Despite beating a struggling North Carolina Central team 54-29 Wednesday night, N.C. State suffered a big loss going into Saturday’s ACC opener against No. 1 North Carolina.
Junior guard Courtney Fells went down with an ankle sprain with 4:35 remaining in the first half and did not return. Coach Sidney Lowe said Fells is questionable for the Carolina game.
“We have to wait and see. I’m going to talk to [a doctor] after I leave here,” Lowe said. “He’s on crutches, which is not a good sign, but we’ll find out for sure afterwards.”
Lowe said he is concerned with team depth heading into conference play with the injuries of sophomore point guard Farnold Degand, sophomore forward Dennis Horner and now Fells.
“That [team depth] probably is the biggest concern because we came into this thing with a lot of depth and could go nine or 10 deep, and now our rotation is getting a little shorter,” Lowe said.
The Pack (11-3) didn’t shoot well, according to Lowe, and had trouble getting into an offensive rhythm after Central changed to zone defense from man-to-man. The zone forced State to take 3-point shots, where it went 0-for-10 in the first half.
“They [Central] came out with a great zone defense and tried to make us take jump shots,” Lowe said. “Our defense came out well, but we were careless with the ball and some of our passes, but our defense made a difference in the game.”
While holding the Eagles to 29 total points, State scored only 54, the lowest point total by any opponent against a now 1-21 Central team. Central coach Henry Dickerson said defensively it could have been his team’s best game of the year.
“We started out playing man, but some of their guys are just so physical. And they started to pound us inside, so we switched to a zone and played pretty well,” Dickerson said. “We lost [Brandon] Costner a few times, and he burned us with a couple of big [three-pointers] that helped put the game away.”
In addition to Costner, redshirt junior Simon Harris, who hadn’t seen much playing time in previous games, came in and played 24 minutes.
“Simon [Harris] did a tremendous job for us on defense — that’s his game,” Lowe said. “He comes out and gives a lot of energy, dives for loose balls and plays solid defense.”
Harris said regardless of the low score, he and his teammates are content with their seven-game winning streak.
“We’re to the point now where we just want to play our game,” Harris said. “Right now if our game is slower than usual, then its a little slower than usual,” Harris said. “I mean, if you look at the scoreboard, we won. That’s all we’re concerned about. That’s what we were talking about in the locker room. The end result is a W. That’s all we care about.”
Deputy Sports Editor Langdon Morris contributed to this story.
