RALEIGH – Khadijah Whittington recorded her 15th double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds Sunday as N.C. State beat Wake Forest 63-38.Megan Zullo also had 12 points for the Wolfpack (14-7, 2-4), which won its second straight Atlantic Coast Conference game.

Chanita Jordan and Gloria Brown combined for 13 points in the first 15 minutes, with a three-point play by Jordan giving N.C. State a 27-10 lead with 4:16 left until halftime.

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N.C. State guards learning on the job

The scene has become increasingly familiar, especially to N.C. State fans, perhaps maddeningly so: Point guard Javier Gonzalez dribbling and dribbling, straining to shake a defender.

Point guard Marques Johnson dribbling and dribbling, a defender locked on, poking at the ball, making life miserable.

In State’s 77-74 loss to Georgia Tech on Wednesday, Johnson had the ball knocked off him by Yellow Jackets guard Matt Causey for a turnover. Later, Causey did it again, sending NCSU coach Sidney Lowe flying down the bench to get Gonzalez back in.

Since starting point guard Farnold Degand went down with a season-ending knee injury on Dec. 23 against Cincinnati, in the Pack’s 10th game, Lowe has had to turn to Gonzalez, a freshman, and Johnson, a sophomore and transfer from Tennessee who played in four games for the Vols last season before leaving after the first semester.

The result has been at times excruciating on-the-job training for the two guards and almost a labor of love for Lowe, one of State’s all-time best point guards — Gonzalez and Johnson laboring to handle the ball and run the Pack’s offense, Lowe continuing to publicly show them some love.

“Javi definitely is getting some great experience. He’s growing,” Lowe said Friday. “Marques is doing a good job for us.”

Asked if he might consider using wing players Courtney Fells or Gavin Grant at the point in spots, Lowe said he wanted the veterans to remain at their normal positions. For now, his plans are to stick with his younger players, and Lowe said Johnson will start today at Florida State.

“We have to let them grow, gain confidence, fall on their face a little bit, get back up and do it again,” Lowe said. “I thought [Javi] played an excellent game [against Georgia Tech]. He read the defense when we ran a certain play. He kept getting to the basket. He ran the show for us.

“I think we have to stick with that. Especially with the way Courtney is playing right now, we don’t want to take him out of his rhythm. And Gavin has been doing a nice job for us. We’ll stay with those guys.”

A year ago, the Pack relied on a senior — Engin Atsur — to orchestrate the offense. Even playing with an injured hamstring, he had 101 assists and 57 turnovers and was State’s cool head in the backcourt.

Degand, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, redshirted as a freshman at Iowa State before transferring to NCSU. Despite a lack of college experience, he had 29 assists and 19 turnovers before his injury. In contrast, Gonzalez has 20 assists and 26 turnovers in 18 games; Johnson, who became eligible after the first semester, has 12 assists and 11 turnovers in eight games.

“That’s obviously an area that they’re struggling,” Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. “Losing a player to a season-ending injury is never easy. Not many teams can lose a point guard. That’s something they’re going to have to solve in order to get this going.”

In State’s 70-54 loss at Clemson, the Tigers turned 23 Pack turnovers into 29 points.

Degand had the quickness to separate himself from defenders and prevent five-second, closely guarded violations. Gonzalez has had some problems shaking off guys and getting the Pack’s half-court offense started.

Gonzalez, reluctant to shoot at times, hit two 3-pointers in the second half of State’s 79-77 overtime win over Miami. Lowe later praised his composure.

“What he has learned is that he can get it done,” Lowe said. “He went into that atmosphere at Carolina and Clemson and realized he was still alive.”

That was said before the Georgia Tech game. The Jackets used a zone press in the backcourt to slow the Pack, then heavily pressured Gonzalez or Johnson when they had the ball trying to run the Pack’s halfcourt sets.

Gonzalez had one turnover in 22 minutes and Johnson three turnovers in 18. Defensively, neither could corral Causey, a crafty senior who scored 18 points.

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On the heels of a 31-point blowout at top-ranked North Carolina, N.C. State plays its second straight ACC game on the road and comes up short again — losing to 24th-ranked Clemson

CLEMSON, S.C. – It was all fun and games for Clemson’s Tigers in the second half of a 70-54 victory over N.C. State on Tuesday night.

The 24th-ranked Tigers drove and scored. They hit jump shots. They dunked, chased after rebounds, stole the ball. They even hit consecutive free throws.

