Dec. 21, 1982
BY TIM PEELER
LOUIVILLE, Ky. – NC State head coach Jim Valvano knew that Louisville, the team his Wolfpack played Tuesday night in Freedom Hall, deserved its lofty rankings. The Cardinals entered the contest No. 11 in the UPI coaches poll and No. 14 in the Associated Press writers poll.
But he wasn’t sure that his own squad, ranked No. 15 in the nation after four consecutive home wins in the friendly surroundings of Reynolds Coliseum, deserved to be adjacent to Denny Crum’s Cardinals. This, after all, is a program that won the national championship in 1980, has been to the Final Four two of the last three years and been to the NCAA Tournament nine times in Crum's 13-year tenure.
The Wolfpack, on the other hand, hasn’t won a game in the NCAA Tournament since it won the 1974 national championship, and last year’s showing in the first round against Tennessee-Chattanooga in the first round was fairly abysmal. But, as Valvano watched his team play basket-for-basket with Louisville on the Cardinals’ home court before it fell 57-52, he came to this conclusion.
“I feel much better about my team now,” Valvano said. “Before we came into this game, I wasn’t sure we belonged in the top 15 or 18 teams in the country, but now I am sure. We’re capable of beating anybody.
“There are about 100 dynamite teams in the country this year and after coming in here and playing as well as we did, I believe we’re one of them, one of the best in America.”
With a caveat, of course. The Wolfpack backcourt has to stay intact. Senior Dereck Whittenburg was the reason Valvano’s team competed with the Cardinals in the first half, scoring 18 of his team-high 22 points as the teams played to a 33-33 draw in front of a sell-out crowd of 16,613.
As a team, the Wolfpack was on fire, making 15 of its 24 shots before intermission, as veteran point guard Sidney Lowe and Whittenburg sliced through the Cardinals’ relentless full court press and forced Crum to change his game plan.
“We concentrated on their inside game at first,” Crum said. “I didn’t think they could beat us with their outside shooting, but Whittenburg changed my mind, so I decided to get more help on him in the second half.
“Cozell McQueen wasn’t shooting and was even getting the ball so we left him and helped out on Whittenburg.”
McQueen, the 6-11 sophomore center, played 31 minutes without attempting a shot and has now gone three consecutive games without scoring for the Wolfpack. He did, however, help out with six rebounds and a blocked shot. Lorenzo Charles, the sophomore forward who has been slightly more effective than McQueen, had the best night of his career, scoring nine points and grabbing nine rebounds against Louisville’s brotherly forwards, Scooter and Rodney McCray.
But, while the Wolfpack (4-1) managed to stay with the Cardinals (8-1), it never could wrestle away the lead. If it had, Valvano planned to put the ball in Lowe’s hands, spread the floor and then rely on his trio of Lowe, Whittenburg and freshman Ernie Myers to penetrate and dish or score.
Every time the Pack seemed on the verge of taking a lead, Louisville’s sometimes overly aggressive defense forced a mistake. After sophomore Lorenzo Charles thunderously dunked over a Louisville defender midway through the second half, State trailed by just one point, 42-41.
Lowe and Bailey made back-to-back steals, but the Wolfpack could not convert them to points, failing to score on three straight possessions. Whittenburg, the Wolfpack’s star in the first half, had a shot blocked by Rodney McCray and turned the ball over by traveling on the baseline. He mad just two of his seven shots in the second half.
And, in the team's most disappointing stretch, Lowe missed a finger-roll layup when Louisville's Charles Jones tripped on the break-away play and affected Lowe's shot.
Meanwhile, after failing to score on four straight possessions, the Cardinals went on an 8-1 run that sealed the contest, led by a pair of long-range jumpers by reserve freshman guard Jeff Hall.
“We didn’t know they had a shooter like him,” Whittenburg said. “But he played an important role for them.”
The Wolfpack went nearly four minutes without scoring, and scored just six points in the game’s final six minutes.
The key play at the end of the game came after sophomore guard Milt Wagner missed a driving layup and teammate Scooter McCray got around Charles’ box-out and grabbed the ball above the rim with two hands. He landed and went right back up for a left-handed bank shot that gave his team a six-point lead with less than two minutes to play.
“This was the most intense game of the year,” said Louisville forward Scooter McCray. “They were the first big ranked team we had played, right? And we were the first big challenge for them.”
The Wolfpack players weren’t happy with scoring a moral victory and a physical loss. They were looking to win.
“We didn’t come here to play close,” said Bailey, who was second to Whittenburg in scoring by hitting six of his 12 shots for 13 points. “We had our chances and couldn’t get the ball to go in the basket.”
The Wolfpack made nine of 28 shots in the second half to score 19 points, while the Cardinals were 10-for-18 and scored 24 points.
“Losing is never positive,” said Lowe, who recorded seven assists before fouling out with 16 seconds to play. “But coming into Louisville and getting such good play from our young players has to be encouraging. I can’t explain what happened other than to say that the ball quit dropping. We were still getting good shots. We just couldn’t get the ball to go into the basket.”
In the end, the outcome didn’t matter to Valvano as much as what he saw from his young interior players. He was especially pleased with his team’s defense on Louisiville’s leading scorer, guard Lancaster Gordon, who made just one of his five field-goal attempts and was held to just five points, 11 fewer than his season average.
“This bodes well for us,” Valvano said. “McQueen got those rebounds and Charles, for a sophomore, showed he has potential. The key now is to get some consistency from them. It was important that we play well on the road in this game because we have some tough road games coming up soon.”
State plays three Top 20 teams in its next five games, including two on the road. After a three-day break for Christmas, the Wolfpack travels to East Rutherford, N.J., on Dec. 28 to face West Virginia at Brendan Byrne Arena, a game Valvano scheduled to improve his team’s chances in the NCAA Tournament.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
Courtesy: NC State
