Making uncharacteristic mistakes on the offensive end and getting handled on the defensive end, relatively speaking, No. 11 Georgia Tech absorbed a decisive defeat Monday night. In about as stern a test as they’ll face this season, the Yellow Jackets came up wanting in a 59-48 defeat to No. 5 N.C. State in Raleigh, N.C.
Tech (18-5 overall, 9-3 ACC) was outscored 35-15 in the middle two quarters, a span in which the Jackets turned the ball over 12 times and allowed the Wolfpack to make 15 of 30 field-goal tries as they turned a game that was tied at the end of the first quarter into a 49-29 chasm by the end of the third quarter. With the win, N.C. State (21-3, 12-1) extended its ACC home-court win streak to 15 games and severely dampened Tech hopes to claim its first-ever ACC regular-season title.
“That’s a Final Four team, and they’re playing really good basketball right now,” coach Nell Fortner said of the Wolfpack in a postgame news conference. “We did not play our best basketball. I’m not taking anything away from them at all. I wish we would have played a little bit better. We’ve got to go back and look at that. We’ve got to shoot the ball better. We had shots that normally have dropped for us that didn’t drop (Tuesday).”
It was the most decisive loss of the five that the Jackets have suffered this season, although they hardly embarrassed themselves at the defensive end. N.C. State, which came into the game leading the ACC in scoring offense (76.3 points per game) and field goal percentage (46.1%), was held under its season averages by Tech.
Against N.C. State’s defensive challenge, however, the Jackets seemed to come undone, forcing shots and shooting airballs, throwing away passes and making other unforced errors. Point guard Lotta Maj-Lahtinen particularly struggled, scoring five points on 2-for-10 shooting (1-for-7 from 3-point range) with one assist against three turnovers.
“I thought N.C. State just played really tough (Monday). They were tough. They got in us defensively,” Fortner said. “They’re a really good defensive team and I didn’t think we responded real well. Normally, that’s us doing that to teams. And (Monday), I think we felt little bit of that, and we have to respond better and execute better, but it’s a learning situation for us and we’ll have to learn from it.”
The game got away from the Jackets early in the third quarter. Ahead 30-22 at the half, the Wolfpack stopped Tech on its first nine possessions of the half, forcing turnovers on six, and sprinted out to a 10-0 run, uncustomary territory for a Tech team that ranked second in defensive scoring in Division I before Monday’s games.
“I thought they really turned up the heat in the second half to start the third quarter and just really punched us in the mouth,” Fortner said. “I had to call a timeout. I hated using it, but I had to. They were just on fire and we couldn’t do anything to stop them.”
Tech was led by forward Lorela Cubaj, who registered her ninth double-double (12 points with 10 rebounds). Guard Eylia Love led all scorers with 16 points on 7-for-14 shooting, her 12th double-figure scoring game. The Jackets closed the game on a 10-0 run to tighten an N.C. State that was as wide as 24 points near the start of the fourth quarter.
While a loss for the Jackets was hardly a surprise, it was nevertheless a lost opportunity. Tech was (and perhaps still is) on the precipice of being considered a top-16 team by the NCAA Tournament selection committee, a status that generally enables teams to be at home for the first two rounds of the tournament. The Jackets still have time to get in that picture, but a road win over the team ranked No. 2 in NET would have been an especially significant result to that end.
Ultimately, though, Fortner framed it as one game in February from which her team can learn from.
“This one game doesn’t define us by any stretch of the means, and we’ll learn from it and get better,” she said.
A sellout crowd of 5,500 at Reynolds Coliseum made itself heard in the team’s annual Play4Kay Game, a fundraiser for the fight against women’s cancers in honor of the late Kay Yow, the legendary Wolfpack coach. Both teams’ uniforms featured pink for the occasion.
While Play4Kay games have proliferated beyond N.C. State, Fortner said it was her first time playing in one at N.C. State, calling it special.
“We talked to our players about it, so they fully understood what this was about,” she said. “It was an honor to be in this game.”
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