NC State puts a walloping on FSU, 94-66

Well that was fun. A great night from three, a great night for T, and a great night for thee! Ahem. Right. You know what’s helpful? When your team starts the game on a 30-4 run to damn near put it on ice after 10 minutes. That was a great call by Kevin Keatts and his staff to have their guys do that tonight. Smart coaching.

NC State was already up 9-2 by the time the television coverage got started, and hear tell that FSU scored the first bucket of the night, but we may never know if that’s true. Frankly I have a hard time believing it.

Terquavion Smith hit a couple threes early to establish that early edge, and from there it got really bad really fast for Florida State, as NC State stayed red hot from the floor. Jarkel Joiner and DJ Burns contributed plenty to the early run, T added a few more triples, and the Pack’s lead ballooned to 40-10 with six minutes left in the first half. FSU managed to salvage the rest of the half by outscoring NC State 17-9, but the Noles didn’t have enough perimeter offense to mount a serious rally.

FSU clawed back to within 17 in the second half but got no closer.

NC State’s 12-20 effort from three was its most accurate performance of the season by far. That propelled the offense to average 1.36 points per possession, also its best mark of the season. Shoot like that from deep, take care of the ball, and grab a bunch of offensive boards? Yeah, that’ll work.

Baby T finished 6-10 from three and scored 32 points, while DJ Burns scored 15 points in just 19 minutes, as he was limited by foul trouble. Maybe we can rebrand “foul trouble” as “ref-hassled.” He was ref-hassled to a disappointing extent. But that’s beside the point on a night like this.

It was an outstanding and dominant collective effort for the Pack offensively, and to breeze through an improving FSU team like this was impressive. Gotta bring that same mojo against Georgia Tech on Saturday.