The Wolfpack’s third consecutive loss
Game Summary:
The first half started badly with NC State falling behind 0-9 but caught up and took the lead at 6:59 25-24. From there it was back and forth with the Longhorns taking the lead into halftime 33-31. Marcus Hill (11 pts) and Dontrez Styles (7 pts), who had been quiet in San Diego led the scoring. The Pack started Huntley-Hatfield and Middlebrooks together for rebounding, and although they didn’t play together a long time, we led the rebounding 18-14 at the half. Michael O’Connell (of course!), led the rebounding with 5.
The second half was a battle with the Pack up by 2, 57-55, at the 3:58 mark. But then went cold and only made one more field goal, losing 63-59.
Rebounding again was an issue, we were out rebounded 23-12 in the second half. But the biggest problem was one we had fixed, free throw shooting. We shot 6-14 from the line, 42.9%.
Overall Takeaways:
- The Pack lost a resume game that was there for the taking, they just went cold in the last four minutes. Probably the lack of a ‘go to’ guy.
- Texas dialed up the rebounding in the second half, they had 10 offensive rebounds and ended up out rebounding us 37-30.
- We did not guard the 3PT line as well as we have previously, Texas shot 47.1%
- There is absolutely no excuse for shooting 42.9% at the line. Had we shot our team average of 71.9%, we would have scored 4 more points – the difference in the game.
Keatts Comments:
Individual Highlights
- Marcus Hill and Dontrez Styles, who hadn’t helped much in San Diego were our leading scorers
- Michael O’Connell had 4 turnovers, that doubled his total for the season
- Michael O’Connell was only 1-8 from the field, but led the team in rebounds and assists