The No. 23 N.C. State women’s basketball team traveled to Coral Gables, Fla. on Sunday and dropped its second ACC game of the season, 80-71, to the Miami Hurricanes at the BankUnited Center. The Wolfpack drops to 16-3 overall and 3-2 in league play after the loss.
The Hurricanes opened up a double-digit lead in the opening half and went into intermission leading, 42-31. Miami shot only 37.8 percent in the first half, but helped its own cause with 10 offensive rebounds, scoring 13 second-chance points.
“The first half, it was ridiculous,” N.C State head coach Wes Moore said. “We would get a stop defensively, but we couldn’t get the box-out. It was a big factor, no doubt, in them [Miami] being able to build the lead.”
N.C. State entered the game fresh off a victory over then-No. 17 Florida State in Reynolds Coliseum on Thursday. In that outing, the Pack hit nine three-pointers and committed only eight turnovers.
Sunday was a different story. State went five-for-18 from three-point range, all of the made attempts coming in the second half, and it turned the ball over 17 times against the Miami defense.
“We had way too many turnovers,” Moore said. “When you look at the points-off-turnovers, they out-scored us, 16-3. We had some careless mistakes. For the most part, when we settled down we were OK, but it did contribute to us digging ourselves into a hole.
Senior center Markeisha Gatling finished with 25 points on 11-for-16 shooting. Senior forward Kody Burke and senior guard Myisha Goodwin-Coleman added 15 and 13 points, respectively.
Miami maintained its lead throughout the second half but had to withstand a late Wolfpack rally. N.C. State closed the Hurricanes’ lead to as little as two points at 68-66 with 47 seconds remaining after junior guard Len’Nique Brown made two free throws for the Pack.
However, Miami was able to close it out down the stretch. The Hurricanes went 11-for-27 from the three-point range and made 17-of-21 free throws in the contest to improve to 11-7 overall and 3-2 in the ACC.
“We finally started moving a little bit [in the second half],” Moore said. “Just four out, one-in isolating, [Gatling] is a pretty good offense. We finally started moving a little bit. Sometimes we treat [Gatling] like she is a campfire, we just all stand around and look at her and say ‘Aww, that’s nice.’”
Gatling said the Wolfpack has to do better on the glass after allowing the Hurricanes to grab 14 offensive rebounds.
“We got killed on the offensive rebounds,” Gatling said. “They were going to the offensive boards a lot the Hurricanes to grab 14 offensive rebounds.
“We got killed on the offensive rebounds,” Gatling said. “They were going to the offensive boards a lot and also scoring transition points. [We have got to] box out, get back in transition.”
N.C. State returns to action on Thursday when the Wolfpack hosts the Boston College Eagles, with tipoff in Reynolds Coliseum set for 7 p.m. For Moore, there are plenty of things for his team to work on, but he said the emphasis would be on getting stops defensively.
“We are not creating any offense with our [defense] right now,” Moore said. “We are allowing people to be too comfortable on offense. We have got to get back to work and play better team defense. We are not athletic enough to matchup one-on-one.”
“We’re leaving each other on an island,” Moore said. “We’ve just got to do it as a team. You can’t give up 80 points. We have a lot of work to do.”
