Visiting No. 13 North Carolina State hit No. 20 Georgia Tech with an offensive barrage in the second half Thursday at McCamish Pavilion en route to an 83-68 victory.
Tech had a one-point lead late in the third quarter, then failed to score over the final 2:48 of the period. The Wolfpack strung together 14 in a row to end the frame and then hit a triple to open the fourth quarter in what amounted to a 17-0 run. The Yellow Jackets (21-6, 9-6 ACC) never recovered.
“We knew that this was gonna be a tough game coming in,” Tech junior guard Tonie Morgan said. “We knew that they were gonna throw punches. We had to throw ‘em back. At the end of the day, we weren’t punching back, and at some point the punches weren’t landing as hard as they were in the beginning. We just gotta take this and grow from it.”
Coach Nell Fortner’s team is 6-6 after starting the season 15-0. Thursday’s defeat, coupled with California’s win at Virginia on Thursday, dropped the Jackets to eighth place in the ACC standings with three games to play.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Tech next hosts Florida State (21-6, 11-4) at 4 p.m. Sunday in its home finale.
“(The ACC is) just a tough league. I just think it’s the toughest league in the country. From top to bottom it’s just hard,” Fortner said. “So you have to take care of business when you can and when get home games, you have to really work hard to take care of that and to the best of your ability. It stings tonight, to not be able to get this one at home, but we have another opportunity on Sunday and we gotta get back to work.”
Morgan had 17 points to go along with six assists and five rebounds to lead Tech. Dani Carnegie added 16, Kara Dunn had 11 and Kayla Blackshear scored 10 and pulled down nine rebounds.
State (21-5, 13-2 ACC), winners of 10 of 11, also had four players in double figures led by 17 each from Aziaha James and Zoe Brooks. Saniya Rivers had 16 (and eight assists and seven rebounds) and Madison Hayes had 14 and made four 3s.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
The Wolfpack shot 53.2%.
“Look, N.C. State shot the heck out of the ball. I mean, my gosh,” Fortner said. “Our focus was to try to take away the paint points because they score a lot of points in the paint. But we gave up too many middle drives, too many things that just made it really hard to defend ‘em off the bounce. So the defense has gotta get better. And that’s the disappointing part. They shot the ball so, so well and we didn’t do a whole lot to affect ‘em. And so that has to be something we go back and evaluate and try to figure out how to be better defenders in that regard.”
Tech started its Thursday evening as cold as the frigid temperatures outside by missing six of its first seven shots and nine of its first 11, yet a Carnegie 3-pointer 5 1/2 minutes in put the Jackets up 8-4. The Wolfpack came alive from that point and outscored Tech 17-7 the rest of the period on the strength of three 3-pointers.
Up 21-15 to start the second, N.C. State kept coming, starting the frame on a 10-3 run to build a 31-18 lead in less than 3 1/2 minutes. That would be the Wolfpack’s biggest lead of the half as Tech finally began to keep pace.
Ines Noguero got the Jackets within 35-30 on a 3 from right of center and Zoe Smith’s putback with 1:48 to play made it a 40-34 game. Blackshear’s bucket from underneath the basket put the Jackets down 42-36 going into the break.
The Wolfpack shot 51.4% over the first 20 minutes and made five triples.
State started the third quarter making its first three shots before Tech finally got a stop. Dunn drained a right-corner 3 on the other end to trim the deficit to 48-45. A few moments later Smith finished a layup streaking in transition to make it a 48-47 ballgame.
Carnegie, following her own shot, finally gave Tech the lead back when she followed her own miss and hit a left elbow jumper putting the Jackets ahead 53-52. State didn’t flinch and scored the next 14 points in less than three minutes to take a commanding 66-53 lead going into the final 10 minutes.
Tech never got any closer than eight in the final quarter.
“They just came storming back,” Fortner said. “It was like they just weren’t gonna be denied. Now we did a few things that didn’t help our cause. You turn the ball over with them? They’re gone. We did a few things that put us back in the hole. That was unfortunate.”
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