North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Drops Winthrop, 74-48, at RBC Center
11/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
RALEIGH, N.C. From the first possession of Tuesday night’s game against Winthrop, NC State played its best basketball of the season.
The Wolfpack built as much as a 21-point lead in first half and cruised to a 74-48 victory in its first appearance at the RBC Center.
“We really focused in on this game,” said Wolfpack senior Ben McCauley, who had 15 points and 11 rebounds. “We knew Winthrop was going to have a great year and will do well in their conference. We wanted to come out and send a message early ... that we are here for business and we were going to do whatever it takes to win.”
It was McCauley’s seventh career double-double and his first since the 2007 National Invitation Tournament second-round game against Marist, when he had 19 points and 10 rebounds.
Junior Brandon Costner netted 12 points and senior Courtney Fells had 10, while sophomore Tracy Smith came off the bench to score 13 points and grab six rebounds.
“We took [Winthrop] out of their offense and made them uncomfortable,” Wolfpack head coach Sidney Lowe said. “Our bigs did a nice job up top. We were able to mess up their rhythm.”
The Wolfpack (3-0) built an 11-3 lead in the first five minutes and never trailed in the contest.
“We came ready to play tonight,” Fells said. “I have been in situations a lot where we didn’t have big cushion and it made it difficult at the end.”
But there was no difficulties in a game in which the Wolfpack shot 42 percent from the field, outscored the Eagles 22-9 on the free throw line, owned a 45-37 rebounding advantage and committed just six turnovers in the game.
“I am more pleased with [the turnover total] than just about anything,” Lowe said. “Just taking care of the basketball and giving ourselves the opportunity to score. Our guys were very conscious of that. We executed, took our time and got the shots that we wanted.”
Rebounding has been a big focus for Lowe’s team this year, and the Pack has out-rebounded all three of its opponents this year, creating some transition scoring opportunities along the way.
“If we rebound the ball, we can push the ball even easier,” McCauley said. “If the other team only gets one shot, we can get some easy baskets like we did tonight.
“We concentrated a lot on pushing the ball and when you push the ball you get a lot of easy shots.”
State led 40-24 at intermission, building much of its advantage with foul shots. The Pack outscored the Eagles 13-1 in the opening half at the free-throw line.
“We felt coming into the game we had to play unbelievable post defense,” said Winthrop coach Randy Peele. “NC State has some big, strong guys inside and we had to keep them away from the basket and not foul. Instead, we couldn’t stop the ball from being posted, and every one of our guys had two fouls in the first half.
“Against a team that is as big and strong and physical as they are, we had to keep them off the line, but I don’t think we have one post player who can guard one of their post players one-on-one.”
Lowe stayed with his regular starting lineup and continued his whole-team substitution, sending in five fresh reserves for his starters midway through the first and second halves. Smith and junior Trevor Ferguson led the reserves in scoring.
Winthrop, playing with a reshuffled starting lineup, had difficulty scoring against the Wolfpack defense. In the first half, the Eagles made just 33 percent of their shots and finished the game at 29 percent.
Lowe’s team returns to action Sunday, hosting UNC-Greensboro at 2 p.m. at the
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
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