North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State
Wake Forest
Wake Forest Holds Off NC State, 86-75
2/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 10, 2005
By Tony Haynes
Winston-Salem, N.C. - Held out of the starting line-up on Thursday night, NC State's Julius Hodge came off the bench and put together one of his best performances of the season. But not even a 27-point outburst by the reigning ACC Player of the Year was enough for the Wolfpack, which fell to sixth ranked Wake Forest 86-75 in front of 14,268 fans at the Joel Coliseum. The high-scoring Deacons placed five players in double figures, led by Justin Gray's 18 points. The win pulled Wake (20-3, 8-2) into a first place tie with Duke and North Carolina in the ACC standings.
Among other things, Wake Forest outscored NC State (13-10, 3-7) by 25 points at the free throw line, knocking down 35-of-42. Gray missed only one of his 10 free throw attempts to lead the parade to the line.
The Deacons also had 28 points off of 20 Pack turnovers and tallied 23 second chance points off of 15 offensive rebounds.
But even after dominating in those areas, Wake had to survive a Hodge-led NC State comeback that cut a 16-point halftime deficit down to five with just over seven minutes to play.
Making his first 10 shots from the floor, Hodge was 10-of-13 overall and connected on seven of eight free throws. But the senior didn't enter the game until the 9:57 mark of the first half when his team was down 21-11.
"I'm going to leave it as a team matter," NC State head coach said when asked about the decision to keep Hodge out of the starting line-up. "Once he came in, he certainly gave us a great lift. I thought it was one of his best performances of the year."
And with Hodge getting three second half dunks off of steals and the Wolfpack shooting 53.6 percent in the second half, the Deacons weren't able to run away and hide as it appeared they might at halftime.
Down 54-36 with 17:28 left, NC State outscored the Deacons 27-14 over the next 10 minutes to close to within 68-63 with 7:31 remaining. Hodge had 10 points during the Pack run, while center Jordan Collins added eight points on an old fashioned 3-point play, a shot from the arc and a basket inside.
"We did a much better job with our transition defense in the second half," said Ilian Evtimov, who hit 4-of-6 3-pointers to finish with 14 points. "They didn't score many points in transition. They got all their points at the foul line."
Making only seven of 20 field goals in the second half, the Deacons survived at the foul line, where they were 21-of-26 after intermission.
And it was at the free throw line where NC State had a shot to move within five points. But after being fouled on a drive with 6:29 left, Cameron Bennerman missed the front end of a one-and-one. Bennerman, who was back after missing five games with an elbow injury, played with a protective sleeve on his left arm and finished with six points in 22 minutes.
Following his front end miss, however, the Deacons extended their lead with a 6-0 burst as Gray hit a pair from the line; Eric Williams scored inside and then added two free throws to make it 74-63. After Hodge got the Pack back within six with an old-fashioned 3-point play with 1:03 remaining, the Deacons iced it down the stretch by draining seven of their last eight from the line.
Williams was again tough to handle inside for Wake Forest, scoring 15 points to go along with seven rebounds. Senior guard Taron Downey (14 points) bounced off the Wake bench to hit all four of his 3-point attempts, including three in the opening half when the Deacs shot 51.7 percent to move in front by 16. Also helping the cause for Wake Forest were point guard Chris Paul (13 points, eight assists) and Jamaal Levy (11 points).
NC State shot 56 percent from the field (28-of-50), but was ultimately undone by turnovers, Wake's second chance points and of course, the one-sided disparity at the free throw line.
"The 20 turnovers were key tonight," Sendek said. "We came into the game leading the ACC with the fewest turnovers, but tonight we didn't do a good job, especially early. We just committed unforced turnovers that led to easy baskets for Wake Forest and prevented us from scoring. We shot 56 percent from the field, but obviously we've got to get more shots. The other thing that really stands out on the stat sheet was the phenomenal disparity of free throws."
The Wolfpack's miscues in the opening half did indeed help Wake construct its big lead at the break. Along with scoring 16 points off of 10 NC State turnovers, the Deacons also got to the glass, outscoring the Pack 13-3 in the category of second chanced points.
Overall, Wake Forest won the battle of the boards 30-24 and shot 44.9 percent for the game. The Deacs did drill half of their 3-point shots, going 7-of-14.
