After a Michigan basket, Gavin Grant received the inbound pass and immediately looked for senior point guard Engin Atsur to run the show. To Grant’s surprise he could not find his teammate, who was lying on the ground directly in front of the N.C. State bench grabbing his hamstring.

The referees called an official timeout to deal with the injury and trainers helped Atsur into the locker room, where he remained for the duration of the first half. With 14:26 left in the half and the Wolfpack trailing 14-4 with three early turnovers, State was without its starting point guard, down 10 points.

However, the team pulled out the victory without Atsur, raising its level of play even as the veteran guard watched from the sidelines in the second half.

According to sophomore forward Ben McCauley, the Pack played better much better offensively when Atsur left the game.

“Early on we were kind of taking early shots and not really running our offense through,” McCauley said. “And with Engin out it kind of gives us a little bit of a way to really run our offense and really get the right shots at the right time and I think we did that.”

However, sophomore guard Courtney Fells said playing without Atsur was something the team had practiced before.

“We play without Engin in practice a lot and with Gavin at the one just rotating in and out,” Fells said. “So we already knew what we had to do. We just went to our strengths and picked up our defense a little and pulled it together.”

Senior guard Bryan Nieman said that the key to winning without Atsur is not to think of the loss at all.

“The game can’t stop because Engin got hurt. We were real sorry to see that happen, but we had to finish up the game,” Nieman said. “We didn’t really think about Engin being out of the game.”

Coach Sidney Lowe said he was impressed with the effort of his team to step up in Atsur’s absence.

“The effort was outstanding, especially with losing Engin,” Lowe said. “Gavin stepped into that position, in a very tough position, against a tough ball club.”

While the team still earned the win, Grant said the team would have faired better with the help of his fellow point guard.

“We knew that we weren’t going to have Engin and we had to step up and make some plays and guys really stepped up and made big shots,” Grant said. “I think if we had Engin in the game, we would have won by more.”

After the game, Lowe said he was unsure of Atsur’s injury status. According to Grant, the Pack will be ready to go regardless.

“Hopefully we’ll have Engin back and he’ll be feeling better,” Grant said. “If not we’ll have to go with what we have.”