Reacting to the Wolfpack's Home Victory Over Syracuse
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After losing its last two games at home in the Lenovo Center, NC State turned things around with an 88-68 victory over Syracuse on Tuesday, snapping the home skid. The Wolfpack found some of the same offensive success it showed in two road games a week prior and carried that momentum through the win over the Orange.
Head coach Will Wade placed a major emphasis on improved starts to the game throughout practice over the last two weeks. Outside of the win over Pitt, the Wolfpack appears to have bought into that emphasis, as it started the game nicely against Syracuse. Star forward Darrion Williams scored eight points in the first five minutes, en route to a 23-point performance.
Williams wasn't the only star to shine for NC State, as Quadir Copeland took care of business against his old team, scoring 19 points and dishing out nine assists. He added four steals and relentlessly attacked defensive mismatches allowed by Syracuse and his former coach, Adrian Autry.
On this episode of the NC State Insider Podcast, host and lead beat writer Tucker Sennett provides a comprehensive breakdown of how the Wolfpack attacked the Orange and what aspects worked and did not work in the team's victory.
Watch the new episode here
More on the Wolfpack's win
The process of bringing Musa Sagnia up to speed on American basketball has been deliberate for head coach Will Wade and the rest of the Wolfpack staff. The 6-foot-10 forward played professional basketball in Spain before electing to come to the United States and join NC State. The Syracuse game felt like a major step in the right direction for Sagnia.
He scored a career-high 10 points off the bench, shooting 5-of-6 from the field. Sagnia played key defensive minutes against Syracuse sophomore forward Donnie Freeman and showed his growth as a perimeter defender a handful of times. While fouling remains an issue, as he picked up three in 14 minutes, there is a growing trust in Sagnia to provide steady minutes off the bench to spell Ven-Allen Lubin, who also played well, scoring 18 points of his own.
While Copeland has made massive improvements to his 3-point shooting since leaving Syracuse, he still doesn't represent a serious and consistent threat from the outside for opposing defenses unless he is wide open on catch-and-shoot threes. His first tendency is almost always to attack and collapse the defense, making Autry and the Orange's defensive plan to run him away from the 3-point arc even more baffling. It also allowed Copeland to do one of his favorite things.
"Finding the mismatches, that's what it was," Copeland said. "We know when it's a little guard on me or a little guard on (Darrion Williams), we can set triggers and get (Williams) the switches... We're just playing that two-man game and finding the mismatches every time. That's what basketball comes down to."
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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