State Steals One... Literally
Pack Wins 79-77 in overtime on Gavin Grant's steal and layup with 2.1 seconds left
Just when everyone thought it was over, the Wolfpack who had been held scoreless in overtime scored seven points in the last 17.7 seconds to stun the Hurricanes. The biggest sequence came in the final 5 seconds when J.J. Hickson followed Gavin Grant's shot to tie the score at 77. Grant stole the inbound pass and hit a layup with 2.1 seconds for the win.
With the Wolfpack win, there a no winless teams left in the ACC. Ga Tech and Virginia both won earlier on Saturday.
... and we thought the end of the Carolina game was exciting...
WOW!
7 comments:
2 things jump to mind:
1) Have you ever seen worse tv coverage than what happened at the end of the game? The move for a shot at Sydney, and completely miss the most important play of the game.
2) This is the sort of things that usually happens TO State, not BY State. But like the Nova game earlier this year, Gavin pulls a miracle.
3) OK, 3 comments. If you didn't see the post game comments with Gavin Grant, you missed a real treat. Very seldom do you get to see a college athlete unfiltered these days. You get them on the court beside the coach, and they are generally either whooping it up or maybe because the coach is standing there with them, they give some normal coachspeak type answers. After this game and after Sydney did a quick interview, Gavin sat down for a few minutes to talk about the game. He was flying high on adrenaline having just won the game with some unbelievable play, and he was just awesome. You could feel the genuine excitement he felt, he was talking too fast to be filtering anything, and you got to see something we just don't get to see much of anymore - a very bright college senior talking in a very intelligent way about his team and the game, but most importantly, being real and having fun.
Way to be Gavin, we are proud to have you, and nice job Sidney for letting the kid sit down to talk and not hanging around to worry about what he says.
I didn't even realize the "scored seven points in the last 17.7 seconds to stun the Hurricanes"
That should rank it up there with the famous 8 points in 17 seconds right? If I remember right, in that famous Carolina comeback over Duke, it was just to take them to overtime. I guess this won't be as famous because it wasn't a rivalry game, and didn't include a crazy long bank shot.
non-rivalry game or not, it was exciting to watch, even for a novice like me...
Gavin always wanted to be the next Hodge so I bet he was really loving it. I was pleasantly surprised too by how poised and intelligent he was in that moment.
Larry Harris keeping Sid from jumping to celebrate was pretty funny too, looks like something that would have happened to V.
I was afraid Ben was trying too hard as you just new he was going to push, but he got it back with those free throws. Fells with the big 3, Javier with the long pass, Hickson with the stick back, and Gavin. Lot of guys stepped up at the end and that may be a good sign.
Definitely the kind of game State usually loses. With that particular ending, I wish it could have been against the heels in the dean dome with Dudley Bradley watching.
Interesting Costner wasn't on the floor at the end. He played a great game, but he's just got to get stronger. People are really taking the ball away from him off the boards.
I wondered what had Costner sitting at the end. In the post-game interview, Sid said he needed to get more rebounding into the line-up.
Did anyone notice the slick passing between Hickson and Costner in the 1st Half? If we could get those guys to look for those interior passes and then kick out to Fells, we could do some damage.
Hadn't seen anyone kill us like McClinton did in the 2nd half since JJ left Duke.
It's been a LONG time, but I remember getting excited after a couple games when Shack and Washburn showed some really slick interior passing. Wicked fun when it works. Lowe has some big men if he can get them to play together. And get somebody to run the point.
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