NC State Falls to Cincinnati, 80-71

BY TONY HAYNES

CINCINNATI It is the season of giving and on Saturday, NC State was more than charitable in its game at

Cincinnati. Scoring 32 points off of 32 Wolfpack turnovers, the Bearcats improved to 8-3 with an 80-71 victory over the Pack at Fifth Third Arena.

NC State’s staggering turnover total, only three off the school record, would be enough to make any coach wince, but especially if that coach happens to still own the ACC’s best career assist-to-turnover ratio.

“For whatever reason, we would just not pass the basketball,” said Wolfpack head coach Sidney Lowe. “We had guys wide open and we had players trying to create for themselves. We thought we had guys who could make just the simple play, but we didn’t do it. We killed ourselves with what I would call unforced turnovers.”

Drilling four 3-point baskets over the first six minutes, freshman guard Deonta Vaughn led four Bearcats in double-figures with 25 points. Cedric McGowan added 15, John Williamson 13 and center Marcus Sikes 10.

Hitting 9-of-11 field goal attempts, sophomore center Ben McCauley paced the Pack with 22. In fact, NC State (7-4) shot 56.9 percent from the floor and outrebounded

Cincinnati 38-27. On most days, those numbers would be hard to beat, but this wasn't like most days because NC State beat itself all too often to expect its first win on the road.

During one futile stretch midway through the second half, the Wolfpack went almost four minutes without even getting off a shot against

Cincinnati’s swarming, trapping fullcourt pressure. The Bearcats used that particular sequence to build a 53-44 lead following an 11-2 run.

To its credit, the Wolfpack then battled back, getting an inside bucket by McCauley, jumpers from Gavin Grant and Courtney Fells, plus a rebound follow by freshman Dennis Horner the cut Cincy’s lead down to 53-52 with 7:07 remaining.

Trailing 56-54 with less than five minutes to play, the Pack got Brandon Costner open for a 3-point look in the lefthand corner, but after the shot missed, the Bearcats took total control, outscoring NC State 19-9 the rest of the way.

Using his superior bench to wear the Wolfpack down,

Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin kept the heat on defensively from the opening tap to the final whistle, but the Pack was unwilling to concede that the Bearcats’ pressure created enough chaos to cause 32 turnovers.

“It caused us problems but it shouldn’t have,” said Fells, who finished with 13 points. “We have a great ball-handling team and we know how to handle pressure. We have a lot of guys who can handle the ball, but tonight, we didn’t show that.”

But NC State was also without its best ball-handler for the sixth straight game. With regular point guard Engin Atsur still nursing a pulled hamstring, Gavin Grant played the point and had 10 of the Pack’s turnovers to go with six points, seven rebounds and eight assists.

Grant, however, wasn’t alone in filling up the turnover column on the stat sheet. Costner had seven, McCauley six and Fells four.

NC State’s chances may have actually started to slip away in the final minute of the first half when it owned a seven-point lead and possession of the ball. But two turnovers sandwiched around a missed shot by guard Trevor Ferguson allowed the Bearcats to score the last four points of the half and go into the lockerroom down only 33-30.

“That was huge,” Lowe said. “That was a big moment. We had the momentum and a nice lead, but we turn it over twice and they score. Now they have the momentum at the half. Then we come out on the first play of the second half and turn it over. We had some guys who didn’t come to play to put it bluntly.”

Costner, who hit 6-of-9 shots from the field, finished with 14 points, while Horner chipped in with 10. NC State didn’t help itself at the free throw line either, knocking down just 7-of-15 attempts.

After hitting just 12-of-34 shots in the opening half,

Cincinnati took advantage of numerous transition opportunities following turnovers in the second 20 minutes to knock down 54.3 percent.

The NC State school mark for turnovers was set at

North Carolina during the 1971-72 season when the Wolfpack turned the ball over 35 times.

Line-up Change: After coming off the bench in NC State’s first 10 games, Horner got his first career start on Saturday and played 31 minutes.

Ferguson, making his second appearance for the Wolfpack, had six points, three assists and three turnovers in 27 minutes. Lowe used six players and did not call on former walk-on Bryan Nieman, who had started the last five games.

The Big O: Saturday’s meeting between

Cincinnati and NC State was the first between the two schools since a memorable battle they had in the 1958 Dixie Classic at Reynolds Coliseum. That game, which resulted in a 69-60 Wolfpack win, featured Bearcats All-American and future NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson. Ironically, Robertson was volunteering as a celebrity bell-ringer for the Salvation Army across from NC State’s hotel when the team arrived in

Cincinnati on Friday. The first person to spot Robertson from the bus was Lowe, who immediately crossed the street and chatted with the Big O’ for a few minutes.

Lowe Show Wednesday: The Sidney Lowe Radio Show, normally heard on Mondays, will move to Wednesday the next two weeks because of the Christmas and New Year's holidays, respectively. Both Wednesday shows will be staged from the show's regular location at the food court inside Crabtree Valley Mall in

Raleigh.

North Carolina State University Athletics

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