NC State 79, George Washington 58

We're better than the Colonials and we proved it convincingly.

This says it all:

Offensive Rebound Rate

Colonials: 19.6%
Wolfpack: 26.3%

Without question, NC State had its best defensive rebounding effort of the season. The cold-shooting Colonials weren't able to bail themselves out with offensive boards, and that was a big reason why George Washington scored just 58 points on 71 possessions.

NC State had played two teams with rebounding numbers similar to George Washington's (Miami and Alabama), and both of those teams had OR% over 38% against the Pack. Holding GW to a rate under 20% is awesome.

Danilo Pinnock and Maureece Rice--the two GW players averaging better than 21 pts/40--combined for 13 points on 3-16 shooting.

About the only thing George Washington did well was avoid turnovers. Their TO% for the game was 11.3%. But the Colonials shot so poorly that the ball security didn't do them much good.

The Wolfpack only turned the ball over 11 times (for a TO% of 15.6%) against the GW press, impressive considering GW had forced Maryland into 25 turnovers.

Even with the difficult stretch of conference games on the immediate horizon, it's impossible not to get excited. Herb is saying the proper things, but I know the coaches are every bit as pumped as the rest of us.

"It is a marathon,'' he said of the season. "I was thinking today, what an important game this is today. It was. It was a big non-conference game.

"But then my next thought kind of raced ahead and I started counting -- we're three months away from the ACC Tournament ... it's a long season. Somehow, we have to maintain some evenness throughout."