NC State
Florida State
Three-Pointers Push Pack Past Florida State, 75-59
2/10/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 10, 2004
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.--One day after returning to the top 25 for the first time since November, 21st ranked NC State looks like a team that's intent on staying there for a while. With seven different players hitting 3-pointers in the first half, the Wolfpack continued its winning ways on Wednesday night, beating Florida State at the RBC Center, 75-59. Leading the Wolfpack bomb squad was freshman guard Engin Atsur, who drilled 4-of-7 3s in a career-high 20-point performance. Julius Hodge added 16 points, while Marcus Melvin had 11 points and 10 rebounds as the Pack (15-5, 8-2) recorded its fourth consecutive win and its 11th straight over the Seminoles.
Another unsung hero for NC State was Scooter Sherrill, who paced a defensive effort that held Florida State scoring star Tim Pickett to just five points on 2-of-8 shooting from the floor. To go along with his outstanding defense, Sherrill also contributed 10 points on the offensive end.
"The job that Scooter did on Tim Pickett was sensational," said NC State head coach Herb Sendek. "I can't tell you how much Scooter Sherrill has improved on defense. He obviously came in as a player with an offensive reputation, but his experience and his know-how have come so far, maybe as much as any player we've had. It's to the point where we could literally put him on a guy like Tim Pickett and have a measure of confidence that he could do as well as anyone on our team."
Over his last three games, Pickett had averaged 25 points per game, while hitting 16 3-pointers. But on Tuesday night, the explosive senior had only one 3-point bomb, a shot that, ironically enough, was Florida State's first basket of the game.
The 3s were coming fast and furious in the opening half as the two teams combined to hit 22 in the first 20 minutes. But in the long haul, the Seminoles (16-8, 4-6) simply couldn't keep up. Not with Atsur, the poised rookie from Turkey, nailing three in a row over the first six-plus minutes. But Atsur wasn't alone. Sherrill, Melvin, Hodge and Ilian Evtimov also got involved as the Wolfpack's first eight field goals of the game came from long distance. Even when Melvin scored NC State's first 2-point field goal with 5:44 left in the first half, the play was turned into an old-fashioned 3-point play when he added a free throw following a foul. That play gave the Pack a 32-18 lead. And when Levi Watkins added his name to the 3-point club, NC State was up 37-18 with 4:15 left.
For the Wolfpack, it was simply a case of taking what the defense was giving up. With the Seminoles protecting the paint to cut off backdoor cuts and drives by Hodge, NC State was getting open look after open look on the perimeter.
"We really had pretty good looks and our guys were shooting the ball with great confidence," Sendek said. "I thought Julius Hodge with six assists and no turnovers got his teammates involved and really was responsible for opening up some of those early shots that we hit."
When the dust had settled by halftime, the Wolfpack was in front 41-28 after burying 10-of-19 long-range bombs in the opening 20 minutes.
But after watching Florida State overcome a 24-point deficit to defeat North Carolina last month, Sendek certainly wasn't feeling completely comfortable at the half. The Wolfpack then put that anxiety at ease to a certain extent by going a 13-4 run over the first seven minutes of the second half to open up a 24-point lead. That run was capped, appropriately enough, by Atsur, whose fourth 3-pointer of the night made it 56-32.
"Florida State was really helping in the post, so we would throw skip passes and find open 3s," said Atsur, who was 5-of-8 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the free throw line. "Our coaching staff always does a great job with the scouting report and before the game they told us to look for the skip passes. We were really able to find those open 3s in the first half. Everyone was confident and trusting each other."
Florida State, an excellent defensive team all season, did pull to within 11 points with just over five minutes to play when NC State went better than nine minutes without a field goal. But it was during that stretch that the Pack turned to another of its lethal weapons to hold the Seminoles at bay. Hitting 17 consecutive free throws during one segment of the second half, the nation's top free throw shooting team knocked down 21-of-26 for the game.
"I just think North Carolina State is playing like a team on a mission," said Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton. "They're sensing that they have an opportunity to be special. That best thing that happened to them is that they hadn't been ranked until now, so they've been working to get better and they've been motivated by the fact that they haven't been ranked. I knew all along that there couldn't be 25 teams better than the way they've been playing."
Although Pickett clearly wasn't 100 percent after injuring his backside while chasing down a loose ball in Sunday's game at Maryland, Hamilton said that really wasn't a factor. Freshman Von Wafer led Florida State with 12 points, while Raleigh native Anthony Richardson added 11. The Seminoles shot just 34.5 percent from the floor, although they did finish a respectable 8-of-20 from 3-point range.
NC State was 14-of-30 from the arc and shot 42.6 percent overall. The Wolfpack also came back from a halftime deficit to win the battle of the boards, 35-34.
