TIM PEELER: Atsur's layup gives Wolfpack 92-88 win

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH – Trailing by one point with less than a minute to go in his debut as NC State’s new men’s basketball coach, Sidney Lowe needed a reliable, effective way to score.

For most of the second half, he had depended on the inside scoring of sophomore big man Ben McCauley, who had just scored his 26th point of the game with a tip-in with 94 seconds remaining on the clock. Not bad for someone who scored just 58 points all of last season as a freshman.

But the Wolfpack trailed Wofford 88-87 when Lowe called for senior point guard Engin Atsur to make something happen with the ball. What else would you expect from Lowe, the former Wolfpack point guard?

He told Atsur to hold on to the ball a little longer, and wait to see what happened. So instead of looking for the pick-and-roll to McCauley, Atsur kept the ball, drove in the lane and scored a go-ahead basket with 43.2 seconds to play in the Wolfpack’s season-opening 92-88 victory at the RBC Center.

“We felt they were going to make an adjustment, and we wanted to make an adjustment as well,” said Lowe. “Engin made the right the right move, got to the basket and made a nice layup in there.”

Atsur’s basket gave him 24 points in the game, second only to McCauley. Junior Gavin Grant added 15 and redshirt freshman Brandon Coster had 11.

The layup was the decisive offensive play Wolfpack, but that wasn’t the trouble for much of the evening. They still needed to find a way to stop the Terriers, who hit a scorching 11 of 19 3-point attempts in the first half before cooling off after intermission.

Lowe figured that Wofford would go to junior Shane Nichols, who had already made five 3-pointers on the night. So he stuck sophomore Courtney Fells out on the wing and told him not to allow Nichols an uncontested shot.

And when the shot went up, just as Lowe had predicted, Fells jumped out of his shoes, blocked Nichols potential go-ahead shot and slap the ball in the direction of teammate Brandon Costner, a defensive play that sealed the season-opening victory.

“There are probably only a few people in the country that can make that block, starting from where he started,” Lowe said. “We knew his man was going to get that shot because he is their go-to guy. He is never too deep to shoot it.
“Courtney did a nice job of chasing and made an unbelievable block.”

Lowe didn’t have many kind words for his defense when the team was in the lockerroom at halftime, however. The Terriers built a 54-45 advantage at intermission by burying a variety of outside shots. They made 11 of 19 in the first half, including one Nichols as the buzzer sounded to give Wofford its biggest lead of the night.

“They were lights out,” junior Gavin Grant said. “They were smoking tonight. They kind of caught us right between the eyes. We were like ‘What is going on here?’

“Eventually, we were able to buckle down.”

After a good talking to from Lowe at the half.

“It was a little heated, and he was a little upset,” McCauley said. “That gave us a little fire too. That made us want to play a little harder.

“He just said, ‘We have to play defense, they are getting too many open shots.’”

Wofford made only 5 of 16 3-point attempts in the second half, as the Wolfpack clearly listened to their coach’s pleas.

“We were very passive in the first half,” Lowe said. “We were much more aggressive in the second half, and got into passing lanes. We really bothered the dribbler a little better and made it more difficult to get into their stuff.”

Now that the first game is out of the way, the Wolfpack has a week to prepare for its game against Delaware State, which is part of a double-header next Friday at the RBC Center with the Wolfpack women’s basketball team. The women tip off against UNC-Wilmington at 6 p.m. with the men’s game to follow at approximately 8 p.m.

“I am proud of the way our team hung in there and made plays when we had to, from Engin’s layup to Courtney’s block,” Lowe said. “That is what good clubs do: They find ways to make plays.”
 
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

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In honor of the coach's first game back at NC State, here's a list of firsts of the Lowe era.

NC State firsts of the Sidney Lowe era