Pack Opens Regular Season Monday Night against USC Upstate

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NC State Game Notes | USC Upstate Game Notes

RALEIGH – The NC State men's basketball team will open the regular season Monday evening when it hosts USC Upstate inside the Lenovo Center.

Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the game will be streamed on ACC Network Extra with Andrew Sanders and former Wolfpack basketball player Casey Morsell on the call.

Prior to tipoff, NC State will unveil two banners in the rafters of the Lenovo Center, one for the 2024 ACC Championship and another for advancing to the 2024 Final Four in Phoenix.

Fans are encouraged to be in their seats by 6:45 so they do not miss any of the pregame ceremony.

Pack Tracks
- NC State opens its 115th season of basketball Monday evening when it hosts USC Upstate.
- The Pack wrapped up the preseason last Wednesday with a 79-75 exhibition win over Lees-McRae.
NC State played 11 scholarship players in the game against the Bobcats and all 11 scored with Jayden Taylor leading the way with 11 points. The Pack had 10 players score at least six points in the game, but Taylor was the only player to reach double figures for NC State. The Pack's other preseason tune-up was a 'secret scrimmage' against South Carolina.
- NC State returns two starters from last season in Michael O'Connell and Jayden Taylor. O'Connell led the team in assists last season while Taylor is the team's leading returning scorer from last season.
- Also back for the Pack is forward Ben Middlebrooks and guards Dennis Parker, Jr., and Breon Pass.
- NC State welcomed eight new players to the roster in the offseason - five transfers and three freshmen. The Pack could have as many as seven players make their NC State debut on Monday night. Last season in the Pack's season-opener, six players made their NC State debut.

Monday Storylines
- NC State has won 29 of its last 30 home-openers when played against a non-conference opponent. (NC State fell to William & Mary in the season-opening contest of the 2015-16 season. In the 2019-20 season, NC State dropped a season-opening overtime game to Georgia Tech. That year the ACC had conference games on opening night to celebrate the new ACC Network.)
- In the last two seasons, NC State is 27-7 (.794) in home games, including a 14-0 mark against non-conference opponents.
- NC State has a 50-2 (.962) record against non-conference opponents in regular season home games under head coach Kevin Keatts.
- NC State has eight new players on its roster for the second consecutive season. Of those eight, seven could make their program debut on Monday night. Only redshirt junior Mike James is guaranteed to not make his debut as he will sit out the game after having his knee scoped in the preseason. Last year in the Pack's 72-59 season-opening win over The Citadel, NC State had six players make their program debut.

Celebrating Last Year's Postseason
- In a pregame ceremony close to tipoff against the Spartans, NC State will celebrate last season's accomplishments by unveiling two new banners in the rafters of the Lenovo Center. NC State will unfurl a 2024 ACC Championship banner and a 2024 Final Four banner.
- All of NC State team banners at the Lenovo Center were redone in the offseason and are now displayed together in the southeast corner of the arena bowl.

Recapping an Incredible March
- NC State put together a run last March that captured the entire nation's attention and gave Wolfpack fans some bragging rights over its neighbors in the process.
- The Pack effectively won nine consecutive elimination games as it won its 11th ACC Tournament Championship and advanced to the program's fourth final four (first since 1983).
- NC State won its 11th ACC Tournament Championship - and first since 1987 - completing a five games in five days stretch with a win over top-seed and rival North Carolina in the championship game.
- NC State was just the second team to win five games in five days to win its conference tournament, joining the 2011 UConn Huskies.
- There are six ACC teams that have won an NCAA National Championship. NC State is one of them. It beat the other five on its run to the ACC Championship. (Louisville, Syracuse, Duke, Virginia and North Carolina).
- The Wolfpack became the first team seeded eighth or lower to win the ACC Tournament and also the first 10 seed or lower to ever win a Power Six conference tournament.
- The Pack kept its run going in the NCAA Tournament, defeating six-seed Texas Tech and 14-seed Oakland to advance to the Sweet 16. In the Sweet 16, NC State dropped second-seed Marquette and then dominated fourth-seed Duke in the second half of their Elite 8 contest to advance to the Final Four.

NC State series with USC Upstate
- Monday will be the third all-time meeting between NC State and USC Upstate. The Pack who both previous meetings.
- The two programs last met on December 22, 2018 in the Lenovo Center with the Pack winning, 98-71. NC State scored 62 bench points in the win (most in the Keatts era) as five players reached double figures (four of the five coming from off the bench) for the Pack. Eric Lockett led NC State with 15 points as the win moved the Pack's record to 11-1, the program's best start through 12 games since the 2005-06 season.

New to the Pack but not to College Basketball
- With eight new faces for the Pack, you could come to the conclusion that NC State would have an inexperienced ball club this season, but you would be wrong. Of NC State's 13 scholarship players on the roster, seven will be playing their final season of eligibility this season.
- Overall, NC State has nine scholarship players that aren't new to NCAA DI (Pack has three true freshmen on the roster and junior Ismaël Diouf played his first two seasons of college basketball in Canada). Those nine players combine to have played 718 college basketball games and combine to have started 491 of them.
- NC State's starting lineup in the exhibition contest against Lees-McRae last Wednesday night (Michael O'Connell, Jayden Taylor, Marcus Hill, Dontrez Styles and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield) have played a combined 438 NCAA DI college basketball games and have started a combined 301 NCAA DI games.

Familiar Face … New Role
- Casey Morsell, who spent the last three seasons on NC State's men's basketball team, is transitioning into a new role after deciding to forego a professional basketball career. Morsell will be the analyst on the Pack's ACC Network Extra games this season.
- Morsell played in 105 career games in an NC State uniform, making 95 starts. He scored 1,072 points in his Pack career, becoming the 57th player in program history to reach 1,000 points in his NC State career.
- Morsell's 95 starts are the most for an NC State player in the Kevin Keatts era. The Ft. Washington, Md., native started the final 88 games of his NC State career, tied for the fourth-longest starting streak in program history.
- Last season, Morsell started all 41 games for NC State. The 41 games ties an NCAA DI record for most starts in a single season. He shares the record with UConn's Kemba Walker (2010-11) and Michigan's Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Charles Mathews (2017-18).

Pack Opens Regular Season Monday Night against USC Upstate

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Players Mentioned

Marcus Hill

Brandon Huntley-Hatfield

Mike James

Ben Middlebrooks

Casey Morsell

Michael O'Connell

Dennis Parker, Jr.

Breon Pass

Dontrez Styles

Jayden Taylor