Pack Pounds Blue Devils 88-74

NC State delivered 40 full minutes of basketball feeding off the energy of the rowdy RBC crowd and an elevated defensive intensity that included a rare full court press to keep seventh-ranked Duke at arms length and finish with a resounding 88-74 upset.

While much praise will deservedly be directed on Tracy Smith’s and Dennis Horner’s fantastic performances; please do not underestimate the importance of Farnold Degand’s decision making and offensive production in the first half followed by Javi Gonzalez and Scott Wood’s contributions in the backcourt in the second half.

For the night, Smith was 10 of 11 from the field for 23 points and 5 rebounds. Horner hit clutch shots in the second half finishing with 20 on the night on 8 of 15 shooting from the field and 3 of 5 from the free throw line.

State was able to keep the Blue Devils at bay by converting 73% from the free throw line, shooting 19 of 26. Despite Duke playing from behind and having to intentionally foul State late in the game, it will surprise nobody who watches basketball that the Blue Devils still attempted seven MORE free throws than the Wolfpack despite State’s home court advantage (shooting 25 of 33).

Tonight’s victory was the Wolfpack’s second over a team ranked in the Top 25 after knocking off Florida State last week. State lost to Top 15 Clemson by only three points this weekend.

The confidence and credibility created by tonight’s win will serve the Wolfpack well in the ACC schedule, especially with the UNC-CH Tarheels coming to Raleigh next Tuesday night.

NC State Basketball Coach, Sidney Lowe turns 50 years old tomorrow and the Wolfpack’s Tracy Smith celebrated a birthday TODAY.

LINKS

News & Observer Article by JP Giglio

Link to WRAL story

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09-10 Basketball

92 Responses to Pack Pounds Blue Devils 88-74

  1. Gene 01/21/2010 at 5:53 AM #

    “Everett Case is smiling somewhere tonight. So is V.”

    But Norm Sloan is scowling, ’cause no one is wearing plaid for the big game 🙂

  2. wolfonthehill 01/21/2010 at 6:00 AM #

    We full-court press Duke & force turnovers.

    They have to go zone to stop Tracy.

    One of those special nights indeed…

  3. Wulfpack 01/21/2010 at 6:26 AM #

    Great win. After the 2nd half of the Clemson game, and last night, I believe. Who knows how far it takes us, but we’ve made a lot of strides from a year ago. Keep up the good work, Pack!

  4. waxhaw 01/21/2010 at 6:58 AM #

    ^ Don’t forget FSU. We’ve played decent or great the last 5 of 6 halves against 3 tough teams.

    Maybe FSU was the catalyst (minus the Clemson 1st half)

  5. Texpack 01/21/2010 at 7:14 AM #

    This was just a good ole fashioned whipping. I said early on that this team would be hot and cold, but I didn’t think our hot nights would have quite this much upside. Outstanding win. Sidney needs to keep their heads screwed on straight and have them ready on Saturday.

    Degand had an excellent game. I was so happy for Dennis Horner. The kid works his butt off. He deserved this one. Richard Howell continues to improve. The entire conference tournament seeding process may be done by draws.

  6. Rick 01/21/2010 at 7:53 AM #

    “It’s great to beat Duke, but to a certain extent, this was more a case of it simply being “our night.” ”

    I am the original skeptic and I have to tell you that I think you are wrong. We played a very good game but it is not like we played the game of our lives to win nor did Duke play awful. We played hard and shot well and won. Sid had it game planned right. The shots we hit were good shots. It is not like when you know who was here and if we hit 60% from threes we win kind of thing. We were driving and getting layups. We only shot 5-12 from the three.

    And I do not know how anyone can complain about the refs. If we get games called like that the rest of the year I will be thrilled.

    I am starting to believe.

  7. wolfonthehill 01/21/2010 at 8:05 AM #

    ^ Agree on the refs. The only calls I saw that were head-scratchers (and consistently seemed to go the wrong way) were travel/block/jump-ball calls. Fouls seemed reasonable (except for the continued allowance of moving picks by Duke – but that’s every game for them), and we even got the benefit of a pretty big out of bounds possession call late in the game.

    Also agree on Sid. The guys had a focused game plan (pound it inside & use Farnold’s speed), and it worked. They didn’t force shots that weren’t there… I give Wood a TON of credit for his patience… and pulling Wood out of the lane cleared out one potential defender from doubling on Tracy.

    Just a great game, top to bottom. One mini-drought in the first half, zero in the second. That’s the difference… you just can never stop scoring against Duke, and we didn’t.

  8. Pack05 01/21/2010 at 8:14 AM #

    We whipped their azz from start to finish… even rat face said as much in the postgame. PRICELESS!!!

    I am very pleased that Sid is getting TS, Howell, Wood and Degand on the floor together for solid stretches. Horner, you played a gutty game son.. very easy to tell that knee is not near 100% right now.

    PS… nice “kiss from the Gods” on that Javi 3, wooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

  9. ktpritch 01/21/2010 at 8:19 AM #

    That was a great game! The best part, for me, is that they just played a solid game and didn’t win because they had an incredible shooting night (though it was good…). Duke made runs and they fought back – great job!

