who poured in 36 points and nine 3-pointers in a 77-76 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\nNC State (7-4) fell to 0-4 against opponents from the top five conferences \u2014 the type of games that are pivotal to putting together an NCAA Tournament-worthy resume. The Wolfpack previously lost to Seton Hall and Texas at the Maui Invitational and at Auburn.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t won some of these bigger games that we\u2019ve scheduled,\u201d Wade said. \u201cThat\u2019s just a fact. We haven\u2019t won those, but I do think we\u2019re close to winning them. I don\u2019t think every game is a referendum, but we certainly got to start winning some of these. At the end of the day, we got to start winning some of these. We let an opportunity slip by [Saturday].\u201d<\/p>\n
In large part due to Council, who entered the game having made just 5-of-27 3-pointers on the season. But he made a career-high 9-of-15 attempts against the Wolfpack, who opened sagging off Council and allowing him to take shots from long range.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had one guy that was probably the best performer that I think I’ve had on the road in my 23 years on the road at Kansas,\u201d coach Bill Self said. \u201cHe was unbelievable and made hard shots. They dared him to shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n
NC State changed its approach to guarding Council after his third 3-pointer in the first half \u2014 \u201cour line of demarcation,\u201d Wade said \u2014 but Council kept hitting. He made another 3 to open Kansas\u2019 overtime scoring.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll tell his grandkids about that one,\u201d Wade said.<\/p>\n
Kansas (8-3) lost at North Carolina and to Duke in a neutral site game earlier this season. Kansas also beat ACC members Notre Dame and Syracuse this season. The Jayhawks swept games against the three Triangle-area ACC schools last season, as part of home-and-home series with NC State and UNC.<\/p>\n
NC State\u2019s Darrion Williams, who made three important 3-pointers down the stretch, missed a 3 to give the Wolfpack the lead with three seconds left in overtime and missed a final try at the buzzer. Williams tied the score at 66 with a 3-pointer with 38 seconds remaining in regulation and scored off the opening tip in overtime. He then made two 3s in the five-minute overtime.<\/p>\n
Quadir Copeland had 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists for NC State, but he did have six turnovers. Ven-Allen Lubin had 16 points and 11 rebounds, his 13th career double-double.<\/p>\n
Tied at 66, Council missed a runner and Kansas\u2019 Flory Bidunga missed the putback on the Jayhawks\u2019 final possession of regulation. Copeland missed a floater at the buzzer for NC State to send it to overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we played at Maui or we played at Auburn, when stuff got out of hand, we didn\u2019t really necessarily fight back,\u201d said Williams, who finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds. \u201cWe just kind of let what happened, happen. I think we did a better job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
NC State has played the toughest schedule in the ACC so far, according to analytics, which could help during conference play. Wade said the team is showing improvement with its defense, which struggled badly against Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we keep making progress, I feel really good about where we\u2019ll be at the end of the year,\u201d Wade said. \u201cI think we\u2019ll like where we are and we\u2019ll appreciate the struggle. But sometimes to get to this side, you\u2019ve got to go through some struggle and that\u2019s certainly what we\u2019re doing right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wolfpack host Texas Southern at Reynolds Coliseum on Wednesday and have one big non-conference game left \u2014 vs. Ole Miss in Greensboro on Dec. 21 \u2013 before beginning ACC play.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe results right now are lagging from our work,\u201d Wade said. \u201cThe results haven\u2019t shown on the scoreboard yet, but we\u2019re massively better than we were 10 days ago when we left Auburn. The team\u2019s a lot better. You can splinter when you\u2019re taking on water on these losses like this, but I don\u2019t believe this group will.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wolfpack have victories over solid programs like Liberty and Boise State that could make noise within their own leagues and improve NC State\u2019s lot moving toward March. The Wolfpack rank No. 30 in the NET, a key tool for picking NCAA Tournament at-large teams.<\/p>\n
But Wade arrived with a bravado, a swagger and wins over bluebloods like Kansas and new bloods like Auburn \u2014 not Liberty and Boise State \u2014 were part of that agenda.<\/p>\n
During his introductory press conference, Wade promised that \u201cour time is right now\u201d and said with NC State aligned behind men\u2019s basketball it would be a \u201creckoning\u201d for the ACC and for college basketball. \u201cIt\u2019s coming soon,\u201d he said, promising an NCAA Tournament berth. He vowed to deliver a consistent winner, catnip to NC State fans eager for year-in and year-out success.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we where we want to be? Absolutely not,\u201d Wade said. \u201cI appreciate our fans [Saturday]. I\u2019m disappointed for them. I\u2019m disappointed that we haven\u2019t been able to put a better product out there for them. But we will. We will. And I feel like in short order, this team is going to continue to get better. We\u2019re going to continue to move forward and, in the coming weeks, we\u2019re going to be a lot different team, a lot better team.\u201d<\/p>\n
In front of an amped-up Lenovo Center crowd, the Wolfpack pushed No. 19 Kansas to overtime, but couldn\u2019t overcome a career night from Melvin Council Jr., who poured in 36 points and nine 3-pointers in a 77-76 victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RALEIGH \u2014 NC State and coach Will Wade, guarantor of the \u201creckoning\u201d and an NCAA Tournament berth in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[102298,99],"class_list":["post-347604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-nc-state-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}