BY STEVE HANF
SALISBURY POST

CHARLOTTE— The twists and turns of N.C. State’s shooting fortunes left the Wolfpack befuddled — and a tad nervous.

Three-pointers and desperation heaves at the shot-clock buzzer?No problem. Free throws?Well, that was a whole other story for the top foul-shooting team in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Luckily for Anthony Grundy, all he needed was one successful free throw in his final four attempts. His one good shot provided the winning 86-82 margin for the No. 4 Wolfpack’s upset over top seed Maryland in the ACC Tournament semifinals.

“There were a lot of things going through my mind,”said Grundy, who scored a game-high 24 points to propel State into today’s title game against No. 2 Duke. “I just kind of blanked it out and pictured being on the playground back at home. I like to keep Coach on the edge of his seat.”

“It worked!”responded Herb Sendek with a laugh.

State’s run through the ACC field has come courtesy a record-setting pace from the field. The Wolfpack’s two-game total of 24 made 3-pointers ranks second in tourney history. So does its 3-point accuracy of 53.3 percent. As for State’s 59.7 percentage overall on shot attempts, that’s the best ever.

Against Maryland on Saturday, State held to form, shooting 59.2 percent from the field. But the Pack missed 11 free throws, including eight in the final three minutes.

“They were on me about my free throws,”Grundy said of his younger teammates.“When they miss free throws, I’m like a crazed animal out there. I’ll probably end up hearing about it when we go back to the hotel.”

N.C. State (22-9) built a 12-point lead in the first half behind its great shooting, then raced to a 75-64 advantage late in the second half before Maryland (26-4) stormed back. The Terps got five free throws from leading scorer Steve Blake (21) and a 3-pointer from Juan Dixon to pull within 81-78 with 1:53 remaining.

That’s when the great State shooting took hold — from everywhere other than the charity stripe. Freshman Julius Hodge drained a desperation 3-pointer with the shot clock running down and hit nothing but net to make it a six-point game.

Maryland never recovered.

“That was just the randomness of things. We’re missing free throws down the stretch and Julius just stepped up and made a great shot,”Sendek said. “Obviously that’s not part of our offense, but we’ll take it. We’ve had a couple banked in against us this year. It just sometimes evens out.”

The Wolfpack win remained uncertain, however, thanks to four misses in six attempts from Ilian Evtimov, Marcus Melvin and Grundy. When Grundy again stepped to the line with just 2.3 seconds to go, the score was 85-82.

He missed the first —keeping everyone on the edge of their seats —and made the second. It set off a raucous celebration from most of the 23,895 fans at the Charlotte Coliseum and a celebration at midcourt.

“In the ACC Tournament, there’s no better feeling to walk off the court knowing you’re going to get up in the morning and play again,”said guard Archie Miller, who scored 16 points with three more clutch 3-pointers. “There have been some good wins this year, but they just keep getting better. Now’s when they get really sweet.”

After Miller and Grundy led Friday’s quarterfinal long-distance attack over Virginia, State struck again, but with a different weapon against the Terps. Big man Marcus Melvin abandoned the paint, and the 6-foot-8, 232-pound sophomore nailed a trio of 3-pointers and scored 13 early points.

“We knew that we had a great offense,”Melvin said. “We just wanted to come out and assert ourselves. I wanted to show them that I was here, and by doing that Anthony and Julius came through. Everybody started contributing after that.”

The hot Wolfpack built a 24-12 lead midway through the period before Maryland finally got hot. A 19-2 run gave the Terps a five-point lead, but Grundy ended the half with five points to put State up 40-38 at the break.

“We knew going into today that N.C.State was shooting the ball well from the perimeter and we had to shut that down,”Maryland head coach Gary Williams said. “We didn’t do a great job of that.”

The Terps also struggled in the low post, where big men Lonny Baxter, Chris Wilcox and Tahj Holden scored 32 points, but didn’t dominate against State’s swarming defense. That left it up to the guards, but Dixon floundered through a 6-for-16 shooting night and never got going.

“I know one thing: These guys did everything they could to win the game at the end,”said Williams, whose Terps had beaten State six straight times. “The law of averages, sooner or later in close games, will catch up with you.”

n

Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4256 or shanf@salisburypost.com .