BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- The second time around, the Sidney Lowe’s squad got a little more defensive.
And those stops, rebounds and loose-ball plays against Delaware State Friday night at the RBC Center frequently led to some fast-break baskets that helped the Wolfpack build as much as a 24-point lead in its 63-43 win over the Hornets.
After giving up 88 points in the season-opening win against Wofford, the Wolfpack (2-0 overall) put the clamps on the Hornets from the outset, forcing them to run down the shot clock and forcing up bad shots on several occasions.
On the night, Delaware State shot just 34 percent from the field, while its top two shooters, Jahsha Bluntt and Roy Bright, made just seven of 29 field goal attempts.
The game’s decisive sequence came with less than two minutes to go in the first half. Delaware State had the ball with the opportunity to cut the Wolfpack lead under 10 points. But senior Bryan Nieman chased down a loose ball, threw it down the court as he was going out of bounds underneath the Hornets basket, to Gavin Grant for a breakaway dunk.
Grant double-dipped on his jump, and slammed the ball in backwards for a crowd-pleasing jam. He finished off the first half with two more dunks and a free throw, to give his team a 37-22 advantage going into intermission.
“When I was able to get out on the break, I thought I should try to get the crowd into the game,” Grant said. “I had been on the bench just before that, so I had a whole lot of energy I needed to release.
“I was able to get up there and throw a couple down.”
Much to the surprise of some of his teammates.
“Gav surprised me with that first one,” said redshirt freshman Brandon Costner. “He is normally an old man. He doesn’t like to jump too much. But the lights were on tonight, so I guess he wanted to do something special.”
Costner was in a ribbing mood after his breakout offensive performance. The former McDonald’s All-America prep player who sat out all but five games last season with an upper-leg stress fracture scored a game-high 20 points on eight of 12 shooting. He also contributed six rebounds for the Wolfpack.
“I felt a lot better tonight than I have in any of our preseason or regular-season games,” Costner said.
He was one of four Wolfpack players in double figures. Grant had 12 points, while bothe Courtney Fells and Engin Atsur scored 10 each. Sophomore Ben McCauley had a team-high seven assists.
As a team, the Wolfpack was torrid from the field, making better than 63 percent of its shots in both halves. Head coach Sidney Lowe was a little disappointed about his team’s 17 turnovers and its slack play over the final 10 minutes, when the game was already well in hand.
Delaware State began pressing and forcing the Wolfpack to rush its possessions. Lowe called time out for a group instructional session.
“We got our lead, then they started trapping and we started rushing,” Lowe said afterwards. “What I was trying to explain to our guys is that we have the lead and when you have the lead and teams are trapping you, they are trying to force you to speed up.
“What you want to do if you don’t have a layup is pull it out and use the clock. The main thing is to learn. We are going to learn from every single game and every single situation.
Hopefully we will learn something new every time.”
That was the official coach version of events. Grant put it a little more succinctly.
“We kind of dozed off in the second half, coach called time out and ripped us,” Grant said. “We got the message.”
The Wolfpack plays two games next week, Tuesday against Valparaiso, followed by a Friday night contest against Gardner-Webb. Both games begin at 7 p.m. at the RBC Center.
Pack Pass subscribers can view the entire Delaware State game beginning at 11:30 p.m. on the premium portion of www.GoPack.com. However, due to technical difficulties, there will be no radio feed with the game.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
Courtesy: Peyton Williams/NC State
