UNC 92, NC State 63
Boxscore |
Recap |
Game FlowUNC scored 25 unanswered points in the first half to put this game out of reach before the second half even began. State kept things close for the first 6 minutes, but after that it wasn't much of a game. State shot a miserable 17% in the first half (though came back and shot 58% in the second). Part of it was UNC's defense and the other part was State missing shots they should have made. State looks like a shell of a team and nothing like the team that gave UNC a run for the money in the ACC tourney last year. What happened to
Brandon Costner?? He was the man last year, but this year is scoring 6 fewer points per game. Maybe it was the addition of star freshman
JJ Hickson.
Most everyone on the UNC side had a good game, except for Tyler. But a bad day for Tyler means he "only" scores 13 and grabs 13 rebounds. Still not bad. Danny Green had the best day from a stats perspective: 13 points, 14 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 blocks! That's a busy day. Ty Lawson's stat line isn't too shabby either: 16 points, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 0 turnovers.
Another performance worth mentioning is that of Quentin Thomas. Yes, Quentin had an excellent game (4 assists and 0 turnovers in 13 minutes)! Ty went down early in the game after re-spraining his ankle and was out for a good 6 or 7 minutes. Q came in and dropped a couple of dimes and made a couple of baskets. Admittedly State didn't pressure Q like Clemson did, but I think this will do wonders for his confidence. Hopefully he can build on this.
State is a prime example of how important the point guard position is in college basketball. They lost
Engin Atsur last year due to graduation and the intended replacement (not sure of his name?) went down due to injury earlier. They are left with freshman
Javier Gonzalez who looked lost at times and could never get State into a flow.
However, there are bigger problems for State than just the PG position. It is obvious that this team is out of sync. They aren't playing as a team and I'd be very surprised if there aren't some personality conflicts on the team. Regardless, I'm sure they'll give us a better game at the
RBC Center in a month.
