State beats ECU 85-65

10-11 Basketball17

State moved to 2-0 with its opening-round 85-65 win over East Carolina in the Charleston Classic.

Lorenzo Brown led all scorers with 16 points, but it was State’s bench that made the difference. DeShawn Painter and Ryan Harrow each had a double-double — Painter with 12 points and 10 rebounds and Harrow with 11 points and 10 assists. State only shot 53% from the floor and hit only 1-of-10 behind the arc, but held ECU to 39% from the floor, forced 20 turnovers and outrebounded the Pirates 35-30.

State will meet the winner of Charlotte vs. George Mason Friday at 6pm (ESPNU).

Tracy Smith played only six minutes due to pain in his knee, and his status for Friday’s game in uncertain.

ESPN Box Score

WRAL.com Recap

GoPack.com Photo Gallery

Make sure to spend some time scrolling down the main page to catch up on a lot of activity regarding State’s very tough OOC schedule, State football by the numbers, and of course Thorp & Co. letting the BOT know all is well over at the Flagship.

Feel free to discuss tonight’s win in the comments below, or visit the SFN Forums to discuss this as well as any number of other topics of interest.

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10-11 Basketball

17 Responses to State beats ECU 85-65

  1. packalum08 11/18/2010 at 10:59 PM #

    Great showing by the younger guys, as Tracy and Javi played limited minutes! Also, just to correct something in the post, Thorp and Co. met with the BOT, not the BOG.

    SFN: Fixed it, thanks!

  2. choppack1 11/18/2010 at 11:08 PM #

    I can’t wait to see this squad play.

    Lo Brown is about as good as expected – and he may already be our most complete player. Coach should probably let Smith sit this tourney out

  3. Sweet jumper 11/18/2010 at 11:23 PM #

    There is also a game thread on the forums page.
    Very good win without Smith(injury), Javi(foul trouble) and CJL(out of synch). The rest of the team stepped up and played well. Great job by Painter, especially. He was ecstatic in his post-game interview. I really like this team.

  4. Sweet jumper 11/18/2010 at 11:28 PM #

    Howell is starting to give us the Lorenzo Charles/Tim Stoddard 8 points, 8 rebounds per game effort and he is better passer than Charles and maybe Stoddard. Guys like that are invaluable to good teams.

  5. JeremyH 11/18/2010 at 11:40 PM #

    As an aside, Howell (4 star out of H.S.) is also from Marietta, GA, like Harrow (as is J. J. Hickson). Brown is from Roswell, GA.

  6. Sweet jumper 11/19/2010 at 12:09 AM #

    Forget the DeMatha pipeline, The Georgia pipeline is where it’s at Sid and staff.

  7. theghost 11/19/2010 at 1:23 AM #

    Didn’t see the game, hate to see Tracy going out, can’t be good, but maybe a little extra pressure on Painter and Howell early makes us better in the long run. Probably see a lot of game plans that involve getting those two in foul trouble.

    Didn’t see the game yet, but two things I like from the post-game report:

    20 team assists – haven’t seen that in forever – and then, this quote: “Lebo had finally seen enough, drawing a technical with 12:33 to go as he yelled at an official.” Note that the Pack had 6 MORE fouls than EZU. I guess in Lebo’s world, you’re supposed to get all the calls. I wonder where he learned that from?

  8. PapaJohn 11/19/2010 at 5:45 AM #

    That was fun to watch!! When they got it going – which took a while – they gave us an idea of how good they can potentially be by January.

    ^ I think Lebo’s frustration was that his team had given up.

    Not sure what Javi’s issue was, that other guard wasn’t that good. It’s like Coach told him to get all over that guy to disrupt ECTC and Javi overdid it. He talked about being more aggressive in the pre-game – well that didn’t work out well at all. i think that’s why he’s better at the two, not as smart a player as we’d wish him to be.

    I must have stepped away from the game a minute, I totally missed Tracy going out. Very bad news. We won’t beat any of the good teams without his rebounding, scoring and leadership.

    CJL had a quiet night, but Brown and Harrow were fantastic. Totally lived up to their clippings. Some people have said that CJL would be the freshman to shine brightest this year, others said Brown. After this game, I’ve got to predict Brown. He did everything well. Really a treat to watch.

    But let’s not forget Scott. He led the team in scoring and minutes played. Solid defense the whole game and he found a way to score without hitting the 3-pointer. He is a rock!

    Hope Coach keeps giving Deshawn the minutes. Based on tonight’s performance, I think he’s a slow starter so needs time on the court to get into the game and start contributing. In other words, he’s not going to be a player that will come off the bench and light it up really quickly. But he did some really good stuff. He’s very athletic and plays very hard. there was one play where he was out of position on a rebound but grabbed the ball – and the other player – and got a held ball.

    Great stuff tonight for the second game of the season!

    GO PACK!!

  9. wufpup76 11/19/2010 at 6:21 AM #

    I certainly hope Tracy is ok … we need him badly.

    Kudos to Painter, Vandenburg, and Howell for their play – particularly Painter. He’s stuck with it even with limited playing time last season and just looked great last night. High energy and definitely made a (very positive) impact on the game with his play and attitude.

    Out-of-synch might be the best way to describe Leslie – forced it a bit too much.

    Brown is just the real deal, Harrow continues to impress – we have so many pieces! We didn’t look good at all for the first half, but all of a sudden we’re up by 30. Looked disjointed at the outset of the game … If we can just work the kinks out and get and keep Smith healthy we could really have something here.

    I half expected to see a lot of angst-filled posts on the open thread due to the first half, but was pleasantly surprised to see a pretty optimistic thread! Just need to get off to better starts – need fluidity. Anxious to see how we look against Mason, especially if we don’t have Smith. Mason is really well-coached and will probably be tough, so it should be fun to see how we respond …

    Go Pack!

