North Carolina State University Athletics
Turnovers Doom NC State in 78-60 Loss at Virginia
2/25/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TONY HAYNES
On Sunday, it was shaky ball-handling that sent the Pack to its fifth consecutive loss in front of 13,630 fans at John Paul-Jones Arena.
Scoring 17 points off of 17 NC State turnovers in the opening half, the Cavaliers built a 20-point lead at halftime and rarely looked back in posting their second consecutive conference victory after seven straight losses. Making matters worse, the Wolfpack shot just 27 percent from the field, hitting only 6-of-22 shots in a disastrous opening 20 minutes.
“We weren’t strong enough with the basketball,” said Pack coach Sidney Lowe. “We were making some errant passes and a few times when we tried to run the break we turned it over. I’ve said it before, we’re just not a running team and we’re not making good decisions. We were reluctant at times to pass the ball to the open man or we’d dribble too much. Sometimes we were just careless with the basketball.”
The ringleader for
While only one game currently separates Virginia and NC State in the ACC standings, the two teams are worlds apart at the point guard position. Harassed and hounded by the quick, savvy Singletary in the opening half, Wolfpack point guards Javier Gonzalez and Marcues Johnson often couldn’t get rid of the basketball quick enough after having their pockets picked a few times by the veteran.
“He bothered our point guards,” Lowe said. “It is what it is; you’ve got an experienced, very talented point guard playing against our freshman guards. He made it difficult for us to get the ball into our sets in the first half. I think he controlled it from the defensive end by not letting Marcus and Javier get the ball where they wanted it to go.”
During one trip up the court, Singletary crowded Johnson into throwing a pass in the general direction of Gavin Grant, a pass Grant wasn’t expecting. The ball was picked off by the Cavaliers and resulted in one of many easy transition baskets.
The turnovers often came in flurries, and allowed the Cavaliers get easy basket after easy basket, much to the delight of the orange-clad Wahoo partisans in the stands. Despite its aggressiveness on the defensive end, Virginia was called for only three teams fouls in the first half, the first of which wasn’t whistled until just over seven minutes remained. The ACC officiating crew of Ray Natili, Gary Maxwell and Ted Valentine then made an about face in the second half, tooting the Cavaliers up a total of 14 times.
To its credit, NC State continued to fight and played better in the second half, but the halftime hole was ultimately too deep to overcome. Getting heady play from reserve guard Trevor Ferguson, center Ben McCauley and forward Brandon Costner, the Pack whittled the
Cavaliers guard Calvin Baker, who had 15 points to join Singletary in double-figures, held Pack rally attempts at bay by sinking a pair of big 3-pointers in the last 10 minutes.
Costner, who made 4-of-6 shots, led the Pack with 14 points.
When the dust had cleared, there was a 16 turnover differential between the two teams with NC State giving the ball away 25 times compared to only nine for Virginia. The Wolfpack did shoot 52.2 percent in the second half, but it was too little, too late.
“I can’t explain it,” said Costner. “We had been better at [taking care of the ball] this year, but it came back and haunted us.”
Freshman big man J.J. Hickson was mostly a non-factor for NC State, missing his first five field goal attempts before finally converting for the first time with six minutes left in the game. Hickson played only seven minutes after halftime and finished with seven points and five rebounds.
“He was moving to fast and jumping into the guy instead of getting his eyes on the rim,” said Lowe. “He knew the trap was coming and he was moving too fast. That’s where you have to be disciplined and take what the defense gives you. That’s what we did in the second half. You have to do that in the beginning and force that defense to worry about your perimeter players. That will open it up for the offense inside.”
