The RSC will honor local a Wake County student athlete as the student athlete of the week for outstanding achievement in the classroom, community and on the field.
Meetings are held in Bradley Hall in Highland UMC, 1901 Ridge Road at the intersection of Lake Boone Trail, just inside the Raleigh Beltline. Buffet lines open at 11:30 a.m. and the meeting starts at 12 noon. See http://www.raleighsportsclub.org/ for details.
Six Tar Heels – Leslie McDonald, Kennedy Meeks, Brice Johnson, Marcus Paige, JP Tokoto and James Michael McAdoo – scored in double figures for the first time this season as the home team extended a 19-point halftime lead to its largest margin of 33 points by game’s end.
UNC trailed 6-4 early but after a McDonald three put the Heels up for the first time at 9-6, the Tar Heels never looked back.
“In the first half early, I didn’t think we were really into it,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “Then we played better defense and we just shot the ball really well.”
Hot shooting – including from beyond the arc and from the free throw line – quickly put Carolina in control.
“That’s a great, great rivalry,” UNC coach Roy Williams said at game’s end. “I loved our guy’s composure down the stretch.”
After a ragged first half, North Carolina trailed by seven and then by 11 in the second half before chipping away at the Blue Devil lead.
Down 60-56 with less than five minutes to go, Leslie McDonald, who twice had missed the front end of one-and-one situations, went to the foul line and calmly drained two free throws to start the run.
James Michael McAdoo scored inside with 4:22 left to tie it at 60-60 and McDonald sank a 15-footer with 3:50 to go that gave Carolina its first lead since midway through the first half.
Marcus Paige banged in a step-back jumper and followed it with a drive-by layup to keep the Heels out front at 66-62 with 1:28 left.
The Tar Heels, who had missed seven free throws in the first half, hit six in a row down the stretch – four by freshman Nate Britt and two by Paige – as they won going away.
Please click here for more on the game.
ESPN’s enhanced coverage of No. 5 Duke at North Carolina on Thursday, Feb. 20, and undefeated No. 1 Syracuse at No. 5 Duke on Saturday, Feb. 22, will include a live studio presence from the sites of both games. Coverage will begin from Chapel Hill on Thursday morning with Rece Davis, Jay Williams and Seth Greenberg providing live reports and analysis through the day and halftime around the rescheduled Duke at North Carolina game (ESPN, 9 p.m. ET).
The crew of Chris Cotter, Jay Bilas and Greenberg will then move to Duke’s campus where they will appear across ESPN platforms from Friday morning through Saturday in anticipation of that day’s Syracuse-Duke rematch (ESPN, 7 p.m.). Saturday’s 6 p.m. College GameDay Covered by State Farm telecast will derive from inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, with the trio also handling halftime live from the court. The crew of Dan Shulman, Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale, along with reporter Shannon Spake, will call the game.
Syracuse remained unbeaten and assumed the No. 1 spot in the national rankings following a 91-89 overtime win in the first meeting between the programs on February 1. The game averaged nearly 4.8 million viewers, making it the network’s third most-viewed regular-season men’s college basketball game on record.
– News release
The Pack went on a 12-4 run at the end of the first half to lead for the first time but they couldn’t keep it going in the second half.
Clemson scored the first seven points of the second half and never looked back.
The Tigers worked the lead up to 14 before State, pressing full court, went on a 7-0 of its own to cut it to 56-49.
But midway through the half, the Wolfpack went cold and failed to score for seven minutes and it was never close down the stretch.
T.J. Warren led the Pack with 20 points and five rebounds, but he also committed six turnovers.
The Wolfpack falls to 16-10 overall and 6-7 in the ACC.
In what North Carolina coach Roy Williams called a “bizarre game,” the Tar Heels overcame a 15-point first-half deficit without foul-plagued James Michael McAdoo to defeat Florida State 81-75 on the road. (2/17)
Coach Williams’ 300th victory wasn’t the easiest of his career.Trailing 21-6 at the second TV timeout, the Carolina players heard an earful from Coach Williams, who did a lot of yelling rather than talking Xs and Os.
The Tar Heels responded by chipping away at the lead, mainly by getting the ball down low to freshman Kennedy Meeks, who scored on a nice feed from Marcus Paige to cut the lead to just 36-33 at the first half buzzer.
Carolina kept it close early in the second half and then managed to tie it on a Desmond Hubert dunk follow and took the lead for the first time on a Nate Britt swish from the right baseline that made it 57-55 with 10 minutes left in the game.
Three triples by Paige over a three-minute period gave the Tar Heels their biggest cushion at 70-62 with less than six minutes to play.
It was Meeks’ best game of the year as he went 11 of 12 for 23 points while Paige scored 20. McAdoo, who had scored double figures in 17 straight games, fouled out without scoring.
