DAYTON – On the 30th anniversary of Jim Valvano’s remarkable championship run with the Wolfpack, North Carolina State could have honored its former coach and his former team with a special NCAA Tournament run.
The eighth-seeded Wolfpack, though, went nowhere yesterday, falling in their East regional opener against ninth-seeded Temple, 76-72, at University of Dayton Arena.
N.C. State trailed for almost the entire afternoon, looking out of sync en route to a 16-point halftime deficit. The gap grew to 18 before the Wolfpack embarked on a second-half comeback, ultimately closing to three in the final foul-plagued minutes and to two in the final seconds. But N.C. State could never even things up.
“Everything that could possibly go wrong in the first half, it did,” Wolfpack forward Richard Howell said, “and it definitely bit us in the butt.”
The Owls, who will face top-seeded Indiana on Friday, were led by senior guard and Atlantic 10 Player of the Year Khalif Wyatt, who delivered a monster game with 31 points. Wyatt shot 9-for-22, but sank 12-of-14 free throws and also dished out five assists.
“In our league, we saw great guards, and Khalif Wyatt is as good or better than all of them,” Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said.
Wyatt did jam his thumb yesterday, but he said while “it was a little sore,” it was tolerable.
On Thursday, Wyatt had said the Owls were hungry to let people know how good they are. Temple, which was upset in its NCAA Tournament opener last year by South Florida (Temple was a No. 5 seed), has now won eight of its last nine games.
“We’ve got a little chip on our shoulder this year. We want to prove that we can belong here and that we can make a run at this thing,” Wyatt said Thursday. “Other times we’ve been here, it seems like we might be happy just to be here. I don’t think that’s the feeling this time around.”
Temple led by 18 with 17:16 to go in the second half and was ahead by 13 (58-45) with 6:41 remaining. But N.C. State surged back thanks in part to two three-pointers by Scott Wood, who had been silent all afternoon before that. Temple, however, was able to hold on.
“You knew it was going to come down to the end,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “We had a nice lead, but N.C. State is too powerful a team to have it be easy for us down the stretch.”
Either way, Temple is in the Round of 32. N.C. State, meanwhile, couldn’t honor its championship anniversary. The Wolfpack can pack it up.