NC State 64 Pitt 67: BY THE NUMBERS

It’s next to impossible to win a basketball game shooting 40% from the free throw line. NC State shot 6 of 15 from the charity stripe this evening, while Pitt shot 90%, making 18 of 20.

Rarely is it ever that simple, but this evening, it was.

I’m not saying there weren’t other factors that led to the Wolfpack’s loss. Obviously there were, but NC State managed to shoot better than Pitt from the field (46.4%/42.3%) and from three (33.3%/23.8%), and still lost the ball game.

The Panthers had 3 more second chance points, but the Wolfpack had 10 more points off of Turnovers. NC State took care of the ball, turning it over only 6 times.

It’s hard to look at this game on paper, and realize you let one get away.

To give the Pack credit, they were down 13 points at one point in the 2nd half. They were also down by double-digits at one point in the 1st half, and came back to even it up as well.

This game would have been in the bag if Casey Morsell and Jayden Taylor could have managed to score more than 5 points combined, with the former scoring all of the 5. Morsell was 2 of 7 from the field and Taylor was 0-3.

As good as DJ Horne and DJ Burns were, they really needed either Morsell or Taylor to factor into the game offensively in some way.

Horne continues to be one of the best scorers and shooters in the ACC, scoring 20+ for the 3rd straight game. He finished the evening with 25 points on 8 of 14 shooting from the field, and 5 of 10 from three.

Burns had a season high 19 points, shooting 9 of 16.

With the Pack currently on the outside looking in when it comes to NCAA Tournament projections, this one hurts badly.

The season isn’t over, with 5 Quad 1 games coming up. With a loss tonight, it becomes imperative that NC State beats a couple of teams they shouldn’t beat on paper.