NC State Outplays the Abilene Christian Wildcats 84-64

Game Summary:

Silly me, I was concerned about this game. Perhaps the team was too, because they quickly took care of business and had a 10-point lead at 8:00 minutes into the first half. The only drama after that was, a) Was there going to be free chicken? (yes); b) Was Mo Diarra going to get his second consecutive double-double? (no); c) Was Jayden Taylor going to hit or exceed his career high? (no)

Jayden Taylor had an ourstanding game scoring 22 points, but perhaps equally impressive was he guarded their point guard McClain most of the game and disrupted his ability to drive or trigger their offense. Equally impressive, Mo Diarra had the primary assignment on their best player, Simmons, and held him to 7 points and 1 rebound, along with 4 fouls. Simmons was not a factor in the game.

As maybe we should have expected (?), the Pack played well, they dominated this game in all categories. The only minor concern is our 3PT shooting is not yet where we expect it to be. But the shot quality is there, so they should start falling.

Overall Takeaways:

• The Pack got 34 of it’s 84 points in the paint.
• The Pack, in our first two games, have 6 different players who have scored 10 points or more in a game.
• ACU’s strength is forcing turnovers, the Pack only turned it over 8 times – for the second consecutive game.
• The Pack rebounded well. The final tally was 39-37, but ACU picked up 6 of those rebounds in the final 3 minutes after the game was decided.
• This is a good free throw shooting team when we can get to the line. In the Citadel game we only got 7 attempts, tonight we got 24 attempts and hit 83%.
• Tonight we had our first player play as many as 30 minutes this season. We went 9 deep.

Keatts Comments

• He thought the defense was really good, our pressure wore them down
• We did a good job of guarding the 3PT line again, we allowed the Citadel 4 and ACU 5 made 3PT shots.
• He thought Jayden Taylor played great defense and pressured the ball well. He played a complete game.
• He was really pleased with how the front court played, both defensively and they rebounded well.

Starters:

• Horne, Taylor, Morsell, Diarra, Burns

Individual Highlights

• Points – Jayden Taylor’s 22 points was two points off his career high. We saw him playing like he did at Butler, he likes to drive the ball.
• Rebounds – Mo Diarra with double digit rebounds again. And he was one point away from his second double-double.
• DJ Burns played one of his better games. He played 30 minutes with only one foul, and scored 16 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists.

Neighborhood Notes:

The ACC is undefeated no more, earlier today Wake lost to UGA, Louisville lost to Chattanooga, and Duke lost a close one to Arizona. VT and Clemson are both trailing at the beginning of their respective second halves.

Box Score