In its first exhibition game, the NC State women’s basketball team took down Lenoir-Rhyne in a closer-than-expected game, 70-52.
While the score might suggest that the Wolfpack won handily, the Pack was only up 30-28 at the half and shot a mediocre 31.6 percent from the field. Head Coach Wes Moore expressed some dissatisfaction with his team in the post-game press conference.
“Obviously, a rough opening night,” Moore said. “Give Lenoir-Rhyne credit, they came in here with a lot of energy and weren’t intimidated on a big stage. On our end, we didn’t do the little things, we had too many people worrying about their shot and we didn’t shoot the three well, and maybe we let that affect us on the other end of the floor.”
The Wolfpack started off slow, scoring just six points in the first five minutes. However, despite its scoring struggles, the Pack led for all but one minute in the first half. Things started to look up for the Pack, as it went on a 10-2 run with four minutes left in the half. However, the Bears were able to close the gap to two points, putting the score at 30-28 as time expired in the first half.
The Wolfpack was able to pick up the slack in the second half, improving its shooting percentage to 36.5 percent on the game by shooting 41.7 percent in the half. However, the team finished with a mere 4-for-24 from beyond the arc, with no single player making more than one three pointer.
“In shoot-around today, we shot the heck out of the three, so I don’t really know what happened,” Moore said. “I think sometimes it’s contagious, but this team needs to do a better job of shooting the ball and are certainly capable of doing that. But this year, with the losses we had inside, the perimeter is going to have to step up.”
In addition to that, the Wolfpack only had three players who shot more than 30 percent while attempting at least three shots. Those players were sophomore guard Miah Spencer, junior forward Carlee Schuhmacher, and freshman forward Chelsea Nelson.
“We have really good shooters; we just had an off night tonight,” Spencer said in the post-game press conference. “We have a lot of things to work on; we had a lot of mishaps on defense as well. Communication was the biggest issue. We’re just going to come in tomorrow and fix what we need to fix.”
Spencer had arguably the best performance of anyone against the Bears, shooting 7-13 and accounting for 15 points, five rebounds, three assists, and a game-high four steals in 28 minutes. The other two captains, senior guards Len’Nique Brown-Hoskin and Krystal Barrett, combined for just nine points and shot 2-12 from the field.
Junior college transfer Carlee Schuhmacher also stood out, shooting 6-10 and finishing with 14 points, six rebounds, one assist and one block in 22 minutes. It will be imperative for the Wolfpack that Schuhmacher and some of the other post players continue to step up after all of the losses from last year.
“We’re going to need Carlee to step up. We had some great losses from last year, two kids were drafted in the WNBA, another is playing professionally overseas, so we have some big shoes to fill,” Moore said. “Akela Maize is out with an injury, and hopefully we’ll get her back next week. She’s a freshman with good length at 6-foot-5 and is very athletic, so hopefully she will give us some depth at the post position. For her first night out, Carlee did a very nice job.”
Despite struggling with shooting at times, the Wolfpack did a good job of taking care of the ball, only turning the ball over seven times while forcing 23 turnovers, with an overall assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.43. The team has some things to work on, but certainly showed signs of promise in its exhibition game.
“We had a couple of times we got a little out of control, but for the most part, ball control was one of the more positive things to see,” Moore said. “We had some kids out there in front of a big crowd for the first time in a while, so hopefully they will get more comfortable, and as a team, we’ll just have to keep working at it and clear some things up.”
