Aftermath

Some notes from yesterday's win:

-- This is the first time in a month that NC State has held an opponent below a point per possession. The Bears averaged 0.95 pts/poss. Way back on February 15th, NC State held Florida State to 0.90 pts/poss. In between, it's been ugly.

-- NC State's offensive efficiency rating (106) wasn't very good by NCSU standards, but it's the best performance the offense has had since the Carolina game on Feb 22nd. The Pack's OFF EFF was 112 on that day. The mark posted against Cal also snaps the offense's two-game sub-100 streak.

-- The Cal game had only 55 possessions, making it the slowest-paced Wolfpack game of the season. NC State has played several games under 60 possessions--at Alabama (58), vs. New Hampshire (59), and at Boston College (59). And had the other game against BC not gone into overtime, it would've ended with about 55 possessions.

-- Shooting:

1st Half eFG%2nd Half eFG%Game eFG%NC State47.865.856.0Cal58.737.547.9
-- Cal did outrebound the Wolfpack, but the Bears didn't have much of an advantage here. Cal's OR% was 33.3%, compared to NC State's 29.2%. That's not at all a bad effort from the Wolfpack considering how good the Bears are on the defensive glass. Leon Powe, by the way, had six of Cal's nine offensive boards.

-- California turned the ball over 13 times, and that's a lot in a 55-possession game.

-- It was nice to see us win a game without the benefit of a good perimeter shooting night. We were fortunate to get away with the ineffectiveness of Evtimov and Atsur. If the guys don't rediscover their mojo by tomorrow, though, they've got no chance. Texas is one of the better defensive clubs in the nation.