NC State tops Louisiana 61-52

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ORLANDO — One and done. The three most painful words in college basketball.

UL Lafayette was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament here Friday at the T.D. Waterhouse Centre, falling 61-52 to the No. 3-seeded North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Just as painful as the loss and the resultant early trip home was the knowledge that, for much of the game, the Ragin’ Cajuns were as responsible for their own demise as the victors.

The Cajuns shot just 32.7 percent from the field, enough to offset their solid defense that held the ACC regular-season runners-up to 36.7 percent.

And as frustration mounted over missed shots, the Cajuns turned the ball over at back-breaking times each time they tried to rally in the second half.

“I thought we had a good start for the most part,” said UL coach Jessie Evans, whose Sun Belt Conference champions finish 20-9. “We were fairly loose. We made some stops and got some baskets, but then we started to rush our shots. If we had knocked down some of those shots early, it would have helped our confidence late.

“In the second half, they’re such a patient team that we had to try and pressure them. They made some unbelievable shots, one while the player was falling down.

“You start to wonder if maybe it was not our afternoon.”

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

Cajuns off the mark

ORLANDO — Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns flew home Friday night, much sooner than they had hoped.

The Cajuns lost 61-52 to North Carolina State in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament on Friday, victims of their own bad shooting against a quality opponent.

“We started to rush our shots a little bit,” said senior Brad Boyd, who suffered along with his Cajun teammates through an 11-minute stretch without a bucket bridging the first and second halves.

A victory at the T.D. Waterhouse Centre would have moved the Cajuns into the second round on Sunday against Vanderbilt, a 71-58 victor over Western Michigan on Friday.

The last UL Lafayette team to reach the NCAA second round was the 1991-92 team, which upset Oklahoma 87-83 in Tempe, Ariz.

Instead, coach Jessie Evans’ Sun Belt Conference champions finish with a 20-9 record.

“We just came out of a tournament (the Sun Belt) like that, where each possession is critical,” Evans said. “We knew that. It just did not work for us tonight.”

The Cajuns trailed 27-23 at halftime but could never get closer to the Wolfpack in the final 20 minutes.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[Turbine]

North Carolina State turned to its defense to overcome a slow start against Louisiana in Orlando, Fla.

Marcus Melvin scored 20 points and the Wolfpack (21-9) survived a subpar performance by Julius Hodge, the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year who turned the ball over six times and was held to 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting.

Louisiana (20-9) kept it interesting, cutting its biggest deficit -- 11 points -- to seven on Antoine Landry's 3-pointer with just less than 3 minutes to go. North Carolina State put the game away by going 6 for 6 from the foul line the rest of the way.

Landry led Louisiana with 16 points, but the Ragin' Cajuns shot just 32.7 percent from the field, including 5 for 22 on 3-point attempts.

The key was a field-goal drought of nearly 12 minutes that spanned the last 9:15 of the first half and the first 2:40 of the second.

The Ragin' Cajuns led for much of the first half and weathered a surge by North Carolina State to trail just 27-23 at the break, despite shooting just 25 percent (6 of 24) in the first 20 minutes.

They thrived on 3-point shots during the regular season, but misfired on 11 of 12 attempts from beyond the arc in the opening half and were nearly as bad after intermission.

Second-leading scoring Brad Boyd finished 1 for 7 from behind the line. Orien Greene, a transfer from Florida with the most NCAA Tournament experience, was 0 for 5.

It's a fact: Louisiana was held to its second-lowest point total of the season. The Ragin' Cajuns lost to Georgia Tech 79-45 in their season opener.

They said it: "We were up three or four and took some quick 3s, looking for the home run to try to increase the lead. We knew every possession is critical and you have to play 40 minutes against a team like that. It just didn't work out." -- Louisiana coach Jessie Evans

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[NewsCopy]

ORLANDO -- Orien Greene felt this was his time to shine in the NCAA Tournament. The only Louisiana-Lafayette player to have played in the tournament, the junior transfer from Florida felt he could be able to not only lead the Ragin' Cajuns to a victory, but he could do it near his home of Gainesville.

Unfortunately for Greene and the No. 14 Cajuns, the N.C. State Wolfpack weren't in the mood to play an overmatched homecoming opponent Friday.

Marcus Melvin led three players in double figures with 20 points and Julius Hodge added 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead the No. 3-seeded Wolfpack to a 61-52 victory in the first round of the Phoenix Regional at the TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando.

