State Closes Out 2008 By Beating Towson State 88-68

08-09 Basketball General33

In a New Year’s Eve matinee at the RBC Center, the Wolfpack shook off a sluggish start to pull past Towson State 88-68.

WRAL.com story
ESPN.com Boxscore

Tracy Smith scored a career-high 31 points in 23 minutes off the bench [and made] 10 of 15 shots from the field and all 11 of his free throws for the Wolfpack (9-2), who rallied from an 11-point deficit early in the first half.

“I was just very energized coming into the game,” said Smith, whose previous career high was 14 points. “We started out slow, and I wanted to bring in positive energy. That’s what I did.”

Brandon Costner added 15 points and 10 assists for the Wolfpack, who led 46-41 at halftime after closing the first half on an 8-0 run. Courtney Fells scored 11 points for N.C. State, and Ben McCauley and Dennis Horner added 10 points apiece.

Wufpup76 added this personal impression of the game to another thread, and it’s well worth the time to read what he saw:

Friends and family only today at the Bank Center  (attendance wasn’t that bad, but it was pretty sparse.)  Today’s crowd was definitely livelier than the other night against Loyola of Maryland. It wasn’t a terrible turnout for the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

Towson played zone a majority of the time, and showed a lot of full court press today … State zone offense definitely gets an “A” today – not an A+ b/c there were a few turnovers – but it was a very, very efficient Pack attack today against the press and zone.  We forced them to switch to man a few times in the second half.

The zone offense was highly effective due to the passing of Brandon Costner and Dennis Horner and the positioning and spacing by Tracy Smith … I don’t if I’ve ever seen a player use his body better and put himself in great position to receive the ball more than Tracy Smith … His 31 points came as a direct result of his getting into the right position time after time against the zone and guys moving the ball and finding him – especially Brandon Costner … It seemed that Costner had about 10,000 assists to Smith today out of the high low in the zone offense … McCauley is a great passer, but Brandon is pretty good in his own right … Also, Smith was 11/11 from the line – you read that right – great all around day from Smith.

Speaking of McCauley, he played pretty well today and fought hard, but he’s been pressing a bit since the Marquette game and he’s turning the ball over uncharacteristically down low … He’s either thinking too much when he gets the ball or is trying to react before he’s really got the ball … Hopefully he’ll snap out of this soon

Defense really picked up late in the first half and on into the second half … You guys can clown and rip Ferguson all you want, but in the 2 games we’ve played w/out him we have struggled mightly at times defensively … This isn’t because Fells can’t cover the two effectively – it’s because we’ve got no one to cover the 3 effectively after moving Fells back to the 2 … Dennis is a really good kid and works hard and I love him – but he will never be mistaken for a defensive stopper … And CJ and JT just aren’t ready yet … Ferguson is way better defender than he is given credit for – especially off the ball.

In fact, probably our most effective line-ups today came when both Mays and Farnold were in at the same time … This was a really effective lineup today – with Fells back at the 3 and Costner/Horner working the 4 … I’d like to see this more until we get Trevor Ferguson back.

We’ll see how we look Saturday at Florida … Hopefully we’ll start out playing solid D and can cause some match-up problems for them down low … we’ll defintely need both Mays and Farnold to be top notch Saturday and if Javi is available it’s likely we’ll need him too.

Also wanted to mention that Julius Mays is a really scrappy kid and doesn’t back down to anyone … He’s definitely got a little bit of “Javi” in him.

(slightly edited)

Thanks for the write-up, Wufpup, and as a reminder, if any of you would like to submit an article for the main page, please send it to us via email at statefans at gmail dot com.

08-09 Basketball General

33 Responses to State Closes Out 2008 By Beating Towson State 88-68

  1. Sweet jumper 01/02/2009 at 7:43 AM #

    Tracy Smith consistently scores more points and grabs more rebounds per minute than anyone on the team. He now seems to understand his role better and how to get in proper position for different circumstances. Hopefully, he will now receive 20+ minutes per game and will have a break-out second half of the season.

  2. Alpha Wolf 01/02/2009 at 9:00 AM #

    ^ True and Julius Mays is adapting pretty well, considering the number of minutes that he’s played.

    Is it me or is Degand’s speed picking up a bit too?

