NC State advances to 2nd round of NCAAs with 63-51 win over Maine

NC State got 20 points from Kiara Leslie and 16 from star freshman Elissa Cunane, who paced the Wolfpack Women in a sluggish affair against the Maine Black Bears. Give Maine plenty of credit for hanging in there in the second half, but the Pack’s 17-point halftime advantage proved too much to overcome.

State trailed 10-9 with four minutes left in the first quarter but went on a 10-0 run to close out the period and assert control. Leslie nailed a couple of threes during that stretch, and the game wasn’t really in doubt from then on, though the Pack couldn’t put enough stretches of good offense together to really bury the Bears.

Maine didn’t find much consistency at the offensive end, either, mostly because the Bears were determined to take a zillion threes despite not shooting well. They attempted 37 three-points and only 22 two-point shots all afternoon. Their extreme perimeter-orientation also led them to get exactly zero free throw attempts, which did not help.

NC State took advantage of a considerable size advantage to knock down 58% of its two-point attempts and also hit nine of 12 from the free throw line. Maine finished just 9-22 (40.9%) from two.

The Wolfpack will host sixth-seeded Kentucky in the second round on Monday.