NC State women’s basketball loses to Duke, 70-65, as slump continues

It’s been a little while since NC State has looked the part of a top-10 team, for various reasons, and that continued Monday night against Duke. The Blue Devils scored the first seven points of the game and never trailed en route to a 70-65 win over the Wolfpack. State has lost three of its last four.

This team has been on the turnover-prone side all season, but the mistakes have been more pronounced of late, and on Monday they canceled out a pretty good shooting effort. The Blue Devils finished +8 in the turnover category, which was a significant edge in a close game. NC State couldn’t overcome it.

State turned the ball over on nearly a quarter of its possessions, this after turning the ball over about 30% of the time at Miami on Thursday. The Pack was lucky to get out of Miami with a win, but against a much better Duke team, the result not surprisingly was different.

There ain’t much else to say other than that NC State is in a slump—the team hasn’t played well since it beat Virginia Tech back on Feb. 6, and that’s disheartening. State would still be a top-16 overall NCAA tournament seed if the season ended today, but now has to worry about that position becoming more tenuous.

Duke is a good team and has played well lately but if NC State is playing well, it takes care of business at home. They gotta get this sorted out quickly.