With the victory, N.C. State (21-9) advances to the second round to take on Vanderbilt (229) on Sunday. The No. 6 Commodores advanced with a 71-58 victory over No. 11 Western Michigan (26-5) on Friday.

Greene felt sure his squad would be the one advancing. Instead, Louisiana finished its season 20-9. Antoine Landry led the Cajuns with 16 points.

"I just couldn't buy a bucket," said Greene, who finished with eight points on 3-of-10 shooting. He did have six rebounds, six assists and four steals. "It was awful out there. We played our hearts out but the shots just weren't falling."

The Cajuns entered the game averaging 78 points per game and shooting 47 percent from the field, but were held to just 32.7 percent (16-of-49) by N.C. State.

N.C. State led just 27-23 at the half but opened the half with an 11-5 run to up the lead to 38-28. The Cajuns couldn't get any closer than seven the rest of the way.

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By Rick Brown
The Ledger
rick.brown@theledger.com

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N.C. State 61, Louisiana 52: Sendek is happy just to get win


ORLANDO -- Somehow, N.C. State's basketball team found beauty among all the ugliness dumped on the Waterhouse Centre floor Friday afternoon.

In a game that was more bumper car ride than postseason dance, the Wolfpack outlasted Louisiana-Lafayette 61-52 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

"The good news is that we won," coach Herb Sendek said after State (21-9) earned a second-round matchup with Vanderbilt on Sunday.

"Did we play as well as we would have liked? Obviously not. We just found a way to grind it out and win on a night that had no artistic beauty."

It had nothing close to it. But it did include a gut-wrenching performance by State big man Marcus Melvin, who contributed 20 points and 9 rebounds on a day when both teams struggled with marksmanship.

"Nobody could shoot this day," teammate Engin Atsur explained after the Pack converted 37 percent of its field goal attempts and UL checked in at 32.7. "Maybe it didn't look very good. It wasn't a beautiful game. But the purpose was to win and we achieved that."

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By David Shaw, Salisbury Post

[NewsCopy]

ORLANDO, FLA. -- When he gets around to showing his team the tape of Friday's NCAA Tournament game against North Carolina State, Louisiana coach Jessie Evans no doubt will point out the missed opportunities for the Ragin' Cajuns.

And then he'll probably do it again just to make sure he didn't miss any.

Fourteenth-seeded UL had a chance to pull one of those memorable first-round upsets, but fell short, 61-52, at the T.D. Waterhouse Centre.

"Maybe it just wasn't our afternoon," Evans said. "We play them again, and things might have been different."

Instead of moving on to a second-round game Sunday against Vanderbilt, a 71-58 winner against Western Michigan, UL's season is done.

The Ragin' Cajuns (20-9) never trailed 15th-ranked and third-seeded North Carolina State by more than 11 points Friday. And yet, after trailing 27-23 at halftime despite going the last 9:15 without a field goal, they could get no closer than six during the final 20 minutes.

"We got to rushing our shots, where if maybe we had made a few more early on, that wouldn't have been the case," Evans said. "Then as hard as we were playing defense, they made some unbelievable baskets. We weren't too far away, but in a game like this, every possession is magnified."

That was most evident when UL had the ball trailing 53-46 with 1:21 left.

A basket would have made it a two-possession game. Instead, senior guard Brad Boyd, who had just come into the game after sitting out much of the second half, threw the ball out of bounds 13 seconds later.

The Wolfpack converted on the other end on an eight-foot jumper by Ilian Evtimov with 55 seconds left, and the game essentially was over.

"It's always frustrating when you turn the ball over," Boyd said. "There's not much else I can say."

Boyd's miscue wasn't the only crucial moment of the second half -- just the last.

With UL trailing 47-40, the Ragin' Cajuns forced the Wolfpack (21-9) into the final seconds of the shot clock, only to see freshman guard Engin Atsur throw in one from an improbable over-his-head angle.

At the other end, following a turnover by Brian Hamilton, the Ragin' Cajuns went to full-court pressure as the Wolfpack tried to inbound the ball under the UL basket, forcing a time out.

But after the time out and before the ball was inbounded, Orien Greene fouled Julius Hodge, and Hodge then made two free throws to make it an 11-point game.

ULL guard Antoine Landry, who prepped at De La Salle, made a 3-pointer to get the deficit back down to eight, and again the Ragin' Cajuns forced North Carolina State deep into the shot clock.

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Time Picayune
Ted Lewis
tlewis@timespicayune.com
(504) 826-3405.