North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State
Washington
No. 13 NC State Edges Washington, 77-72
2/22/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 22, 2004
By Tony Haynes
Raleigh, N.C.--Before giving Herb Sendek a happy 41st birthday present, NC State's 13th ranked college basketball team made its coach sweat a little. Trailing by three at intermission and by as many as eight points in the second half, the Wolfpack rallied to take down Washington on Sunday night, 77-72. Senior forward Marcus Melvin led the Pack with 16 points and eight rebounds, but State also got a lift from the likes of Scooter Sherrill, Ilian Evtimov and reserve center Jordan Collins in improving its record to 17-6.
When it was over, NC State's players gathered in the locker room to serenade Sendek with what could be described as either a memorable or regrettable version of "Happy Birthday."
"I'm a lot older, wiser," Sendek said. "Coaching is like being a dog - you age seven years to every one. I'll take the win. It's the best present I can have along with my family tonight. [The team] sang "Happy Birthday" after the game and I can tell you, our choir, our glee club, has nothing to worry about."
Sendek had every reason to be in a joking mood after watching his team nail down its 14th straight home victory against one of the hottest teams on the west coast. Having won eight of their last nine games, the Huskies (13-10, 8-6 Pac-10) showed the crowd of 15,011 at the RBC Center that their recent success, which included a win over nationally ranked Arizona, was certainly no fluke.
With athletic forward Bobby Jones hitting for a career-high 22 points and electric 5-8 guard Nate Robinson going for 13, the high-scoring Huskies hit shots from all over the place and made themselves very difficult to guard.
Shooting 53.6 percent from the floor in the first half, Washington was up 34-31 at the break. That lead grew to eight points on a Jones layup with 12:23 remaining. Suddenly, the NC State team that had just seen its five-game ACC winning streak vanish with an ugly loss at Clemson on Wednesday night, was back on the ropes again. Then, to make matters worse, the Pack's best player, Julius Hodge, went to the bench with four fouls with 11:35 remaining and his team down 55-50.
"We put our foot down and said that we had to get this one," said Evtimov, whose 12-point performance included some huge 3-pointers in the second half. "We couldn't let these guys come in here and win against us at home. We started playing harder, started making some big shots and got some huge offensive rebounds."
And it was Evtimov's big shots that spurred a 13-3 run midway through the second half. The redshirt sophomore finally got the Pack over the hump with a big 3 from the left wing that gave NC State its first lead of the second half at 61-60 with 7:07 left. Three minutes later, Evtimov broke a 64-64 tie with another long-range bomb. All this from a player who was shooting just 23 percent from the arc before Sunday's game.
A little extra work on Saturday - when Evtimov made 170 consecutive free throws - certainly didn't hurt.
"I've been doing some extra work before practice and after practice," said Evtimov, who was 4-of-6 from 3-point range on Sunday. "Yesterday I was shooting free throws and coach Sendek cut me off to go watch some film. I was kind of mad because I was at 155 [in a row]. I went back and made 15 more."
And while Evtimov's big 3-pointers keyed the comeback, a strategy switch by Sendek and his staff also paid off when NC State went to a match-up zone that seemed to slow the Huskies down over the last 10 minutes.
"Our defense tightened in the second half, but only after we switched to the zone," Sendek said. "I think it negated their ability to use ball-screens as effectively. If nothing else, it just took them out of flow. We had given them a steady diet of man-to-man and we really hadn't showed zone here recently. It was just enough to get the momentum swung back in our direction."
But the Pack still had to overcome some heroics by the high-soaring Robinson, whose spectacular rebound dunk with just over eight minutes left may go down as one of `plays of the year' anywhere in college basketball. Using his 40-inch vertical leap, Robinson also made an impossible runner from 12 feet out to bring Washington within two points with 2:00 left.
Following a Melvin layup and a Hodge free throw, NC State was up 73-68 with just over a minute to play before the Huskies made another move. Washington, which has posted 11 come-from-behind wins this year, got two free throws from Robinson to make it 73-70 with 1:05 remaining. Then with 41 seconds left, Jones intercepted an ill-advised pass by Evtimov and went the other way for an uncontested dunk to trim the lead down to just one-point.
Then, after two missed free throws by freshman Engin Atsur, Washington had the ball back with a chance to take the lead, but when Brandon Roy missed a jumper, the Huskies were forced to foul Melvin on the rebound. Calmly stepping to the line, the senior drained two to give NC State a 75-72 advantage with 17 second left. Needing a 3-pointer to tie, Washington got Robinson off of a screen for a decent look on the other end, but the ball clanked off the front of the rim and into the hands of the Wolfpack's Cameron Bennerman, who then hit a pair of free throws with just five seconds left to clinch it.
For NC State, which shot 42 percent for the game, Sherrill finished with 13 points while Hodge had 11. The Wolfpack also got a huge boost from junior center Jordan Collins, who tallied a career-high 10 points off the bench on a 4-of-5 shooting touch.
"We had some guys really step up," Sendek said. "First and foremost, there was Jordan Collins. We don't win tonight without Jordan Collins. I thought he was outstanding. Ilian made some big 3s down the homestretch and you could just see his confidence growing. Cameron Bennerman gave us solid minutes and came up with a big rebound in crunch time."
After blistering the nets in the opening half, Washington cooled off against the zone in the second 20 minutes and made only 37.8 percent of its shots after intermission. Overall, the Huskies were 29-of-65 (44.6) for the game and were also outrebounded 40-36.
"They did what they had to do tonight," said Washington coach Lorenzo Romar. "They hit big shots when they needed them. The guys that they depend on made some big plays for them down the stretch. I can see why the opponents that they play against have match-up problems because Evtimov and Melvin can put the ball on the floor and make plays for themselves and for others. When you have two big guys that can do that, along with Julius Hodge who seems to do a little bit of everything, it makes for a hard cover."
For one of the few times this season, NC State -which came in as the nation's top free throw shooting team - struggled at times from the line, hitting just 14-of-21 for the game. The Wolfpack did, however, make its last four to guarantee a happy birthday present for its coach.
