CHARLOTTE— The vacant stares and heaving chests painted a startling picture from the N.C. State bench Sunday.

Gone was the fire and intense drive dominating wins over Virginia and Maryland. Against Duke in Sunday’s ACC Tournament title game, a stunned State squad was left reeling by an early knockout punch and took a 91-61 wipeout squarely on the chin.

“Emotionally, confidence —they were certainly a different team than we played throughout the season,”Duke’s Mike Dunleavy said. “It seemed like they felt like it was their time, they were going to win this thing. We had to come in and match that energy and intensity and we did.

“You could sense the air letting out of the bubble.”

When Duke scored on five of its first seven possessions, Wolfpack head coach Herb Sendek called a timeout. It came with 16:28 remaining in the half, just ahead of the first scheduled TV timeout at the 16-minute mark.

The Devils didn’t let up from their frenetic pace, though, forcing turnovers and making every shot. The clock didn’t stop again until 12:57 remained.

With Duke leading 21-7, the dazed Wolfpack trudged to the sideline, sat down and just waited. There were no words of encouragement. No shouts of defiance. No energy or emotion.

And no hope of a comeback in those wide-eyed, empty stares.

“They were really out-hustling us, and that’s hard to swallow because we were the underdogs coming into this game,”said Julius Hodge, State’s emotional sparkplug.

“We really had no adequate response or answer today,”added Sendek. “We all saw a great basketball team in action.”

The problem was, State appeared ready to be that great team, the one capable of anything and everything.

The Wolfpack beat Virginia and Maryland with great shooting, but struggled to a 37-percent effort Sunday. Hodge followed up his heroics against the Terps with a quiet 11 points. Ilian Evtimov and Marcus Melvin, after combining for 31 in Saturday’s upset, shot 2-for-11 from the field for eight points.

“They have great physical presence at all positions, they keep pressure on the basketball, they contest passing lanes and with (Carlos) Boozer’s presence inside, it’s difficult to get one close,”Sendek said. “They’re just very solid.”

After the game, different people reacted in different ways to the blowout.

“We can definitely learn from it, look at our mistakes and mature from it and get ready for the next game,”Evtimov reasoned. “We’ve been doing a great job of that (bouncing back) and I’m very confident we’re going to do it again.”

Sendek recalled a similar situation when he was an assistant coach at Providence in the mid-’80s. The Friars closed their season with a 30-point loss to Georgetown —then raced into the Final Four.

“It’s always next game, next play when you’re a competitor,”Sendek said. “We wouldn’t have lost by 30 today if we would’ve lost yesterday to Maryland. When you’re a competitor, you always have a chance to lose, but it beats not playing.”

But not by much, guard Anthony Grundy reported.

“It leaves a bad taste,”he said. “The thing now, it’s not worrying about the past game like we did in the regular season, it’s moving on to the next step.”

And the fact that State’s next step is an NCAA Tournament game against Michigan State makes forgetting about the Duke loss a lot easier. Friday’s appearance in Washington, D.C., will mark the Wolfpack’s first in the field of 64 since 1991.

“We didn’t win it, but we have another opportunity to beat somebody else now,”senior Archie Miller said. “We put ourselves in a position where we are still playing, and we’re still playing when it counts.”

And, with a note of optimism, Miller mentioned that he wouldn’t mind getting another shot at those Devils. The way the bracket works out, a State-Duke rematch would take place in the national championship game.

“If we play them again, that means we’re moving on, so maybe we’ll get a fourth try out of it,”Miller said.

n

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