Burns' 31 fuels NC State comeback victory over Wake Forest
DJ Burns Jr. and the NC State Wolfpack got the best of Wake Forest on Saturday afternoon, overcoming a 10-point second-half deficit to win 79-77. Burns had a career-high 31 points on 14/26 shooting, and Steve Forbes’ group had no answers in the second half, despite employing several approaches.
“Unbelievable performance from him,” Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes said. “I’ve coached against him before when he was at Winthrop, it wasn’t news to me. I know we have 14,000 people in here who think they can coach, telling me to double team the post. Did you see what happened when we did that? We watch film after film on this guy, he can pass. He’s a great passer. We knew going in you had to make him go right. You have to make him shoot it over your body. In the first half we did a good job of that, in the second half we did not.”
Though Burns was phenomenal, his performance wasn’t the sole reason the Deacs came up short. Their execution in several other key areas of the game left a lot to be desired, and once again they paid dearly for it down the stretch.
“31,13, 48 [as] I look at the box score,” Forbes said. “31 points by DJ Burns, 13 offensive rebounds and 48 points in the second half were the tale of the tape, to me how we lost the game.”
Wake Forest led for most of the game until NC State caught fire in the second half and embarked on a 15-4 run that erased the deficit in an instant. The Deacs were ice cold on both ends of the floor, unable to stop Burns and co. on defense and struggling to create quality possessions on offense.
“I don’t think we played very good offense the second half,” Forbes said. “[NC State is] a very quick, athletic team. They’re physical, they’re tough, they’re older. I thought they sped us up on offense. We scored enough points to win, but there was a stretch there in the second half where our offense was just as bad as our defense.”
The Deacs have now lost three games in a row for the first time since the 2020-2021 season. After starting 10-0 at home, Wake has dropped their last two games on their home court, with a brutal road loss to Pitt sandwiched in between. The team needs to flip the switch fast, as a battle with Duke in Cameron Indoor looms on Tuesday.
“We’ve got to come out hungry,” Tyree Appleby said. “I think we got too comfortable when we had our four-game win streak and everything. We forgot what got us to that point. We have to get back to our old ways. Knowing that the offense is going to handle itself, but we need to pick it up on the defensive end.
After their second two-point loss in as many games, it would be easy for team morale to take a serious dip. And with the team sitting just a game over .500 with nine games remaining in conference play, there’s a lot riding on the rest of the season. Maintaining energy and focus will be crucial in the games to come.
“These are hard-fought games,” Forbes said. “It’s not going to do me any good to just go in there and pound on them. I’ve got to make them more confident. I’ve got to keep their energy up. I’ll do that. It’s a grind, you have to have a short memory in this thing. You can’t dwell on it because it just keeps coming at you. There’s good teams and it’s going to be a battle every night. You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low.”
Wake Forest faces off with Duke on Jan. 31. Tip off is set for 7pm ET on ESPN.
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Ben is a managing editor and lead contributing writer for Deacons Daily. Ben has a year of experience as the Sports Editor for the Old Gold & Black, and a year of experience as the publication’s print managing editor. He has a journalistic profile of over 40 published news and sports pieces for the Dayton Daily News.