GREENSBORO – The NC State women’s basketball team defeated Florida State 69-62 Friday night at the Greensboro Coliseum in its first game of the ACC Tournament to advance to the ACC semifinals for the second year in a row.
Playing in her first-ever ACC Tournament game, freshman center Elissa Cunane nearly racked up a double-double for the Wolfpack (26-4, 12-4 ACC), scoring 22 points on 8-for-13 shooting and corralling nine rebounds.
Cunane got the ball rolling early, scoring eight of the Pack’s first 10 points, courtesy of two layups and four free throws, to take an early 10-4 lead. The Seminoles (23-8, 10-6 ACC) answered back with an 18-5 run, taking a 22-17 lead with just over a minute left in the first quarter.
“Obviously very frustrated with the first quarter,” head coach Wes Moore said.
NC State responded with a layup by Rogers and a 3-pointer by sophomore guard Kai Crutchfield, before two FSU free throws with two seconds left gave the Seminoles a 24-20 lead heading into the second quarter.
Three straight buckets for the Pack to open the second quarter quickly gave the team a 27-24 lead, and after a Florida State layup, back-to-back 3s by junior guard Aislinn Konig pushed the Pack’s lead to 33-26 with a little over two minutes remaining in the half. The teams traded buckets the rest of the way and NC State took a 35-31 lead into halftime.
After a Cunane layup to open the second half, two technical free throws and a made jumper by FSU notched the game at 37-37. Then, as she always seems to do when it matters most, Konig nailed a 3-pointer from the corner and kickstarted a 13-2 Wolfpack run that lasted for the final seven minutes and 14 seconds of the third quarter, giving NC State a 50-39 lead after three quarters.
“I think our team as a whole does a really good job of finding the open player,” Konig said. “And being able to create energy … the whole team was able to feed off of it.”
The Seminoles hit 3-pointers on their first two possessions of the fourth quarter, but the Wolfpack responded each time, first with Konig nailing a layup and the and-one free throw and next with Cunane sinking an open 3-pointer, keeping the Pack’s lead at a comfortable 11 points.
“That was a lot of what we were working on,” Konig said. “Being able to get into situations where things aren’t going our way and find a way to turn it back around.”
NC State withstood multiple small runs by Florida State in the final minutes to emerge with a win and set up a rematch of the 2018 ACC semifinals with Louisville.
“I’m proud of the way we hung in there,” Moore said. “It was good for us to get off to a good start tonight and get to play another day.”
Konig finished with 12 points (3 for 7 from beyond the arc) and five assists all the while playing all 40 minutes of the game. Following up a career night on senior night against Miami, Rogers picked up where she left off, notching her second double-double in a row with 16 points and 10 rebounds while dishing out four assists as she orchestrated the offense from the low post.
“I definitely came off [the Miami game] feeling very confident,” Rogers said. “I definitely felt good about this game coming into it.”
NC State will return to action on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. when it takes on Louisville at the Greensboro Coliseum.
*Editor’s note: the photo caption for this article has been updated to correctly reflect the spelling of DD Rogers’ last name.
