NC State no match for Richmond’s hot shooting in 83-74 defeat

Initially at least it looked like NC State was going to have one of its better offensive performances of the season—the Wolfpack hit a handful of threes early on and scored 23 points in the first eight minutes. Then the rest of the game happened.

The Pack ended up shooting just 41% inside the arc against a weak Richmond defense and couldn’t keep the threes falling; Richmond, meanwhile, found a groove offensively that it would maintain throughout the evening. The sad part was that Richmond found scoring in the paint so easy that it didn’t even need to shoot threes the way it is normally inclined to.

Forty of the Spiders’ 59 shots came inside the arc, and they made 60% of them. That effectiveness was the difference. State won on the glass, finished +3 in turnover margin, and ended up with 16 more free throw attempts than Richmond. NC State was able to rally a couple times down the stretch but was not good enough from the field and could not get enough stops to turn the game around.

Dereon Seabron had another fine afternoon, with 21 points and 13 boards, but was just 4-10 at the free throw line. He was 7-14 inside the arc, while the rest of the team shot 9-25. Pretty painful to watch.

Overall it was the Pack’s third-worst shooting performance of the season, and the fourth time the guys have posted an effective field goal percentage under 45.0. They’ve only been over 50% four times. It’s a problem that isn’t going away, and tonight it delivered a loss.