John Joyner
Freshman guard Anthony ‘Cat’ Barber plays defense during the game against Maryland in PNC Arena Monday, Jan. 20, 2013. Photo by John Joyner.
Without its leading scorer and team leader, the N.C. State basketball team needed someone to step up to emerge victorious on Monday night. Junior guard Ralston Turner answered the call.
Turner scored a career high 23 points, and the Wolfpack earned a gritty come-from-behind 65-56 victory over the Maryland Terrapins as sophomore forward T.J. Warren sat out with a sprained ankle, an injury sustained in the second half of State’s loss to Duke on Saturday.
“T.J. is a great player, and obviously without him we still have to play,” Turner said. “So we just talked about coming together and getting it done, and we felt like we were good enough as a group to get it done.”
The Pack trailed by as many as 11 in the second half but some sharp shooting from Turner and junior guard Desmond Lee’s lockdown defense spurred a rally.
With his team trailing 31-24, Lee had two key steals, creating fast break opportunities at the other end for the Wolfpack to erase the deficit. Opportunities such as freshman forward Kyle Washington’s emphatic two-handed dunk awakened the PNC Arena crowd and shifted the entire outlook of the game.
“Adversity is going to happen in the game of basketball, and you have to be able to overcome that,” Turner said. “Some things didn’t go well for us, but we kept fighting and in the second half we had a breakthrough.”
The second half belonged to Turner. The guard drilled three after three, leading the charge during the Pack’s comeback. State shot 56.7 percent from the field in the second half, a vast improvement from its dismal first half performance. Turner himself had the biggest transformation – after shooting just 2-8 from the field in the first half and missing all five of his three point attempts, Turner went 6-11 in the second half and shot 50 percent (5-10) from behind the arc.
“I always tell them, ‘miss them early, make them late, but keep shooting.’” Wolfpack head coach Mark Gottfried said. “I thought Ralston was terrific in the second half. He got in that zone where he felt like he was going to make every shot and at that point we wanted to go to him a lot.”
Gottfried went with an eight-man rotation with Warren sidelined. Freshman forward Lennard Freeman returned to action after missing the Duke game with an ankle sprain. Freeman played 14 minutes, scoring three points and grabbing three rebounds.
The Pack dug quite a hole early. After jumping out to a 7-0 lead to begin the game, State lost its shooting touch and fell behind Maryland for almost 30 minutes. The Pack finished the first half shooting only 6-27 (22.2%) and 0-8 from behind the arc. That equated to a nine-point Terrapin lead at halftime, punctuated by sophomore forward Jake Layman’s trey just before the buzzer. But after the break, State came alive.
“One thing about Ralston, he is going to keep shooting. You never have to tell him to keep shooting,” Lee said. “He’s going to shoot. Miss, make, air ball. He’s going to shoot the ball. Once he gets to hitting it though, it’s unbelievable.”
Coming off three straight ACC losses, two of which came by more than 30 points, the Wolfpack needed a win against Maryland. This places State back on track to try and make a run at being relevant again in the ACC race and have a chance at playing in the NCAA Tournament.
“I’m just really proud of our guys,” Gottfried said. “They had the odds against them but they fought it out…they are going to draw on this for a long time. This is going to be a good one for our team.”
The Wolfpack will continue its three-game homestand on Sunday against Georgia Tech. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. at PNC Arena.