WolfPack Basketball Diaries No. 9 - Through The Looking Hoop

Wake Forest

Yours truly and his hungover compadres worked their way over to the RBC Center at Noon on February 3rd to see what Dino’s Dudes can do.  I’ll admit, watching the Wolfpack wake up was not helping my general condition.  I remember all too well what happened the last time the Pack played a game at noon.  Yes, that monster spanking by our rivals.  In two weeks, we get our rematches for our losses (except GT….we only see them once in conference play).  We have two road games against Maryland, the team that beat Carolina and Boston College, who is struggling to get a win at this point and therefore has its motivation in that sense.  Having your work cut out for you is nothing new to the Pack, but they need to get their minds into the upcoming games.  We can’t be playing like we played in the first half of this one….24 points….that’s just 10 points more than what we had at the half during Carolina.  However, exploding in the second half with 43 points was crucial.  The tip-in by McCauley at the end is kind of play that the Pack need to be executing when the game begins!  With his left hand, McCauley seemed to right all the apparent wrong that has plagued him this season.  It is those kind of plays that will hopefully make him a monster for his senior season.  And that maneuver, along with the ones I’ve seen by the Pack so far, tell me that Pack have the ingredients…we just got keep our cooking skills on tap.  We can’t burn the potential that’s in the oven, guys.

NC State is (14-7, 3-4).

Virginia Tech

Here comes a team that we beat three times last year.  Here comes a team that is pretty young and there are only 2 players coming back that were witness to our (I’ll admit it) surprising dominance over them.  We kept them from being regular season ACC Champs.  We kept them from playing the conference championship.  I was sure they would put the “W” in Want for this games victory.  But the Pack have more experience on their roster and a point guard (Gonzalez) that seems to relax more as the game goes on.  Brandon Costner was out with a bruised rib, so I was a little concerned.  I also missed the tip off, thanks to the Top Gun guarding the parking lot.  Once we were inside, I wanted to donate some money to charity while obtaining a Jimmy V bobblehead.  All proceeds went to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.  That’s awesome.

I got to my seat with 11:30 to go and State was up 16-4.  I was in happy shock.  State kept up it tenacious play leading up to the end of the first half with a score of 37-23.  Wow!  14 points.  Damn.  I was stoked.  The Hokies came back in the second and cut the lead to 5, but State apparently has the Hokies number.  The student section changed Ms. Wuf’s anthem ("Heeeeeeey, Hey Baaaabay! I Wanna Know…..") to “Hey, Hey Deron, I want to know why you cut your hair?” Maybe that chant during that particular timeout changed the game to our favor.  The Pack came out with their first double-digit ACC victory and the longest current winning streak over any ACC school.

“We’re sitting in a good situation,” Coach Lowe said. “We fought our way back to .500. Now we go to Maryland and we’ll keep climbing. There are goals in our sight that we want to achieve. Right now, that’s the next one.”

Excellent.  Let’s stay that way as Al Green said it so rightly, “Together.”

NC State is (15-7, 4-4).

Maryland

Where was the intensity from Tuesday, fellas?  The first half was a tale of the 7-0 run.  State had two to Maryland’s one.  Well, Maryland did go on a 9-0 run.  So, I’ll give them credit for that hustle.  Maryland tied it up at 31 but fouled State on a drive to the basket.  We ended the half with a two point lead.  Maryland were 0-5 when trailing at the half...until today.  Now their record is 1-6.  Last year, at this point, State was 13-10.  Now State is 15-8. I still can’t seem to understand why State can not play a full game.  Last year, we had an excuse, what with our limited roster.  Now we have talented freshman and seasoned players and we still can’t hustle for 40.  Do the players need to drink more gatorade or something?  I don’t know.  The game was like Duke-ja Vu.  I think that if we had stopped the Terps 12-0 run at the start of the second half State probably would have had a better chance towards the end.  You can’t let Gist score 30 points.  Grant said it was bad defense on their part.  Grant said that Maryland just wanted it more in the second half.  And what, Grant, you didn’t?!?  Come on Mr. No-More-Than-4, what do you want?  Is the team just going to rest as much as possible only to shock and awe the losers as State takes an ACC Title?  With Maryland now taking our pre-season picked finishing spot, I think it might not be that easy.  With 44.3% shooting and just 9 turnovers, State could not overcome Maryland’s hot shooting, but we have the potential.  A steal and a dunk there and some consistentcy along the way will make it so.  Hey, but remember how hot WCU was in that first half on December 29th?  Yeah, that you can’t stay hot for long.  Even though we may not see the Terps again until the tournament, State should watch that tape and get that number RIGHT NOW.

NC State is (15-8, 4-5).

Oh boy, oh boy.