Wolfpack upsets Duke in ACC tournament

Down two points for the second consecutive possession, Chelsea Gray drove to the lane against her defender and drew a foul for a one-and-one opportunity with two seconds remaining. The point guard missed the front end, however, and the ball bounced out of bounds off the Blue Devils, helping N.C. State pull off the ACC tournament’s biggest upset in its history.

Duke fell to the Wolfpack 75-73 at the Greensboro Coliseum Friday afternoon, becoming the first No. 1 seed to fall in its first ACC tournament game. The Blue Devils beat N.C. State 83-59 at home Jan. 8, but they struggled to break away Friday, never building more than a two-point lead and trailing by as much as seven.

“We were becoming a jump-shooting team at times,” Duke head coach Joanne P. McCallie said. "They were physical and we have to match that."

Behind a career-high 16 first-half points from Gray though, the Blue Devils entered the locker room up 37-36 at the break.

“I think we did some nice things of course, but I think we were not nearly as urgent as we need to be,” McCallie said.

Duke opened up the second half with a more aggressive offensive attack as Elizabeth Williams and Shay Selby each joined Gray in double figures. With just under 13 minutes to play, the Blue Devils had stretched their lead to six, up 54-48, but a quick counter from the Wolfpack gave their leading scorer, Marissa Kastanek, a chance to cut that deficit in half.

“There’s one play that summarized the game for me,” McCallie said. “We got a nice score… and as we were setting our defense, they hucked it up the floor and [Kastanek] hit a three.... That should never happen."

Scoring 17 points off turnovers to the Blue Devils’ six, N.C. State kept itself within striking distance throughout the second half. Then, the Wolfpack went on a 15-3 run to pull ahead 73-65 with 2:54 remaining, during which Williams picked up three fouls in less than a minute to foul out of the game.

“It’s a great lesson for Elizabeth to not have two fouls, you know, 93 feet from the bucket,” McCallie said. “That’s an important concept for her. She’s never been in that situation before, and I know that she was playing very hard and trying to play hard, but… you’ve got to be very smart. And she got those two so fast.”

Down eight points without its center, who had tallied 12 points and recorded an ACC tournament-record seven blocks, Duke suddenly found itself needing a comeback to avoid the upset.

“The last five minutes was a battle,” Blue Devils guard Tricia Liston said. “We still needed to be aggressive and create.”

Liston wasted little time bringing Duke back into the game, hitting consecutive 3-pointers to put the Blue Devils within two points with 1:18 remaining. Following a Duke defensive stop, Liston could not come up a third time, though, as her layup attempt rolled just off the lip of the rim.

The Blue Devils got a second chance on Gray’s drawn foul, but her missed free throw capped off Duke's 47.4-percent shooting night from the charity stripe and crushed any hope for overtime.

“There’s no place to relax in March, and I think it’s a very valuable lesson for us to learn,” McCallie said.

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