Coming off convincing victories in the first two rounds of the 2015 Women’s National Invitation Tournament, the NC State women’s basketball team enters a third round matchup against the Temple Owls in Philadelphia.
The Wolfpack (18-14, 7-9 ACC) jump-started the tournament with a strong second half performance against East Tennessee State to coast to a comfortable 73-58 victory. However, the second round was a different story, as it relied on a late comeback from an eight-point second-half deficit to scrape by East Carolina in a 69-65 victory.
In the first round victory against the Bucs, second-year NC State head coach Wes Moore earned his 600th career win and now holds a 601-191 (.759) all-time record.
NC State’s top performer so far in this tournament has been sophomore guard Miah Spencer, who combined for 49 points in the pair of victories, including a career-high 26 points against the Pirates. She shot a combined 17-for-32 from the field in those games and led the team with four assists in each game.
Another key performer has been sophomore forward Jennifer Mathurin, who has been dominant on the glass en route to a combined 24 rebounds, with half of those being on the offensive end of the court. She has also put up eight and 10-point performances, respectively.
In its first two rounds of the WNIT, Temple (18-16, 12-6 American) has seen mixed levels of play. The Owls started off with a convincing 67-54 victory over Marist but were forced to squeeze by Penn behind 37 second-half points to come away with a 61-56 victory.
The Owls’ leading scorer on the season is freshman guard Alliya Butts, who is averaging 12.1 points per game and is shooting 33.2 percent from the field on the season. She scored a mere two points on 1-for-7 from the field in the first round against Marist but countered that with a team-high 12-point performance in the second round against Penn.
Another Temple player to look out for is junior guard Erica Covile, who averages 11.6 points and a team-leading 8.4 rebounds per game. She has played in all but four minutes of the first two rounds of the WNIT and combined for a team-high 28 points in those games.
The key for the Wolfpack will be to slow these two dynamic scorers down. Against Penn., the duo combined for an abysmal 8-for-26 from the field, forcing the pair into taking tough or awkward shots would be a good start for the Wolfpack.
While neither team is particularly elite in shooting from the field, NC State holds a slight advantage, as it shoots 38.4 percent from the field and 32.6 percent from three point range compared to the Owls’ 36.8 and 32.1 percent, respectively.
Another advantage the Wolfpack has is that it plays in what head coach Wes Moore has consistently referred to as the strongest conference in the nation: the ACC. NC State has faced seven conference rivals that ended the season with 10 losses or fewer, winning one of those games, while Temple has faced only two such teams and lost by at least 26 points in each of those match-ups.
If NC State can come away with a victory against Temple, it will move on to the quarterfinals to face the winner of the Ole Miss/Middle Tennessee State game, but it will need production from its key players on both ends of the court if it wants to get past a hot Temple team that has won seven of its last nine games.
