NC State 79, Jacksonville 43: Pack's defensive dominance keys blowout win

Box Score (unofficial)

Well, Jacksonville, you uh, you probably tried for a while. Which is something that you can say you did. And you'll always have that. The details are best left forgotten. NC State wasn't sharp offensively but still rolled in this game, leading by 23 at the break and finishing with a 79-43 win.

The gulf between these teams could be summed up by one Jacksonville first-half possession that included four blocked shots by BeeJay Anya. It was truly glorious.

Anya finished the night with 10 rejections.

It didn't take long for Jacksonville's players to begin shying away from driving the ball to the rim, and I don't blame them. I would have been scared too after an episode like that. At one point, State had more blocks (eight) than the Dolphins had points (seven). State finished with more blocks than Jacksonville had buckets.

While the Dolphins were struggling to get a shot off over NC State's defense, State's offense was squandering a lot of high-percentage opportunities with sloppy play and I guess just a lack of concentration. It's like the old joke about the wide receiver who was so open that he dropped the ball--State players time and again found themselves with some easy opportunities against an undersized defense and looked too occupied by disbelief to finish.

Didn't matter, though. Not even a teeny tiny wee little smidge of a bit.