The urgency for NC State could hardly have been greater. A team that has long been seen as being good enough to be in the NCAA Tournament has been at best a bubble team for quite some time. After a loss at Boston College on Sunday – another damaging one as the Eagles have the worst NET ranking in the ACC – they came into Wednesday night with an RPI of 60.
The ACC isn’t as deep as it’s been, so adding to the urgency is that quality win opportunities are not as abundant as they have been in other years. That means bad losses have to be avoided even more since there are fewer chances to make up for them. But NC State is fortunate: they came into the day with two games against Duke and a home date with Florida State among their final six games. It’s not much, but it’s something. They just need a chance.
And boy, did they take advantage of the first chance. On Wednesday night, the Wolfpack blitzed Duke 88-66 in Raleigh in a game that was never really competitive.
NC State scored 10 of the game’s first 11 points, and Duke never got closer than five points after that. The Wolfpack were 8-13 from long range and shot over 45 percent from the field, while Duke never got going and also gave the ball away 13 times, three more than the Wolfpack did.
Carrying the Wolfpack were three main players: Markell Johnson (28 points on 10-19 shooting, including 5-6 from deep, and nine rebounds), Devon Daniels (25 points on 8-15 shooting and nine rebounds) and D.J. Funderburk (21 points on 8-15 shooting and also with nine rebounds). That each had nine rebounds leads to another stat: they out-rebounded Duke 51-43.
It wasn’t a perfect night, certainly, and it’s hard to expect that. Duke did grab 16 offensive rebounds, for one, and the Wolfpack’s 10 turnovers were matched by their 10 assists on just 32 baskets. That means they didn’t get a lot of scoring from moving the ball, although when you shoot like they did you can get away with a little better.
NC State doesn’t have a lot of margin for error remaining. They have lost to Georgia Tech twice, North Carolina and the aforementioned loss to the Eagles. But the bigger problem has been a lack of quality wins, as they have wins over Wisconsin and UNC Greensboro. Wins at Virginia and Syracuse help in that both are likewise bubble teams, but they don’t move the NCAA needle like they did in other years. The good thing is none of the losses are terrible ones – the Eagles’ NET is 142, not 242.
The Wolfpack are in better shape now that they can add Duke to their list of quality wins. But given the way this season has gone both for them and nationally, the final five games are not to be taken lightly. Another quality win will go a long way towards feeling safe on Selection Sunday, though a land mine loss could remove some of the benefits of those wins. The urgency is still there for this team.
Side Dishes
Kentucky’s cushion in the SEC got a little bigger as Georgia knocked off Auburn 65-55 in Athens. Though neither team really shot the ball well, the Tigers were worse off, shooting just over 31 percent including 4-26 from long range. Auburn is now 4-4 in true road games this season, and they join LSU and Florida two games back of Kentucky in the SEC. The other key matchup was in Starkville, where Mississippi State withstood a furious late rally by South Carolina to hang on for a 79-76 win to stop a three-game winning streak the Gamecocks had coming in.
In the Big East, Seton Hall was the only home team to win on the night, getting back on track by rallying from a halftime deficit and then getting an off-balance buzzer-beater to edge Butler 74-72. The Pirates had the ball under the basket with the scored tied with 0.6 left, and Sandro Mamukelashvili cut past his man and managed to get his hands on it and tip it up and into the basket as he was going off to his left away from the basket. In the other games, Providence went to the nation’s capital and used a big second half to knock off Georgetown 73-63, while Villanova took care of DePaul 91-71, dropping the Blue Demons to .500 overall and 1-12 in Big East play.
First place was on the line in the Southern Conference, and the matchup between the top two teams was about as good as advertised. East Tennessee State led most of the way in a 75-66 win over visiting Furman, as the Buccaneers shot 48 percent from the field and had a 41-24 rebounding advantage to win their sixth straight and go a game up in the standings with three to play. In the other big game on a big night, UNC Greensboro edged Wofford 83-79 in overtime, with the two teams combining for 40 points in the extra session. The Spartans join Furman a game back of East Tennessee State.
The leaders in the Summit League each held up their end of the bargain on the road Wednesday night. North Dakota State had the tougher matchup, as they went to South Dakota, but held off the Coyotes 77-74, while South Dakota State pulled away from North Dakota 94-83.
Colgate edged Lehigh 70-67 at Cotterell Court in a game whose start was delayed for an hour and 45 minutes due to a shattered backboard during warmups. Once the game got going, the league-leading Raiders scored the first nine points, but Lehigh rallied and it was a close game the rest of the way. The Raiders are now up two games on second-place Boston University as the Terriers went to Lafayette and lost 61-59, with the Leopards riding a big first half to the win. Lafayette won despite scoring just 18 points in the second half.
Other results of note: Michigan won their fourth straight game and handed Rutgers their first home loss of the season by a 60-52 margin; Louisville hammered Syracuse 90-66; Virginia took care of Boston College 78-65 in Charlottesville; Miami got a hard-earned road win as they beat Virginia Tech 102-95 in triple overtime; UCF edged Cincinnati 89-87 in double overtime; Memphis held off East Carolina 77-73, getting 24 points and 12 rebounds from Precious Achiuwa; Siena edged Iona 65-64 in a battle of MAAC contenders; Texas snapped a four-game losing streak by taking care of TCU 70-56 in Austin; Houston hammered Tulsa 76-43; Stephen F. Austin ran their winning streak to 10 games and their Southland Conference record to 14-1 with an 83-68 win over Central Arkansas; Indiana handed Minnesota their fifth loss in six games, a 68-56 win in Minneapolis behind 27 points and 16 rebounds from Trayce Jackson-Davis; and Texas Tech beat Kansas State 69-62.
Tonight’s Menu
A busy night of games is ahead, and although not heavy with big games there are a couple in the mid-major world.
- A pair of games are on tap in the Big Ten as Iowa hosts Ohio State (7 p.m.), then Michigan State heads to Nebraska (8:30 p.m.)
- A key game in the CAA race is on the slate as Towson hosts William & Mary (7 p.m.)
- First place is on the line in the Atlantic Sun as Liberty hosts North Florida (7 p.m.)
- Vermont will try to clinch at least a tie for the America East regular season title as they visit Stony Brook (7 p.m.)
- The Pac-12 has a busy slate with Oregon State at Arizona (8 p.m.), Oregon at Arizona State, USC at Colorado (9 p.m.), Stanford at Washington (10 p.m.) and UCLA at Utah (10:30 p.m.)
- Another one to watch out west is Gonzaga hosting San Francisco (11 p.m.)
