North Carolina State University Athletics
McCauley's 20 points leads Pack over Boston College
3/5/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. It just wouldn’t have been the same, years from now, if Ben McCauley returned to the RBC Center and remembered that his last game on NC State’s home court was a loss.
So, in Wednesday night’s 74-69 victory over
“This was the way it was planned from the get-go, from the first time I stepped foot on campus until now, this is the way I wanted it to end,” a joyous McCauley said after the game. “Our season is not over, of course, but this was a great night for me to go out on a winning note in front of our fans.
McCauley and fellow senior Courtney Fells kept their team in the game in the first half, even as the Eagles (20-10, 8-7) made their first eight shots and built an eight-point lead in the game’s opening moments. McCauley finished the first half with 13 points and Fells had 11, as the Wolfpack grabbed a 43-34 lead at the half.
But Fells suffered a mild groin strain that kept him out most of the second half. He did not score again, and the Wolfpack had to rely on McCauley, junior Brandon Costner, junior Dennis Horner, sophomore Tracy Smith and sophomore Javi Gonzalez to make up for Fells’ absence.
That became increasingly difficult after the Pack reached its biggest lead of the second half, after Gonzalez grabbed a rebound and went the length of the court for a layup, pushing State’s lead to 66-58 with 4:03 remaining.
But BC’s Rakim Sanders shot his team back into the game by making three consecutive 3-pointers in the final three minutes. The Eagles cut the lead to as few as two points with 26.6 seconds on the clock. Sanders could have cut that down to one, but he missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity with five seconds to play.
McCauley was there to grab the rebound, his sixth on the night, and was immediately fouled. As he walked the length of the floor to shoot his free throws, he screamed to the ceiling and soaked in the excitement of his last regular-season home game.
“It was the perfect way for me to end my career at home,” McCauley said.
And no one was happier about it than third-year head coach Sidney Lowe.
“I couldn’t have written a better script for him ending his last game here at home, to play as well as he did, win the ball game and then have the opportunity for him to be on the free throw line to win the ball game with clutch free throws,” Lowe said. “I think Ben has had a great senior year. I don’t believe all year long that he has come to practice or a game and not played hard this year. That means a lot to me and for this basketball team.”
But McCauley wasn’t the only reason the Wolfpack pulled out the win. Smith was second on the team with 14 points, followed by Horner and Fells with 11 each. Gonzalez had only five points, but he dished out six assists with only one turnover and played excellent defense all evening long on the Eagles’ top scorer, senior guard Tyrese Rice.
Rice, who averages 17.5 points a game and leads BC with 57 3-pointers, was just 5-for-12 from the field and missed all five of his 3-point attempts.
“Javi was great on Tyrese in the second half,” Lowe said. “He did a great job of staying in front of him and holding his ground. That was a big key for us, that we didn’t allow him to go off and have a big game.”
The Wolfpack also out-rebounded the Eagles, 30-26, and out-performed them from the field, hitting 52.9 percent of its field goals to
In the first half, it was Fells who looked to be the Senior Night hero. Boston
McCauley added a dunk off an alley oop pass from Gonzalez and Horner added another 3-pointer as State took a 27-19 lead with a little over eight minutes to play in the half.
The Eagles closed the gap to just two points with three minutes remaining, but McCauley scored six points in a 9-2 run to end the half, giving his team a 43-34 advantage at intermission.
The Wolfpack trailed on just one possession in the second half, after Joe Trapani made a 3-pointer from the wing with 14:40 remaining in the game. State answered with a 3-pointer from Gonzalez, a dunk from McCauley and a 3-pointer from Coster to retake the lead.
The Wolfpack ends the regular season Saturday at noon against
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
