Georgetown 82, NC State 67

Box Score

That second half performance was an inevitability, not against Georgetown necessarily, but with a trio of young kids shouldering prominent roles, it was going to happen.  After a strong opening twenty, we struggled to find anything that worked in the second half and settled for too many jumpers.  Guys took bad shots.  There was no plan and the halfcourt sets, if you could call them sets, were a mess.

I think we panicked a bit once we got down and it snowballed from there.  The difference in experience between the two teams became obvious as Georgetown coolly accepted and took advantage of the mistakes NC State made at its offensive end.  Tracy Smith's absence was clearly apparent as well; we could have used a calming, go-to presence in those first 5-6 minutes, and we did not have it.  Like an ace pitcher, the Macrowave can bust losing streaks a.k.a. a string of failed possessions.  That problem aside, it's just tough when you have to give Jordan Vandenberg 17 minutes.  He did not play tall.

Turnovers didn't doom the Pack--a -1 margin meant little to the big picture; it was bad offense fueling bad defense and poor defensive rebounding.  Sidney Lowe insisted on a lineup that could not rebound--Wood, Leslie, Painter at forward--in an effort to get back into the game offensively and the results were disastrous.  Admittedly it was a tough spot--Howell's rebounding comes at the expense of offense from Wood or Leslie. 

But it's not all bad.  This team proved for a half that it can be top-20 good, even without Tracy Smith.  This loss shouldn't hurt too much from an RPI perspective, though a closer margin would have made for a few more style points.  And I'll take 10 turnovers every night.