Clemson fans enjoyed themselves, urging Terrence Oglesby to shoot every time he touched the ball, even 40 feet from the basket. The freshman guard can do little but shoot but he can do that well, hitting four 3-point bombs.

Late in the game, sophomore center Trevor Booker decided to let another long one fly. After his 3-pointer fell, he twirled about the court, his smiling face close to that of State freshman J.J. Hickson.

Yes, the Tigers (14-3, 2-1 ACC) had a grand old time at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Not the Pack (11-5, 0-2). Losing by 16 wasn’t the same as the humiliation of Saturday, when State managed just 13 points in the first half and trailed top-ranked North Carolina by 30 at the break. It wasn’t another 31-point whipping, but it was a whipping.

“In both games we could have played a lot better,” State guard Courtney Fells said. “We had some guys that didn’t come ready to play and it’s hurting us. We just need to get our heads and our focus on the game and come ready to execute.”

Not ready to play? After Carolina?

“After the Carolina game, they should have been ready to play the same day, against anyone, just to get that loss off our backs,” said Fells, who had a game-high 19 points. “We’ve just got to all come together and play as a team.”

The Pack’s second ACC loss didn’t come without another injury. Junior forward Ben McCauley hurt his right ankle fighting for a rebound with 1:18 left in the game. McCauley was on crutches, his ankle heavily taped, after the game.

“It’s tough,” NCSU coach Sidney Lowe said of the Pack’s 0-2 ACC start. “Playing on the road is tough, certainly at Carolina, at Clemson.”

What’s missing for the Pack? On Tuesday, Brandon Costner.

The sophomore was held scoreless for the first time in 51 games, going 0-for-6 from the field. And that after a four-point game at UNC.

“He didn’t score?” Fells said. “I didn’t see that coming.

“The way we play is inside-out, so they get the ball the majority of the time. So I never thought any of our [inside] players would ever go scoreless in a game.”

Nor did State get much from its leading scorer, J.J. Hickson. The freshman center sat out nearly all of the first half after two early fouls, never got in the offensive flow, had a couple of shots blocked and finished with four points.

“This is a tough game and they were physical with him,” Lowe said. “They were banging him. … They knocked him off-balance. It’s a learning experience for him.”

Lowe shook up his lineup, giving sophomore Marques Johnson his first start at point guard. And when Hickson came out, freshman Tracy Smith came in, hustled and scored 13 points to go with six rebounds in a season-high 20 minutes.

“He worked his butt off,” Lowe said.

The Tigers used some streaky 3-point shooting to take a 32-24 halftime lead. Clemson was 7-of-14 from the arc, as Oglesby dropped three from long range, and closed 10-of-25

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Freshman is double trouble as N.C. State earns its fifth consecutive victory

RALEIGH – Western Carolina now has played at Illinois, Indiana and N.C. State this season, but Catamounts coach Larry Hunter believes he knows which of the three could be the best come March.

After seeing Wolfpack freshman J.J. Hickson manhandle Western Carolina for 33 points and 13 rebounds, after watching State rally in the second half for a 74-62 victory at the RBC Center, Hunter gave the nod to the Pack.

“They’re the most talented team we’ve played,” he said.

Interesting. Illinois crushed the Catamounts by 48 points and the Hoosiers won 58-35. But Hunter, once an assistant at NCSU under former coach Herb Sendek, likes the look of the Pack, even though his team led 41-32 at the half and trailed by a point in the last four minutes of the game.

“They’re growing as a team,” Hunter said of the Wolfpack (9-3). “I think they have a lot of potential. They can do a lot of damage if they continue to work hard and grow as a team.

“They have a lot of poise and they find a way to get the lead at the end and find a way to win. That’s a great trait by a team.”

The Pack, getting 22 second-half points from Hickson, did end up with its fifth straight victory. But when the game began, only one team seemed interested in playing and it wasn’t N.C. State.

“We came out not focused and took this team for granted,” Hickson said.

Why?

“I’m not sure,” State forward Ben McCauley said. “We just got back from a road trip up to Seton Hall and we had one day’s rest in between. So maybe a little bit [was] heavy legs.”

Maybe. State, which beat Seton Hall on Thursday night, was playing its fourth game in eight days. And there wasn’t much urgency against a WCU team that was No. 318 in one version of the Ratings Percentage Index.

Here’s another reason State struggled in the first half: Western Carolina hit shot after shot.

“They came out with a lot of energy,” NCSU coach Sidney Lowe said.

The Catamounts (4-8) knocked down their first six 3-point shots and were 7-of-10 on 3s in the first half. While the Pack opened the game with five straight turnovers, WCU scored the first eight points and maintained a 10-point lead much of the last 10 minutes of the period.

