North Carolina State University Athletics
Northwestern Hands Pack 1st Loss of Season
12/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. – Two things upset NC State coach Sidney Lowe about his team's first loss of the season, a 65-53 setback Tuesday night against Northwestern in the 11th-annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
First, the coach thought his team was passive against the more aggressive Wildcats to start the game. By the time the Wolfpack got angry and matched Northwestern's energy, they were behind by a dozen or more points.
Second, when the game came down to the most important defensive possessions, the Wolfpack defense allowed Northwestern's best player, junior point guard Michael Thompson, to make the play that sealed his team's 65-53 victory at the RBC Center.
"We have to take this as a learning experience," Lowe said. "We were playing against a team that played hard and was patient. We didn't always execute our defense, but I am proud of the way our guys hung in there."
Northwestern took advantage of the Wolfpack's tepid shooting early in the game to build a 14-point lead with 4:06 remaining in the first half. The Wildcats took a 34-24 lead into intermission and maintained the double-digit advantage until midway through the second half.
But the Pack's defensive passion was ignited in the second half, particularly after junior guard Javi Gonzalez was elbowed by Northwestern freshman guard Alex Marcotullio, after the two tangled at midcourt.
The Wildcats were leading 47-37 at the time, but Marcotullio was hit with a technical foul that stirred the RBC Center crowd of 11,913. Wolfpack junior Dennis Horner hit both technical free throws and junior Tracy Smith scored on the ensuing possession, on a layup.
Smith missed a free-throw on a three-point play opportunity, but on the other end of the floor Horner took the ball away from Northwestern's John Shurna and fed Smith for an uncontested dunk that cut the score to 47-43 with 8:52 remaining in the game.
But at the end of the next possession, Thompson found Marcotullio in the corner and the lefthander drained a 3-pointer that bumped the lead back to seven.
Smith, who led the Pack with 23 points and seven rebounds, had another big dunk with 5:42 remaining to cut Northwestern's lead down to four, but Jeremy Nash and Thompson scored on a pair of free throws and a driving jumper in the lane, respectively.
The Pack had one more opportunity with 95 seconds to play, but Thompson broke free off a ball screen, made a layup and converted the conventional three-point play to push the lead back up to eight and end the Wolfpack's hopes of remaining undefeated.
"We didn't execute the defense properly and him being the good player he is, he made us pay for it," Lowe said.
Thompson finished with 22 points for the Wildcats (6-1), while Nash had 12 and Shurna had 11. Smith again led the Wolfpack, with Horner scoring 11 and Gonzalez adding 10 points, six assists and six rebounds.
The Wolfpack offense never left the ground against the Wildcats' matchup zone defense. In the first half, the Pack made just 10 of its 27 shots (37 percent). Meanwhile, Northwestern sizzled, hitting 15 of its 26 attempts (57.7 percent).
The Wildcats' shooting cooled off, but the Wolfpack's never picked up to go along with its improved defensive intensity. Lowe's team shot just 33.9 percent from the field and was a woeful 2-for-18 from 3-point range.
"We just didn't shoot the ball very well tonight," Lowe said.
But there were some signs of progress that Lowe and his team can take into their first real road game of the season. The Pack plays at Marquette Saturday, in a game that is slated to tip off at 3 p.m. in Milwaukee.
"I think the game was almost a tale of two halves, from our ball club," Lowe said. "Defensively, I didn't think we were very good in the first half. I thought we weren't aggressive with our man-to-man offense. We weren't moving our feet. We allowed them to run their offense.
"We allowed them to run a couple of backdoors, get a couple of open 3s and they were able to jump out on us. I thought we did a great job of getting back in the game."
Lowe used nine players in the game, and shifted his lineups around to take advantage of some height mismatches. He also used a different lineup early in the second half that helped ignite some passion in the defense.
"We had a group out there in the second half who had a lot of energy and started getting up into people," Lowe said. " We stopped them four straight times. That was good to see.
"I am proud of the way these young guys fought and hung in there. I told them it would be difficult and something they hadn't seen before. We just couldn't make enough shots in the second half."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
