The men’s basketball team led by 21 against Michigan (7-1) at the RBC Center on Monday night in the first game of the ACC/Big 10 Challenge. But the Wolverines pulled within four points at 71-67 with 27 seconds left before N.C. State (5-0) held on for a 74-67 victory.
Junior Gavin Grant said the game went longer than he would have liked.
“It seemed like the game took a little too long after we [were] up 20,” Grant said. “We kind of eased up like we’ve been doing all season.”
The game tightened up when Michigan outscored the Wolfpack 8-1 in a 38-second stretch starting at the 1:05 mark.
After a dunk by sophomore forward Ben McCauley gave the team a 70-59 lead, two missed free throws and a turnover by State coupled with a lay-up and two three-point baskets by the Wolverines pulled Michigan as close as it had been since the first half with 27 seconds remaining in the game.
But first-year coach Sidney Lowe said he wasn’t worried about Grant losing confidence in his ability to play point guard after the sloppy play of the team in the final minutes.
“I’m not concerned. Gavin, he doesn’t lack confidence at all, so I’m not concerned about that,” Lowe said. “What we’ll talk about more or less is using this as a learning experience in terms of what he’s got to think about when he’s playing that position at that time.”
But much earlier than the late-game drama, the Pack also struggled at the beginning of the game. The Wolverines raced to a 12-2 lead less than five minutes into the game thanks in part to three early turnovers by State.
Before long, the Pack found a rhythm as McCauley and redshirt freshman forward Brandon Costner combined to score the next ten points for the team.
“We were taking some quick shots. And we really just concentrated on running our offense, getting a few passes in there before we took a shot,” McCauley said. “And we did that. We started converting, and we went on a good run there.”
During that scoring stretch, senior point guard Engin Atsur left the game with an injury at the 14:26 mark. He would not return.
A couple minutes later, freshman forward Dennis Horner scored on a putback after sophomore guard Courtney Fells missed a three-point basket. Michigan forward Ekpe Udoh fouled Horner, and Horner missed the free throw to leave the score at 20-14.
But after Wolverines center Courtney Sims scored a basket, State retook the momentum, going on a 12-0 run to take a 26-22 lead with 3:54 left in the first half.
In the run, Costner scored a basket, and then senior guard Bryan Nieman hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit to three. Next came a transition lay-up by Grant to pull the Pack within a point.
Finally, Costner had a three-point basket bounce off the rim and in for State’s first lead, 24-22, with 4:14 left in the first half.
“I was just ready to go, and I was really excited. The crowd was into the game,” Costner said of the shot. “And we just were able to buckle down and get another stop.”
Grant capped the run with two free throws right after the final TV timeout to push the lead to 26-22.
After three Michigan baskets cut State’s lead to 31-28, Nieman scored on a lay-up and Grant had a lay-up with nine seconds left in the half to give the Pack a 35-28 lead at the break.
The Pack picked up where it left off in the second half, opening the half with a 20-6 run to extend its lead to 55-34. Costner led the charge with nine points during the spurt.
But the Wolverines responded quickly with a run of their own, scoring seven unanswered points to cut their deficit to 55-41 before Lowe had seen enough and called a timeout.
A few minutes later when the Pack had pushed the lead to 62-46, Michigan went on another 7-0 scoring run to cut the score to 62-53. But a three-pointer by Grant pushed it back to 65-53. From there, the teams played each other fairly even up until the late 8-1 spurt by the Wolverines.
McCauley led the team with 19 points, and he also pulled down eight rebounds. Costner recorded a double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Grant said he wasn’t surprised at all about the two big men’s production.”Ben can fill it up with the best of them, and Brandon’s as versatile as anybody in the country,” Grant said. “And if these guys keep playing like they’re playing, it’s going to be hard for us to lose a lot of games this year.”
He said as the season wears on, people will start to see just how good McCauley is.
“I’m more than confident in these guys. I have no problem throwing the ball into Ben or Brandon. Ben’s got an array of moves that he hasn’t even shown everybody. And it’s going to be a long season,” Grant said. “You guys are really going to have a lot of respect for Ben by the end of the season.”