For more on the game, please click here.
McAdoo received ACC Player of the Week honors after his game highs of 24 points and 12 rebounds in Saturday’s 75-71 homecourt win over 25th-ranked Pittsburgh. The Norfolk, Va., native posted his fifth double-double of the season while connecting on 11 of 18 shots from the floor. He had seven offensive rebounds and just one turnover in 37 minutes and scored six of his 24 points in the final 4:44, including back-to-back buckets for the Tar Heels after Pitt had gone on a 7-0 run to cut UNC’s lead to 63-61.
Duke’s Parker scored a game-high 23 points and added eight rebounds, one assist, two blocks and a steal in a 69-67 win over Maryland on Saturday. The Chicago native knocked down a pair of 3-point field goals and went 9-of-10 from the free throw line as Duke overcame a late three-point deficit to earn its 20th win of the season. With Duke trailing, 60-59, with just over 4:30 remaining, Parker picked up a loose ball and found Rasheed Sulaimon for a three-point field goal to give Duke a one-point lead. With 1:17 remaining and Duke trailing by one, Parker pulled through from the left wing for an emphatic dunk between three Maryland defenders to give Duke a 68-67 lead. He added a defensive rebound with 59 seconds left and added a block with five seconds remaining as Duke’s defense held Maryland scoreless over the final 2:45 of play.
McAdoo, who has scored in double figures in 17 consecutive games, earned his first ACC Player of the Week honor of the season and the third by a North Carolina student-athlete.
Parker now has 15 20-point games, tied for the third-most by a freshman in league history. He has 10 total ACC weekly honors, having been named ACC Rookie of the Week eight times and ACC Player of the Week twice. Georgia Tech’s Kenny Anderson (1990) and North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough (2006) share the record for ACC Rookie of the Week selections with 10.
– News release
No. 5 NC State baseball fell 3-0 in its season opener, on Sunday against Canisius at Doak Field at Dail Park.
Carlos Rodon (0-1) drew the opening day start and took the loss after allowing one earned over six innings. Rodon finished the day with three runs on four hits, striking out six while walking one.
Andrew Woeck pitched flawlessly as the only arm out of the Wolfpack bullpen, fanning four of nine batters faced and walking none. Woeck shut out the Griffins (1-0) for the final three frames, limiting Canisius to one hit.
Brett Austin, Kyle Cavanaugh, Andrew Knizner, and Garrett Suggs each contributed one hit on the afternoon. Cavanaugh, Knizner, and Suggs were the only true freshmen in the Pack’s opening day lineup.
Canisius starter Rohn Pierce (1-0) claimed the win on seven shutout innings. Alex Godzak earned the save after allowing two hits over the eighth and ninth.
NC State returns to action on Monday, February 17 with a home game against Canisius beginning at 1 p.m. Admission is free to the public. All seating will be general admission.
The loss ended a six-game ACC winning streak for the Pack and makes the team 13-1 at home during the 2013-14 season.
The game was played in front of a lively crowd of 8,114 fans (Reynolds Coliseum capacity: 8,300), State’s highest attendance total of the season. At halftime of the contest, a check was presented to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund in the sum of $45,643.
UNC’s Diamond DeShields led the way for both teams offensively, scoring a career-high 38 points on 12-23 shooting from the field (5-9 from distance). She and the rest of the Tar Heel squad combined to shoot 31-56 (55.4 percent) from the field and 13-23 (56.5 percent) from three-point range.
NC State, at undefeated and No. 1 Syracuse, played the Orange close throughout and had a good chance to win at the end but instead turned the ball over leading to a winning Syracuse layup with seven seconds left.
The Wolfpack’s TJ Warren threw up a three that hit the front of the rim and bounded away, and Syracuse escaped at home by a 56-55 score.
The Pack trailed 52-51 when Syracuse’s Tyler Ennis fouled State’s Ralston Turner as he was shooting a three. Turner, an average free throw shooter at best, drained all three foul shots to put State up 54-52 with just 1:02 left.
Syracuse’s CJ Fair drew a foul with 41 seconds left but hit only one of the two free throws to leave State still up, 55-54.
But State made mistakes to help Syracuse. First, Desmond Lee dribbled the ball off his foot out of bounds after a Syracuse double-team. The Pack got a break of their own when Syracuse’s Ennis pushed off with just 15 seconds left, giving the ball back to State.
After a Syracuse foul, that the State bench thought should have been a continuation bucket by Warren and a free throw, the Wolfpack needed to inbound it and eat clock. Instead, Syracuse’s Rakeem Christmas came up with a steal. Ennis passed to Fair, who went in for a layup with less than seven seconds to go. The ball went in and bounced out because of a State basket interference.
The Wolfpack falls to 16-9 overall, 6-6 in ACC.
