Story Poster
Casey Morsell
Taylor & Horne
NC State Basketball

LOCKER ROOM REPORT: Wolfpack Players

February 20, 2024
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NC State's Casey Morsell, Jayden Taylor, and D.J. Horne met with the media following the Wolfpack's 87-83 loss to Syracuse Tuesday evening.

Morsell contributed five rebounds, four points, and one block against the Orange. Taylor came off the bench and added 10 points, two rebounds, two steals, and one assist. Horne powered the Pack with 32 points on 11-for-21 shooting, 6-for-9 from three, to go along with one assist, one rebound, and one steal.

NOTE: Click on each respective thumbnail to watch each interview in the player above.


Casey Morsell

“It’s a lot. Obviously, we came back. We wanted to win. It came down to the details and the little things, and we couldn’t capitalize at the end. It all started in the first half. We’re all responsible. Everybody played their role for us to be down in the first half. That’s what killed us, and it made a difference in the second half.”

“Well, it’s more of trying to figure out why. It could be a lot of different factors, but we’ve got to come out sharper and execute down the stretch.”

“It’s like I said: it came down to a possession game. Whatever happens at the end of the game, you’ve got to live with it, but I’m saying it was more in the first half. You have to play a complete game to win in this league. We didn’t do that tonight. Credit to them; they got us down 15 at halftime.”

“We tried to run [Chris Bell] off. He kept getting look after look. He has a quick release. Granted, we were there, but we’ve got to get there early. We had to run a box-and-one to make him a little more uncomfortable.”

“We’ll take it one day at a time. We’ve got a lot of basketball left, a lot of opportunity left. As you see, we can beat anybody in the league. The ACC is wide open. We can’t let this game be our season.”

Jayden Taylor

“It’s tough when you put yourself in a position where you have to fight back. It just didn’t go our way at the end.”

“We weren’t ready to play today. That can’t be our identity. That’s not a great identity to have, so we have to come out ready to play.”

“[Bell] hit his first couple and I guess the basket got big. We let him get too comfortable early. We knew we couldn’t let him get threes up and he did, and he made them all it felt like.”

D.J. Horne

“They shot the ball incredibly well. I don’t think that’s something that you can really prepare for heading into the game. Credit to them.  Bell was lights out tonight and he’s what I thought got us into the hole.”

“I knew they were going to be playing me tight so I wanted to try and create some space and think he would bite on it. I was gonna try and draw a foul, but the ref didn’t give me a foul, so we’ll move onto the next one.”

“We’ve still got a lot of good games left on our schedule so we definitely don’t want to just put ourselves out of it now. We know that our margin for error is a lot smaller now and we’re gonna have to lock in for these next couple games.”

 
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