Yes my fellow Wolfpackers, it’s that time again, please stop breathing so loud and pass me the aspirin. It’s time to discover if the good guys are able to shake off another Temple-of-Doom-heart-ripped-out-through-their-chests last second loss and muster up enough to beat the hapless Canes or will they suffer from another Hangover. We all remember the effort put forth 3 days after the Syracuse game down in Clemson, while Miami is not Clemson and the game is in Raleigh there is the very real probability the boys in red simply won’t have the heart to compete and turn one loss into two, maybe more.
Time: 12:00
TV: ACC Network
Announcers: Tim Brandt, Cory Alexander
Recap of last meeting:
ACC leading scorer T.J. Warren scored 19 of his 27 points in the second half to help lead NC State to a 56-55 win over Miami on Saturday.
Ralston Turner scored 16 of his 17 points in the first half for NC State (15-8, 5-5), which was won four of five.
Rion Brown’s 20 points led Miami (11-12, 2-8), which dropped to 0-6 in conference home games.
Miami’s Raphael Akpejiori had a chance to tie the game at the free-throw line with 3.5 seconds left. He had grabbed an offensive rebound following a miss by Manu Lecomte, who scored 13 points.
Akpejiori, who was 4 for 4 from the line this season, made the first and missed the second.
The rebound was corralled by Kyle Washington, who missed both free throws and Brown’s three-quarter heave was well short.
NC State shot 37.8 percent from the field (17 for 45) including 7 for 20 from behind the 3-point arc and sank 15 of 20 from the free-throw line. Miami, which came into the game shooting under 40 percent from the floor, shot 33.3 percent (17 for 51) for the game and 28.6 percent (8 for 28) in the second half.
So what’s been going on since the Pack took a trip to Miami 3 weeks ago and escaped with a 56-55 victory that quite possibly could have been another last second loss when Kyle Washington was shockingly not called for a foul on Rion Brown’s 3/4 court heave?
Well the Pack has gone 2-3, beating up on Wake Forest and VT and had heartbreaking loses to Syracuse and UNC with a crushing defeat at Clemson where the original hangover began. Also, TJ Warren has had three +30 point games. Miami has gone 3-2, winning @FSU, Notre Dame, and BC while losing @VT (How? How do you ever lose to this VT team?) and @UVA.
If you need a refresher of the Miami roster then check out my first preview of them here.
So let’s take a look at each team’s conference only tempo free stats.
Want to know the difference between Miami and NC State? Not a heck of a lot. Besides Miami not having (who should be but won’t) ACC POY TJ Warren, the only 2 things that stand out between these 2 teams is Defensive Rebounding and Sending the opposition to the Free Throw Line. One contributing to the other. What do I mean? The Pack’s inability to get a defensive rebound leads to multiple opportunities for their opponents take shots. Many offensive rebounds happen right around the basket. Why isn’t the Pack getting the rebound? Well they are either trying to block a shot they can’t possibly block and thus are out of position or they aren’t boxing out and are thus out of position. When the opposition gets an offensive rebound under the basket that usually leads to a quick put back attempt. When that happens the Pack is usually trying to block a shot they can’t possibly block which is likely to end up fouling the opposition.
NOT SO FUN FACT
NC State has lost 3 games this season by 1 point. Can you guess which ones?
ADVANTAGES
At least we’ve got Offensive Rebounding going for us.
So they can’t score but that’s okay, the Pack will give them as many chances as it takes until they do.
PREDICTION
KenPom thinks the Pack will win by 4. What do I think? I think if I could predict the outcome of games I wouldn’t be doing this.
