WRAL Sports Fan

WRALSportsFan

Wolfpack Whips Wake Forest, 91-73

By Tim Peeler

Feb 21, 2008

Greensboro, N.C. — Jim Valvano tried, extremely hard, to find a bright side to his team’s second consecutive 18-point defeat.

“I’ve said this before, but I prefer to get our butts beat on the road,” Valvano said after watching his team lose 91-73 Saturday afternoon to Wake Forest at the Greensboro Coliseum. “We’re going to improve and get better. We have a lot of our home games later in the season when we will be better.”

But less than 24 hours after losing for the fourth time in five games, the Wolfpack hits its homecourt Sunday against Memphis State, which until last week was ranked No. 1 in the nation, in a nationally televised contest that is slated to tip off at 1 p.m.

So the coach’s silver lining had a gray tarnish that matched the gray clouds surrounding his team, which has yet to recover from the loss of senior leader Dereck Whittenburg to a broken foot a little over 10 days ago.

The Wolfpack did get 17 points from senior point guard Sidney Lowe, who will likely have to continue his increased offensive output in Whittenburg’s absence. But Valvano admitted his team looked young and inexperienced against the veteran Demon Deacons, who made 14 steals and forced 15 Wolfpack turnovers.

Valvano’s team not only had a hard time holding onto the ball, it also had a difficult time finding the basket. It made just 39.1 percent of its shots, including two dry stretches in each half that doomed any chance to steal a road victory. The Pack opened the game by missing eight of its first 10 shots, then missed seven of 10 shots during a crucial stretch of the second half.

“We’re not ready to play yet without Whittenburg,” said freshman Ernie Myers, who took over the starting shooting guard position for Whittenburg. “We’re trying to work on different setups on offense and defense. But we’ve got to replace the 20 or so points a game we lost when Whit went out.

“But more, we aren’t passing well. We’re not hitting our outside shots. We’ve got to do those things, but we didn’t do them today, obviously.”