Pack Opens ACC Play Saturday at Clemson

Saturday, December 30

Clemson, SC

4:00 PM

NC State

Clemson

12/29/2017 2:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball

RSN | WatchESPN | Live Stats | NC State Game Notes

RALEIGH, N.C. – The NC State men's basketball team opens ACC play Saturday afternoon at Clemson.

The Pack comes into Saturday's game with a 10-3 record, while Clemson is 11-1 and receiving votes in the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Poll.

The game is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. and will be televised on Regional Sports Networks with Wes Durham and Dan Bonner on the call. The game will be shown in the Raleigh area on Fox Sports South. Other RSNs also showing the game are FOX Sports Florida, FOX Sports Midwest Plus, YES, NBC Sports Washington Plus, NESN, AT&T Sportsnet Pittsburgh Plus, SportsTime Ohio, FOX Sports Detroit, FOX Sports North, FOX Sports Wisconsin, FOX Sports Southwest, FOX Sports Arizona, FOX Sports Prime Ticket, FOX Sports San Diego, AT&T Sportsnet Las Vegas (delay broadcast - 8pm ET) and Root Sports Northwest (delay broadcast - 6am ET).

Wolfpack fans can also listen on Wolfpack Sports Network with Tony Haynes and Chucky Brown calling the action.

Pack Tracks
- NC State closed the non-conference season Friday night with a record-breaking 116-64 win over Jacksonville. The Pack hit a program-record 19 three-pointers in the win as Allerik Freeman hit a career-high seven and Sam Hunt hit a season-high six. NC State set a PNC Arena team scoring record with 116 points. It's the most points in a game for the Pack since defeating UNC Asheville, 120-71, on Dec. 20, 1995. The 52-point win was the second-highest margin of victory in PNC Arena history.
- NC State has scored in triple digits three times this season, the most since accomplishing the feat four times in the 1995-96 season. The Wolfpack has defeated Jacksonville, 116-64, VMI, 102-67, and South Carolina State, 103-71.
- Lennard Freeman and Omer Yurtseven have been efficient scorers for the Pack this season. The two combine to average 24.0 points per game. Freeman is shooting 74.4% from the field, while Yurtseven is shooting 66.3%. Freeman and Yurtseven would rank first and second in the ACC in field goal percentage, but both fall just short of the required average of five made field goals per game to qualify. (Freeman averages 4.5 made field goals per game and Yurtseven averages 4.8 made field goals per game.)

Bench Production
- NC State's bench is averaging to score 25.4 points per game this season. The Pack's bench has outscored the opponents bench, 330-227 this year.
- NC State's bench has outscored the opponents bench in nine of 13 games this season.
- In the win over No. 2 Arizona at the Battle 4 Atlantis, NC State's bench outscored Arizona's, 39-6. Braxton Beverly had 20 points off-the-bench for the Pack in the win, while Omer Yurtseven had 11 points and a team-best nine rebounds.
- In the game against Northern Iowa, NC State's bench outscored the Panther's, 30-2. Yurtseven led the team in points (17) and rebounds (13) in the game against UNI.
- Against Penn State, NC State's bench outscored the Nittany Lions, 39-9. The Pack's bench consisting of Yurtseven, Sam Hunt and Lavar Batts, Jr., combined to shoot 12-for-15 from the field (80 percent), including 9-for-10 from three-point range.
- In 3 games against Power Conference opponents this season (Arizona, Tennessee & Penn State), the Pack's bench has outscored the opponents, 91-37.

Abu Climbing NC State Career Charts
- NC State senior forward Abdul-Malik Abu is steadily climbing the NC State career record book. The Boston, Mass., native entered the season with over 1,000 career points and is aiming to become the first player since Todd Fuller from 1993-96 to lead the program in rebounding for three consecutive seasons.
- Abu currently sits in 45th place on the NC State career scoring chart, 20th on the program's career rebounding list and fifth on the Pack's career offensive rebound rankings.

Pack Rewriting NC State/PNC Arena Record Books in Kevin Keatts First Season
- NC State has already broke three PNC Arena records and one program record in the first few months of the Kevin Keatts era. This season marks the 19th season NC State has called PNC Arena home. The arena opened on October 29, 1999.
- NC State's 116 points against Jacksonville on Dec. 22 is the most in PNC Arena history. (Previous mark was 113 set by UNC-Chapel Hill against Mount St. Mary's on March 21, 2008.) It is the most points in a game for NC State since defeating UNC Asheville, 120-71, on Dec. 20, 1995.
- NC State's 19 three-pointers against Jacksonville on Dec. 22 are the most in PNC Arena history and the most in program history. The previous high in PNC Arena was 17 three-pointers by ECU on Nov. 15, 2011 against Northwestern. The previous program high was 18 against Florida State on Feb. 10, 1992.
- NC State's 31 assists against South Carolina State on Dec. 2 are the most in PNC Arena history. The previous high was 28 set twice prior to this season. The Pack had 28 assists in the win over Jacksonville on Dec. 22. In two of the first nine games at PNC Arena in the Kevin Keatts era, the Pack had the most and tied-for-second most assists in a game in the 19-year old arena.
- NC State's 52-point win over Jacksonville on Dec. 22 (116-64) is the second-largest margin of victory in PNC Arena history (55; NC State 99-44 over Campbell on Nov. 26, 2004 is largest). It's the largest margin of victory for NC State since Dec. 1, 1998 vs. Army (+61, 94-33).
- NC State forced Bryant into 27 turnovers on Nov. 14. It ranks as the third-most turnovers in a game in PNC Arena history. It's the most turnovers the Pack has forced an opponent to commit since Mount St. Mary's had 27 on Nov. 22, 2002.

