ACC Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade

NC State

January 8, 2017 (at North Carolina 107, NC State 56) (GS: 6)

Plain and simple, Mark Gottfried did not do enough in his six years in Raleigh as head coach of this team. He did have two Sweet Sixteen appearances but his teams were never near the same level as nearby Duke and North Carolina. There were numerous games over the last decade that stood out as poor performances and it would be a disservice to those Tar Heel and Blue Devils fans not to take a few moments to identify those games.

There was the game in December 2010 where Wisconsin crushed them by 39, albeit in Sidney Lowe’s last year in charge. There was the game in January 2014 where the offense disappeared (as is often the case) at home against Virginia in a 31-point loss. There was also the opener of the 2016-17 season, where NC State was dropped at home by 17 by William & Mary. In this case, however, we’re going to side with both recentness and rivalry.

Taking the short trip to Chapel Hill and losing by 51 to the Tar Heels was one of the big nails in Gottfried’s coffin. It was already 26-4 eight minutes into an absolute laughter that NC State threw away with 24 turnovers, poor shooting and lousy effort. Justin Jackson’s 21 and Joel Berry’s 19 points were more than enough in a solid all-around effort by #14 North Carolina while NC State shot just 30% (7-23) from the 3 and not much better from the field (36.5%).

Kevin Keatts has brought new optimism to Raleigh, but things haven’t been pretty for some time. There’s hope that the filthy losses will be fewer and far between in this potent conference, and perhaps that hope has some backbone. Regardless, this absolute disaster of an offensive and defensive effort from NC State was inexcusable, and it’s a game that Tar Heel fans won’t soon forget.