North Carolina State University Athletics
Pack Falls to No. 2 Duke 73-56 in Durham
1/20/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
DURHAM, N.C. Cameron Indoor Stadium remains the ACC’s most inhospitable arena for NC State.
No. 2 Duke outscored NC State 17-3 over the game's final 7:58 to take a 73-56 victory Tuesday night in front of a sell-out crowd, hitting 76.9 percent of their second-half shots from the field and six of their seven shots from 3-point range.
Junior Gerald Henderson and sophomore Kyle Singler led the charge, stretching the Wolfpack's losing streak on Duke's home court to 12 consecutive games, dating back to 1996.
Trailing 54-53 with 7:58 to play, the Wolfpack had a chance to tie the score as Tracy Smith attempted to convert a three-point play. Smith missed the free throw after an official timeout, but State had three offensive rebounds on the possession but could not take the lead.
That’s when Duke, which shot less than 30 percent from the field in the first half, took control of the game, holding the Wolfpack to just one field goal and one free throw the rest of the way.
“That’s the most frustrating point is that we were in it and we couldn’t close it out,” said senior Ben McCauley. “Guys were playing tremendous basketball, but the guys who were in at the end couldn’t come through.
“Our intensity kind of dropped a little bit. Why? I don’t know. We weren’t concentrating enough and when you don’t concentrate against Duke, they make you pay for it. At times they were unstoppable.”
Henderson had a game-high 21 points for the Blue Devils (17-1 overall, 4-0 ACC), while Singler added 17 and Nolan Smith had 12.
The Wolfpack (10-6, 1-3) was led by 15 points each from McCauley and Brandon Costner.
“I thought we played 33 minutes of solid basketball,” Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe said. “I thought we did a great job of hanging in there and finishing off the first half really strong. It was a great defensive effort. The second half, they just kept coming at us and coming at us.
“We turned the ball over too many times to beat a team like Duke.”
The game was similar to last year’s contest, in which the Wolfpack led 46-37 at the half, but was outscored 55-26 after intermission to lose 92-72.
The Pack, using all three of its point guards, committed 19 turnovers in the contest, while Duke committed just eight.
“We just ... succumbed to their pressure,” Costner said. “We let them take us out of what we wanted to do.”
The Wolfpack led by as many six points early in the second half, when McCauley scored a layup to put his team ahead, 34-28. Henderson scored 11 of the Blue Devils’ next 15 points and senior Greg Paulus tied the game 41-41 with 13:28 to play with a jumper from the top of the key.
Singler, who spent much of the first half on the bench, scored six straight points for the Blue Devils to put his team ahead 58-53, then Henderson stole the ball from Wolfpack junior point guard Farnold Degand and raced down court for a high-flying dunk with 5:05 remaining.
The Wolfpack never recovered its earlier form and scored only one free throw the rest of the way.
For the third consecutive game in this old rivalry, the Wolfpack led at the half, this time taking a 26-22 advantage into intermission.
That seemed unlikely when the Blue Devils started the game with a 10-1 blitz. The Wolfpack turned the ball over on five of its first six possessions against the Duke press.
But the Blue Devils had trouble finding its range from the field, making only three of its first 14 shots. They never found that range in the opening period, shooting 29 percent for the half. The Wolfpack was a respectable 44 percent from the field after opening the game 0-for-6.
“As bad as our offense was in the first half, it was that good in the second half,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
State, vying for its first win over the Blue Devils in Durham since 1995, finished the half making 11 of its last 15 shots and outscoring the Blue Devils 14-4 over the last six minutes of the first half.
The Wolfpack travels to Chesnut Hill, Mass., Saturday to face Boston College in a 2 p.m. contest.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
