Stats @ NC State
Here are the numbers from last night's game against the North Carolina State University Wolfpack on Kay Yow Court inside the James T. Valvano Arena at the William Neal Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, NC:
OFFENSE
Possessions: 72.1 (quite fast, especially lately)
oRtg: 1.151 (excellent; adj. 1.253, or #2, our second-best adj. rating of the year)
eFG%: 50.0% (solid)
3pt%: 45.8% (excellent)
2pt%: 41.2% (very bad, third worst of the season)
%three: 32.0% (roughly normal for us)
FT rate: 21.3% (pretty bad)
OR%: 45.8% (very good, but only a little above average for us)
TO%: 15.2% (very good)
a/to: 1.727 (outstanding)
%assisted: 59.4% (on the low side)
fast break pts: 17 (20.5%) (very good)
DEFENSE
dRtg: 1.234 (horrible; 1.023 adj., 310th in the country, bottom 15%)
deFG%: 64.4% (horrible, 10 points worse than our prior low)
3pt%: 30.8% (bad)
2pt%: 69.6% (horrible, again 10 points worse than our prior low)
%threes: 22.0% (would be good, except we couldn't stop twos)
FT rate: 35.6% (very bad)
DR%: 65.5% (bad)
TO%: 20.8% (solid)
a/to: 0.667 (good)
%assisted: 27.8% (good, except we couldn't stop them off the dribble)
stl%: 8.3% (very bad, third worst of the year)
blk%: 4.3% (terrible)
fast break pts: 36 (40.4%) (epically terrible, 13 points worse than our prior low)
Well, there's no mystery why we lost. Our defense only played one quarter of the game. Reigan Richardson played even less than that, as our best defender could manage only 9 minutes of total game time before fouling out. Reigan averages 27 minutes per game, and that average is actually held down by some early season blowouts, where she was subbed out early to give bench players some run. Granted, we should have been able to still defend at least OK, but there was Aziah James. She could not miss. She tossed in a career-high 36 points on 80%(!) shooting, most of it from drives deep into the paint, and 15 points of it in the crucial fourth quarter. And I use "tossed in" on purpose there, as it seemed anything she threw in the direction of the bucket, not matter how off-balance, went right in. She was responsible for more than 40% of NC State's offense, and we just could not stop her. Heck, you don't have to look much past the fast break numbers, honestly. We had a good game on the break, scoring 17 point and getting 20% of our scoring on the break. But NC State scored roughly double that, both in terms of points and percentage!
Jackson and Mair were terrific on our offensive end to keep us in it, and we put together one of our best offensive efforts of the season, but we we lost every quarter but the second, which is the only quarter when our defense played well. Fans love offense, but I would hold this game up as the poster child for why fans should pay more attention to the other end of the floor. There is no doubt as to why we lost this game.