In front of a sold-out crowd on senior night at Reynolds Coliseum, senior forward DD Rogers led the 10th-ranked NC State women’s basketball team to a 70-68 win over No. 15 Miami.
Playing in the last regular season home game of her career, Rogers was an unstoppable force all evening, scoring a career-high 21 points on 8-of-19 shooting and grabbing 14 rebounds to go along with two blocks.
“We really like DD attacking,” head coach Wes Moore said. “She competed so hard. Pretty impressive senior night for her.”
A hot start by the Hurricanes (24-7, 12-4 ACC) put the Wolfpack (25-4, 12-4 ACC) in an early hole, but an and-one layup from senior forward DD Rogers kickstarted a 9-0 run by the Pack that graduate forward Kiara Leslie punctuated with a second-chance 3-pointer to tie the game up at 13-13 with just over one minute remaining in the first quarter.
After trading buckets on the next two possessions, Rogers corralled an offensive rebound and hit the putback layup at the buzzer to give the Pack a 17-15 lead at the end of the first quarter.
“That definitely gave us a boost of energy,” Rogers said. “We knew we had it, just to keep playing, we can hang with them.”
A poor second quarter on both ends of the court sent NC State into halftime down 38-30. The Pack hit just 5 of 15 shots in the second quarter and allowed Miami to hit 10 of it’s 18, including two from beyond the arc.
“I was a little disappointed at halftime,” Moore said. “I thought we could have had more energy.”
After a quick layup gave the Hurricanes a 10-point lead to start the second half, the Wolfpack rattled off five straight baskets courtesy of freshman center Elissa Cunane, sophomore guard Kai Crutchfield and Rogers to tie it at 40 and force a Miami timeout. Following the script of the game up until that point, the Hurricanes came out of the timeout on a 5-0 spurt.
The Hurricanes maintained the lead for nearly all of the third quarter, but clutch 3-pointers and an exceptional effort from Rogers in the paint kept NC State within reach. Sophomore forward Kayla Jones hit a layup with just over a minute to play in the third quarter to give the Pack its first lead since midway through the second quarter, and with Reynolds Coliseum rocking, NC State carried that lead into the final period of play.
“[The crowd] definitely helped us get back into the game,” Rogers said.
The two squads traded leads throughout the fourth, and just when the Pack seemed primed to run away with the contest after taking a five-point advantage with four minutes left, Miami cut the lead to three a minute later.
Junior guard Aislinn Konig scored just seven points and was relatively quiet offensively, but there may not have been a better time for her to break out of her slump than a floater in the lane with 39 seconds to play and the shot clock winding down to give the Pack a five-point lead. On the other end, the Hurricanes couldn’t convert on a jumper, and their offensive rebound and subsequent attempt was swatted away by Leslie to preserve the narrow advantage.
“Kiara Leslie is probably the most composed kid I’ve seen all year,” Miami coach Katie Meier said. “She [was] killing us on the defensive end.”
Two Cunane free throws with under 30 seconds to play all but sealed the deal for the Wolfpack, ensuring a No. 3 seed in the ACC Tournament.
“Right now we’ll enjoy this for a few hours,” Moore said. “Then we’ll start preparing for the bracket we’re in.”
NC State will return to action on Friday at 8 p.m. in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament.
