- Two dull stretches of play where Louisville played good defense and Cat Barber actually got tired did in the Wolfpack as NC State lost a tough one at home 77-72.
Look at this GameFlow chart. Just look at this stupid diagram. pic.twitter.com/JT0cFg5hDH
— Weather Moose (@WXMoose) January 8, 2016
- After a 90% free throw shooter missed both shots, NC State had the ball with 17 seconds down by just 3 points. Naturally, instead of running a play to get a good look at a three point shot, Cat Barber drove the lane looking for a foul with 10 seconds left and lost the ball out of bounds.
- NC State drops to 0-2 in the conference and 10-5 overall, and travels to Wake Forest on Sunday night for what is essentially an NCAA Elimination Game for both teams. Although both the Pack and the Deacs have beaten Ben Simmons, which should be a golden ticket to the Big Dance.
- On a positive note, last night’s game marked the return of Red Panda to ACC basketball.
Red Panda, the official Queen of Halftime, works her magic at Louisville-NCSU pic.twitter.com/favOid506z
— SportsChannel8 (@SportsChannel8) January 8, 2016
- ECU head coach Scottie Montgomery made a strong hire by bringing in Hillside High School head coach Antonio King as the Pirates’ new running backs coach. The hire gives the Pirates an immediate pipeline to the high school ranks, and Duke and North Carolina will certainly push to have one of “their guys” take over for King in Durham. Meanwhile, Dave Doeren may want to float his own name as a candidate for Hillside to squeeze an extension out of Debbie Yow.
- Boston College lost to Notre Dame 82-54, dropping the Eagles to 0-2 in the ACC on the young season. Why do we care? Because not only could Boston College become the first ACC basketball team to go winless in the league, they went 0-8 in football too, setting up the dream double of going 0-26 in the same season.
- Blue Devil Lair reported yesterday that additional utilities work ahead of the switch from field turf to natural grass at Duke’s football practice facility could delay the completion of the project and force Duke to open fall camp inside the indoor practice facility. While the school responded confidently that the project would be finished in time, moving indoors would allow Duke to get an early start on Peach Bowl preparations … the semi-final site for the 2016-17 College Football Playoff.
- Former Duke head coach Bill Foster passed away yesterday. In Foster’s six seasons at Duke, he led the Blue Devils to two ACC championships, three NCAA Tournaments, one Elite 8, and one National Championship appearance. The man who followed Foster, Mike Krzyzewski, was unavailable for comment, but his grandsons did respond via text to say “????????” which roughly translates to “We are saddened to hear the news of his passing. He was a great Blue Devil. Our prayers go out to his family”.