  3. Wulfpack 01/02/2009 at 9:20 AM #

    Congrats to Smith and the Pack for taking care of business against the Tigers. HUGE game tomorrow against the Gators. If we’re not pumped for this one then it’ll be a long conference season I’m afraid. Play well and win and there’s some hope.

    I would also like to congratulate/thank Beamer and the Hokies on their giant win last night. This was a important win for the conference and the Hokies saved the day for the entire ACC. It was a poor bowl season up until that point. Beamer is hands down the best coach in the conference. TOB certainly has the potential to be. He deserves a lot more credit than he currently gets nationally.

    Speaking of coaches, did you guys hear that Terry Bowden took the job at Div II North Alabama?

  4. wufpup76 01/02/2009 at 10:23 AM #

    “Is it me or is Degand’s speed picking up a bit too?”

    ^Farnold has looked WAY better the last two games as far as movement and defense … I don’t want to raise false hope b/c he is certainly not all the way back, but he has looked a lot better … Tomorrow could provide a telling guage on Farnold – here’s hoping for the best

    chop asked about CJ Williams in another thread – he has struggled w/ turnovers on the offensive end and hasn’t been getting much time … same w/ johnny thomas (to add to this, neither player has found a way to be a consistent offensive threat just yet) … both players look to be able to play a little on the defensive end of the court, but time and experience are necessary

    About Tracy Smith, we should be thankful that we have both him and McCauley … Ben’s struggled a bit in the last couple of games (actually played fine against Loyola) – but is still averaging close to a double-double … Smith could probably see minutes at the 4 behind Costner as well, but to be honest the rotation we’ve seen has been really effective between Smith and McCauley at the 5 … Put it this way – both Tracy and Ben have earned their minutes this season – And, judging by the Towson game Sidney will play the hot hand so it’s not really about who starts … This is a definite luxury, not a dilemma

    I saw where Terry Bowden took that D2 job – he must really want back into coaching … I thought he was actually a candidate at a few D1 jobs over the past few seasons though ???

  5. happypackdad 01/02/2009 at 10:33 AM #

    “Farnold has looked WAY better the last two games as far as movement and defense … I don’t want to raise false hope b/c he is certainly not all the way back, but he has looked a lot better … Tomorrow could provide a telling guage on Farnold – here’s hoping for the best”

    Farnold should get his big brace off for tomorrow’s game which should help. Also, Javi should be available.

  6. Alpha Wolf 01/02/2009 at 10:43 AM #

    I commented over on Pack Pride that a big step in recovering from an ACL.MCL replacement is trusting in the rebuilt knee and it looks like Farnold is getting there.

    It doesn’t matter what someone says out loud in that regard, because any guy with a sack is going to say he’s just fine, thanks very much. Unconciously, though, it’s a different matter. When you are healed and recovered from the surgery, you still have a tendency to avoid really stressing the rebuilt area…until one day you do and everything is fine and you don’t wince in pain.

    I think a lot of that has to do with rehab. It’s hurts like hell, make no mistake about it. Me, I have pretty high threshold for pain, but I needed a TENS device to flex the muscles hard enough to do the work I needed to do. That’s because there was a deep lightning bolt of primal pain every time I did. I have broken bones that didn’t feel that bad.

    Eventually, I got over mine, and one day I was out skiing and some college kid were stopped in the middle of a racing run where you couldn’t see them until you were right on ’em. I was probably hitting 45 MPH at the time and to avoid hitting them and killing myself and them, I had to really jump hard down on the edges and turn quick. I did and missed them, but noticed later my knee was just fine, nothing bad happened and I was *back.* From then on, life was normal.

    That’s not too uncommon an experience, and Farnold is probably going through the same thing to an extent. Will he ever be as fast as he once was? Maybe, but it will take time. But will he start to trust himself more? No doubt about it.

  7. wufpup76 01/02/2009 at 2:02 PM #

    ^ “unconciously” – “subconciously” … same difference! 🙂

    just teasing, Alpha

    and it is funny/weird how random things/actions have such a profound impact on one’s life, such as your skiing incident and figuring out you were back

  8. WolfpackCoach17 01/06/2009 at 2:57 PM #

    Pet Peeve of mine…

    Towson University dropped the “State” long long ago.

    Arghhhh.

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