After NC State clinched a series victory over UNC last night in Baseball, I thought it would be a good time to relish in how the Wolfpack has dominated the Tar Heels Athletic Program as a whole in 2023-24.
The Wolfpack Baseball team has won the first two games in the series against the Tar Heels, clinching a series victory over UNC for the first time since 2021. It marks the first time NC State has won a series against the Tar Heels in Raleigh since 2016.
NC State defeated UNC in Volleyball 3-1, winning in Chapel Hill for the first time in 25 years. The Tar Heels had won the last 5 matches against the Wolfpack.
The Wolfpack defeated the Tar Heels 39-20 in Football in Carter-Finley Stadium. It marked the 3rd consecutive win over UNC.
NC State lost both regular season games to UNC in Men’s Basketball, but when it mattered most, the Wolfpack defeated the Tar Heels in the ACC Championship Game 84-76, winning their first title since 1987.
The Wolfpack Women’s Basketball team lost to their rival in Chapel Hill, but defeated UNC 63-59 in Reynolds Coliseum. NC State has won 5 of the last 7 against UNC.
In Gymnastics, NC State defeated UNC 196.725-194.925 in Raleigh. This marked the 3rd straight victory for the Wolfpack over the Tar Heels.
NC State’s Men & Women’s Swimming & Diving teams both beat UNC. The Men won 258-93, and the Women won 196-157.
The Wolfpack Wrestling team defeated UNC 33-6 in Reynolds Coliseum. NC State has won 11 straight Duals against the Tar Heels.
The NC State Men’s Tennis team defeated UNC 4-0, winning against their rival in back-to-back years.
The Wolfpack Women’s Tennis team has defeated the Tar Heels 4-3 on two occasions thus far this season, and will face their rival again today.
The Cross Country teams didn’t have individual meets against UNC, but the Women obviously beat them, because they won the ACC Championship. The Men didn’t, finishing 8th in the Conference, with the Tar Heels finishing 1st.
The only other NC State athletic team that didn’t taste victory against UNC this year was the Women’s Soccer team, losing 0-4 in Raleigh.
Of course, each of these NC State athletic teams has much higher goals than just beating their rival, but there’s no denying how sweet it is to beat the Tar Heels.
Watching the celebration, Clark seems to be hiding from the chaos. Protecting himself from further injury? Gantt took over a year to recover from his groin injury. Clark is out “a few weeks”? How good can we be if both Mahorcic and Clark are back in Feb?
Just to add additional praises to Gantt and Ebe, we out rebounded both Duke and VaTech. Considering we were without Clark, that is a remarkable achievement. Rebounding has been a weakness for several years. Dof87 comments about tapping missed shots back to guards is an insightful observation.
Seems to me Gantt is generally more athletic than Clark and he’s really getting up there for the rebounds. You have to think he’ll keep on getting better after so much time off.
But not in any way criticizing Clark, he’s clearly got a high basketball IQ, I like to watch him play. And maybe the shot will fall a little more if he’s sharing minutes with Gantt. Although, historically, he’s only shot the 3PT in the high 20% range other than his freshman season when he only took 39 3PT shots.
Rewatched the game. I highly recommend only the second viewing as that is much less stressful. Anyway, as much guff as I give to Smith, he was absolutely clutch in those final minutes even in the debacle. He had that big turnover but had ice in his veins at the line. So too was Ebe. He had some valuable minutes at the end there. Alright. On to the next!
I’m not complaining either. Agree, the last minute took about ten years off my life. Nice (ugly) road win that is a win regardless. The Duke game was great, but this game in my opinion was more important. Let’s go get another!!!
Absolutely agree AG, this one was much more important. Winning at home when things are working is expected. Winning on the road when you’ve got foul troubles, the 3PT isn’t falling, you go through scoring droughts, and you totally screw up the end of the game, takes a strong will to win. Having all that experience is huge as well.
I’m starting to think this season might be fun. When Clark went down, I thought we were done.
Huge respect for Gantt and Dowuona, they are true difference makers.
One thing I see us doing that I’ve not seen in the past is us tapping offensive rebounds out to the guards, who are staying in position instead of shooting then immediately scooting back on defense.
Big props to Ebe who has played smart BB (as did Gantt) the last two games. That little baseline jumper looked smooth….and was his only shot of the game. Ebe had every reason to hang it up for the season with little court time early and other bigs supplanting him.