St. Patrick's Day 2023 proved the belief that NC State has somehow angered the athletics gods -- or leprachauns -- as the Pack endured another in a storied line of frustrating and heartbreaking days.
In the afternoon, the 11th-seeded Wolfpack tangled with the sixth-seeded Creighton Bluejays in Denver. While it was clear that the altitude in the Mile High City impacted State in a big way, there is no excuse for such a woeful shooting performance (37.5%) in a 72-63 loss.
In an eminently winnable game, Jarkel Joiner, Jack Clark, and D.J. Burns combined to miss 22 of 29 shots, including seven of eight three-pointers. The Pack went the entire first half with neither an assist nor a made three-pointer, making it an upset on a number of levels to only be trailing by two at that point.
It certainly helped that Creighton went just three of 20 from beyond the arc, and State won the rebounding battle, 35-34. However, the Wolfpack had absolutely no answer for 7-1 Ryan Kalkbrenner, who connected on 11 of 14 shots and benefited mightily from protection by the officials on both ends of the floor.
The lone bright spot for NC State was sophomore guard Terquavion Smith, who overcame early foul trouble and bad shot selection in the opening minutes to score 32 points. This was the "Baby T" that I hoped to see more of during the season -- less reliant on 25-foot three-pointers and focused on attacking the basket -- but he jacked up a staggering 27 shots and was unable to impact the game in other ways.
The nine-point setback cleared the stage for State baseball, who promptly followed a 2-1 loss to 14th-ranked Virginia the day before with a 7-0 whitewashing. The game dropped the Pack to 1-4 in conference games and three straight defeats to ruin a promising start to the campaign.
However, none of that remotely touched the worst that the day would offer. Around midnight, the Wolfpack women's basketball team completed an almost unfathomable choke job by failing to score in the final nearly six minutes of action to turn an eight-point lead into a devastating 64-63 loss to Princeton.
A series of mind-numbing turnovers and play-calls that seemed designed to intentionally fail marked the final moments. Granted, at one point the Pack was down to seven healthy players and was missing its best player, but gift-wrapping a game to the opponent is beyond rationale or explanation.
Thus, a St. Paddy's Day that started with such high hopes ended with Wolfpack Nation seeing red -- and green.
Slainte mhaith, indeed.
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