Game blog: N.C. State beats No. 8 Wake Forest 82-76
Jeff Teague of Wake Forest fouls C.J. Williams of N.C. State during the first half on February 11, 2009. The Wolfpack would lead the Deacons 42-34 at the half.
Feb 11, 2009
9:02 p.m., Court is rushed: N.C. State finally has that win to hang it's hat on. They beat no. 8 Wake Forest at home, though it wasn't pretty trying to hold onto the lead, they did it. The students were ready and waiting to storm this court. It's celebration time in Raleigh. Now, it's time for Duke and Carolina, the one you have been waiting for. I'm satisfied with this game tonight. They should think about televising big ACC games like this one!
8:58 p.m., Horrible foul: Chas McFarland what are you thinking? You don't need to foul when you are down by two and State can't come close to running away the shot clock. State is up by three with 35 seconds left!!! OH baby!!! James Johnson missed a three to tie it, and Javi Gonzalez is going to the line.
8:54 p.m., Clock and free-throws: Who wins this game will be up to N.C. State. If it can take care of the ball and make most of the free throws it will win. The Pack are up by just six with under 90 seconds to play. Wake is at the line to try and cut it to four. Adam Harris (Duke vs. UNC blogger), are you fighting with any Cameron Crazies over there yet? Payback for Hansbrough's face two years ago?
8:50 p.m., Buckle up: Wake is on an 8-0 run that was capped by a James Johnson three-pointer. He is the leading Deacon tonight with 18 points. State has done a good job of neutralizing Jeff Teague, one of the nation's best scorers. He only has eight points and has somehow only attempted two shots from the field. N.C. State is back up 77-68 with under four to go.
8:44 p.m., Un sung guys playing well: C.J. Williams has a career high 10 points tonight. Javi Gonzalez and Farnold Degand have really contributed. Javi has especially stepped up, with some great pases and a couple big buckets. Wake Forest has cut it to 10 points and State is trying the approach of not attacking, and not taking good shots. And all in the time it took me to write this post Wake has cut the lead to seven!! It's 75-68 with just over four minutes to go. N.C. State was up by 20 in this half.
8:38 p.m., State holds it together: This one is turning into a pressure-filled heavyweight fight. Each team is going on really nice sequences out here with strings of solid play, and then strings of not so good play. The Pack lead it 71-58 and will have Tracy Smith at the line shooting two after the media break. Funny that they have media breaks when there is no TV here. Farnold Degand and Javi Gonzalez played at the same time in that last stretch for extra ball handling to handle the press. It worked a lot better than having Dennis Horner out there. I think the flaming basketball tatoo on his arm seaped a little into his blood flow.
8:31 p.m., Oh no!!: Wake just went on the fastest 7-0 run I have ever seen. Wake turned up the full court pressure and State acted as if they never expected them to try and win the game. Dennis Horner is a train wreck tonight, he is just handing it over to Wake in the back-court for easy buckets. He finds himself back on the bench quickly. He has done nothing well tonight. Brandon Coster just got more emotional than I've ever seen. He was screaming at his team after Sidney called the timeout. He was screaming at the top of his lungs telling the them to get it together. It is a 10-0 run with State up 64-54 with under 10 minutes to play. Fittingly Coster ends the drought himself with a bucket and a foul. State just stopped attacking. You aren't going to ease back and beat a team as good as Wake Forest and not expect them to make a huge run. You have to play like you played when you got up by 20.
8:26 p.m., Aminu is done?: Al-Farouq Aminu just picked up his fifth foul on a cheap one 60 feet from the basket. He is done with nine points. I didn't even realize the guy is in foul trouble, and all of the sudden one of their key low post players is done with almost 12 minutes still to play. Wolfpack lead 62-45. Will the Deacons come up with that run? Adam Harris, are you over there at Duke yet? I can't understand why all the media members here are suddenly leaving, as if they have to be somewhere else by 9 p.m.
8:19 p.m., Oh baby!!: I believe the Duke crazies would have lifted the "oh baby" up and down for this play. Brandon Costner just threw down a one handed jam right on Aminu. He controlled the ball the all the way from half court, jammed it with a guy right on his body the whole way, got fouled and made the free throw. As if it isn't enough he follows it with a three-pointer. State leads by 20, 62-42. This is the loudest the building has been all year. I'd estimate about 14 thousand are here tonight. Dick Vitale wishes he were here to see that dunk. What a sensational play baby! Awesome with a capital A!! Costner leads all with 19 points.
8:14 p.m., Standing O at the timeout: I have to say, this is a nice crowd tonight, especially since it's the "other" game in the triangle tonight. If this game were played on any other night it would have recieved ample pre-game talk, and it would probably be on TV. Brandon Costner hit a nice streak-busting three-pointer to give the Pack a 54-42 lead with under 16 minutes to go. This team looks focussed right now. The 2009 baseball team just took the floor. Russell Wilson was there, and he still hasn't thrown that second interception in football.
8:09 p.m., Streaky team all of a sudden: They go in a dry spell, then they hit a three-pointer as Farnold Degand does. Then they steal the ball two times in a row and they are on a 7-0 run. Wake Forest takes a timeout as the nice crowd here at the RBC Center really lets them here. State is up 51-38 with 17:34 to go. When will the Wake run kick in? Wow there is another steal by State.
