UpDown: NC State 2 | Syracusefan.com

UpDown: NC State 2

SWC75

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The Upside

- That was our 17th win, guaranteeing a winning record, (even if we go 0-2 in the post season), against the fourth most difficult schedule, (by opponent winning percentage: Strength of Schedule (SOS) - Men's College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com )
with a team with no seniors and now no juniors, (thanks to four injured players and one guy who got kicked off the team) while playing teams with older and more experienced players.

- That second half has “LOSS” written all over it like graffiti but guess what – we didn’t lose.

- This season has been like playing poker. Each game is a new hand we’ve been dealt. Whatever went right in the last game might go wrong in the next one. Whatever went wrong in this game might go right in the next one. You can’t project wins or losses. You can’t count this team in or out.

- Chris Bell was a scoring machine in the first half, hitting his first 8 shots – all threes. We couldn’t have done this without him.

- As spectacular as Bell was in the first half, Quadir Copeland was in the second. He was 10 for 12 from the field, with his shots having a degree of difficulty higher than Bell’s and scored 25 points, with 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, an assist and a steal.

- JJ Starling took some of the pressure off Bell with a scoring run of his own late in the first half. He scored 13 and pulled down 5 rebounds and had 3 assists.

- Judah Mintz attempted some wild shots and was only 4 for 14 from the field but he was 7 for 7 from the line and we needed all of them.

17-10 (8-8) with 4+ to go…

LET’S GO ORANGE!


Net Points

This year I’m going to make things a bit easier on myself and just list the net points in each game after the Upside. Once a month I’ll do a deeper dive into the numbers rather than doing a “Net Points, etc.” post after every game. ‘Net’ points are the positives (points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks) minus the negatives, (missed field goals and free throws, turnovers and fouls committed).

Quadir Copeland game: 27NP in 26 minutes; season: 263NP in 605 minutes = 17.4NP/40m
Chris Bell game: 23NP in 40 minutes; season: 194NP in 682 minutes = 11.4NP/40m
Judah Mintz game: 8NP in 28 minutes; season: 368NP in 901 minutes = 16.3NP/40m
Maliq Brown game: 8NP in 34 minutes; season: 383NP in 756 minutes = 20.3NP/40m
JJ Starling game: 7NP in 40 minutes; season: 266NP in 946 minutes = 11.2NP/40m
Justin Taylor game: 3NP in 17 minutes; season: 136NP in 616 minutes = 8.8NP/40m
Kyle Cuffe game: 2NP in 9 minutes; season: 32NP in 252 minutes = 5.1NP/40m
Mounir Hima game: -1NP in 6 minutes season: 7NP in 45 minutes = 6.2NP/40m

Did not play:
Peter Carey game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 0NP in 61 minutes = 0.0NP/40m

Hurt:
Chance Westry game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 0NP in 0 minutes = 0.0NP/40m

Out for the season:
Naheem McLeod game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 108NP in 202 minutes = 21.4NP/40m

Red Shirting:
William Patterson game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 0NP in 0 minutes = 0.0NP/40m

Thrown off team:
Benny Williams game: 0NP in 0 minutes; season: 99NP in 307 minutes = 12.9NP/40m


Brent Axe:



The Downside

- March 5, 2022. We are fighting to get our 52nd straight winning season, just two short of UCLA’s all-time record of 54 straight. We are playing our last regular season game of the regular season in the Dome against U of Miami and leading 72-65 after Buddy Boeheim hits two free throws with 1:10 left. Kameron McGusty hits a two point jumper with a minute to go. Charlie Moore steals the ball from Frank Anselem and McGusty hits another two pointer at 46 seconds. Girard turns the ball over at 42 seconds. Moore misses a trey with 31 seconds left but Jordan Miller slams it in. Cole Swider has his pocket picked at midcourt with 15 seconds left and Buddy fouls to stop a fast break with 14 left. Moore misses a free throw but Miller again follows it into give Miami a 73-72 lead. Girard misses and Miller rebounds and is fouled with 6 seconds left. He makes two free throws to make it 72-75. Jimmy Boeheim misses a trey at the buzzer. We crush Florida State but lose to Duke in the ACC tournament to finish 16. Had we taken care of the ball in the last minutes against Miami that night then tonight’s game would have been the game when we tied UCLA’s all-time record for consecutive winning seasons.

- This season has been like playing poker. Each game is a new hand we’ve been dealt. Whatever went right in the last game might go wrong in the next one. Whatever went wrong in this game might go right in the next one. You can’t project wins or losses. You can’t count this team out or in.

- Whether it was him or his teammates, (or his coach), Chris Bell got taken out of the game in the second half. It was much too easy. Of course that opened up driving lanes for Mintz and Copeland but Bell should not have lost his clapper in the second half.

- Copeland was hugely impressive- maybe his best game yet. But his mugging for the camera, pleading with the refs and jawing with opposing players and even fans was not. Those things don’t help the team win.

- The first half was about ball movement and we scored 55 points. The second half was about iso ball and we scored 32 points.

- Actually, I’m not sure how many points we scored in this game – or how many NC State scored. The score on the screen sometimes didn’t seem to change when it should and some of the box scores on the net had the halftime score as 57-39 rather than 55-40. Matt Park said “We’ll go with 55-40”.

- The refs seemed to know which side of the bread their butter was spread on. There were 20 fouls called on us to 12 on the home team. They had 10 more free throw attempts than we did. At the end of the first half, we had a man knocked to the floor with no call. On the other end Cuffe had a rebound until a guy climbed up his back. Taylor was called for an “and one” when all he did was run by the guy. Kevin Keatts was way past the box and sitting on the scorer’s table at one point. I don’t know what was up with the double technical, one of which was on Mounir Hima. Hima?!? Meanwhile Ben Middlebrooks pitched a tent at the foul line.
 
Quick turn around SWC! As always, thank you for your recap! Tough game and made tougher since south of the Mason Dixon!
 

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