NC State women ready for showdown with Louisville
N.C. State has won eight straight games, owns a 22-1 overall record, sits atop the ACC standings and has reached No. 4 in the women’s basketball top 25.
Not bad or to borrow two understated adjectives from seventh-year coach Wes Moore: “nice” and “neat.”
But with recent nemesis Louisville in town on Thursday night (8 p.m., ACC Network) for a top-10 showdown, Moore would prefer to keep his players focused on the ninth-ranked Cardinals (21-3, 10-2 ACC) and the task at hand.
The accolades, milestones and rankings can wait.
“Coach likes to always remind us it doesn’t matter until the very last buzzer goes off at the end of the Final Four,” senior guard Ace Konig said.
But Konig, when pushed for an answer, knew the number next to the Wolfpack’s name in the top 25.
“I mean we definitely are aware of it but (coach) doesn’t let that get to our heads,” Konig said. “He’s very deliberate in making sure that we know just how important it is for us to come out and play hard, despite what the rankings are.”
Whatever works for Moore, it’s difficult to argue with his results. The Wolfpack has made the NCAA tournament three years in a row and the Sweet 16 in each of the past years.
Last year’s team started 21-0 and this one has nearly matched it. But this group has racked up more impressive wins (at home over Maryland, Florida State, UNC and by 34 points on the road over annual powerhouse Notre Dame) to this point in the season.
That qualifier — “to this point” — is what trips up Moore, who has won 720 games in his 31st season as a college head coach.
“They don’t hand out trophies in February,” Moore told his team.
True, but it’s also OK to take a half-step back and realize where Moore has elevated the program. At 11-1 in league play, it has a one-game lead on the Cardinals, who shared the regular-season title with Notre Dame in each of the past two seasons.
N.C. State hasn’t won the ACC’s regular-season since Kay Yow had scoring machine Andrea Stinson for the 1989-90 season.
Yow won the regular-season five times and the tournament four times, the last in 1991. So it has been 29 years.
Yow’s 1998 team reached the Final Four and two years later hit No. 3 in the national rankings. This team has a chance to be in the same category as Yow’s greats, ESPN analyst Debbie Antonelli said.
Antonelli, who will work Thursday’s matchup for the ACC Network, would know. She has followed the program since it started in the 1970s and played for Yow in the early 1980s.
The teams led by Genia Beasley, an All-American forward and the leading scorer in school history, from 1978-80 are the gold standard for the program, Antonelli said, along with the ‘98 Final Four team led by forward Chasity Melvin.
“I’d put this team next to them,” Antonelli said. “They’re very similar.”
Moore has put together an old-fashioned, inside-out offense with a modern 3-point twist. Sophomore forward Elissa Cunane has the inside track on the ACC’s player of the year award. She averages 17 points and 10.5 rebounds per game and everything flows through her.
“This is the best team that I’ve seen all season at feeding the post and playing through the post,” Antonelli said. “And Cunane demands a double team.”
When teams collapse on Cunane, guards Konig (61 3-pointers) and Kai Crutchfield (39 3s) have made them pay. In conference play, N.C. State leads the ACC in made 3s (107) and FG percentage (37.8).
Forward Kayla Jones (11.1 points per game) and wing Jakia Brown-Turner (9.6 ppg) have been able to find scoring room, too.
It’s all set up N.C. State for an opportunity, as Moore likes to put it, to reach some of the goals the program hasn’t in many years.
“We don’t talk a lot about stuff like that,” Moore said. “We focus on the next game. I know that’s boring to some people but really your preparation has to be the same every game.”
Moore is smart to focus on the Cards, who have won five straight over the Wolfpack, including a 30-point win in the regular-season and a 78-68 decision in the ACC tournament semifinals last year.
Louisville won the ACC tournament in 2018 and has reached the Final Four three times under coach Jeff Walz.
“We know this is going to be a great challenge,” Moore said. “Louisville has been there and they’ve done it the last few years and we’re kind of the new kid on the block and trying to nose our way in.”
No. 9 Louisville at No. 4 NC State
When: Thursday, 8 p.m.
Where: Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh
Watch: ACC Network
