st half points. Now they cleaned that up in the second half. The only finish was 20 in the game, but by that time it was too little, too late. Obviously, I thought they played a really good game and, um, it's a really good basketball team. They do a good job, they can score the ball inside and out. Um, you know, I thought we had a great game plan coming in. Um I thought they made some shots and, um, I think one of the biggest difference is some of the shots that we normally make. Uh, we didn't make in the, in the game and going into the locker room after the game, I wasn't sure what we were going to see. Right. This is a team that had become so incredibly close. They truly believe they could win this game, win a national championship. But in a way, they weren't necessarily dejected and they shouldn't be because they have so much to be proud of as a basketball player. This is like the, um, the mountain top and, uh, just going in there, it, it even sounded a lot different. You know, you, you hear cheers from a regular arena, hearing cheers from that one. It just sounded so crazy. But, um, you know, just a blessing to be here. Do you remember this team for 17 and 14 in the regular season? They go on to win not only five straight games in five days to win the AC C championship, the first one since 1987 they go on to win nine elimination games, which is just so significant for this program and of course, making it to the final four for the first time in 41 years. Like this is, this doesn't happen every day. Like, you know, how many people do, you know, finish their run at nine and one winning nine games and then obviously losing the, the last one, I think before this, uh, the only opportunity to won more games than us was uconn when every, even when everybody says you can't do it and so much noise and they all hate you and they all say you suck and all that. And we made people believe like we gave people hope like through all the noise, we still ended up in the final four. If you could just imagine, you know, the amount of negative energy that we were getting heading into this postseason, um, and the fact that we've overcome all of that. So just doing it with these guys, nobody expected us to be here. Most of this team is made up of transfers who are getting 2nd and 3rd chances to try to, you know, fix things and we all came together and I feel like everybody took advantage of their turn and you think about what this means to all the NC State fans out there KC that had never seen this team win an AC C championship in their entire lifetime. So if you go your whole life hearing so much about 1974 in 1983 the national champions, of course, Jim Valvano so much in the past, this was a chance for NC State and their fans to embrace something in the present. And DJ Horn told us that no, they didn't win a national championship, but this group gets the hang of banner and you want to talk about the future winning, winning helps your program for the future. It brings in recruits and something like DJ Horn, DJ Burns Case CM guys who are moving on. They all said, you know, this is a special program and we hope that the guys in that locker room that are here that will be back, stay with the team, hope they bring in new recruits because this is something special and I hope they can only build upon it.