8:03 p.m., Halftime stats: Brandon Costner starts the half with a bang, literally with a dunk. Tracy Smith scored eight in the first half and Fells had 10. I am a horrible journalist because earlier I said Smith had 10 in the first half. He would have if he hit his shot at the buzzer of the first half. My colleague at The Fan, Adam Harris is getting ready to do the bloggy game column for Duke vs. UNC. Adam, are all of the beautiful people arriving in Durham yet? Attention, you will have to click on his bloggy thing to read it.
Right here Sidney Lowe took a quick timeout after State gave up two easy baskets. I like it, you don't want to repeat what this team always does in not playing the full 40 minutes. Defense has to stay strong for a win today. State leads 44-38 with 19 minutes left in the game.
7:47 p.m., So close for Tracy: Javi drove the floor and made the pass to Smith in the perfect spot to lay it in for a shot at the buzzer of the first half, but he fumbled it away. N.C. State still leads 42-34 at the end of the half. This would be the best win of the season for them if they could win it. Remember they played a lot of talented teams to close games early in the season, but never won any of them. They also got run out by some good teams in Duke and North Carolina. Those two teams aren't doing anything tonight are they? No, no I don't think so.
7:42 p.m., Here again: Sorry folks but our blogging system is giving me fits and I will get on here and post to you as frequently as it will allow me. This thing is as slow as a Big Ten offense right now. N.C. State is up 38-29 and have been on the verge of making this a double digit lead on a number of occasions in the last five minutes or so. Brandon Costner showed up and hit a couple shots. C.J. Williams had a chance to bring the house down with an open court slam, but Jeff Teague made a great block from behind to block it. He did get whistled for a foul. Folks, Javi Gonzalez just found Fells for one of his best dunks of the season. He has such long arms it makes dunking look so easy. State is up 40-33 with under two minutes to go in the half. Tracy Smith has 10 points.
7:25 p.m., Three-pointers: Yes, Farnold Degand just knocked in back-to-back threes for the Wolfpack. Tracy Smith just got the ball down low, and gaffed on a bunny. But it's for the better, he got a rebound, put-back, and a foul call. Now he can turn it into three, the old-fashioned way. He doesn't. C.J. Williams a couple minutes ago made a bone-headed turnover. He passed it right to Harvey Hale in the backcourt without even lifting his head. Harvey walked in for a lay-up drill. The Pack lead it 26-22 withe 8:28 to go in the first half. Full court pressure is applied by the Demon Deacons here.
7:20 p.m., A game of runs: N.C. State used an 8-0 run to take a brief 17-16 lead. A nice fast break turned into a Tracy Smith lay-up, and Fells cut off a down-screen and popped out for a three-pointer from the top of the key. Wake leads it 19-18 with 10:41 left to go.
7:15 p.m., Not good start for Horner: Right off the bench, Dennis Horner takes the ball in-bounds from under his own basket. He passes it right to Aminu for an easy slam dunk. N.C. State needs to move when they are on offense, it looks like a lot of standing around. Courtney Fells hit a big three-pointer to make it 15-11. Farnold Degand is in at point, he did not play at Virginia Tech.
7:12 p.m., Energetic start: Courtney Fells hit the first attempted shot of the game. Both teams looked jazzed up in the first four minutes. It went array for State in the final possession before the timeout. Tracy Smith got the ball down low, and instead of going up with it he dribbled it to let the defenders get near him. Wake Forest has a 9-6 lead with under 16 minutes to play.
7:04 p.m., Point guard is: Javi Gonzalez for the second straight game. Here we go!
6:56 p.m., Could be a good game: Of course my confidence is not very high on this State team after they blew the 18 point second half lead against Virginia Tech. If they would have won that game, they would have a chance to get to 14-8 and 4-5 in the ACC with a big win at home against a top-ten in-state rival. That would have been a nice scenario, but now it just seems as if the air is out of the sail. I do see more of a big-man match-up in favor of the Pack more so than was in Duke's favor. That's about it though. Almost every seat in the arena has a free Wolfpack t-shirt draped over it. I gotta get me one of those. The student sections are also breaking out the long red and white baloons. Don't they know no one will see this game footage? It's not on TV!! That's amazing isn't it? A rivalry game with a top-ten in the house and it isn't on TV.
6:28 p.m., N.C. State alum fired up: It's pretty close to the media workroom (right next door) where they set up the N.C. State alum. They are in there eating and drinking, getting pepped up for the game at hand. They were even kind enough to bring the pep band by. It was almost like a private show. This one guy then got on the mic as I was walking by, very upset at the lack of "pump-up" going on in the room. He yelled, "This is freaking N.C. State athletics!" as if that would implore his fellow alumni to sing along to the fight song louder the next time. So they played the song over.
Wake Forest is out on the floor about 30 minutes to tip-off, and they have the floor to themselves. I was at the Wake game last year in this building when Ben McCauley scored a tip in dunk in the final seconds. The series is actually the oldest rivalry for N.C. State, not Duke or North Carolina. This one dates back to the 1910-11 season. I believe that's when Wyatt Earp and Buford "Griff" Tannen ruled the wild west.
I really love Jeff Teague as a player. He is one of the more elctrifying athletes in the nation. He was just named a Cousy award finalist, given to the country's top point guard. There is not a guy that can score the ball more than him.
