North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Defeats Arizona State, 79-68
1/29/2000 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Tony Haynes
Arizona State had Eddie House, but NC State had Damon Thornton, Justin Gainey, Damien Wilkins and a whole host of players. And that proved to be the difference in the Pack's 79-68 victory over the Sun Devils as the Entertainment and Sports Arena.
House, who came in as the Pac Ten's leading scorer, got his points. But his 31 weren't enough to offset NC State's balance. Thornton led five double-figure scorers with 23 points to go along with eight rebounds. Wilkins chipped in with 15, Gainey had 13, and Grundy 10. Guard Archie Miller added 11 off the bench.
All of this came after the Wolfpack had suffered through a horrendous performance in a surprising loss to Clemson on Thursday night. And following a five and a half hour bus ride back from Clemson on Friday, the Pack didn't have a lot of time to prepare for the high scoring Sun Devils.
"We've had a challenging week, we really have," said Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek. "Our performance on Thursday left a bad taste in our mouth. Our team got off the bus and immediately went back to work. Things certainly didn't come easy. We played a very capable team today with a lottery pick guard in Eddie House. Our team persevered through that and came out and held them to 32-percent shooting in the second half."
And while the Sun Devils cooled off dramatically after intermission, the Pack heated up. NC State shot a sizzling 68 percent (17 of 25) in the second half and finished the game at 57.4 percent.
There were seven lead changes and five ties in a first half that ended with Arizona State leading 40-37. About the only saving grace for the Pack in the opening 20 minutes was free throw shooting. While the Sun Devils got to the line just twice in the first half, NC State converted on 15 of 22 from the stripe."
"I'm not going to comment on the officiating," said Arizona State coach Rob Evans, who drew a technical foul while arguing a call with official Steve Gordan.
After trailing by three at the half, the Wolfpack went on an immediate 8-2 run to open play in the second stanza. A Thornton layup off of a nifty feed from Grundy gave NC State a 45-42 lead.
A Kyle Dodd runner with 12:42 remaining gave the Sun Devils a 54-53 edge. But following another Thornton layup, NC State grabbed the lead for good.
Leading by a 59-58 count at the 9:12 mark, the Wolfpack went on a 17-1 run over the next seven minutes to put the game away. Grundy's layup ended the blitz and gave the Pack an insurmountable 76-60 bulge with just over two minutes to play.
Guarded by Justin Gainey and Marshall Williams, the explosive House scored only two points during the decisive stretch.
"He didn't have any wide open looks that I can recall," Sendek said. "He's just a great player and there aren't a lot of answers to what he can do."
House, who scored 61 points against California earlier this season, made 11 of his 24 field goal attempts.
Meanwhile, Thornton was dominant in the low post, especially in the second half when he hit six of seven shots. By contrast, the 6-8-redshirt junior only scored two points against Clemson's double downs in the low post on Thursday. Arizona State paid for trying to play behind Thornton with just one player.
"Coach (Larry) Harris kept telling us that they couldn't guard us off the lane," Thornton said. "We work on that everyday in our skill workouts. It felt good to come out tonight and have the hard work pay off."
Arizona State's gambling halfcourt man to man defense forced 15 turnovers, but only four of those came in the second half. The NC State guards then did a good job of funneling the ball down low.
"I thought their inside game was a little bit of a problem for us," Evans said. "The biggest thing is we didn't contain dribblers like we needed to. They drove the basketball at us like we knew that they would because they are so athletic."
13,221 attended the game at the ESA.
