North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Pack Takes Turns In Gardner-Webb romp
11/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
So as good as Atsur’s performance was in Friday night’s 88-76 victory over Gardner-Webb he scored a career-high 26 points, had seven assists and five rebounds -- there were some other timely performances that helped the undefeated Wolfpack (4-0) overcome a 36-33 halftime deficit against the winless Bulldogs.
There was the back-to-back 3-pointers sophomore Courtney Fells hit early in the second half. It didn’t matter that Fells had missed his only shot of the night until then, since he spent all but seven minutes sitting on the bench in the first half because of foul trouble. His eight-point scoring boost between halftime and the 10-minute mark of the second half allowed the Wolfpack to push forward and never look back.
There was the 23 points that Gavin Grant scored, his second consecutive contest with more than 20 points.
There was the first career double-double posted by redshirt freshman Brandon Costner, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds in the contest.
And there was the steady scoring of sophomore Ben McCauley, who had 14 points and four assists as he and Atsur continued to perfect the basic tenets of the pick-and-roll.
“The way our offense is, everybody takes turns,” Atsur said. “At some point, Gavin gets going, or Ben gets going. It is always someone different. That is a great thing for us. The opponent doesn’t know who is going to step up every night.
“For Courtney, in that one stretch, it was his turn. He made two big 3s. He did a great job of staying in the game, even though he had some foul trouble.”
For Atsur, it was the biggest scoring night of his career. His previous career-high was against 23 against
“It doesn’t matter if I score or not,” Atsur said. “The system suits me well. I get to play a lot of pick-and-roll with our big guys and they get me the ball a lot.”
In the first half, however, the Wolfpack seemed to be shaking off a post-Thanksgiving malaise. The team shot only 43.8 percent, making just 14 of 32 field goals and 2 of 10 3-point attempts. In the second half, however, the Wolfpack was much more similar to its first three games, hitting a scorching 65.6 percent of its shots from the field and running its lead to as many as 20 points on several occasions.
“We kept exchanging points in the first half and at halftime coach told us to get some stops and push the ball,” Atsur said. “In the second half, we were patient on offense, we got some stops, ran our offense and before you knew it, we were up by 20.”
In previous games, when the Wolfpack has gotten away from the basics of its defense and offense, Lowe has not been hesitant to let his team have it on the sidelines. Friday night, he waited until they were in the lockerroom, though it was a fairly subdued lecture he gave.
“We concentrated on running our offense and being a little more patient in the second half,” Lowe said after the game. “The first half we took some quick shots. We came out of the gate taking some quick jump shots and that got us behind early.
“The second half we wanted to make a concerted effort to try to be patient and pound the ball inside. We wanted to play inside-out basketball and Ben and Brandon did a great job of scoring in there.”
And, Fells handled a piece of the outside scoring, shortly after McCauley scored on a short jumper early in the second half that gave his team a 46-44 lead. The Wolfpack had led by as many as seven in the first half, thanks to an 18-point effort by Atsur, but Gardner-Webb outscored State 19-9 over the last five minutes to get its halftime advantage.
But with less than 15 minutes to play in the game, Atsur found Fells open on the wing and the sophomore guard drained the open jumper. Less than a minute later, Atsur got him the ball again, same spot, same result, opening up a 54-46 lead that the Wolfpack never gave up.
Atsur then went on a scoring burst, adding a layup and a 3-pointer to extend the lead well into double-digits, 67-56 to complete a decisive 21-12 scoring run.
Now, Lowe and his team will set its sights on Monday’s 7 p.m. game against
While it may be the Pack’s biggest challenge of the season, Lowe sees it as another opportunity to get better at what he preaches -- not some sort of gauge against an outside opponent.
“I think we are continuing to learn each other and learn what we have to do to win the game,” Lowe said. “What I like about it, when we start going individually and doing our own thing, we are not playing as well as we should be. These guys are making adjustments and realizing what we are doing and not doing. Tonight was evident in that second half. We started passing the ball around a little better and scoring.
“That is the great thing about this ball club right now is that we feel like we have guys that can pick it up at any time. That is the nice thing again about this group is that anyone of them can get it going.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
