First loss of the season
Game Summary:
Happy Thanksgiving!
The Wolfpack came out of the gate hot with a 3PT shot by Michael O’Connell and took the lead 7-2. Purdue then went on a 12-point run and eventually pushed their lead to 9. As expected, the 3PT shot was working for them (38%) and we struggled (17%). However, our inside game, particularly Huntley-Hatfield, who led both teams with 11 points and 5 rebounds in the half, kept us within 1 point. We closed the half at 32-33.
The second half didn’t go as well. They pushed the lead to 8 in the first 6 minutes, then held a double-digit lead for most of the half. We did cut it to 8 at 5:37, but that was as close as we got. Purdue out rebounded the Pack 20-13 and we could not stop Kaufman-Renn and Heide who were 9-13 / 2-3 and accounted for 25 of their 38 second half points. As a team they shot 46.2% to our 39.1%. Final score 71-61 Purdue.
NC State will play the loser of the BYU / Ole Miss game tomorrow at 3:30 ET.
Overall Takeaways:
- The Pack did some good things, but not enough
- We only had 8 turnovers
- We held a team that shoots 43% from 3PT to 31.3%, they average hitting 8, they hit 5
- We struggled on the boards, we were outrebounded 38-28.
- We seemed to collect fouls without too much effort, they had 18 fouls, but we only got 15 attempts at the line.
- They had 34 points in the paint to our 30.
- They scored 14 points off turnovers to our 8
Coach Keatts’ Comments
- “The difference in the game was rebounding and free throws”
- “We did plenty of good things and will get better because of this”
Individual Highlights
- Jayden Taylor led scoring with 15
- Brandon Huntley-Hatfield led rebounding with 8
- Michael O’Connell had 6 assists with zero turnovers