NC State
Georgia Tech
Pack Falls At Home To Georgia Tech, 82-71
1/11/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 11, 2012
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RALEIGH, N.C. - After leading much of the first half, NC State had trouble stopping Georgia Tech when sophomore C.J. Leslie and junior Richard Howell were off the court in foul trouble and the Pack found itself in a hole it couldn't dig out of Wednesday night at the RBC Center in an 82-71 loss to the Yellow Jackets.
Trailing 40-29 at intermission, the Pack managed to rally with its two big guys in the lineup, cutting Tech's lead to five points with 13:51 remaining in the game. The Pack, however, could not overcome the double-digit lead Tech build with a 19-3 run in the final six minutes of the first half.
Leslie picked up his third foul while going for a loose ball shortly after teammate C.J. Williams' runner cut the Yellow Jacket lead to 45-40. With Leslie on the bench, Tech junior Glen Rice Jr. kicked off an 11-0 rally that included a technical foul on the NC State bench to push Tech's lead back to 56-40.
The Yellow Jackets (8-8 overall, 1-1 ACC) eventually built as much as an 18-point lead in the final moments of the game to end the Wolfpack's season-best six-game winning streak.
"We've played well at times this year, but we certainly didn't play very well tonight," first-year head coach Mark Gottfried said. "I think we can play better than that, both offensively and defensively.
"We also did a lot of things to hurt ourselves, with turnovers and missing shots."
Rice, out of the starting lineup for the third consecutive game, hurt the Wolfpack all evening, coming off the bench less than two minutes after tipoff to score 13 points in the first half alone.
He finished with a game-high 22 for the Jackets, while Mfon Udofia added 17 and Brandon Reed had 12.
The Yellow Jackets, which entered the game with the ACC's worst 3-point shooting percentage at 30.2 percent, made nine of 15 shots (60 percent) from beyond the arc, surpassing its best bonus shooting game of the season of 6-for-13 (46.2 percent) in its recent game against Duke.
The Wolfpack (12-5, 1-1) was led by Leslie's 16 points in the game, followed by Howell's 15 points, sophomore Lorenzo Brown's 13 and Williams' 12.
Junior Scott Wood, limited to 2-for-9 shooting from 3-point range, was the Pack's fifth double-digit scorer with 10 points on the night. He also made his only two free-throw attempts, extending his school-record streak to 49 in a row. He's now five away from tying the ACC mark set by Duke's J.J. Redick in 2002.
After leading much of the early portion of the game, the Wolfpack went dry late in the first half, as the Yellow Jackets went on a lightning-fast 19-3 run over the final six minutes. Most of that spurt came shortly after Leslie went to the bench with his second foul of the game.
The Pack made just five of its final 18 shots of the first half, while the Yellow Jackets sizzled, making four 3-pointers and four free throws during its rally.
For the half, State made just 35.7 percent of its shots.
"It hurt us not having our key guys on the floor," Gottfried said. "That stretch at the end of the first half really hurt us, because Calvin was not on the court. We were playing behind the 8-ball."
The Wolfpack plays its first ACC road game on Saturday at 1 p.m. when it travels to Winston-Salem to face Wake Forest at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The game will be broadcast on the ACC Television Network.
State returns home next Thursday to face Boston College at 8 p.m. Doors at the RBC Center open at 6:30 p.m.
