#3 seed NC State held on last night, defeating #6 seed Tennessee 79-72 in Reynolds Coliseum to advance to the Sweet 16 for the 5th time in the last 6 tournaments.
The Wolfpack led by only 1 after the 1st Quarter, but they looked like they had things under control at halftime, leading by 18 points.
At one point, NC State led by as much as 20 points in the 3rd Quarter, but the Lady Volunteers weren’t about to give up.
With 4:19 left in the 4th, Tennessee cut the lead to 2 points, but NC State might have bent, but they wouldn’t break.
Junior Guard Aziaha James led the way with 22 points and 7 assists, which were both team highs. She scored 7 points in the final 3.5 minutes, helping to squash tue Last Vols’ comeback attempt.
Junior Guard Saniya Rivers had 20 points (6-14 FG) and 6 boards.
Freshman Zoe Brooks was clutch off the bench, chipping in 16 points and 6 boards.
This marks the 16th time the NC State Women’s Basketball team has advanced to the Sweet 16.
The Wolfpack will play #2 seed Stanford on Friday night at 7:30pm on ESPN in Portland.
Preseason rankings are pretty useless anyways. There needs to be games played for rankings to mean anything. Anyhow, the last time State was highly ranked in the preseason it did not work out too well.
Honestly, I like this scenario. In 2012-13, I think the national hype hindered our players. In my experience, State functions better as the underdog. Doubt and criticism will benefit this group much more so than undeserved praise at this point. After last season’s disappointing finish, this team already has something to prove. This just adds fuel to the fire.
Not even sure why it is a debate to ESPN whether or not we are a top 25 team, when they assume our point guard is going to go in the lottery and we had Malik Abu finish as well as he did. Even if Yurtseven sits for some games, we’ll be very good with Terry Henderson back and Torin Dorn (the rookie of the year for his conference) joining us. We are so disrespected this year and I don’t know why.