NC State Looking Back and Forwards, But Not Straight Ahead

After coming off a huge upset win in a blowout style over Duke the Wolf Pack really know how to let down their fans. Expecting to continue the climb up in the ACC, NC State played Maryland on Saturday, but perhaps had both their previous game, Duke and next game, UNC more on their minds than Maryland. It seemed to be a rough first half for State but the Pack scrapped back into it late giving fans hope of the usual strong second half produced by the Pack. Well yesterday the exact opposite happened. The final was 88-64. Yes that’s a whopping 24 point loss to an average Maryland team.
So my goal here is to understand how this happened to the Wolf Pack. First it was Gary Williams’, coach of Maryland, 1000 career game as a coach so his squad came out to not let the man down. Second Maryland shot 54 percent from the field and 46 percent from behind the arc. In the ACC it’s going to be hard to beat anyone who shoots over 50 percent, as the Pack proved that the other night in defeating Duke while shooting 58 percent. Third Sidney Lowe’s squad had a dismal shooting performance of their own going 36 percent from the field and 30 percent from behind the arc. The final reason as why I felt the Wolf Pack went down was due to the fact that Maryland shot 17 more free throws than that of NC State.
I watched the game and that 17 free throw difference was a job of poor calling by what have always been quick whistle blowers in the ACC. Maryland had 13 more free throws at the half so perhaps someone had a talk with the men in stripes to call a more balanced game. In the first half alone there were the “count the basket and one” calls where Maryland had 3 point plays on a call where a NC State player never even came close to the guys. All the while Maryland had plenty of over the back rebounds that the referee’s didn’t dare stop the game for. Another example of bad calling was the two fouls at the end of half that gave Maryland 4 points extra before the half. And my last example is the picture where Greivis Vasquez is fouled by Gonzalez. Now look at that picture and tell me that Javier is in fact not the one fouling Vasquez but it is exactly the opposite. With that said it should be noted that the referee’s didn’t lose the game for NC State, they just helped seal the deal. They helped Maryland build their huge lead which essentially sucked all the air out of NC State’s sails.
However as I said NC State needs to know they are the reason for the loss and they need to keep up their confidence and play hard for the full 40 minutes which they never did yesterday. They let down all the proud supporters in their embarrassing shooting performance. I still have faith the NC State will do good things this year and great things next year and hope that the Alumni give Sidney Lowe his due time to build the squad to full potential. But until then they should hit the practice court because Tuesday night cross town rival UNC will be looking to trounce the Pack while turning around their season.