Leslie’s career high leads State to easy win

C.J. Leslie had a career game today as NC State rolled over St. Bonaventure 92-73. Leslie had 33 points and 8 rebounds in a game that included Scott Wood adding 23 points as well. Leslie and Wood basically took the Bonnies out by themselves.

Overall, it was the best team performance of the year and is a perfect way to go into the Christmas break. The only thing that jumped out to me from a negative point of view was that Richard Howell’s foul issues came back. After only having 7 fouls called on him in the last four games, today he fouled out and didn’t have a single point. Just something to keep an eye on as conference play begins in a couple of weeks.

Leslie looked like a player that not only was tabbed as the ACC preseason player of the year, but was backing up that accolade with no equivocations.

“Calvin was tough to guard today,” N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried said, referring to Leslie by his first name. “I thought when he attacked the rim and was aggressive, he either scored or got fouled.”

Wood added a season-best 23 points on 8-of-10 shooting and Lorenzo Brown had a season-high 11 assists for the Wolfpack (9-2).

The nation’s most accurate shooting team shot 57 percent, never trailed and now heads into its weeklong holiday break on a five-game winning streak.

“The main thing is that we have games where it may be one guy, and lately I feel like it’s been all of us – all the leaders and upperclassmen, it’s been all of us playing well to a certain extent,” Leslie said. “It may be that one person is getting a little bit more and the other person can’t get it, but we all have stepped up and led and played fairly well these last couple games.”

About ruffles31

1996 NC State graduate who is still waiting on his first ACC conference championship in any of the four main revenue sports (football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and baseball) since enrolling. All I want is a ACC Champions t-shirt.

12-13 Basketball College Basketball Mark Gottfried NC State NCS Basketball

9 Responses to Leslie’s career high leads State to easy win

  1. brqan925 12/23/2012 at 2:00 AM #

    The only thing that jumped out to me from a negative point of view was that Richard Howell’s foul issues came back.

    They used ACC officials in this game. Mike Eades, Sean Hull, and Tim Kelly was the crew and they combined to ref 45 ACC conference games last year.

  2. wilmwolf80 12/23/2012 at 3:35 AM #

    From what I remember, all of Richard’s fouls came inside the paint area, so I’ll take that. The only real boneheaded one that I recall was his fourth, which was after a rebound when he and Vandy where fighting with their big man for the ball.And that call was pretty questionable. There’s no doubt that with his “tendencies”, Rich is going to pick up his share of fouls in league play. How well we handle that will have a lot to do with how our season pans out.

    Also, I fully expect to drop out of the top 25 this week. And I fully expect that the Heels will inexplicably move up in the polls. I just don’t trust the pollsters to really pay attention to the results at this point. In the end, it may be good for the team, and hopefully will provide motivation for them. The eye test says we are legitimately top 15-20 right now, and we still have not IMO played a complete game yet this season.

    Good win today.

  3. tuckerdorm1983 12/23/2012 at 7:03 AM #

    if we are hitting on all cylinders on offense (wood hitting threes, leslie and howell scoring and passing, warren and purvis contributing solidly and lorenzo under control and hitting the pull up shots about 5 feet from the basket) and playing lock down defense and no one (especially howell and leslie) in foul trouble, then we can beat any team in the nation.

  4. state73 12/23/2012 at 11:21 AM #

    ACC refs and Howell getting in foul trouble. Tendencies!

  5. T. 12/23/2012 at 12:10 PM #

    Solid game, and still room for improvement.

    It still blows my mind that we’re #1 in the country in FG %. Crazy.

    http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/statistics/team/_/stat/field-goals/sort/fieldGoalPct

  6. chriscgray 12/23/2012 at 12:24 PM #

    You have to be smoking dope to not put us in the top 20. I think Leslie being assertive is good, it opens wood up from outside. As long as warren plays as strong as he has, it will help us enough to win those games Howell is in foul trouble. The thing that bothers me is I want to see us cut down turnovers and I’d like to see Lewis get into a groove when brown goes out. Free throws also must be more consistent

  7. PackerInRussia 12/23/2012 at 1:21 PM #

    Without knowing they were ACC refs, I knew they were ACC refs. If ya know what I mean.

  8. pacman23 12/23/2012 at 7:51 PM #

    Yes, it was the freaking Hessians on hand to to ref the game. Knew it as soon as I heard Mike Eads name.
    I’m not going to necessarily blame them for Howell’s issues yesterday since he seemed to be reverting back to past form – slowly moving, reaching and grabbing – instead of moving his feet quickly and playing good position defense. He’s GOT to know that those ACC douchebags are looking to call a foul every time they see those swipes at the ball. Just got to lay off. One of his fouls yesterday though was blatant and unnecessary while trying to prevent a layup. Let them have the two points, Rich, because we NEED you in the game!

    I do not expect us to drop out of the Top 25, unlike the very negative poster above. We had two quality wins this week and people did notice. We’re moving up…

  9. wilmwolf80 12/23/2012 at 8:26 PM #

    I’m not being negative with my top 25 prediction, just being real. I don’t think we should drop out, I also don’t think that the people that vote in the polls really pay attention enough to know where we should be. Look at how quickly we have fallen after two losses to respectable teams. A preseason #6 team shouldn’t drop to 25 with the two losses we have, not if the pollsters are really paying attention.

Leave a Reply