ACCT PREVIEW: A look back at NC State’s 82-66 win over Boston College

As NC State prepares to meet Boston College in the 2nd round of the ACC Tournament, we take a look back the team’s first meeting to see what went right for the Wolfpack and look for areas that they could improve. If you have time, you can rewatch the entire game above.

The Good

• A lot went right for the Wolfpack, one was the fact that they shot 56% from the field and 52% from 3.
• Part of the reason for the great shooting was the ball movement, the spacing, and the sharing. State had 19 assists on 29 made FGs. Markell had 8, while Beverly and Al Freeman combined for 7 more.
• NC State defended the 3 point line. Boston College shot only 16% from long range, which included Jerome Robinson (ACC’s leading scorer) going 0-6.
• Speaking of Jerome Robinson, he hurt his elbow early in the game but came back. Whether or not it was the injury that slowed him down is debatable, but NC State held him to 8 points on 4-20 shooting.
• They did a good job of helping off on BC’s bigs, who really aren’t huge offensive threats. This allowed them to slow down Bowman.
• State switched a lot of screens on Robinson. He is a big guard but really isn’t super quick. This allowed State to guard him with multiple guys and switch on most ball screens.
• Al Freeman finished with 20 points on 6-14 shooting and Beverly was red-hot, hitting 5-6 (all from 3) and ended with 16 points.
• Abu and Lennard Freeman logged quality minutes, combining for 13 points and 7 boards.

The Bad

• Honestly, State did a lot of things wrong (that their hot shooting masked) in their win over BC. They went over 6 minutes without a point to start the game.
• They were crushed on the boards.42-36 and had their worst offensive rebounding performance of the season, losing that battle extremely bad, 20-4.
• Omer Yurtseven battled foul trouble and only played 20 minutes and scored 8 points. When he was in he wasn’t playing very physical and was just off his game.
• Markell Johnson only shot the ball 1 time and finished with 1 point and had 7 turnovers.
• NC State as a team, turned it over 16 times.

The Takeaway
NC State won 82-66, but this was one of their worst games in terms of physicality and focus. They were sloppy with the ball, they were weak on the boards and they just didn’t seem like themselves. Now, they still won by a lot, but they also shot it extremely well and Jerome Robinson was somewhat hurt. BC will surely get a better performance from Robinson, but it’s also likely the Pack will be much more focused and much more aggressive.