  10. Texpack 11/19/2010 at 7:18 AM #

    The ball movement, the guard play, the cuts through the lane that were rewarded, it looked a lot like top notch college basketball.

    I saw Lowe’s press conference after the game and he said Tracy would be a game time decision tonight. Didn’t sound like a serious injury. He said DeShawn Painter got the game ball last night. I have to say that he looked way better last night than he did at any point last year. That happens when you have guards that can get you the ball in the right spots. That was a very fun game to watch.

  11. ppack3 11/19/2010 at 7:51 AM #

    ^ Tex, you took the words right out of my mouth! Harrow and Brown have been playing together for years, already. And it shows. If our bigs can find space, they can both get them the ball. They are both great passers.

    Good call about Scott Wood. One 3, but 13 (?) points. Everyone is playing faster, including Wood. The ‘give & go’ between him and Harrow was a thing of beauty! You can expect to see that more and more. Wood is great coming off of screens and Harrow/Brown see those things before they happen. It’s a gift. A gift that we haven’t had in 20 years.

    Leslie is going to have to settle into a role. He bases his game on follow-up dunks, helping from the weak side defense with blocks, and running the break. You know he’s frustrated when he gets a rebound and proceeds to bring the ball up the floor by himself, only to jack up an errant shot. Out of the first three games, that sequence has landed him on the bench three times. Good to see that Lowe is willing to sit him, though.

    As hard as it’s been for us to put the biscuit in the basket over the past two decades, it is absolutely awsome to see some smart, easy buckets! I am not going to say that we are going to win every game, but I will say that every game will be entertaining, this year. This team is just fun to watch. I think that we will beat 75% of the teams on our schedule on talent, alone. It’ll be interesting to see how this team performs against another that’s just as talented, though. That’ll tell us just how far we could go this year, or at least be a good barometer.

    Go State!

  12. Red_Terrors 11/19/2010 at 7:51 AM #

    Couple of points I noticed:
    1) For the first time in a long time, I was not worried about the outcome of the game, even when ecu hung with us in the first half and took the lead several times. You just knew State would go on a run and bust it wide open…just a matter of time. I liked that feeling of confidence.
    2) I didn’t hear Lowe whistling, or see Harrow looking back at the bench for direction. In the past, every time we were on offense, all you could hear was Lowe whistling and dictating the play to Gonzalez (or whoever was at the point). Not to crap on Gonzalez, but its nice to have a true, top flight point guard like Harrow around.

  13. packalum44 11/19/2010 at 8:54 AM #

    “Not sure what Javi’s issue was, that other guard wasn’t that good.”

    Not true. ECU’s PG is their best player and averaged 16 points last year. He’s one of the better guards in C-USA. He’s better than Javi. He’s just really short. Which is likely why he didn’t get a BCS scholarship. Javi got in foul trouble b/c he tried to pressure this guy who aws quicker and more athletic than him. Simple as that. They were all reach in fouls. With that said, we upgrade PGs when Javi sits so I’m didn’t complain. Javi does look somewhat better this year when Brown and Leslie are in there but we are dangerous with Harrow running the show.

  14. zahadum 11/19/2010 at 9:04 AM #

    Nice job by Painter, but sure wish he could grasp the concept that he’s not Kevin McHale and doesn’t have to shoot every single time he touches the ball.

    Can’t remember the last time we’ve looked as quick getting back on defense.

    And when was the last time we won any game by 20 while hitting only one 3 pointer?

  15. NCStatePride 11/19/2010 at 9:13 AM #

    I will take issue with one series of comments being made here:

    I totally missed Tracy going out. Very bad news. We won’t beat any of the good teams without his rebounding, scoring and leadership.

    This seems like more of a habbit than a serious analytical concern. During the TCU game, Smith was the team leader for rebounds (8), but it was Leslie that lead in total points (21) and blocks (6). There is OBVIOUSLY a senior leadership perspective to having Smith on the court, and he is definitely not a player to shake a stick at, but what these two powder-puff games have showed early in the season is that NC State can be just as deadly without Tracy Smith as they are with him if they need to be. I’m not saying Smith is a non-factor, but if we are playing a top-notch opponent and Smith fouls out with 5 minutes left in the 2nd, unlike last season, I don’t think anyone can say NC State is done for the night.

  16. ppack3 11/19/2010 at 10:02 AM #

    ^ The thing that bothered me about Smith going out was the fact that there was also talk of Howell having a ‘boot’ on his foot yesterday. During the pregame show, Sidney said that he hurt it in practice on Wednesday. Leslie and Smith started, but Howell played. Then Smith went out and I thought, “That’s not good.” Maybe I misunderstood, or the guys in the pregame misspoke, and they were talking about Tracy? I don’t know. But I do know that we would be hard pressed to beat really good teams without two of our best bigs.

    Having said that, Vandy and Painter both played well. Vandy had a block or two. He definitely altered some shots. he is so predictable on Offense that he’s practically a non-issue for opposing defenses.

    Painter was the same way last year. And, honestly, he started out that way this year, and in this game. But, something clicked. Dude got aggressive. He was running the lane, and Harrow was finding him. He was boxing out, which is something that we need somebody to do. He was getting to the charity stripe and playing good defense. He really showed up last night. I hope that he can keep it up. He’s developing and he’s a Sophomore. he might turn into a formidable guy on the interior.

  17. ChiefJoJo 11/19/2010 at 1:46 PM #

    What do you mean “only shot 53% from the floor?” That’s an excellent percentage for FGs. I’d take that percentage any time, along with 40% 3pt and 75% FT%. Clearly, we need more work from beyond the arc. Didn’t see the game, but I like what I hear.

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