North Carolina State University Athletics
Wolfpack Seeks Big Win Over Duke
1/19/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 19, 2011
NC State (11-6, 1-2 ACC) vs. Duke (16-1, 3-1 ACC)
Jan. 19, 2011 • 7 p.m.
RBC Center (19,700) • Raleigh, N.C.
TV Coverage: ESPN
NC State Game Notes | Duke Game Notes | GameTracker
ESPN3 Game link
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Almost exactly one year ago, NC State posted its signature win of the season, an 88-74 triumph over a Duke team that would eventually win the national championship. Now, sitting at 1-2 in ACC play following back-to-back road losses to Boston College and Florida State, the Wolfpack (11-6 overall, 1-2 ACC) will again try to knock of the fourth-ranked Blue Devils (16-1, 3-1) when the longtime Big Four rivals clash Wednesday night at the RBC Center.
Wolfpack Sports Network airtime for the 7 p.m. contest is set for 6:30.
“This is a big game for a number of reasons,” said NC State head coach Sidney Lowe. “You don’t want to fall to 1-3, you could beat a quality team and it would be a boost for a young team like this. Once you experience a good win, confidence, belief, trust and all that stuff can come into play. It’s not going to make our season and it certainly won’t break our season, but it would certainly help a great deal if we can come out and win this game.”
Lowe’s returning players experienced such a feeling last Jan. 20when Tracy Smith’s 23 points and Dennis Horner’s 20 spearheaded an offensive outburst that produced 58 percent shooting from the field.
And while Smith and Horner produced gaudy numbers, the Wolfpack’s key player that night may have been point guard Javier Gonzalez, who recorded the game of his career by scoring 15 points to go along with eight assists and just two turnovers against Duke’s vaunted man-to-man defensive pressure.
“He’s had great games against us,” said Blue Devils coach Mike Kryzewski. “He’s a heck of a competitor and true competitors do better in what they call bigger games. Javier’s been fantastic against us. In the game last year, he was an emotional leader and hit some big threes.”
Splitting time with freshman point guard Ryan Harrow in this his senior season, Gonzalez hasn’t yet been able to match the magic of his memorable Duke performance from a year ago.
In fact, Lowe is still searching for an on-court leader who will take charge during tough times and not be afraid to even get in a teammate’s face if need be during the course of a game. Being vocal has not been a strong suit of this Wolfpack team, whether that means offering aggressive vocal leadership or communicating better as a team on defense.
Both shortcomings proved to be costly in last week’s road losses.
“We still need someone to do that,” Lowe said. “Right now it’s me, but we need someone who’s out there and in control of the game. Sometimes guy’s personalities don’t allow them to do that. Having a leader also means that you’ve got to have guys who will follow and be willing to listen. If you’re going to be the leader, you have to be the guy who is going to always do things right and going to play hard and play smart. You can’t just talk it; you have to walk the walk. If we could get a couple of guys to emerge, it just makes you a different ballclub.”
After watching his team struggle through several communication and execution breakdowns on the defensive end of the floor last week, Lowe put his team through what he called a “defensive practice” on Monday. And after allowing Florida State to shoot 69 percent in the second half of Saturday’s 84-71 defeat in Tallahassee, Lowe said his players were more than willing to listen to his complaints during Monday’s film session and workout.
“Everything we worked on was defense,” Lowe said. “We worked on rotations, and worked on defending one-on-one. The guys went at it hard and really challenged each other. We were energized and guys were actually talking on defense. It wasn’t a good practice, it was a great practice.”
And it will take a great performance, a complete performance on both ends of the court to knock off the defending national champs on Wednesday.
Duke had its 25-game winning streak ended and No. 1 ranking in the polls vanquished following last week’s road loss at FSU. But even after losing super freshman guard Kyrie Irving, the Blue Devils appear to be the most complete team in the ACC. Senior guard Nolan Smith leads the league scoring (20.1 ppg.) and assists (5.7), while fellow senior Kyle Singler is again one of college basketball’s most versatile frontline players. Capable of scoring inside when he’s playing the small forward spot, or taking bigger defenders out to the 3-point line when he’s at the four spot, the 6-9 Singler is averaging 17.1 points and 6.1 rebounds per contest.
Matching up with both Smith and Singler is a challenge for every team that faces Duke.
In preparing to face Smith, Lowe has been hard-pressed to find a weakness in the senior guard’s game.
“I don’t think he has one, I really don’t,” said Lowe. “I think he’s tough physically, he’s tough mentally, he can shoot the ball, he can penetrate, he can pass the ball, he can defend and he can rebound.”
The battle on the boards on Wednesday could be, in a word, fierce. With 14 and 16 rebounds, respectively, in a pair of games last week, Duke sophomore Mason Plumlee has become a force on the glass. Led by freshman C.J. Leslie (8.0 per game) and sophomore Richard Howell (6.8), NC State has also emerged as a formidable rebounding team over the last month.
Now ranked fourth in the ACC with a plus-4.7 rebounding margin, the Wolfpack has outrebounded 10 of its last 11 opponents. On Saturday at Florida State, the Pack outrebounded the league’s top rebounding team by nine, a performance that included 17 offensive boards.
Along with trying to prevent Leslie and Howell from getting second chance opportunities, Duke may double Smith more than it did last year. In his 23-point performance against the Blue Devils, Smith was virtually unstoppable, hitting 10-of-12 shots.
- By Tony Haynes
