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Hodge Leads NC State Over South Carolina, 76-64
12/8/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec 8, 2002
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.--For those who are `experienced' enough to remember such things, NC State and South Carolina once engaged in more than their share of memorable battles on the basketball court before the Gamecocks dropped out of the ACC in 1971. On Sunday night, the names had changed, but the nature of the game did not. In a hotly contested confronation that had a mid-February flavor to it, NC State defeated South Carolina 76-64 in a game that was much closer than the final score.
With a crowd of 12,069 looking on at the RBC Center, the Wolfpack got a tremendous effort from sophomore Julius Hodge, who tallied a career-high 26 points to go with nine rebounds and three assists. It was Hodge's personal 9-0 run that pushed his team over the top on a night when the Pack trailed for 30-plus minutes. NC State was down 54-53 at the 8:03 mark when Hodge took a feed from Marcus Melvin and scored while being fouled on a twisting layup. The ensuing free throw gave NC State its first lead since the first basket of the game.
On the Wolfpack's next trip down, Hodge buried a three from the left wing to give NC State a 59-54 advantage. Then Marcus Melvin got in on the act by drilling a long-range bomb of his own to make it an eight-point game. Those shots would ignite a 23-6 over a seven-minute period that would see the Pack go from one down at 54-53 to 16 points in front at 76-60 with less than a minute to play.
The late-game spurt was fueled by the scoring of Hodge and Melvin (18 points) and a relentless press that eventually caused the Gamecocks to buckle. Leading 32-31 at the half, South Carolina led by as many as six midway through the second half before the roof finally caved in.
"This game had all the intensity of a January or February conference game," said Wolfpack head coach Herb Sendek. "Our guys I thought really showed some resiliency. We had some cold early shooting, and our response to that was to just play harder. We just kept clawing and fighting."
And it was an uphill battle against a South Carolina team that hit big shots and played tough defense for most of the night. With Kerbrell Brown and Carlos Powell knocking down some big shots in the opening half, the Gamecocks confidently attacked NC State's fullcourt press to grab the momentum in the first 20 minutes.
The first half also featured a 15-minute delay brought on by a short power outage in the arena that knocked the TV lights out. When the officials notified the coaches that there would be an interruption of play, Sendek took his team to the locker room. At the time, NC State was trailing 16-10.
"We had a chance to review what had happened earlier in the game, which was good for us because the first few minutes weren't as good as we would have ideally liked," Sendek said. "We really had to give our guys a heads up; it's 16-10 and if we come out like it's the start of the game and they get a 6-0 run, it would suddenly be a 12-point deficit."
Following the delay, South Carolina moved in front by eight before the Pack clawed back within one at the break.
NC State, which made just 2-of-15 three-point attempts in the first half, finally got it going after intermission, especially Melvin. Just 2-of-7 from the floor in the first period, the sophomore from Fayetteville drilled 5-of-7 attempts in the second half, including 3-of-5 from the arc. The Wolfpack also got 15 points from Scooter Sherrill and 13 from center Josh Powell. As a team, NC State shot 49 for the game after connecting on 59 percent in the second half.
Hodge, of course, was the center of attention. He scored on drives, post-ups and from the perimeter. Whenever the Pack needed a big play, the 6-6 swingman always seemed to deliver.
"With this offense I don't have to be a point guard or a center, I'm just out there playing," said Hodge, who was 9-of-15 from the floor. "I was getting that ball and my teammates were feeding me. I was making some shots and I was so much into the flow of the game that I didn't really know what the score was. I just knew I wanted to win real bad."
The Pack also wanted it badly on the boards. Against a bigger South Carolina team that was outrebounding its opponents by five per game, NC State held a 34-23 edge on the glass.
"I think going into the game if you would have told me that we would have just been even with them on the boards I would have taken it because they were bigger than us at every position," Sendek said. "They started a huge college basketball line-up. We looked on the stat sheet and they had 18 offensive rebounds at Georgetown [on Wednesday]."
South Carolina, which shot 41.7 percent, was led by Powell, who notched 19 points. Brown added 15 and center Rolando Howell chipped in with 12. The Gamecocks also had 18 turnovers after turning the ball over 20 times in a close loss to the Hoyas earlier in the week.
"I'm very disappointed that we didn't the basketball game, but I do think that's a game we can build on," said former Wake Forest Coach Dave Odom, who's now in his second year at South Carolina. "I thought for as much as 30 minutes, our team played about as well as it could play. But it's a 40-minute game. We didn't play 40 minutes and NC State did."
A 40-minute battle that was reminiscent of the old days when NC State and South Carolina always seemed to keep fans on the edge of their seats.
