North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack falls 79-56 to No. 17 Blue Devils
1/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH – Little went right Saturday afternoon for NC State head basketball coach Sidney Lowe. When he arrived at the gym, he got the word that senior Engin Atsur would not be ready to play against Duke, still bothered by his hamstring injury that has sidelined him for much of the season.When the game started, things just seemed to get worse. Three minutes into each half, sophomore Courtney Fells missed dunks after getting free from Duke’s tenacious defense. The second one ended up being a seven-point turnaround, after Fells missed the dunk, was called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim and then Duke buried a 3-pointer shortly thereafter.
“That was just indicative of everything that happened to us today,” Lowe said after the 79-56 loss at the RBC Center. “You just say ‘Nothing is going to go right.’”
And little did for Lowe and his team against the No. 17 Blue Devils (16-3 overall, 3-2 ACC). In the first half, the Wolfpack committed 16 turnovers, matching its season-high for a half. Duke gained an 18-4 advantage in points off turnovers before halftime, taking a 41-25 lead into intermission.
After making just seven of 19 shots in the first half, the Wolfpack (11-7, 1-4) wanted to get back on track in the second. It didn’t happen, as the Pack made just seven of 22 shots after halftime, for an overall shooting percentage of 34.1 for the game, almost eight percentage points lower than the team’s previous worst shooting performance of the year (41.8 percent at Virginia in December).
The Blue Devil defense not only forced turnovers, it kept the ball out of the hands of Wolfpack sophomore center Ben McCauley, who scored only nine points in the contest. Redshirt freshman Brandon Costner handled the bulk of the team’s scoring, with 20 points and 10 rebounds in the game, his fifth double-double of the season.
Fells was the only other Wolfpack player in double-digits, with 13 points for the afternoon.
“A loss in general is tough, but a loss like this on our home court, is really tough to swallow,” said McCauley, who was 2-for-8 from the field, scored just nine points and had five rebounds. “I feel badly for the fans who came out to cheer us on. I wish we could have done better than we did.”
The Blue Devils had five players in double figures, led by freshman guard Jon Scheyer with 20, junior DeMarcus Nelson with 15, sophomores Josh McRoberts and Greg Paulus with 13 apiece and sophomore David McClure with 10.
Lowe thought his team was over-anxious when the game started, and that showed throughout the first half. Still playing without a true point guard, the Wolfpack couldn’t get the ball through Duke’s defense, committing frequent turnovers while trying to get the ball inside.
“We have a young team,” said junior Gavin Grant. “We are going to have games like this sometimes.”
Lowe, whose team plays at home Wednesday against Virginia, found few bright spots in his team’s performance against the Blue Devils.
“That was just a bad game,” he said. “We tried to do a little too much at times. We tried to make big plays, fancy plays, instead of just being solid. We missed a couple of chippies inside. They were determined they weren’t going to let Ben score inside.
“They just played better. They were the better team today.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
