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William & Mary 85, NC State 68: Wolfpack dominated at home by hot-shooting Tribe

Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

The excitement surrounding NC State's first basketball game of the 2015-16 season came and went in about five minutes of game time, which is the amount of time William & Mary needed to take control and never look back. The Tribe jumped out to a quick 10-3 lead thanks to a couple of threes, and that would be just a taste of the night ahead as they cruised to an 85-68 win in Raleigh.

Gotta make shots.

This was the major concern coming in--the Tribe finished each of the last two seasons sixth nationally in effective field goal percentage. When they are on, they can be really, really good offensively. When they are on and up against and uncertain team playing mediocre-or-worse defense, it's going to be their day. Friday was all theirs.

NC State responded poorly to that initial deficit, to put it kindly. As William and Mary continued to make shots and extend the lead, NC State's panic grew to the point where guys were chucking up bad shot after bad shot with no regard for running any sort of offense. It was a disappointing reversion to some of the problems we saw last season, except there was no Trevor Lacey. Hero ball with no hero.

This of course played right into the hands of the undersized Tribe, which is the particularly frustrating part. NC State made it easy on those guys. They made it easy on a Tribe group that has a lot of deficiencies and plays objectively bad defense, let 'em have a free pass on the entire night.