Daniels Goes Down, But Wolfpack Defeats Wake
RALEIGH, NC – Devon Daniels and Jericole Hellems helped the North Carolina State Wolfpack secured their first win in five games, taking down rival Wake Forest Deamon Deacons 72-67 on Wednesday night.
Despite the previous four losses, the Wolfpack came into this contest still leading the ACC in steals (9.36), turnovers forced (17.36) and turnover margin (+4.9), but the Pack has fallen to 14th in field goal percentage defense at 47.3%.
Wake Forest had hit 28 three-pointers in their last two games and have had four games this season with double-digit three-pointers made. The Wolfpack have only allowed two opponents to knock double-digit three-pointers this season, so the matchup was set to see what team would break first.
After the Wolfpack scored the first two points from the free-throw line, Wake Forest went on an 8-0 run, with six of the points coming from Ismael Massoud hitting two three-pointers to force the Wolfpack to call an early time-out. Things went back-and-forth for the next couple of minutes as the score was 11-8 at the first media time-out.
With the score of 13-8 at the 14:29 mark in the first half, the Wolfpack went on a 6-0 run over 40 seconds, to take a 14-13 lead and force the Deamon Deacons to call a time-out.
As the Deamon Deacons went cold, the Wolfpack went on a 14-4 run over five and a half minutes to give the Wolfpack a 28-19 lead with 6:47 left in the first half. Devon Daniels and Jericole Helems scored 12 of the 14 points during the run.
Neither team could muster up a bucket for the next three minutes, as the score remained the same at the under four media time-out. The Wolfpack turned the ball over four times, and the Deamon Deacons turned it over three times in that period of play.
Both teams struggled to take care of the ball in the first half as the Wolfpack forced 12 Wake Forest turnovers and Wake forced nine Wolfpack turnovers. At the half, the score was 32-21 in favor of NC State. Wake was lead by Ismael Massoud with nine points. The Wolfpack were led by Devon Daniels with 15 points on a scorching 5-of-7 from the field and 3-3 from three-point territory. Jericole Hellems also scored eight first-half points, to help pace the Wolfpack.
Play got physical to start the second half as Braxton Beverly was called on a flagrant foul going for a rebound. The Wolfpack defense bothered the Wake Forest guards as the Wolfpack forced seven turnovers within the first eight minutes of the second half, to take a 49-32 lead at the 11:58 mark.
Devon Daniels went down with a tough knee injury at the nine-minute mark of the second half and did not return to the contest.
When asked about what was said to Daniels when he went down, Coach Keatts said, “I just told him to relax. When a player goes down, the first instinct is to freak out, so I told him to relax.”
As Daniels went down, so did the Wolfpack offense, as they missed eight-of-nine baskets to allow the Deamon Deacons to cut the once was 16-point lead down to ten.
The Wolfpack bounced right back with a 5-0 run to bring the lead back to 15, right before Wake cut that same lead down to six, at the 3:30 mark, with a 9-0 run of their own.
Wake Forest battled hard down the stretch to make things interesting as they cut the lead to five points with 53 seconds remaining, but the Wolfpack were able to hang on to secure the victory.
The Wolfpack were led by Devon Daniels with 20 points and ten rebounds and Jericole Hellems with 17 points. The Deamon Deacons were led by Daivien Williamson with 22 points. The Wolfpack offense still looked sloppy, as they turned the ball over 19 times, but they were able to turn the Deamon Deacons over 21 times.
In the Wolfpack’s victories this season, they have forced 20 turnovers and gathered 10.8 steals, compared to 13.2 turnovers forced and 7.8 steals in their losses. This Wolfpack team seems to follow the motto of “defense wins championships,” as they are their best when the defense steps up.
The Wolfpack (7-5, 3-4, ACC) look to keep the wins coming as they head to Syracuse, New York, Sunday, for a matchup with the Orangemen. Tip-off is set for 6 pm on the ACC Network.
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