The East Region notebook …
WASHINGTON— One play doesn’t win or lose a ballgame.
Without fail, that sentiment is expressed in every close contest, and it held true Sunday following N.C. State’s 77-74 loss to Connecticut. So don’t blame the referees for calling a foul on Caron Butler’s 3-point attempt with 11 seconds to play.
Or for not calling a foul on Ilian Evtimov’s successful prayer from long-range seconds later.
“I don’t know if it was the right call or the wrong call, but it didn’t determine what happened,”Pack senior Archie Miller said. “We were down one anyway, so obviously we didn’t take care of business up to that point to be ahead.”
Pack senior Anthony Grundy blamed his slow start. He finished with 17 points, but missed nine of his first 10 shot attempts.
A team-wide first-half slump didn’t help State’s cause. UConn went on a 14-0 run, behind 10 straight points from guard Tony Robertson, to build a 31-20 lead. State missed six straight shots in that stretch and turned the ball over three times in the 4:27 scoreless streak.
The biggest dagger may have been out of State’s control. With 2:30 remaining and UConn ahead 67-63, State played 34 seconds of fantastic defense. Clifford Crawford was draped all over Caron Butler in the corner, but Butler nailed a 3-pointer anyway as the buzzer sounded for a seven-point advantage.
“That was a tough shot. I was as close as possible to him without fouling,”Crawford said. “He stepped up and made big plays for his team.”
Butler nailed 10 free throws in the second half to lead the Huskies to an amazing 21-for-22 performance for the game. The Pack missed four foul shots in 15 tries, two in each half.
“A lot of things during the game, little things,”Wolfpack freshman Ilian Evtimov said. “A loose ball here, a boxout there, a stop on defense. They accumulate. We didn’t lose on the last play.”
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you’re still here? State looked dead in the water several times before having a shot at the buzzer to tie.
“I thought we had the game — certainly I don’t think put away — but at 2 minutes, at 1:49, at 1, at 40 (seconds) and at 11,”UConn head coach Jim Calhoun said. “They refused to go away and made our life miserable.”
Inside of two minutes to play, Miller nailed a 3-pointer to make it a four-point game. Marcus Melvin followed to narrow the gap to 72-71, and with four seconds to go, Evtimov’s trey made it 75-74.
“Down the stretch, they made as tough a shots as anybody has against us,” Calhoun said.
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the last one: State’s final shot came not from a senior, but from freshman Julius Hodge, whose attempt from 10 feet beyond the 3-point arc bounced off the rim at the buzzer.
“Coach told me they were going to deny me the ball,”Grundy said of the last play. “Our young guys have been making plays all year. Any one of us could’ve tried to make the shot, but he had the open look. He made the best decision.”
As it turned out, Grundy was open in the corner, but Hodge didn’t see him, and the clock was ticking down anyway. As the shot headed toward the hoop, Grundy had a flashback to the ACC Tournament.
“I kind of went back to the Maryland game when he made that one shot,”Grundy said of the 3 that sank the Terps. “I had a good view of it. It’s one of those things where everything kind of paused for a minute.
“Next time Julius will probably make that shot,”Grundy predicted.
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pressed into action: All at the same time, State’s defensive strategy helped explain UConn’s 21 turnovers and its 62-percent field-goal shooting.
The Wolfpack employed full-court pressure continually against the Huskies. At times, it worked: State scored 25 points off turnovers and got several open 3s in transition.
At times, it failed: UConn recorded 14 fast-break points on layups after getting the ball inbounds and beating the trap.
“The press that we had been able to shred in the first half became much more difficult by some adjustments by Herb in the second half,”Calhoun said. “It caused them to come back, then it helped us get a seven-point lead. But clearly it was disruptive.”
One other advantage came of the press. UConn’s big men weren’t as big a factor in the game. State was outrebounded by three boards overall, but held a 17-7 edge on the offensive glass.
“I thought Herb did a great job,”Calhoun said. “He made us go small the last 10 minutes of the game so that we could handle the pressure.”
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it matters: Melvin, State’s 6-foot-8 center, explained Saturday how blocks can influence the outcome of a game by taking away possessions.
Sunday, shot-blocking phenom Emeka Okafor registered four blocks and UConn had eight overall. Among the biggest blocks of the game, Okafor swatted away a Hodge drive to open the second half and rejected a Melvin jumper when State trailed by three late.
Perhaps most crucial, the Pack gave up an open layup when Josh Powell took a pass underneath from Miller and hesitated before going up. Butler recovered in time for a block and Okafor’s layup at the other end made for a four-point swing.
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Scooter’s finale: West Rowan’s Scooter Sherrill played just five minutes Sunday but scored five points.
His first bucket came with 9:39 left in the first half and staked State to a 20-17 lead. The 3-pointer from the top of the key banked in. Sherrill’s first smile following the loss came when asked if he called the bank.
“No, I didn’t. That’s the way it goes sometimes,”he said. “I felt I was open, I just shot it a little hard. I wish it would’ve helped us.”
Actually, it did. Sherrill’s 3 accounted for State’s final points in a span of 4:29.
In the second half, Sherrill drove the lane and put up a shot that Okafor rejected above the rim for a goal-tending call. That bucket pulled the Pack within 51-50 with 9:07 remaining.
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and finally … Obviously, State’s loss put a damper on Sherrill’s other victory this weekend. He called home to learn the score of the West Rowan-Parkland game Saturday night, and happily reported the results to Crawford, whose team knocked off Sherrill’s Falcons in 1999.
“It’s real good, real good,”Sherrill said with a smile. “Cliff hasn’t really said anything to me today.”
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