The beginning of the season wasn’t the most seamless for No. 3 NC State women’s basketball’s junior wing Jakia Brown-Turner. Before the last two games, Brown-Turner was averaging 8.1 points per game on 38.1% shooting from the floor and 34.4% from deep. But now, Brown-Turner has turned on the heat and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the Pack.
Brown-Turner was instrumental in the Pack’s crucial victories over the weekend, starting with her scoring 10 fourth-quarter points against then-No. 3 Louisville. At the start of the fourth, Brown-Turner quickly scored, got a crucial steal, then a beautiful assist to sophomore guard Diamond Johnson, sparking the Wolfpack’s run and shocking upset.
“I think [the momentum shifted] when we got a steal,” Brown-Turner said after the Louisville game. “We just kept getting steals. We turned up the defensive intensity, and that’s what helped us make buckets.”
The Maryland product didn’t stop there, scoring eight more points in the quarter, shooting a perfect 4 for 4 from the field and hitting two critical 3s that helped bring the Pack back. One of Brown-Turner’s them came on a beautiful feed from graduate forward Kayla Jones.
“It was a great moment,” Brown-Turner said after the Louisville game. “Especially coming back from a big deficit. It helped us a lot. That 3 kept us going.”
Brown-Turner picked up where she left off in the game against Virginia Tech, with the wing scoring all 10 of the Wolfpack’s first-quarter points. In just two quarters against Louisville and Virginia Tech, Brown-Turner had quickly accounted for 20 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and shot 8 of 10 from the floor and 4 of 5 from deep.
But according to Brown-Turner, her getting hot in the fourth quarter of the Louisville game wasn’t an underlying factor for her strong start against Virginia Tech.
“I try to take it one game at a time,” Brown-Turner said after the Virginia Tech game. “We loved the victory against Louisville. We just want to keep playing like that every day. … I just like to do anything that I can do to help the team win.”
That winning mindset was on full blast in the fourth quarter of the Virginia Tech game. Even though the Hokies began storming back and almost pulled an Uno reverse card on the Wolfpack, Brown-Turner remained poised and got a huge steal on Tech’s Aisha Sheppard, before laying it in. Shortly after, Brown-Turner got another huge bucket that essentially sealed the game.
Brown-Turner breaking out is massive for a Wolfpack team that was already crushing ACC opponents. Before the weekend slate of games, NC State’s average margin of victory against ACC opponents was 25 points, including matchups against two ranked opponents in then-No. 19 North Carolina and then-No. 16 Duke. After those two games, the margin has fallen to 21.1 points, which is still astronomically high.
Brown-Turner’s averages have taken a jump as a result of the two games, and she’s now up to 8.7 points per game on 40.8% shooting from the floor and 35.6% from deep. Though those averages are still a far cry from what she was expected to do this season, it’s a huge step in the right direction, especially considering the fact JBT didn’t shoot over 50% from the field in a game between Nov. 15, 2021, and Jan. 20, 2022.
With a brutal stretch on the horizon, one that will see the Wolfpack play three games in five days next week, Brown-Turner’s return to form is an instance of perfect timing. Without Brown-Turner’s recent streak, the Pack may have dropped one or both of its weekend games. For instance, Brown-Turner went 36 minutes between scoring in the Virginia Tech game and still led the team in scoring.
Brown-Turner will get a chance to continue her recent antics when NC State travels to Chapel Hill to take on the Tar Heels on Sunday, Jan. 30. That game starts at 4 p.m. and can be viewed on ACC Network.
