Pack Welcomes Wake Forest to PNC Arena for Senior Night

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RALEIGH, N.C. – The NC State men's basketball team closes the regular season Friday night when it hosts Wake Forest at 7 p.m. inside PNC Arena.

Friday is Senior Night and NC State will honor its four senior players and five senior managers.

The game will be televised on the ACC Network with Wes Durham and Paul Biancardi on the call. NC State fans can also listen to Gary Hahn and Tony Haynes on the Wolfpack Sports Network.

Pack Tracks
- NC State could not complete a season sweep of Duke, falling to the 12th-ranked Blue Devils, 88-69, at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday night. The Pack led for a majority of the first half before an 8-0 Duke run gave the Blue Devils a 38-36 halftime lead. NC State led 46-44, four minutes into the second half before a 15-3 Duke run gave the Blue Devils a lead it would never relinquish.
- NC State had five players score in double figures, led by the trio of C.J. Bryce, Devon Daniels and Jericole Hellems who are scored 14 points. D.J. Funderburk and Markell Johnson both added 11 points.
- The Pack enters the final weekend of the regular season with two players on top of the league in individual statistics. Freshman forward Manny Bates leads the ACC and ranks sixth in the NCAA with an average of 2.93 blocks per game and Markell Johnson leads the ACC and ranks 11th in the NCAA with an average of 6.52 assists per game. Bates is vying to become just the second player in NC State history (BeeJay Anya - 2014-15) to lead the ACC in blocks since the blocked shot started being counted as a statistic in the 1976-77 season. He can become the first freshman to lead the ACC in blocks since Florida State's Solomon Alabi in the 2008-09 season. Johnson previously lead the ACC in assists as a sophomore and can become the first ACC player to win multiple assist titles since North Carolina's Kendall Marshall (2010-11 and 2011-12). Johnson would become the first NC State player to lead the ACC in assists in multiple seasons since Chris Corchiani (1988-89 and 1990-91).

NC State NCAA Tournament Resume
- Thru games of Wednesday, March 4 - NC State has a 4-5 record against Quad 1 opponents.
- Two of the Pack's four Quad 1 wins are on the road. Overall, NC State has a 4-5 road record against Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents.
- The Pack currently has an 8-10 record against Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents.
- NC State has three wins over teams that are first or second in their conference (Wisconsin, Duke, at Virginia) and a fourth win on the road over a UNCG that went 13-5 in the SoCon.
- NC State has five road wins this season.
- On NC State's team sheet created by the NCAA, the Pack's NET ranking of 59 is its lowest ranking. Sagarin ratings (57), KPI Sports (51), ESPN's BPI (48) and KenPom (55) all rank the Pack higher.
- NC State has had significant personnel issues in in seven of its 12 losses. Markell Johnson and D.J. Funderburk did not play in the Pack's loss to Georgia Tech on 11/5/19. C.J. Bryce missed the Pack's losses at Clemson (1/4/20) and at Virginia Tech (1/11/20). Manny Bates and Pat Andree did not play in the Pack's loss at Georgia Tech (1/25/20). Pat Andree also missed NC State's losses to North Carolina (1/27/20), at Boston College (2/16/20) and Florida State (2/22/20)
- The Pack is 13-5 this season when it has its top-eight scorers available for the game. It's 5-7 when it is missing one or more of its key players.

Friday Storylines
- Friday will be the final game at PNC Arena for NC State's Pat Andree, C.J. Bryce, Danny Dixon and Markell Johnson. Johnson played all four years of his college career at NC State and is just the third player in program history to score 1,100 career points, pass out 500 assists and register 150 steals. Bryce has played for Kevin Keatts for all five years of college basketball. Bryce spent his first two seasons at UNCW before transferring to NC State. After sitting out the 2017-18 season, Bryce enters Friday having started 57 of his 62 career games in an NC State uniform and has scored 765 points (12.3 ppg) in his two-year career with the Wolfpack. Andree and Dixon are both grad transfers spending their final season of college eligibility with NC State. Andree burst onto the scene and hit 23 three-pointers in the first 11 games of the season, but ankle injuries have slowed him in ACC play. Dixon has provided valuable experience and front court depth behind Manny Bates and D.J. Funderburk. With Bates out of the lineup in January, Dixon stepped in and played a season-best 15 minutes and pulled down a season-high five rebounds as NC State knocked off reigning National Champion, Virginia.
- NC State will also honor senior managers Gabe Gonnella, Wes Manning, Austin Parker, Sergio Rosales and Ben Williams on Friday.
- Friday marks the 100th game as head coach at NC State for Kevin Keatts. Keatts has a 63-36 record as head coach of the Pack. He has led the program to seven wins over ranked opponents, including five victories over teams ranked in the top-10. He took over a program that had only won nine ACC games combined in the two seasons prior to him. In his three seasons as head coach, he has led the Pack to 29 ACC regular season wins and has won at least nine conference games all three seasons.
- Sophomore forward Jericole Hellems has stepped up on the offensive end for NC State over the last four games. The St. Louis, Mo., native is averaging 13.0 points per game on 59.4% (19-of-32) shooting, including 54.5% (6-of-11) from three-point range.
- Senior guard Markell Johnson enters the game Friday night with 189 assists on the season and 586 for his career. He needs two assists to establish a career-high for assists in a season; four assists will move him past Lorenzo Brown for third on the program's all-time assists chart and eight assists will move him into the single-season top-10 list for assists in a season.

NC State - Wake Forest Series
- NC State leads the all-time series with Wake Forest, 145-106. Kevin Keatts is 4-1 against the Demon Deacons as head coach of NC State.
- NC State is 15-5 against the Demon Deacons in PNC Arena.
- In the meeting earlier this season, six NC State players scored in double figures led by C.J. Bryce with 18 points as the Pack never trailed in winning at Wake Forest, 91-82.

Pack Welcomes Wake Forest to PNC Arena for Senior Night

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Players Mentioned

Pat Andree

BeeJay Anya

Manny Bates

C.J. Bryce

Devon Daniels

Danny Dixon

D.J. Funderburk

Jericole Hellems

Markell Johnson