The win advances the lowest remaining seed in the tournament to Sunday's regional final against ACC rival No. 4 seed Duke. The Wolfpack also secured his sixth Elite Eight appearance in the program's storied history, his first since 1986.
“I always envisioned it in October,” graduate forward DJ Burns Jr. said. “It was, 'Why not us? We're going to continue to do that. We get a lot of disrespect. People still don't think we should be there, and we're going to continue to do that.' I don't think we're going to go any further. We're going to continue our efforts to crash the party.”
Point guard DJ Horn led NC State with 19 points, and guard Casey Morsell added 15 points on 7-of-12 shooting, a game in which the Wolfpack led for all but four minutes. Forward Mohamed Diarra managed 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting and grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds while managing his physical decline during Ramadan.
The Wolfpack (25-14) held Marquette to 4-of-31 (12.9 percent) 3-pointers, including 2-of-18 (11.1 percent) in the second half. The Golden Eagles (27-10) did nothing by missing countless looks from behind the arc.
The moment of truth came after Marquette cut the deficit to 58-52 on a 3-point play by Cam Jones with 3:39 left. The Wolfpack fought back with a contested turnaround jumper from Morsell and a 3-pointer from Michael O'Connell to extend the lead back to double digits with less than two minutes remaining.
Jones scored a game-high 20 points for the Golden Eagles, but fell short of eight points the rest of the game. North Carolina State, playing in the tournament for the first time since 2018 and having a one-season reprieve from losing in the Round of 64, sank four consecutive free throws in the closing seconds to keep Marquette at bay.
“I would say we were able to prove everyone wrong,” Morsell said of what was most gratifying about North Carolina State's rise. “Every game, we're pretty much the underdogs. We go into every game trying to buy into everyone who's doubting us and just go into the locker room and prove everyone wrong. We are having a conversation about how we should celebrate.”
The paths each team charted to get to this point included a turbulent second half of the regular season followed by a notable uptick due to a variety of circumstances.
The Golden Eagles lost two of three games heading into the Big East tournament, largely due to an oblique injury to point guard Tyler Kolek. As a result, Marquette was unable to lead the nation in assists (7.9) in six straight games. The transfer from George Mason returned in time for the start of the NCAA Tournament and helped Marquette advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013.
The last time NC State played in the Round of 16 was in 2015. On the other hand, this performance was unique in this season's NCAA Tournament. The Wolfpack has lost four straight heading into the ACC Tournament in Washington, D.C., and coach Kevin Keatts' job security is reportedly in jeopardy.
North Carolina State won five games in just a few days and won the conference tournament for the first time since 1987, thanks to the efforts of graduate transfers Burns and Horn. Barnes came to Raleigh from Winthrop. Horn began his career at Illinois State University and transferred to Arizona State University before playing at his hometown school.
“The difference in the game is when you can protect your team,” Keatts said. “When we defended the 3-point line, I thought that made a big difference. And then on the offensive end, I thought we really shared the ball. We did some good things. We didn't turn the ball over. It was a little more than I expected, but if you can get 14 assists on 26 field goals, it was a good night.”
The sixth game between both schools was also a notable commemoration. North Carolina State won its first national championship 50 years ago, defeating Marquette University 76-64 in the NCAA Tournament finals.
In the teams' most recent meeting, the Wolfpack shined in the first half, believable for a group playing in its eighth elimination game this month. After Golden Eagles forward David Joplin (0-of-7 3-pointers) missed three free throws with 2.2 seconds left, hard shooting and solid defense put NC State up 37-24 at halftime. took the lead.
NC State opened its first double-digit lead about seven minutes into the game and ended the first half on an 8-2 run. Jayden Taylor made a 3-pointer off a pass from Diarra, and the 6-foot-9, 275-pound Barnes used an up-and-down motion between two defenders for a layup.
“I think you can see on tape that their physicality and aggressiveness confused us at times,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “Certainly, there are some things we could have done or should have done differently with it, to counter force with force. It's not like we didn't talk about it during the game. No. A lot of the 3-point shots we got were good, but we didn't make them enough. I mean, if we're just 4 points out of 31 as a team, it's going to be hard to win.”