CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – ACC play has started, and that means it’s time for North Carolina State. It’s time for the Wolfpack to live up to their preseason buzz. It’s time for Tracy Smith to show how much the team missed him in non-conference play, when they couldn’t break through against their toughest opponents. It’s time for the young players to live up to their billing and grow up quickly.
“This is it now, this is how it’s going to be for us,” head coach Sidney Lowe said after the Wolfpack’s 75-66 loss at Boston College. “All of our games are going to be this way. We need to make the right plays, we need to make the right decisions. The young guys are starting to see what we mean now, this is ACC play.”
The Wolfpack were a trendy pick to make a big leap in the preseason, with many thinking they can at least be in the top four in the ACC with the talent boost an excellent freshman class gives them. With the ACC being wide open after Duke, it’s a pick that makes sense and anyone who thinks they can finish second is not being unreasonable. But a knee injury to Smith in November didn’t help, and with him out for 10 games, they didn’t break through against the likes of Georgetown, Syracuse or Arizona while getting hammered at Wisconsin in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Their best non-conference win came against George Mason, a team that isn’t likely to get an at-large bid.
Smith returned on January 1 against San Diego, and the Wolfpack extended their winning streak to five games coming into Tuesday night’s game in Chestnut Hill. They easily handled Wake Forest, the worst team in the ACC, in their opener, but now the tests start.
Although the Wolfpack never led by more than three on Tuesday night, they had that lead on three occasions. The last instance of it was a 60-57 lead with 4:20 left after Smith made a layup. Boston College then responded with a 12-0 run that began with two three-pointers by Biko Paris sandwiched around one by Corey Raji. That was just one end of the court.
On three straight possessions after the Eagles tied it, the Wolfpack came up empty, including one where they had to heave a shot up from well behind the three-point line as the shot clock ran down, and it drew no iron for a shot clock violation. Boston College came down the other end and hit two more three-pointers, taking a 66-60 lead that seemed a lot bigger.
“It changed the game a lot,” said Smith, who paced the Wolfpack with 18 points.
Boston College led by as many as 11 in the first half as the Wolfpack struggled out of the gates. NC State then turned up the defense to get back in the game, and went into the locker room down by just two. Lowe was happy with the effort, especially to get back in the game and later take the lead, but down the stretch the defense wasn’t there like it was in the first half. He felt they relaxed when they had the lead, small though it was, and that hurt them.
“The things that we were doing early, for whatever reason we didn’t talk it through late, and it cost us,” said Lowe. “We kind of lost our concentration on the defensive end.”
It wasn’t just in the end result that the late-game defense was troubling. Lowe and a couple of players all noted that the Eagles ran plays during the decisive run that they talked about in the scouting report. It was all there, but they didn’t make the plays. That added to the disappointment in the loss.
Lowe noted that his talented freshmen are further along offensively than defensively, which is typical since offense is emphasized more among young players. C.J. Leslie had 15 points and nine rebounds, making both of his three-point shots. Ryan Harrow added 11, while Lorenzo Brown was fine offensively without big numbers. But no one could contain Boston College star Reggie Jackson, who had 29 points and six assists, going 9-13 from the field. In the second half, the Eagles shot over 55 percent from the field.
“They’re learning how good these guys are in terms of guarding them,” said Lowe. “From a defensive standpoint, they still have a ways to go.”
The game was a chance for the Wolfpack to pick up an NCAA Tournament resume win, something they needed and especially with Smith back in the lineup. Boston College is the only team to defeat Texas A&M, and they have also knocked off Maryland and South Carolina, so despite losses to Yale and Harvard (the latter not a bad loss), they would likely be in the NCAA Tournament if it started tomorrow. It was also a chance to get a road win, something not to be taken lightly since they have one in just four tries on the season and Tuesday was the first in a stretch of nine games where six will be outside of Raleigh.
“There’s an art to winning, and I feel like we’re clawing at it, we just can’t grab it and reel it in right now,” said sophomore Scott Wood, who had 12 points. “We just need to grasp that when you’ve got a team down five or more points, you’ve got to keep going, and that’s when you’ve got to really pick up your defense. I feel like tonight we didn’t do that.”
It’s a missed opportunity, but the Wolfpack will have more, and soon. That means it’s time for them to show that they are the team many thought they were in the preseason, because they haven’t quite shown that just yet.
