Wolfpack Rested and Ready For Bulk of ACC Schedule
Saturday’s game at Clemson won’t be the ACC opener for the NC State basketball team.
It will only feel like it.
Because of the league’s new 20-game schedule, most teams -- including the Wolfpack -- have already played twice against conference opponents.
Those games, however, were only the preliminary to the main event. With all its nonconference tuneups now out of the way, coach Kevin Keatts and his team are about to enter the make-or-break portion of their season with its final 18 games against ACC competition.
“I am excited for the challenge of conference play,” Keatts said after last Sunday’s win against Appalachian State. “I really liked our nonconference schedule this year and felt like we were able to get a lot out of it. We played some really good high major teams and some good mid-major teams that were tough. I think it works out for us.”
The Wolfpack heads into the meat of its conference season with a 10-3 overall record and a NET ranking of No. 29. It has split its first two ACC games, having lost to Georgia Tech in its opener without regulars Markell Johnson and D.J. Funderburk and beating Wake Forest on the road.
The next five games -- Clemson twice, home against Notre Dame and Miami and on the road at Virginia Tech -- are all against second-tier teams and will go a long way toward determining the direction of State’s season.
“We’re prepared to go into ACC play,” Keatts said. “But as we know, ACC opponents are tough. Our guys will have to be physically and mentally ready to play.”
The physical part should be easy.
The Wolfpack will have had a full week off when it takes the court against the Tigers on Saturday and has played only three times in the last 21 days because of the holidays and exams.
While the relative inactivity during that stretch has helped State rest up and work on improvement at practice, junior guard Devon Daniels is anxious to start playing games again.
Regardless of who they’re against.
“I love playing basketball,” he said. “I really don’t worry too much about the schedule. I just go out there and play. Whenever the game is, I’ll be ready.”
Daniels doesn’t think his team will be rusty because of the light schedule.
“In practice we go really hard every single day,” he said. “There’s a lot of practice.”
Keatts is hoping that the disjointed schedule -- with two early conference games and long stretches without games -- is a temporary adjustment while the ACC figures out how to manage its new league schedule slate.
"It is a little weird, so I don’t think that it will stay this way the whole time," he said. "It is different.”
While the level of competition is about to increase exponentially, especially once State begins playing the likes of Louisville, Duke, Florida State, defending national champion Virginia and arch-rival North Carolina, senior point guard Markell Johnson said the Wolfpack’s approach to the games won’t change.
“We’re getting ready for every game,” he said. “Our first game of the season was against an ACC opponent, so we kind of know the feeling of what an ACC game is going to be like. We’ve got two under our belt now with Georgia Tech and Wake Forest and we want to continue to improve. … Every game is a dogfight, no matter what, in the ACC.”
