#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.
Didn’t we win our first game under Keatts against the #1 team in the Bahamas?
I think our odds will improve if we win it.
While I want us to win it all, I think this will be great for our team (obviously). I liken this to when I played football in high school… if you don’t welcome getting hit, then you will get hurt. If we walk away from this tournament with a reality check (a punch in the face), then we know what we have to do going forward. If we win a game, lose a game, but the battle was hard fought, then we’re starting to build a skin. If we win it all, then it’s just a function of keeping our… Read more »
This team is all new, so really hard to predict what we’ll see. (hope there’s coverage!) The game against KU will be a great barometer of how far we’ve come. But, let’s not forget, we were so bad last year we’ve got a really long way to go before we imagine beating KU.
I wonder if we will have our whole team in the Bahamas this time. Hopefully all the passport issues get resolved.
Hey, ranked ahead of BYU!
Seriously, this should come as no surprise to anyone. The best thing that might happen this season is that we jell and exceed expectations, but in the preseason, quite reasonably no one is expecting anything of us.