RALEIGH, N.C. _ Out on the basketball court at PNC Arena on Wednesday night, the N.C. State students were still shoulder-to-shoulder, arms in the air as if in a mosh pit, reveling in a moment they wanted to savor. About 10 minutes had passed since the end of the Wolfpack's 88-66 victory against Duke, and those who'd rushed the court in celebration were in no hurry to leave.
Many of them held cellphone cameras high, recording the scene for posterity. A few sat atop the shoulders of their classmates for a better view. From a few rows up it looked like the court had disappeared, replaced by a joyful mob of red, none of whom were alive, or even close to being born, when these kinds of moments were not so unexpected.
Through a tunnel and down a hallway, N.C. State's players continued their own celebration in their locker room. They embraced each other, and the moment. A voice rose above the noise, and the player it belonged to screamed that he'd be staying up all night. Soon, Kevin Keatts, the Wolfpack's third-year head coach, met with reporters in another room.
And soon came the kind of question whose answer, in the positive, has eluded the Wolfpack for 30 years: How can it turn one night of excellence into sustained success? How does it build?
"You've got to let me enjoy tonight," Keatts said, smiling.
For one night, N.C. State looked like the team he'd hoped to see for months. For one night, N.C. State resembled not the program that has so often been a punchline during the previous three decades, but the one that was, in a bygone era, a force in the ACC. For one night, the Wolfpack provided a reminder of what it was, and perhaps a glimpse of what it still could be.
Yet the aftermath told a story, too. Students rushed the court in an act of mass catharsis. Later, some of them moved the celebration to the N.C. State belltower, off Hillsborough Street. A video the school shared on Twitter showed Keatts arriving in the middle of the party, students swarming him on sight. Thirty years in the basketball wilderness make the highs feel higher.
