The Pack nabs a bounce-back victory.
I appreciate a tomato can that comes in and at least does something interesting, and Kent State was up to the challenge tonight. The Golden Flashes shot 8-20 from three in the first half, and 1-11 from two. They ended up finishing the game with a lower field goal percentage (26.3) than three-point percentage (35.7), which you don’t see a whole lot.
NC State made it a little to easy on Kent State’s perimeter offense in the first half with some poor (or non-existent) close-outs but tightened the screws in the second half, and as Kent State’s woes inside continued, the Wolfpack pulled away.
Aziaha James led all scorers with 20 points in 28 minutes, surpassing 1,000 points for her career. James also led the team with nine boards and four assists. Freshman stud Zamareya Jones turned in another excellent effort as well, scoring 16 on 6-11 shooting.
NC State pushed a five-point halftime lead to 12 by the end of the third quarter, then reeled off the first 14 points of the fourth quarter to ice it.
Kent State shot just 2-8 from three in the second half, but did knock down four two-pointers, giving it five twos for the entire game. KSU was 3-13 at the rim and 2-16 on mid-range shots. Listen, Kent State, far be it from me to judge your basketball lifestyle choices, but I don’t think that’s healthy.
The Pack had no such issues, hitting almost 57% of its twos on the night.
Next up for the Pack is a tough road trip to TCU on Sunday—the Horned Frogs are a top-20 team.