North Carolina State played its best first half against a power conference team and led 39-29 after the first 20 minutes at Virginia.
The Wolfpack’s ball movement had Virginia trying to guard from sideline to sideline. That gave North Carolina State open shots on ball reversal, which allowed a 32% three-point shooting team to shoot 54.5% from long distance in the first half.
North Carolina State shot 61.9% from the floor in the first half, allowing the Wolfpack to pressure Virginia’s lead ballhandlers. The Cavaliers have only one true lead guard (Dai Dai Ames), so being able to play tough defense on the ball took Virginia out of rhythm.
Do that for another 20 minutes, and the Wolfpack will walk out of Charlottesville with a 2-0 conference record and a road conference win.
“We played great, I thought, in the first half offensively and defensively.” said head coach Kevin Keatts. “What I talked about with the team at halftime we had 11 assists, and we’d only given up two three-pointers. And we were moving the ball and played well on both ends.”
North Carolina State couldn’t keep that positive energy in the second half.
The Wolfpack shot 33.3% in the second half.
“I thought the ball stuck. One of the things I talked about when you play Virginia because they do a great job in gap protection, it’s got to be more ball movement and player movement.”
With each bad possession, the defense suffered. After shooting 52% in the first half, the Cavaliers shot 56.5% in the second half, including seven three-pointers.
No offense to Virginia, but it isn’t like this offense resembles the firepower of the 1990 UNLV Running Rebels. Those numbers are flat-out inexcusable.
That’s why this one will sting. In conference play, stealing a road win in the December rotation can pay big dividends in March, especially in the ACC, where Duke is hands down the best team. Everyone else has flaws that can lead them to lose a game on any night.
North Carolina State followed a clean first half with a self-induced dud.
“We’re just not playing together again,” said Jayden Taylor. “That’s really what it falls down to. When we play as a team, we’re a much better team. When we don’t, we lose.”