Brandon Giles, a 6-foot-6 guard, scored 16 first-half points on his way to a 25-point game. WCU also converted 15 points off State’s 11 first-half turnovers.

“We were too relaxed,” State’s Brandon Costner said. “When they got in a rhythm, they had all the momentum. They were knocking down shots. It’s not a good place to be.”

But Lowe didn’t go off on his team at halftime.

“The message was to defend. It was simple — defend,” Lowe said. “I told ‘em I wasn’t worried about offense. I wanted guys who could defend and we came out with good energy.”

After shooting 50 percent in the first half, WCU missed 14 of its first 16 shots on its way to a 24.2-percent second half. The Pack took its first lead of the game, 47-45, on a 3-pointer by Costner with 11:38 to play and led 51-45 after a 19-4 run.

But seven straight points by Giles forced a 55-55 tie with 7:24 left, and the crowd of 14,729 again was uneasy.

Enter Hickson

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N.C. State survives early scare in rout

RALEIGH – It is no secret that N.C. State desperately needs Khadijah Whittington.

So there were tense moments early in the Wolfpack’s 72-53 women’s basketball victory over Western Carolina when Whittington appeared to seriously injure a knee just two minutes into the game.

She went up for an errant pass, and her right knee gave out on her landing. N.C. State coach Kay Yow immediately worried that it was a cartilage or worse, an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

But after missing the rest of the first half, Whittington rejoined her teammates and sparked the Pack (12-3) to an important win.

“I just came down on it wrong. I don’t know what happened,” Whittington said. “… It calmed down. It still just hurts, and we’ll find out what’s wrong with it. But it calmed down when I iced it.”

The senior forward originally was diagnosed with a sprain, but as she created turnovers and sprinted the length of the court for a bucket, it didn’t look too painful.

Whittington finished with 15 points and nine rebounds. Shayla Fields led the Pack with 16 points.

Western Carolina (8-4) is an up-and-coming program that already knocked off then-ranked Louisville and Middle Tennessee. The Catamounts have a higher RPI than the Wolfpack at this point in the season, and they were an opponent State’s coaching staff worried about weeks in advance.

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RALEIGH, N.C. – The Appalachian State Mountaineers will play for their third consecutive football national championship Friday night when they take on the Delaware Blue Hens at Finley Stadium on a state-of-the-art GameDay Grass XPe™ field from AstroTurf.

Quick facts about the Finley Stadium field and AstroTurf GameDay Grass XPe:

• All rubber in-filled system is more forgiving and natural feeling than sand-fill systems.
• Rubber in-fill component is made from post consumer, recycled passenger tires.
• The field contains 337,120 pounds of recycled tires (from Ford Motor Company’s Environmental Program) – approximately 16,856 tires kept out of landfills.
• Advanced drainage system (designed to drain 14″ of rain per hour) retains less moisture, reducing slippage and improving traction.
• The field contains 38,828,100 linear feet of Ten Cate polyethylene fiber equaling 7,353 miles.
• The fiber in the field alone weighs 29,268 pounds.
• The field was completely reconstructed in less than 90 days.
• The surface was engineered to withstand constant use of the community’s many teams and special events throughout the year while maintaining its performance and safety attributes.

About AstroTurf
The iconic AstroTurf brand was recently reintroduced to the sports marketplace by GSV, offering advanced, state-of-the-art, multi-sport and specialized synthetic turf systems with proprietary engineered technologies, leveraging the industry’s only vertically integrated manufacturing system. Recent innovation from GSV includes an exclusive, first-to-market agreement with the developers of a Sports Antimicrobial System (SAS) that includes SportsAide and TurfAide™, treatments designed to help safeguard the health of athletes by protecting facilities against bacteria that can cause dangerous infections such as staph. Powered by the proven AEGIS Microbe Shield®, AstroTurf is the only synthetic turf brand providing TurfAide as a standard manufactured component in all synthetic sports turf products. The relaunch of AstroTurf, including the enlistment of football legend Archie Manning as ambassador for the brand, has positioned it as the leading innovator in the synthetic turf industry, with a growing number of high schools, colleges, professional sports teams and municipalities selecting AstroTurf-branded products for their premium quality, technical superiority and safety. AstroTurfâ is a registered trademark of Textile Management Associates, Inc. To learn more, visit www.astroturfusa.com.

