NC State falls short at No. 12 Auburn
The loser of the N.C. State-Auburn game went to the Final Four last year.
“I’ll take it right now,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said.
Auburn won the SEC title and made the Final Four last season but lost to N.C. State in December.
The Tigers knocked a win over the Wolfpack off of its to-do list on Thursday night. Samir Doughty scored 24 points to lead the 12th-ranked Tigers to a 79-73 home win over N.C. State.
N.C. State (8-3) got 17 points and 10 assists from Markell Johnson but foul trouble slowed the senior guard, and the Wolfpack offense, in a critical stretch in the second half.
The Wolfpack took a 64-62 lead on a Braxton Beverly layup with 5:23 left and then Auburn (10-0) went on a 10-0 run to secure the win.
N.C. State was playing shorthanded for about 6 minutes when Johnson picked up his third and fourth fouls in quick succession.
Johnson made a 3-pointer with 13:08 left to put N.C. State up 49-48 but he was called for a technical foul after for talking at Auburn guard Jamal Johnson.
The technical counted as a personal foul and was Johnson’s third. On Auburn’s next possession, Johnson fouled guard J’Von McCormick on a jump shot attempt for his fourth foul at 12:24.
Keatts called the technical on his best player “unfortunate.”
“It puts him on the bench for stretches where we didn’t need to have him on the bench,” Keatts said.
Auburn was up 51-49 when Johnson went to the bench. He came back in briefly when Auburn got up 59-54 and then went back to the bench until the 6:08 mark with the Tigers clinging to a 62-60 lead.
A free dunk by forward Austin Wiley, after N.C. State didn’t get back after a reset in its own end of the floor, broke a 64-64 tie with 4:18 left. The Tigers didn’t trail the rest of the way.
N.C. State beat Auburn 78-71 in Raleigh exactly one year ago. It turned out to be the highlight of the Wolfpack’s season.
It was merely a footnote for the Tigers, who reached the Final Four for the first time in school history and nearly knocked eventual national champion Virginia out in the national semifinals.
It took some time on Thursday for both sides to adjust to the officiating. N.C. State was called for 28 fouls and Auburn for 22. The Tigers out-scored the Wolfpack 23 to 12 on the free-throw line and had 36 attempts, compared to 20.
And one
C.J. Bryce made his first three shots and had a quick seven points. He finished with a team-high 21 points for the Wolfpack and add 11 rebounds.
Lane violation
N.C. State didn’t exactly make the most of its trips to the free-throw line. It finished 12 of 20 with Johnson going 4 of 10.
ICYMI
D.J. Funderburk had his best half of the season. The junior forward had eight points in the first half, and most after Auburn had taken a 10-point lead. Funderburk finished the game with 12 points off the bench.
Making sense of the numbers
12 Offensive rebounds for N.C. State, 10 more than it had against UNC-Greensboro and two more than Auburn.
18 The Wolfpack turned the ball over a season-high 18 times, five by Johnson.
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 11:21 PM.
