Boston College

The passing of Coach Kay Yow was very sad news.  Fighting cancer for over 2 decades was courageous feat.  It is a lost not only for women’s basketball, but college basketball in general.  Yow was a pioneer.  She will be missed.  May she rest in peace.

NC State gave it a good effort.  Down by 15 at the half, they scored 14 unanswered points to make it 47-44.  But BC wouldn’t let the Pack out-do them.  The game was close in the second half, but again, State could not finish what it had started towards the beginning of the second half.  Smith, McCauley, Degand and Fells scored in double figures.  Only 10 turnovers, which is a positive, considering the Pack is averaging…14?  Yikes.  Those are not the double figures one wants for their ball club.

Not much else I can say, except how do you lose to a team who lost to Harvard?  March 4th will get here soon enough.

(NC State is 10-7, 1-4)

Miami

Julius Mays clutch 3-pointer sealed the deal in OT for the Pack.  Coack Lowe is now 5-0 in OT games in his coaching career at NC State.  On paper, the team was looking like they would be able to give someone the business, but they blew a 19 point lead in almost 10 minutes (foreshadowing).  They were almost at cushion status and had to fight and claw just to even out the 2nd half effort from the Hurricanes.  For 5 minutes of game clock, the Pack did not score, which allowed Miami to come back.  Miami’s most commanding lead was at 3 points.  Even though that’s not much, I still had some worry.

Costner had 21 and McCauley had 12 on the night.  Fells had his best game of the season with 24 points.  However, Fells suffered an ankle injury toward the end of the contest, putting his status for Saturday’s game in jeopardy.  Well, its nice to catch a break here and there, but now I can only roll my eyes at the injury bug that apparently has set up camp at NC State this season.

(NC State is 11-7, 2-4)

UNC

“Certainly it’s like going to Duke, you go to State and you throw everything out.  If they go in and don’t control their turnovers, if they allow State to establish themselves and impose their will as a couple teams have against the Tar Heels, then there’s certainly a great possibility the Tar Heels will lose.”
- UNC announcer and former Center from their ‘93 NCAA championship team, Eric Montross

Ahh, the sweetness of rivalries.  Sure, it’s not the more well known rivalry, but its got a lot of clout.  The Wolfpack tried to keep it real, but they failed. UNC won in the RBC Center for the 4th time in 2 years (two home games and the two games they played in the NCAA tourney).  Ouch.

Positives:  Courtney Fells hot streak, 9 turnovers total and Hansbrough not breaking Rodney Monroe’s record while playing NC State
Negatives:  The Heels answering with a scoring spurt every time the Pack cut the lead to single digits and losing by 17 (oh, if only we had made those 9 lay-ups)
Neutral: (the comment board is free to discuss this one)

(NC State is 11-8, 2-5)

NC Central

When the game started with NC Central going on a 10 point run, well, I just about lost it.   But the Pack finanlly got it together and put on a show for the crowd at the RBC Center.  Costner led the team with a season-high 25 points and 13 rebounds.  McCauley added 17 points and 12 rebounds. Senior Courtney Fells scored 15 points.  Well, that’s just dandy.  Of course, this wasn’t a conference game, but at least we got a game in where we won by our largest margin yet.  Come on State, can’t you break 90?  Well, they could have, but Simon decided to class it up after his steal and just hold it until the clock ran out.  Even after a 28 point win, I still love reading all the random message boards just dogging everything State does.

(NC State is 12-8, 2-5)

Virginia Tech

In the only regular season meeting between these two teams, in Blacksburg, one would hope that State would add on to their 6 game streak against this team.  VT would be the last ACC team (and team in general) NC State would defeat for the 07-08 season.  This was their last ray of light for victory for the that dismal season.  Right now, the Pack sits on a 2-5 conference record.  That’s dismal.  Blowing large leads apparently is something State hasn’t learned from (see that Miami foreshadowing?).  If you watched they game then you know…but if you didn’t…well, let my good friend Roger fill you in:

This loss is all on you, Sid. You don’t play prevent offense EVER and you take the point guard out when he’s tired because he hasn’t played much over the past month.  I know I’m a broken record but Sid’s substitution patterns make NO sense. He lost the Marquette game because of bad coaching decisions and he nearly blew the Miami game. I know FT’s were missed at the end but it shouldn’t have been close.

I couldn’t agree with him more.

(NC State is 12-9, 2-6)

Stay tuned.  The last 8 games and chances for redemption are nigh.  The next WBD will cover this last stretch.  Super extended edition! Woo hoo!!!!