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RALEIGH – The Greater Raleigh Sports Council, the Triangle’s leading sports organization promoting amateur and professional sports in the region, has released the names of the individuals on its newly aligned Steering Committee. Committee member Rick French, President & CEO of Raleigh-based public relations firm French/West/Vaughan will serve as chair. Vice chair will be committee member Molly Sapienza, senior manager of sponsorship marketing for RBC Centura.

The Steering Committee is fully comprised of Lewis Card, Executive Director, Athletic Development and Government Affairs, Saint Augustine’s College; Julie Cooper, VP, Sales & Marketing Manager, SunTrust Bank (Triangle Region); Scott Dupree, Director of Sports Marketing, Greater Raleigh Convention & Visitors Bureau; Elaine Estes Caffrey, State Manager, Managed Care & Marketing, USOncology; Worth Harris, President, Harris Wholesale; Nelle Hotchkiss, Sr. VP, Corporate Relations, NC Electric Membership Corp./Touchstone Energy; JoAnn Miller, VP Marketing Communications, CARQUEST; Davin Olsen, VP Arena Management, Gale Force Holdings, LP/RBC Center; Perry Safran, Attorney, Safran Law Offices; Gary Sobba, General Manager, Tar Heel Sports Marketing; E. Stephen Stroud, SIOR/Chairman, NAI Carolantic Realty, Inc.; and Robert Thorburn, Partner, Ernst & Young, LLP

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RALEIGH – Khadijah Whittington’s 23-point, 16-rebound performance keyed N.C. State to a 74-29 season-opening victory over UNC-Greensboro on Sunday afternoon at Reynolds Coliseum.Whittington’s 20th career double-double also included tying her career-best steals effort with six. She was 10-for-20 from the field and had eight rebounds for N.C. State (1-0).

Redshirt freshman Megan Zullo and sophomore Nikitta Gartrell paced the backcourt with 12 points each for the Wolfpack, which improved to 12-0 all-time over the Spartans, from the Southern Conference.

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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Sophomore midfielder Nikki Washington scored the only goal as top-seeded North Carolina captured the ACC women’s soccer championship with a 1-0 victory Sunday over third-seeded Florida State.The conference title is the third in a row for the Tar Heels and the 18th in the past 19 years the ACC has held a tournament.

UNC (17-3-1) outshot FSU 12-3 in the game, which was a rematch of last season’s ACC title game.

Washington, the tournament MVP, got the winner in the 27th minute. Teammate Meghan Klingenberg crossed the ball to Washington, whose shot hit the left post before going into the net.

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Junior scores career-high 18 points against Arizona St

CHAPEL HILL – There were days when North Carolina junior Rashanda McCants flashed moments of basketball brilliance, then faded to the background as, primarily, a role player.

She said those days have passed. Now the plan is to consistently assert her scoring talents and create opportunities.

“Seriously, that’s my mind-set,” she said on Sunday. “Attack, attack, attack, attack. Put pressure on the defense and in those ways we get the post players open and we get easy scores.”

It worked that way for the eighth-ranked Tar Heels (2-0) on Sunday in a 75-60 victory over No. 12 Arizona State (0-1) in the first game of the State Farm Tip-Off Classic at the Smith Center.

McCants scored a career-high 18 points, and senior forward Erlana Larkins, who scored a team-high 20 points — 12 of which came in the second half when the Tar Heels pulled away from the Sun Devils.

While the Tar Heels were far from a polished product, they found a way — despite 26 turnovers and a disjointed first half — to exert their talent over a sound yet overmatched Arizona State team.

“We got tired and we lost it,” ASU coach Charli Turner said. “You have to play your heart out every possession or you’re not going to be in the game. Because they’re going to run you and rebound relentlessly.”

The Sun Devils reached the NCAA Tournament round of eight last season, but Turner said the level of the program is a notch below North Carolina, which entered this season seeking a national championship after winning three straight ACC championships and making back-to-back Final Four appearances.

Sunday was the Heels’ first of three games against nonconference teams currently ranked in The Associated Press top 25. The Heels face Tennessee on Dec. 2 and Connecticut on Jan. 21.

As those games approach, UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell will try to meld the experience of returning front-court players — senior LaToya Pringle and Larkins — with freshmen Italee Lucas and Cetera DeGraffenreid.

Per Hatchell’s request, the Tar Heels pushed the ball up and down the court on Sunday. They shot 40 percent from the field, scored 21 points off 29 Sun Devils turnovers and outrebounded their opponents 50-29.

The Heels, however, committed 14 turnovers in the first half and Lucas and DeGraffenreid struggled to find a connection with Larkins in the low post.

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