Can North Carolina State keep its 9-game win streak alive against Purdue?

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The 11th-seeded North Carolina State basketball team has seemed to find nine lives during the postseason and its next task will be to capture its 10th-straight win.

Since the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament began in early March, the Wolfpack overturned a middle-of-the-road performance in the conference where they went 9-11 and rattled off five wins at the tournament to secure their only hope.

Even with the automatic bid from the conference championship win over North Carolina, N.C. State wasn’t seen as a favorite in the NCAA Tournament. But the Wolfpack knew where they stood.

“I feel like it wasn’t even a huge switch. We had known our whole season that we could be a good team,” forward Ben Middlebrooks said. “If anything, it was the focus and the belief that we had in each other and in the team that put us over the edge. We knew we had talent, skill, if we just fixed some small things, and played together, we could make a run like this. That was our mindset and that was what got us this far.”

The four-straight wins in the NCAA Tournament, including a 76-64 win against blueblood Duke in the Elite Eight secured N.C. State its first Final Four since 1983.

“We’re probably a little different than everybody else that’s here in the Final Four,” head coach Kevin Keatts said. “We talked about coming here and having a lot of fun, then obviously getting down to business when we have to. But I love the way our team’s playing. I don’t know that anybody has ever had nine elimination games to make it to the Final Four.”

The road to capturing the 10th-straight win will get even harder. With Purdue up next, N.C. State will face center Zach Edey, who stands at 7’4”, is a space eater and will demand a lot of defensive attention. N.C. State has faced tough matchups in the tournament with Duke’s Kyle Filipowski in the Elite Eight. But Edey is different.

More: When he outgrew baseball, Zach Edey picked up a basketball and Purdue fans are happy

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/north-carolina-state-keep-9-110317073.html

Author : AZCentral | The Arizona Republic

Publish date : 2024-04-06 11:03:17

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