North Carolina State University Athletics
Mountaineers Down NC State, 71-66
3/21/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Tony Haynes
Morgantown,
West Virginia was going to either live or die with the 3-point shot. Thanks to a flurry of clutch long range bombs in the NIT quarterfinals on Tuesday night, the Mountaineers will live to play another day, while NC State’s season is over.
Hitting 6-of-9 from beyond the arc, senior Frank Young scored 25 points and Alex Ruoff added 15, helping
West Virginia (25-9) to a hard-fought 71-66 win over the Wolfpack (20-16) in front of 11,215 vocal fans at West Virginia Coliseum. The Mountaineers will now advance to the NIT Semifinals next Tuesday night at
Madison
Square
Garden in
New York against
Mississippi
State.
For the Pack, an inspiring late-season run is now over, although Sidney Lowe’s team did not go down without a fight.
“I just told those kids that this was one the most gratifying teams that I’ve been affiliated with in 16 years,” Lowe said in the locker room afterwards. “Just the way they handled themselves, the way they approached the game, never complaining. They worked their tails off and probably exceeded all expectations that a lot of people had of them.”
With less than four minutes left on Tuesday, Lowe and his team seemed poised to pull off yet another dramatic victory, like the ones it had produced in the first three rounds of the ACC Tournament.
When freshman Dennis Horner rebounded a Gavin Grant miss and followed with a tough basket inside with 4:08 left, the Pack was up 62-58, forcing West Virginia coach John Beilein to take a time out. The shot he was looking for coming out of the 30-second meeting he had with his team probably didn’t materialize. But the shot he got went in.
Holding the ball on the right wing with Gavin Grant crowding him, Young elevated and took a tough, contested 3-pointer that banged off the glass and went through.
“It reminded me so much of the
Carolina game when Terry hit a tough shot,” Lowe said, referring to the Wolfpack’s close loss to UNC in the ACC title game a few weeks ago. “That shot by Young, he banked it in and that certainly got them going.”
Following a Brandon Costner miss on the other end, Young came right back, flaring off a Rob Summers screen for another 3 that put the Mountaineers in front 64-62 with 2:55 left.
Another lead change was in the offing when Wolfpack point guard Engin Atsur, making what would be the last shot of his career, drilled a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 2:26 remaining to make it 65-64, NC State.
It then took
West Virginia forward Alex Ruoff 17 seconds to answer right back with another 3-point basket to give the Mountaineers a 67-65 lead they would not relinquish.
Following a missed jumper by Atsur, Ruoff drove into the lane and made a nifty wrap-around dish to Summers for a layup that gave
West Virginia a 69-65 edge.
“We executed some good stuff and our kids really responded,” said Beilein. “On Frank’s banked 3, I said the worm turned on that one because there were certainly some breaks that were not favorable to
West Virginia at that point. I think the biggest play was Al’s [Ruoff] drive and dish to Rob to give us a cushion.”
Costner, who led NC State with 22 points and 13 rebounds for his eighth double-double of the year, brought the Wolfpack within three by making 1-of-2 from the free throw line. Down 69-66, the Pack then got a decent look from 3-point range for Courtney Fells, but his shot from the right wing bounced off the rim with 20 seconds remaining.
NC State had yet another chance to even the score after Darris Nichols missed the front end of a one-and-one with 17 seconds left, but when Grant’s long jump shot with seven seconds remaining fell well short, the Wolfpack was finally out of second chances. Da’ Sean Butler then sealed it for
West Virginia with a pair of free throws.
In a game that featured 14 lead changes and eight ties, Young, who had scored 31 in
West Virginia’s lopsided victory over
Massachusetts on Thursday night, scored 14 consecutive Mountaineer points during one second half stretch, a streak that included his faithful bank shot with under four minutes remaining. West Virginia, which is second in the nation in made 3-point field goals with an average of better than 10 per game, knocked down 12-of-24 3s, including 8-of-12 in the second half.
Sound familiar? The Mountaineers were 8-of-13 from the bonussphere in the second half of their 11-point win over NC State back on December 6
NC State center Ben McCauley, who scored only four points – all in the first half -- played only six minutes after intermission. Every time the sophomore big man touched it in the low post, West Virginia would bring an aggressive, physical double-team, making it difficult for him to maneuver in the post.
And while McCauley sat for most of the second half, the Wolfpack got a tremendous relief effort out of freshman Dennis Horner, who finished with seven points and seven rebounds. Atsur added 14 and Grant 12 for NC State, which trailed 28-26 at the half after shooting just 33 percent in the opening 20 minutes.
“Both Brandon and Dennis were playing well,” Lowe said. “Dennis gave us a shooter in there and he was also on the boards. He was shooting the ball well and he was doing what Ben is capable of doing for us on the boards. He made some big plays for us. When a game is going like that, I think you ride it out.”
After shooting 50 percent or better in five straight games, the Wolfpack knocked down only 37.5 percent (21-of-56) of its shots against
West Virginia’s changing defenses. Known for its unpredictable
“They were switching and packing it in the lane,” said Costner, who hit 7-of-14 shots. “They kept it really tight and didn’t allow many post-entry passes.
Costner is one of many reasons the future looks bright for the Wolfpack. His frontline presence along with that of McCauley's will provide NC State with two players who proved to everyone around the ACC how effective they can be as a tandem. And with Grant expected to be back, along with Fells and Horner, the Wolfpack and its fans will be eagerly awaiting next season.
“I’m very excited about next year with everybody coming back and all the new guys coming in,” Costner said. “This summer we’re really going to have to teach the new guys how we’re supposed to play and then get off to a good start.”
Lowe Show: A reminder, the final Sidney Lowe Radio Show of the year will originate live from the food court at Crabtree Valley Mall Wednesday night from 8-9 p.m. The show will air across the state on the Wolfpack Sports Network. Coach Lowe's final TV show will also be shown on a network of stations on Sunday night.
