The N.C. State men’s basketball team will make the short trip to Chapel Hill on Saturday to take on in-state rival UNC-Chapel Hill in a very important game that will give the winner the inside track for a first-round bye in the ACC Tournament. Tip-off at the Dean E. Smith Center is at 4 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN.
The Wolfpack (19-7, 8-5 ACC) will be looking for its first season sweep of North Carolina since the 2002-03 season. That same season was also the last time State won in the Smith Center. In their first meeting earlier this year, the Wolfpack dominated much of the game before a late Tar Heel run made the score respectable in a 91-83 victory at PNC Arena.
The Pack is coming off of perhaps its most complete victory of conference play, an 84-66 win over Florida State on Tuesday in Raleigh. Freshman forward T.J. Warren exploded for 31 points and 13 rebounds in the win, posting his first double-double as a member of the Wolfpack. Junior forward Calvin Leslie added 19 points and 10 boards in the winning effort.
Leslie is State’s leading scorer at 15.7 points per game. Senior forward Richard Howell is just behind him at 13 points per game, followed closely by junior guard Lorenzo Brown, who averages 12.7 per contest. Howell and Leslie are the team’s leading rebounders at 10.9 and 7.7 per game, respectively, and Brown leads the team in assists with 6.8 per game.
Brown sees Howell and Leslie as keys to the game, particularly on the glass. In the first meeting, State out-rebounded Carolina 36-29.
“I think it’s an advantage on our side because we’re a lot bigger than they are in the post.” Brown said.
The Tar Heels (18-8, 8-5) are paced by sophomore forward James Michael McAdoo, who averages 14.7 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. Junior swingman Reggie Bullock is second on the team in both scoring and rebounding at 13.8 points and 5.7 rebounds per contest. As a team, the Heels are fifth in the nation in assists per game, led by guards Marcus Paige and Dexter Strickland who average 4.3 and 4 assists, respectively. Carolina defeated Georgia Tech on the road by a score of 70-58 on Tuesday.
Winning at the Smith Center is no easy task. The Tar Heels have a record of 12-1 at home this season, the only blemish being a loss to No. 2 Miami, who coincidentally is the only team to win in Raleigh this season as well. If the Pack wants to come out with a win, it will need someone other than the usual suspects of Brown, Howell and Leslie to step up, much like Warren did against FSU.
“Whenever we have all our guys on the same page, we’re so much better,” Leslie said.
The Heels employ an up-tempo style of play that State is also comfortable with. The Pack ranks eighth in the nation in points per game, while Carolina is right behind them at 10th. Still, dictating the pace of the game will be an essential ingredient to victory.
“We know how quick they want to play,” Howell said. “But we want to keep it at our tempo and not their tempo.”
State and Carolina are part of a three-way tie for third place in the ACC with Virginia, which hosts Georgia Tech on Sunday. The Cavaliers, who defeated State 58-55 on Jan. 28th, currently hold the tiebreaker over both teams. Should the Pack win and secure a season sweep of the Heels, they would own any tiebreaker with UNC down the road. That would add to the sweetness of sweeping their biggest rival for the first time in ten years.
“It would mean a lot,” Warren said. “It would be great for the program and great for the fans. We just want to go out there, play as hard as we can, and just try to come off the road with a win.”
