Junior guard Anthony “Cat” Barber scored 19 points, freshman shooting guard Maverick Rowan added another 15 and the NC State basketball team defeated IUPUI 79-56 Wednesday night at PNC Arena.
The Wolfpack (2-1) led for all but 46 seconds against the Jaguars (1-2) and was never really threatened.
“It was a good win,” head coach Mark Gottfried said. “The most important thing from my perspective is from last Friday we got carved up like a side of fries, and then we got a little better on Sunday, and we were a little better today. I do see improvement.”
Gottfried continued with his primary seven-man rotation, with Barber, sophomore Caleb Martin, Rowan, sophomore Abdul-Malik Abu and junior Lennard Freeman getting their second-straight start.
NC State came out of the gates hot in the first half but cooled late, putting up 38 points while shooting 45 percent from the field.
Barber led all scorers with 12 points on 4-for-8 shooting and showed greater confidence in his pull-up jumper, which he struggled with in the previous two games.
“You’ve just gotta keep shooting; sometimes it ain’t gonna go your way, but the coaches tell me to keep shooting no matter what and they are gonna fall,” Barber said. “So I came out tonight and was shooting the ball well, so I kept shooting and driving to the basket.”
The Pack played excellent defense, limiting IUPUI to just 38 percent shooting from the field, although a few clutch Jaguar threes kept them within reach.
“The little guy [Darell] Combs, he was the focus for us,” Gottfried said. “Sometimes we kind of over helped, and they threw the ball back and made some threes. We felt like if he came in here and really struggled, they would have a hard time winning the game. And he had five points.”
IUPUI’s junior forward Matt O’Leary led the way with 11 points for visitors, including three triples.
The Pack cooled significantly in the last few minutes of the first, however, only making two of its last nine shots from the floor to carry a 38-27 lead into the break.
In the second, State turned up the pressure and extended its lead, but the Jaguars got back to within 10 thanks to a 6-for-8 run from the field while State went 1 for 7, and at the media timeout with 7:58 remaining the Wolfpack held a precarious 59-50 lead.
But Caleb Martin roused the PNC crowd with a thunderous dunk and drained two free throws, and with less than seven minutes remaining, State would restore its double-digit lead. Abu added two with a strong play at the rim, and Barber added two from the line to make it 68-55 with 5:00 left.
“We had our ups and downs, but with a young team like we are, we’re still trying to find out identity,” Abu said. “It was good. It felt like a long game but that’s what we need. We need more time, more experience just to find our identity and be a better team.”
A dagger three from Rowan put the Wolfpack up by 16 and killed any chance of a comeback with less than 4:00 on the clock. The Fort Lauderdale, Florida native was huge in the second half, contributing 11 points on 4 for 8 from the field.
“Maverick is a fun player,” Gottfried said. “He’s a fun guy to coach. He’s aggressive. He’s tough-minded. He’s walked in here thinking he should be starting no matter what.”
Freshman Shaun Kirk put the icing on the cake with a monster alley-oop with under a minute, and the Pack defeated the Jaguars 79-56.
Besides Barber’s 19 points, Caleb Martin continued his strong start to the season with 15 points but needed 15 shots to do it. Abu was ferocious on the glass, grabbing nine boards and scoring 14 points.
The Pack outrebounded the Jaguars 52-37 and outscored them 32-12 in the paint. Three Jaguar players fouled out of the game, while four Jags picked up four fouls. But the Pack shot poorly from the free-throw line, converting only 23-of-39 attempts.
“This game was close because we couldn’t make a foul shot,” Gottfried said. “We’ve got to be a lot better at the foul line. It’s real simple. We’ve got good foul shooters, we spend a lot of time shooting foul shots every single day, but we can’t step up to the foul line and miss as many foul shots as we have and expect to be a really good team.”
The Wolfpack travels to Brooklyn, New York to face Arizona State next Wednesday at Barclay’s Center.
