The No. 4 NC State women’s basketball team suffered its second loss in a row Sunday afternoon, falling at home to Georgia Tech for the first time in seven years, 65-61.
The Wolfpack (22-3, 12-3 ACC) lost any chance it had at a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament as it took too long to find its offensive groove, not hitting shots consistently until after the Yellow Jackets (17-9, 8-7 ACC) had already mounted a 12-point fourth-quarter lead.
“Disappointing day, obviously; had a lot to play for, had a good run,” said NC State head coach Wes Moore. “Now we’ve dropped two in a row at home. You just can’t do that.”
A sloppy all-around first quarter led to an 18-17 Georgia Tech lead after 10 minutes, with six turnovers and five personal fouls total between the teams. The sloppy play carried over into the first half of the second quarter, but an 8-0 scoring run by the Wolfpack gave the team its biggest lead at that point in the game, 27-23.
Despite its strong finish to the first half that gave it a 30-25 lead at the break, NC State looked sluggish out of the second-half gates. Georgia Tech opened the half on an 11-2 run, and the Yellow Jackets outscored the Wolfpack by 11 over the first five and a half minutes of the half.
Georgia Tech guard Francesca Pan caught fire in the third quarter, dropping 13 points, including a stretch where she made four straight field goals. This hot streak brought Pan’s point total to 21 before the fourth quarter had even begun. The Italian guard poured in 30 points overall on 44% shooting from deep, doubling her 22% mark from that range on the season.
“We couldn’t stop her in that third quarter,” Moore said. “We tried face guarding her, we tried trapping her, but you’ve got to give her credit. She worked really hard to get open and get her shot off.”
Facing an 11-point deficit, the Pack was able to stop the bleeding when junior forward Kayla Jones put the team on her back with a personal 7-0 run, narrowing the deficit to four. Jones did not miss a basket in the third quarter and finished the game with 17 points, four rebounds and a steal, igniting the Wolfpack offense and combining with sophomore center Elissa Cunane (17 points, five rebounds) for 34 points in the game.
It was more of the same from Pan to open the fourth quarter, as the talented senior knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers and Georgia Tech extended its lead to a game-high 12 points with under seven minutes to play.
With usual starters Cunane and junior guard Kai Crutchfield on the bench for an extended stretch, the Wolfpack mounted a furious comeback, narrowing the 12-point deficit to just two points with 90 seconds to go. Poor situational basketball doomed NC State at the end of the game, though, as back-to-back possessions with less than a minute remaining resulted in zero points.
Curiously, Moore decided to keep Cunane on the bench as NC State operated its halfcourt offense. It took too long to run a play, though, and Jones was forced to throw up a wild floater in the paint. Then, with the ball down three after Georgia Tech split a pair of free throws, NC State wasn’t even able to take a shot. A miscommunication between senior guard Aislinn Konig and junior guard Kai Crutchfield resulted in a bad pass out of bounds, turning the ball over and sealing the Pack’s fate.
NC State struggled to knock down shots all game. Points inside the paint or at the free-throw line accounted for 46 of NC State’s 61 points. The Wolfpack’s three starting guards — Konig, Crutchfield and freshman Jakia Brown-Turner — combined for just 11 points on 4-for-10 shooting.
“I think we’ve got to bring a little more intensity and play a little bit harder,” Moore said. “Offensively, we’ve got to figure out what’s going on to get our guards some open looks. Right now all of our scoring is coming from the post … We had three people in double figures [scoring] today, and they were all forwards or posts, so we’ve got to get our guards going again.”
After sitting pretty in the top five of the rankings and with a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament on the horizon just four days ago, the Wolfpack has now dropped back-to-back home games and is in a precarious situation a couple weeks out from the ACC Tournament.
“Anything that results in a loss, no one is proud of what we gave,” Jones said. “We find stuff that we can work on in film sessions and try to get ready for the next one. We know it’s still a long season left. We got the ACC Tournament, so we know it’s not over, but you don’t want to lose for the bid in the NCAA Tournament. We know we have a lot to work on, so we will get in the gym and work on it.”
NC State will be back in action Thursday, Feb. 20 when it travels to Coral Gables, Florida, to take on Miami. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m., and the game will be broadcast live on the ACC Network.
Junior forward Kayla Jones reaches for a loose ball against Georgia Tech guard Lotta-Maj Lahtinen on Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020 at Reynolds Coliseum. Jones scored 17 points as the Wolfpack lost 65-61.
