The No. 4 NC State women’s basketball team held off a late surge from the Virginia Tech Hokies to score itself a 51-45 conference victory on Sunday, Jan. 23 inside Reynolds Coliseum. The Pack remains perfect in ACC play, even if today’s victory was far from it.
The Wolfpack (18-2, 9-0 ACC) was coming off an incredible comeback performance against the No. 3 Louisville Cardinals that saw the Pack erase a 16-point deficit and almost got a taste of its own medicine. The Wolfpack led the Hokies (14-5, 6-2 ACC) by as many as 14 points in the fourth quarter but allowed Virginia Tech to storm back into the game with a big 3 from Aisha Sheppard and back-to-back layups by Kayana Traylor to bring the Hokies to within two.
“They made a great run there at the end to tighten it up, kind of felt like the Louisville game in reverse,” said head coach Wes Moore. “But again, this is the kind of game you talk about; we didn’t shoot it well, we turned it over too much, but we out-rebounded them. I think we outscored them 16-2 off second-chance points, we also outscored them 16-2 off turnovers, and so that was probably the difference in the game.”
Virginia Tech is now 0-12 inside Reynolds and NC State leads the all-time series 25-2. However, all of the last four matchups between the two teams at Reynolds have been decided by single digits.
When it came down to it, the Wolfpack got another strong game from junior wing Jakia Brown-Turner, who finished the game with 14 points and ended Virginia Tech’s hopes at a miracle comeback. Her first heroic moment came when she stole the ball from Sheppard at midcourt and converted on a layup, the second coming on a fast-break attempt to essentially seal the game.
Brown-Turner had an excellent fourth quarter against Louisville, something she carried over into this matchup. The junior wing was lights out in the first, scoring 10 of her 14 points in the opening period of the game — all of the team’s points in the quarter.
The big story every time NC State takes on Virginia Tech, of course, is the center matchup between Summerfield, North Carolina natives and good friends senior Elissa Cunane and Elizabeth Kitley. It’s hard to say either took advantage of the matchup, with both coming to blows and scrapping down low. The two centers combined to shoot 5 of 29, or 17.2% in the matchup and had 15 points, 18 rebounds, six blocks, two steals, seven fouls and four turnovers.
“When we get out there, we both want to do our best,” Kitley said. “It was definitely more of a defensive matchup, neither of us shot very well, but I mean she’s a great player. So I love the opportunity to go against her.”
That matchup defined what would go on to be an ugly win for the Pack. Brown-Turner’s 10 first-quarter points led the team for the entirety of the game, even though she didn’t score again until there was a minute and 13 seconds left in regulation. She went 36 minutes between scoring.
Meanwhile, the two teams combined to shoot 31% from the floor and 28.9% from beyond the arc. Hokie guard Georgia Amoore and Brown-Turner were the only two double-digit scorers in the game, and the two teams had 24 turnovers combined.
NC State opened up the game by carrying a 26-20 lead into halftime, fueled by Brown-Turner and sophomore guard Diamond Johnson. Brown-Turner had her 10-point outburst, while Johnson found all seven of her points in the second. None of the three other Wolfpack scorers in the first two quarters posted more than four points.
Despite the lead going into the break, the Pack struggled shooting the ball early on. Brown-Turner’s aforementioned 10 first-half points carried the entire load of production for the Wolfpack offense in the first quarter, with no other member of NC State being able to find the bottom of the net. In the first, the Pack shot 4 of 19 from the floor and 2 of 7 from 3.
Fortunately, a late surge in the second quarter aided the Pack massively in being able to take a lead into the half, with a 41.2% shooting percentage from the floor and a 33.3% performance from 3. Down by as many as six points in the quarter, the Pack roared back with a 9-0 run to reclaim the lead it lost late in the first quarter.
NC State kept up the defensive dominance in the second half, scoring just 12 points in the third quarter but holding Virginia Tech to just five in that same period. The Hokies shot a mere 11.1% from the floor in the quarter and allowed the Pack to go up 38-25 by the end of the period.
It was the fourth quarter where the Wolfpack faltered, allowing Virginia Tech to shoot 53.8% from the floor and missing several baskets in a row. Brown-Turner’s strong close to the game allowed NC State to hold on, though just barely, heading into a week-long break.
“I looked out there a couple of times and saw some people that I thought were dragging a little bit,” Moore said. “Thursday night was a very high-stress game. You’re fighting to come back from such a big deficit and it takes a lot out of you. And again, I think we’re getting a break at a good time, obviously, by playing Miami earlier. Now we’re gonna pay for that in a week or two when we have to go to Carolina to Notre Dame … Florida State at home. … So hopefully we can rest and recover some, maybe try to clean a few things up and be ready to get back at it.”
The Wolfpack hits the road next weekend against No. 20 UNC-Chapel Hill on Saturday, Jan. 30. That game tips at 4 p.m. and can be viewed on the ACC Network. Make sure to tune into @TechSports on gameday for live updates and game coverage of that matchup.
“It was a long week, it really was,” said Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks. “We played Tuesday, we played Thursday and come back in here and fight against one of the best teams in the country on their home floor in an energetic, tremendous atmosphere. You’re not gonna catch me calling it a little gym, it was tremendous.”
Junior wing Jakia Brown-Turner puts up a layup in the last few seconds of the fourth quarter against Virginia Tech at Reynolds Coliseum on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. Brown-Turner scored 14 points. The Wolfpack beat the Hokies 51-45.
