When the men’s basketball team lost to Virginia on Dec. 3, it was N.C. State’s first road game and its first loss of the season.
And for those who don’t remember, it was a competitive 67-62 game in which the Wolfpack held the Cavaliers to just 37.9 percent shooting from the field. But perhaps more importantly, State contained Virginia’s two guards, who lead the team in scoring.
Junior guard Sean Singletary leads the team and the ACC at 19 points per game and senior guard J.R. Reynolds, who is coming off a 40-point performance in a win over Wake Forest, puts in 17.6 per contest.
In the first game, though, the two combined for a mere 25 points.
“We took away some of their strengths,” coach Sidney Lowe said about his team’s defensive effort in the first game. “And we had decent guard play early in that game and really throughout.”
But recently, defense hasn’t been a strong point for State, which allowed Duke to shoot nearly 53 percent from the field.
Sophomore guard Courtney Fells said the team’s problems on defense come from giving up on the possession before it’s finished.
“We need to finish the play,” Fells said. “Sometimes we’ll get teams down into the shot clock and somebody will lose sight of their man, and they’ll hit the open guy and make the shot.”
Lowe, on the other hand, believes the defensive deficiency boils down to perimeter defense. This season, opponents are averaging 36.5 percent and eight made shots from 3-point range.
“We need to continue to get better at guard play,” he said. “We need to continue to keep people in front of us and challenge those shots. We just need to stay more consistent. We certainly have times when we come out and really defend and lock people down.”
Lowe added, however, some of the problems could be attributed to people playing out of position. Senior guard Engin Atsur has missed 11 of the past 12 games due to injury, which has forced junior guard Gavin Grant and Fells to take over the point guard duties, something new to both players.
“It’s one of those things where you’re trying to learn and teach as you go along with guys that haven’t really been in those situations before,” Lowe said. “It’s every play. You can’t relax. And it’s not that they’re doing it intentionally. Some of it is a lack of experience and understanding.”
Lowe did admit the injury situation has caused some frustration within the team. And unfortunately for State, it looks like it will be without Atsur for Wednesday night’s rematch against the Cavaliers.
Lowe said on Monday Atsur had worked out this week, but that “it’s still up in the air” as to whether he’ll play.
With or without the senior guard, defensive success will again come down to stopping Singletary and Reynolds.
“Our guards have played much better since we got back from Christmas break,” Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. “Overall there’s an understanding of what we’re trying to do offensively a lot better than when we met earlier in the year.”
Fells said the game plan this time is to use the Pack’s height advantage at the guard positions. Reynolds is listed at 6-foot-2 and Singletary at 6 feet, compared to the 6-foot-7 Grant and 6-foot-5 Fells.
“We have a size advantage at every guard spot. We’re going to try to use our size on them, because it’s going to be a mismatch,” Fells said. “Coach will do a great job of putting who he wants on [their guards], so it’ll be a mismatch on our [offensive] end. We’ll attack them and hopefully get them in foul trouble.”
But no matter which team ends up with the advantage at the guard positions, State has something to prove. According to Fells, the team has to bounce back from the 23-point debacle against Duke.
“I thought we would come out with a lot higher energy and ready to at least give ourselves the opportunity to win against Duke,” he said. “But it was the other way around, and I was very disappointed. We need to go out and take care of business Wednesday night. We can’t be losing by 20 or more points on our home court.”
