State Falls Victim To Maryland's Scorching Second Half In 84-70 Loss

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State Falls Victim To Maryland's Scorching Second Half In 84-70 Loss

N.C. State head coach Sidney Lowe shakes his head as the Wolfpack's 17 point led dwindled to a 6 point lead against Virginia Tech on February 5, 2008.

By John Evans

Feb 10, 2008

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COLLEGE PARK, Md – For N.C. State, the second half against Maryland Saturday looked very familiar.

Unfortunately, it was too much like the Duke game nine days ago, when the Wolfpack led at the half only to be blown away in the second half.

Trailing State 33-31 at the half, Maryland shot 74 percent and used a 12-0 run early in the second half to take the lead for good on its way to an 84-70 victory.

At Duke on Jan. 31, the Wolfpack had led by nine on the road only to loss by 20.

"It was like deja vu from the Duke game, we played a nice, solid first half and then came out in th second hald and didn't increase the intensity. That's something that we're dealing with right now." said N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe.

"I thought we did a great job in the first half. We need to get to the point where we can duplicate our effort in the first half in the second half," added Lowe.

James Gist scored a career-high 30 points and Greivis Vasquez tied a school-record with 15 assists on Saturday.

Vasquez finished one rebound off a triple-double, adding nine rebounds and 13 points for Maryland.

Gavin Grant led State with 17 points and Courtney Fells and J.J. Hickson added 14 points each. Hickson also led the pack with nine rebounds.

"Gist is a good player, but there is no way anybody should get 30 points. That's bad defense on our part," said Grant. "We played well in the first half, they just wanted it more in the second half."

N.C. State led 33-31 at halftime, but a 12-0 run by Maryland early in the second half put Maryland up for good at 50-38 just five minutes into the half. The Wolfpack never got closer than six points the rest of the game.

Maryland made just 3 of 14 shots in the first eight minutes of the game as N.C. State built a 14-7 lead. The Terps were hot the rest of the game.

After finishing with a 41.9 percent shooting clip in the first half, the Terps made 14 of their first 16 shots in the second half and shot 74 percent for the entire half.

"When a team shoots that well, it's hard to play catchup," said Hickson. "We have to learn how to get stops on defense."

"They were getting easy shots. Some of them were uncontested," added Lowe.

N.C. State shot 44.3 percent for the game and had just 9 turnovers, but could not overcome Maryland's hot shooting.

The win moved Maryland (16-8, 6-3) into third place in the ACC pending the outcome of Sunday's North Carolina-Clemson game. It was the 10th win in 12 games for the Terps.

N.C. State (15-8, 4-5) fell into a tie for seventh in the league.

"Once we get over the hurdle of understanding the second half and that the first five minutes of the second half is what it is, then we'll have (accomplished something)," Lowe added.

Eric Hayes added 14 points and Bambale Osby added 11 points and eight rebounds for Maryland. Gist also had nine rebounds as Maryland outrebounded the Pack 36-26.

Gist scored 18 points in the first half as Maryland rallied to tie the game at 31-31 just before intermission with a 9-0 run.

The Pack took the lead at the half as Grant made two free throws with less than a second left before intermission.

Brandon Costner had 9 points for the Wolfpack in 25 minutes, playing in his first game after missing several due to injury.

Most Recent Comments

I'll take a loss to a team that probably would have beat anyone that night. As for the NIT the statistics are still in our favor for making the NCAA's....at least for now. We just have to continue to win over ACC teams that we are supposed to. I still like the improvement that is continuing to happen. It takes years to build a top program and we will get there.

POP!!! That was our bubble bursting. Looks like another, NIT for the 'Pack, yipee. Can we play an entire game, just once?

Knock, knock...anyone here? See Carolina thread for bitter fans...Clemson, State and Duke.

Syd, what are you doing in the locker romm at half? Get these kids pumped up- don't need to talk about execution just get the team ready for what is about to take place!

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