  10. orionpack 01/21/2010 at 8:54 AM #

    The game ball has got to goto Degand. His repeated penetration into their defense gave Tracy some good looks and pulled defenders away from him. Great to see Javi/Horner back to their old selves.

  11. theghost 01/21/2010 at 9:03 AM #

    Some have alluded to it, but here’s where I think the difference might be with this year’s team. When is the last time an opposing coach came into a game worried about how to match up with us? We never have more than one player who deserved attention, so the gameplanning has never been harder than “put our best defender on/doubleteam Hodge (or Hickson, or Grundy, or Fuller, or…Miller? did it get that bad?)” For the first time, I think K actually had a difficult gameplan – how to deal with Smith AND Wood, and keep Degand/Javi from penetrating. Note that, while our PG’s still aren’t world-beaters, clearly none of this is possible without their penetration, which I also haven’t seen in far too long.

  12. tuckerdorm1983 01/21/2010 at 9:04 AM #

    wooooooo!!!! hooooooooo!!!!!!

  13. tuckerdorm1983 01/21/2010 at 9:09 AM #

    i wonder where unx will be ranked next week??? Surely they deserve to be in the top 25. I feel so sorry for them. It couldn’t happen to a nicer group of guys. Maybe if Roy threw out a few fans that would fire them up. And their fans are such long suffering fans. They just sat there last night quite and all. Its breaking my heart. They just deserve to win. A team of nothing but Mcdonalds All Americans. How can they lose? How, CAN they lose? (say the CAN very slowly they second time)

  14. coachkoh 01/21/2010 at 9:13 AM #

    Kudos to Javi and D Horner! And to all that said they both should not see the floor again.

  15. fullmoon1 01/21/2010 at 9:21 AM #

    I think we now have quantified the progress that was mostly intangibles up until now. I still think Wood(s) with an s sounds better so I may continue to write it that way lol.

  16. GAWolf 01/21/2010 at 9:21 AM #

    I agree wholeheartedly with Orion and theGhost. Nice posts.

  17. fullmoon1 01/21/2010 at 9:28 AM #

    I was just making the same statment tuckerdorm. I wonder how many other top 25 teams have as many losses as the tarholes. Even if they did not win another game this year they would coast undeservingly to the dance on legacy alone. What a sham.

  18. philliepacker 01/21/2010 at 9:41 AM #

    Did you see how empty the dome got!! And how rockin the RBC center was!!!! YES WE CAN!

  19. ShootingGuard 01/21/2010 at 9:48 AM #

    It is nice to win like that so you can say,”you see, when the game is called fair—for the most part—a team that tries really hard has a chance to make it a great game and even WIN!”

    Too many times, you see the refs end games that could be good by making backbreaking calls early or sneaky little calls early that end it later—like I could not believe the refs didn’t screw Tracy Smith over with a 2nd or even 3rd foul in the first half.

    Steve Levy and Van Pelt seemed to REALLY enjoy going over the highlights. It is so nice for these not so greatly talented but still hardworking kids—and their coach—to get a reward for their tremendous EFFORT this season.

  20. packfan03 01/21/2010 at 10:02 AM #

    Great win indeed! I am very proud of the team effort, and will continue to believe that we have a chance in every ACC contest here on out.

    Van Pelt…he graduated from Maryland, right? Reporters/Anchors are supposed to be unbiased, but I bet he was thrilled to see the Dookies bite the dust.

  21. Thinkpack17 01/21/2010 at 10:04 AM #

    Yeah Farnold got away with two walks last night. One of them ended in an assist that stopped a Duke mini-run. We have earned a designated moonwalker though. Duke had McRoberts, Carolina had Tyler, maybe they will let Ryan Harrow’s hanging cross over slide to even things up. Aminu has gotten away with murder this year too.

  22. cc4ncspack 01/21/2010 at 10:08 AM #

    Un-freakin-believable. Winning cures everything. Go State!! Awesum crowd last night. Now, lets beat the Holes next week.

  23. theghost 01/21/2010 at 10:09 AM #

    n and o has a picture of Harrow and CJ watching the game and smiling last night…

  24. PackToTheFuture 01/21/2010 at 10:10 AM #

    These guys just look ready to go, that’s the difference between this team and last year’s team (whatever personal/ego issues they were having). It’s great to see everyone playing together, love the full court press. Rebounding could have been better, Josh Davis had a key offensive board late. Big props to Horner for coming on strong tonight with the injury and Wood’s maturity at this point is phenomenal. What a night!!

  25. VaWolf82 01/21/2010 at 10:15 AM #

    The shots we hit were good shots. It is not like when you know who was here and if we hit 60% from threes we win kind of thing. We were driving and getting layups. We only shot 5-12 from the three.

    This summarizes the big difference between the FSU win and last night’s win against Duke. If the only way that you can beat a good team is to shoot alot of three’s and hit 50%….then you aren’t going to beat very many good teams. State shot well last night, but it was because they were shooting alot from point blank range.

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