Wolfpack women open ACC Tournament with Virginia Tech rubber match
NC State women’s basketball comes into this year’s ACC Tournament coming off a highly successful regular season that saw the Wolfpack finish 17-2 overall and 12-2 in conference play.
But this season was never about the regular season. The Pack has much higher goals that involve making a deep run in this year’s postseason.
That starts this weekend in Greensboro, with NC State looking to capture a second straight ACC Championship going into the NCAA Tournament. The Wolfpack comes into this tournament knowing it’s going to face pressure and get everyone’s best shot -- but also knowing it has the confidence that its players have the experience and knowledge needed to get the job done.
“I think there’s two parts to it,” said Elissa Cunane. “Obviously there is a little pressure being ACC champions last year and also having that number in front of our name. There’s a little bit every single time we step on the court of pressure to perform up to that level. But I think that we as a team know that those numbers and that ACC championship last year, they don’t matter. We have the confidence that this year we can step on the court and beat anyone. Although there is pressure and although from the outside it does seem like there’s a lot of pressure of ‘Oh, how is NC State going to do,’ we’re really just focused internally on us performing to what we can do.”
One thing NC State knows it will have to contend with in order to repeat as champions is a string of quality opponents.
“To only lose two games in this league is tough to do,” said head coach Wes Moore. “I see some teams that have more losses than that, and they’re really good teams. I don’t think the seeding mattered at all in this tournament, because in our case, if you’re able to have success, you’re going to have three really tough games if you’re able to win those games. So it doesn’t really matter who it is. You’re going to be challenged.”
NC State will certainly be challenged right off the bat as it opens its tournament play Friday night at 6 p.m. against Virginia Tech. The Hokies are perhaps the poster child for “seeding not mattering”.
Despite finishing the regular season 8-8 in conference play and as the seventh seed in this year’s tournament, the Hokies are a tough out on a nightly basis. Their losses have come by an average of only 4.6 points. They have three players, Aisha Sheppard, Elizabeth Kitley, and Georgia Amoore, scoring in double figures.
And furthermore, the Hokies won six of seven games to close out the regular season before a 72-64 tournament victory over Miami Thursday night to advance to Friday’s matchup. If there’s any team that does not need a reminder about the dangers the Hokies’ present, however, it’s NC State.
Looking at potential opponents in this year’s tournament, the Wolfpack couldn’t have asked for a better script. That Hokies’ run of six wins in seven games started against NC State. When NC State returned from its three-week COVID pause in late January, it came back with two games in five days against Virginia Tech.
The Wolfpack needed a 27-12 run to wipe out a 13-point, fourth-quarter deficit and win 89-87 at Reynolds Coliseum. Four days later, the Pack suffered its first defeat of the season, an 83-71 overtime loss in Blacksburg. While this NC State team isn’t in the business of making excuses, there’s an obvious caveat that both games came without Cunane on the court.
The Pack will be highly motivated to win the rubber match -- for the obvious reason of its title hopes, but also for a measure of revenge. At the same time, everyone knows the difficulties of facing an opponent for a third time.
“Playing a team for a third time is definitely a challenge,” said senior Kai Crutchfield, who scored 20 points against the Hokies in Raleigh, with 10 coming in the fourth-quarter comeback. “Even beating a team twice is a challenge. But, I mean, this league is great. The ACC league is great. I feel like we’re going to have to be on our toes, we’re going to have to execute on offense and defense regardless of who we play. Beating a team for a third time is definitely a challenge.”
One of the most motivated players for the third matchup is someone, as mentioned before, who didn’t play in either of the first two.
Cunane missed both contests as she recovered from a bout with COVID. While it was frustrating for her not to be able to help her team, she was also able to learn a lot from watching the Hokies that she feels can help her make a difference this time around.
“It definitely was really hard to sit out and watch my team play them twice back to back within a short span of days,” Cunane said. “I think I was definitely able to learn a lot about their players watching from the sideline, as well as how our team was able to go up against them. But playing a team three times, especially in the ACC, it’s gonna be a tough matchup. It’d be cool to play them. It almost seems like fate with the ACC Tournament in Greensboro as well as me missing the games earlier this season. We’ll have to see what happens.”
Cunane was right, and the Wolfpack and Hokies will meet again. NC State knows it will have its hands full and will need to do a better job of containing Virginia Tech’s duo of Sheppard and Kitley, both of whom have given the Wolfpack fits.
Sheppard had a stellar season, with nearly 19 points and over three assists per game. Against NC State the last two seasons she’s averaged 23 points per game. Sheppard exited Thursday's game with a reaggravation of an ankle injury, but based on Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks’ comments, she should be available against the Wolfpack.
Kitley has also given NC State problems. She’s averaging a double-double on the season with 18 points and 11 rebounds per game and put up 41 blocks. In two games against the Wolfpack she averaged 24 points and 12 boards.
Of course, this time around the Pack will have Cunane to match up against the Hokies’ 6-foot-5 center. As fate would have it, Cunane and Kitley also know each other well. They both hail from the town of Summerfield, NC, a stone’s throw away from Greensboro.
“I think she has improved tremendously,” Moore said. “The little stepback move, stepback fadeaway is hard to defend. It’s just so tough your freshman year, I think, to go from high school to this level, the ACC level. I think she’s definitely benefited from that and going against better players every day in practice.
“Her and [Elissa Cunane] are really tight friends. They have gone head-to-head against each other growing up in their practices. In high school they played on different teams. I think they know each other well. Obviously we tried to recruit Liz, but I think she also understood that we already had Elissa here a year ahead of her. I think they both probably knew that they might have to go their own ways. But she’s a problem. She’s somebody that you definitely have to prepare for and hope you can slow her down just a little bit.”
If NC State wants to achieve its goal this weekend of repeating as ACC Champions, it’s going to have to slow down Kitley, Sheppard, and the rest of the Hokies, too. This Wolfpack team goes into the tournament with the confidence and motivation needed to achieve that winning feeling again.
That starts with a rubber match against Virginia Tech – an opponent the Pack should have all of the motivation in the world against.