Final score was NC State 103-71. NC State moves to 7-2 on the season.
On a play midway through the first half, SC State player Tyvoris Solomon collapsed near his team’s bench, suffering from what seems to have been a heart attack. First responders administered CPR but things weren’t looking good for a bit. The defibulator was used and likely saved his life. He is stable and at Rex Hospital.
Torin Dorn, Lennard Freeman and Omer Yurtseven combined to go 23-24 (96%) from the floor for 52 points. This is the 4th game in a row that the NC State frontcourt was nearly unstoppable. You can see the guards beginning to trust and understand just how good these bigs are.
For the second game in a row, NC State shot it well from 3pt range. They hit 9-21 (43%) from downtown. Freeman led the way going 3-5, Beverly was 3-7, Hunt was 2-6 and Markell knocked down his one and only attempt.
NC State turned SC State over 18 times but did turn it over 16 times themselves. Defensively, as a whole, this team was great. They were in passing lanes, the energy was up and there was rarely an east shot while the main rotation guys were still in there.
Dorn had another big night on the boards. He actually finished with a double-double. 16 points and 10 boards.
Yurtseven followed his great performance vs Penn State with another confidence builder in this one. He had 17 points to go along with 8 boards.
State finished with 29 assists on 37 field goals today. That’s the most assists ever at the PNC. The single-game record for NC State is 35. That was against Wake Forest in 1983.
I’m not sure how much you can learn from this game. SC State was severely undersized and really didn’t have the talent to hang with State. They also saw one of their friends nearly pass away in the first half. I don’t know how you can come back and really compete at a high level after that. You have to tip their cap to them for voting to come back on the floor and finish the game.
If there are any takeaways it should be that this team shot it well from outside and really came out of the gate with intensity (especially for it being a noon start).
Abu sat again with a sore knee. I don’t believe we’ll see him back out there for another 2 weeks. That’s just our guess.
Next up for the Pack is a home game vs. UMKC on Sat. Dec 9th at 2pm. They have a week off to rest up and get healthy.
