NC State women blow out UNC, 72-45

NC State came out sharp on both ends of the floor, scored the first 10 points of the game, and cruised past UNC the rest of the way. It was a particularly rough one for the Tar Heels, which was just devastating to watch transpire.

State scored the first 10 and took a 24-7 lead into the second quarter. Turns out, you cannot get down 17 points on the road against a top-five team and hope to have any chance to change your fate. UNC played the second quarter even, but took the aforementioned 17-point deficit into halftime. Basically, this game was over after 10 minutes.

That is not a typo: UNC posted an effective field goal percentage below 27.0. The Heels were 10-44 inside the arc and 5-21 beyond it. How embarrassing.

NC State didn’t play well offensively but was more than good enough—the Wolfpack shot it at a normal rate and controlled the glass; the rest is details.

Elissa Cunane picked a good time to have a great game, finishing with 19 points on 6-8 shooting while pulling down 13 rebounds. When she’s playing at an elite level, State is better for it, not surprisingly. She was a standout performer in what was otherwise and underwhelming effort from this group offensively.

Kayla Jones scored nine points on 4-4 shooting in 14 minutes, but Jakia Brown-Turner was only 3-11 from the field, and Raina Perez shot 3-12. Diamond Johnson wasn’t much of a factor either.

If you’d read that last paragraph back to me without any additional context, I would’ve figured that disaster struck, but no actually it was a 27-point win anyway. That’s very funny.