NC State Heads To Syracuse, Looks To Rebound
It is a different feeling for the Wolfpack.
NC State lost to Duke at home on Thursday. It was the first league defeat the Wolfpack has suffered at home since 2020, when the Blue Devils knocked off NCSU in that season's Play-4-Kay Game. The Pack had not lost an ACC game anywhere since falling at Notre Dame last season en route to a sterling 17-1 record in the conference and first ACC regular season title for the program in 32 years.
Since 2019-20, NC State is 93-13 overall and 44-8 in ACC play. When they lose, people will take notice.
The Pack has some veteran players on its current team, but younger members of the squad are getting more time on the court this season.
UConn and its head coach Geno Auriemma, which won a thriller against NC State in last season's Elite Eight and faced the Wolfpack again before Thanksgiving, is in a position notice the difference in time spent on the court at college's highest level..
"This team just lacks the experience of last year's team," Auriemma said after the Huskies knocked off NC State in November. "Last year's team was unbelievably experienced. They had three, kind of, grad-level kids. Anytime you are going through that (change) it is going to take you awhile to find it.
"But in terms of talent base, the way they play, the way (Moore) coaches, the shots that they get, [it's] very similar to last year's team. They just don't have the experience of last year's team."
And experience is something that cannot be simulated.
NC State is getting it. Road wins over Iowa and Georgia were not easy, but the Wolfpack was not sans Diamond Johnson in those outings. The team leader is scoring and assists, Johnson has been everything Moore could have hoped for since her arrival from Rutgers prior to last season.
That has led Saniya Rivers to be shifted to the point guard. Rivers has fared well, but with the lack of ball-handlers for NC State now a glaring sight the opposition is smelling blood.
Clemson gave the Wolfpack problems with defensive pressure but NCSU grinded out a home win. Duke, no longer a benevolent zone defensive squad that they had been in recent seasons, took the pressure up a notch against the Pack, and it led to a relatively comfortable win for the Blue Devils.
The Blue Devil press caused the Wolfpack to commit 18 turnovers, nine of which came on Duke steals. When NC State did get the ball into the frontcourt, the pressure often forced bad shots -- which is usually a consequence of bad decisions.
They took us out of anything we wanted to do offensively.”
“We weren’t able to get any good looks and ended up settling for a lot of jump shots," Moore said. [Duke beat NC State] 24-12 on fastbreak points. I thought in the fourth quarter we put them on the foul line too much.
“You wanted to be able to get downhill some out of the press break, make somebody help so you can kick (pass the ball outside), but we didn’t really do a good job of that either. A couple of times when we did draw the help we didn’t kick it, we forced the shot.”
There has also been defensive inconsistency this season for NC State, which is often a sign of youth or inexperience. The Wolfpack typically has lulls in one period or two, and it has allowed more than 20 points in a quarter several times, including a 25-point whopper against the Blue Devils that they never did recover from.
"I’m not sure why we’re so inconsistent," Moore said after the Duke loss. "We’ve done that all year, given up points in a quarter at a high pace and then been able to shut them down the other three quarters...We talk all the time about allowing people to miss shots. Tonight we didn’t allow them to miss shots. We fouled them."
The record at NC State over the past three-plus seasons has been exemplary, but it is not perfect.
A big reason why the Wolfpack is now functioning at a level that is among the nation's elite is the team's ability to respond to the rare defeat, accept criticism and embrace high standards from its leader, while also recalibrating quickly in an unforgiving conference.
This season's squad will have to draw from those same characteristics in 2023. NC State will look to start the new year off in winning fashion at Syracuse at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
"We next go to Syracuse and they are 9-0 at home," Moore said. "It doesn’t get any easier. We’re going to see everybody’s A game so we have to step up, and that includes the coach...I have to see if there is anything I can do to help them.”
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A lifelong native of the Triangle area in North Carolina, Rob McLamb has covered NC State Athletics since 2010, as well as writing about each of the five major sports leagues in North America (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS) for various newspapers and outlets. As a journalist who has also served as a high school and college coach, McLamb provides an educated, unfiltered, and analytical perspective on the Wolfpack and the ACC.