NC State comes up short against UNC, 90-82

North Carolina set the tone on Tuesday night with a 12-0 run to put NC State in some bad shape right out of the gate, and the Wolfpack had to play catch-up all night. The Pack made its runs, but the Tar Heels had a response every time, and closed it out with the 90-82 win.

Not surprisingly, UNC’s rebounding advantage was again part of the story of another NC State loss in this series. The Tar Heels rebounded about 38% of their own misses while holding State to an offensive rebounding percentage south of 22.0.

Couple that with a UNC shooting advantage across the board, and not even a +10 turnover margin was enough to rescue the Pack tonight.

It’s frustrating to watch the same results play out seemingly over and over, but I don’t know what do other than shrug at this point. NC State was not at its best, and Carolina never seems to have an off game at PNC Arena.

Markell Johnson and Torin Dorn finished a combined 1-11 from three, and Markell in particular struggled overall, hitting only a third of his field goal attempts. It’s tough when those guys aren’t able to lead the charge and play efficiently. Your best players need to perform like your best players in big games. Alas.

Braxton Beverly led a heroic effort to salvage State’s perimeter offense, but there was only so much he could do, and State ended up finishing 8-28 from outside. The Heels, on the other hand, were 10-25 from three and also hit 22 of 26 free throw attempts. They were the more opportunistic team. Alas.