Freshman Braxton Beverly Shining in Freshman Season
- Freshman guard Braxton Beverly has seen his production go up as the Hazard, Ky. native has gotten more comfortable playing at the college level this season. Beverly wasn't cleared to play for NC State this season until Tuesday, Nov. 14 after initially being declared ineligible by the NCAA.
- Beverly currently leads the ACC with a 3.5 assist-to-turnover ratio. The freshman guard has had only one game this season with more turnovers than assists and has had one turnover or fewer in eight of the 11 games he's played in this season.
- After only having 10 assists in the first six games of the season (1.7 per game), Beverly has 39 assists in the last five games (7.8 per game)
- For the season, Beverly is shooting 34.5 percent from three-point range, but he has been feast or famine from three-point range this season. He has not connected on a three-pointer in five of 11 games this season. In those five games he is a combined 0-for-14 from three-point range. Beverly has made multiple three-pointers in the other six games he has played on this season. In the six games he's made a three-pointer, he is averaging to hit 3.2 per game and is shooting 46.3% (19-for-41) from long-range.

Shooting Success for Pack Trio
- NC State's Torin Dorn, Lennard Freeman and Omer Yurtseven have all been efficient scorers for the Pack this season.
- Dorn is shooting 57.9 percent from the field this season (70-for-121) and has shot 50 percent or better in 9 of 13 games, including five consecutive games entering Saturday's contest at Clemson.
- Freeman is shooting 74.4 percent from the field this season (58-for-78) and has shot 50 percent or better in every game, but one this season. He has shot 13-for-15 (86.7%) in the last three games.
- Yurtseven is shooting 66.3 percent from the field this season (63-for-95) and has shot 50 percent or better in 11 of 13 games, including 10 consecutive games entering Saturday's contest at Clemson.

Constant Defensive Pressure leading to Opponent Turnovers
NC State head coach Kevin Keatts came to Raleigh promising that his program would pressure the opponents full court and create turnovers.
- The Pack has forced eight of its 13 opponents this season into 16+-turnovers. Four times, the Pack has forced opponents into 20 or more turnovers in a single game. The last NC State team to force opponents into 20 or more turnovers four times in a season was the 2009-10 team. The last seven NC State teams (2010-11 team through 2016-17 team) only twice forced opponents into 20 turnovers (2010-11 team forced East Carolina into 20 turnovers on 11/18/10 and 2016-17 team forced Virginia Tech into 20 turnovers on 1/4/17). In Keatts first four games at NC State, his teams forced opponents into 21 (VMI), 24 (Charleston Southern), 27 (Bryant) and 22 (Presbyterian) turnovers.
- The 27 turnovers NC State forced Bryant into on Nov. 14 are the most turnovers the Pack has forced an opponent to commit since Mount St. Mary's had 27 on Nov. 22, 2002.
- In the first four games this season, the Pack forced its opponents into more turnovers than made field goals.
- In 13 games, the Pack has forced 220 turnovers. The 16.9 turnovers forced per game ranks tied for 32th in NCAA Dl and are the second most forced turnovers by a team from the ACC.
- NC State recorded 14 steals in Tuesday's win over Bryant. It's the most steals in a game for NC State since the Pack had 16 steals in a win over Boston College on Jan. 19, 2012. It was a 192-game span between 14+-steal games for the Pack. NC State has 112 steals in 13 games this season, a mark that ranks second in the ACC and 23rd overall in NCAA DI. Last season, the Pack

Winning the Turnover Battle
Not only have the Pack been forcing turnovers, but they have been protecting the basketball, too. NC State has had 10 or fewer turnovers in six of its 13 games this season.
- The Pack is +60 in turnover margin. Pack has forced 220 turnovers and only turned it over themselves 160 times. +60 turnover margin is the best in the ACC.
- Major turnaround from last year's team. Last season, NC State finished the season -67 in turnover margin, including -14 mark in non-conference games.

Healthy Freeman Becoming an Offensive Force
NC State senior Lennard Freeman had offseason leg surgery prior to the 2015-16 season and after playing through pain that season, elected to have offseason leg surgery again prior to the 2016-17 season and sat out the year to recover. Now fully healthy, Freeman has started his senior season with an offensive outburst.
- A career 3.6 points per game average coming into the season, Freeman has reset his career-high three times this season and is averaging 12.1 points per game through 13 games. He opened the year with 15 points against VMI, had 20 against Bryant and then had 23 in the Pack's win against Presbyterian.
- Freeman is shooting a team-best 74.4 percent from the field this season. Freeman would lead the ACC in field goal percentage, but falls just short of the minimum number of field goal makes to rank among ACC leaders. To be listed you have to average 5 made field goals per game, Freeman has made 58 field goals in 13 games (average of 4.7 per game).
- The senior is connecting on 73.2 percent of his foul shots (41-of-56). The Washington D.C. native, entered this season a career 47.9 percent free throw shooter.
- In 103 career games coming into this season, Freeman had only scored in double figures six times, he's scored in double figures in 8 of 13 games this season.
- Has already scored 150 points this season, the most points he has ever scored in a single season in his career.
- The game against Presbyterian on November 16 was the 107th career game in an NC State uniform for Freeman. It was the first time in those 107 games that Freeman led NC State in scoring. Freeman led the Pack in scoring for the second time in his career with 19 points in a 103-71 win over South Carolina State on Dec. 2.
- Freeman, who entered this season as a player best known for doing the gritty things that don't show up in the box score, has also set career-highs with three steals and three blocks this season, both set against Presbyterian.