The Replay: NC State women rise; UNC men ranked; and the Canes take down another No. 1
An eventful week will give way to an eve more eventful week for those basketball teams fortunate enough to make it into the field of 68 teams in the men’s and women’s NCAA tournament this week.
But first, let’s look back at some of the highlights from the past week.
Wolfpack dominant
And we’ll start with the women. The week started with a bang for the NC State women;s basketball team.
Playing in its third straight ACC tournament title game, the Wolfpack played most of the second half without its best player, Elissa Cunane. All N.C. State did was hold Miami to three field goals in the third quarter and cruise to a third ACC Tournament title with a 60-47 win over the Hurricanes.
“We have a couple of kids who have been here five years,” head coach Wes Moore said after the game. “Just amazing what they’ve done, the legacy they’ve built. To win three in a row is really hard. This league is strong right now.”
The win came with Cunane spending a good deal of the third quarter on the bench or in the locker room after rolling her ankle.
“I mean, when Elissa went down, obviously you get scared,” guard Raina Perez said. “If anyone on the team goes down, you kind of get scared. But she got back up and started walking off a little bit, so we all figured she was fine. We were hoping she was fine at least. We were right, she is.”
Cunane, who finished with 17 points, returned early in the fourth. By the time she entered, N.C. State was up 18.
The week off will help Cunane and the Wolfpack heal and get ready for the madness to come.
Return to the ranks
How much was North Carolina’s regular season-ending win at Duke worth? It made the Tar Heels jump from not receiving any votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll the past six weeks to being voted No. 25 in the poll released Monday.
Carolina was ranked No. 19 in the preseason poll and was No. 18 for a week, but by the third week of the poll, the Heels were out after losing to Purdue and Tennessee in the Hall of Fame Tipoff in November.
Not only had the Heels not been ranked since November, they fell entirely off the radar from voters’ ballots since losing back-to-back games against Miami and Wake Forest in January.
That all changed with their 94-81 win in Cameron Indoor Stadium against the Blue Devils. Carolina received 56 votes, which edged out Boise State’s 49 for the 25th and final spot in the poll.
The Tar Heels then went deep enough in the ACC Tournament to remove any doubt from their NCAA tourney worthiness. Pretty sure the ranking is now the last thing on coach Hubert Davis’ mind, though.
Important win for Canes
It’s not often in an NHL season the best team from the West meets the best from the East in the regular season, given the way the league divvies up its schedule.
But it happened Thursday, when the Hurricanes hosted the Colorado Avalanche.
Ian Cole of the Carolina Hurricanes said beforehand it would be a “statement game.”
Canes winger Nino Niederreiter said it should be “fun.”
In a game packed with fast-paced entertainment, the Hurricanes won 2-0 as goalie Antti Raanta had 36 saves in his finest outing of the season, handing the Avs their first shutout of the season.
“He was great,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You can’t really say much more. It was a pretty good game, pretty spirited and I thought it was pretty even, and I guess he was the difference.”
Ethan Bear’s goal with 5:40 left in regulation gave the Canes a 1-0 lead and their fans a chance to roar, and Sebastian Aho clinched the game with an empty-net goal.
Jonas Pope IV, Chip Alexander and C.L. Brown contributed to this story.
