A By the Numbers Look of What Went Wrong Against BC

The Wolfpack failed to bounce back after a loss to UNC by adding another loss, this time to the Boston College Eagles. The numbers were favorable for a Wolfpack win but what happened? First of all, State couldn't buy a bucket; no NC State player not named Beejay Anya met or exceeded their season average for points (Beejay averages 3 but scored 8). Dennis Smith scored 15 points which is 4 lower than his usual 19, Terry scored 14 to his usual 15.5, and Abu only scored 8 to his usual 11.8. Free throw shooting was abysmal tonight as the Wolfpack shot 13 for 18 (72%) while Boston College cruised on the line making 18 of their 19 (95%) that 5 point difference makes a huge impact especially considering many of the missed shots came late in the game during crucial moments. Possibly most importantly, we lost the turnover and steals battle; State committed  17 turnovers and stole the ball 6 times while Boston College turned the ball over 14 times and stole the ball 9 times. These seems like a small difference but they are crucial to gain momentum and demoralize the opponent and traditionally in college basketball the team that won the turnover battle win the game. Of course we cannot ignore the Eagles players too, Jerome Robinson scored 24 points (3.4 higher than average), Ky Bowman put up 19 points (6.6 higher than average), AJ Turner stayed on par with his seasonal average and scored 10, and the big jump comes from the big man Connar Tava who scored 13 while his average to date was only 6.4. Not everything can be negative so a positive outlook on the night has to be the play by Beejay Anya. He wasn't dynamic on the glass only getting one rebound however he got 8 points with a perfect shooting percentage (3-3) including perfect from the stripe making both his freethrows (Thats a W in itself right?). Beejay also got 2 of his patented blocks to cap of the night. The Wolfpack once again looks to bounce back at home Sunday against the 9-6 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.