Per ESPN: “Anthony “Cat” Barber scored 19 points to lead N.C. State, though he didn’t score after banging knees with a Duke player with about 14 1/2 minutes left.”
That speaks to Cat’s importance and State’s lack of depth. He wasn’t a threat anymore.
State lost the lead, but as was pointed out in the game, the shooting “normalized”, or rather Dook started shooting the lights out. Almost 71% in the half. A combo of poor D an their increased aggressiveness. The game was still tied at 56 until Matt Jones hit a 3 at 10:57 to go. Dook scored 10 unanswered in that stretch, hole dug.
As I recall, State went into a shell and forgot what had worked offensively in the 1st half. They did get the ball low a few times, but couldn’t finish or even get a decent shot off. I find that very frustrating.
The game stats are very similar AFA percentage, boards, TOs etc. but Dook hit 2 more 3s and 6 more FTs. I think the big guys need to seriously consider shooting FTs underhanded. As Dan Patrick said the other day, you might get laughed at at first, but they’re laughing now. When you start making FTs, they’ll stop laughing.
