Only five scholarship players, including only one double-digit scorer in senior guard Jayden Taylor, return from the epic 2023-24 NC State basketball campaign. And only one of them, senior guard Breon Pass, was on the 2022-23 squad that initiated the program’s first back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances under now-eighth-year head coach Kevin Keatts.
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Who will lead the 2024-25 team in scoring? Will there be sufficient bucket-getters to fuel the Pack’s pursuit of more banners to hang next to the 2024 ACC Championship and Final Four threads set to unfurl in the Lenovo Center rafters ahead of NC State’s season opener at home against USC Upstate on Monday night?
Was the Wolfpack’s nine-game March winning streak, which followed a four-game skid at the end of the regular season, just a magical fluke with no chance of being matched by the widely overlooked collection in Raleigh this go-round?
Well, obvious concerns came to light in the 79-75 escape at home over Division II Lees-McRae in NC State’s final preseason tune-up on Friday night.
But that result didn’t count for anything other than a learning experience. As for the 7 p.m. ET tipoff (ACC Network Extra) against the visiting Spartans, in the words of Keatts, it’s not another “dress rehearsal.”
Now, judging from the narration by graduate guard and de facto leader Michael O’Connell, paired with the accompanying scenes from practice in the hype video that the NC State basketball social media team posted on Sunday evening, this season’s bunch appears eager to embark on the challenge of silencing the masses of naysayers.
RUN IT BACK. pic.twitter.com/CBpdS9dqky
— NC State Men’s Basketball (@PackMensBball) November 3, 2024
“Hard work got us to some crazy places,” O’Connell notes before the video (above) spotlights his recreation of the magical shot he hit against Virginia at the ACC Tournament to keep the Pack’s improbable dream alive, “when our dreams fell short [against Purdue in the Final Four].
“We had to start fresh.
“The work always shows…It’s time to block out the noise…Let’s run it back.”
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