What they're saying: NC State women's basketball rallies past Louisville
Fourth-ranked NC State women’s basketball defied the odds with a dramatic fourth quarter rally, going on a 31-4 run to spark what would be a 69-59 home win over No. 3 Louisville.
Entering Thursday, teams trailing by 14 points at the end of the third quarter had a win-loss record of 3-1,278 in college women’s basketball this season. The Pack ended up outscoring Louisville 31-8 in the final frame, the most lopsided fourth quarter in a top-five showdown since the sport went to quarters.
Here is what those who covered the game are saying about the performance.
“I just reminded them at halftime, ‘You can either keep doing what you’re doing and be totally embarrassed, or you can do something really special.’
“They chose to do something special, thank goodness.”
NC State head coach Wes Moore
One thing about Johnson, though, is she believes in herself. On her wrist, she wears a message written on her tape: ‘Nobody Can Stop You But You.’
That was her mindset heading into the fourth quarter. Johnson wouldn’t stop herself. Louisville couldn’t stop her either. She scored 14 of her team-high 16 points in the fourth quarter.
In the final frame, N.C. State outscored the Cardinals 31-8. And Johnson wouldn’t be denied.
“She gives us juice when she comes in,” Wolfpack head coach Wes Moore said. “Tonight she was able, in a lot of ways, take over the game.”
Johnson scored a layup to cut the Louisville lead to 10. No big deal after the way the Cardinals had dominated the game to that point. Minutes later, a triple put the home team up two and all of sudden Reynolds was alive. It wasn’t just Reynolds gaining life. Johnson was suddenly in a zone and nobody could slow the 5-5 Philadelphia native down.
Her next 3 put the Wolfpack up three. After that all the momentum shifted and Johnson, along with her teammates, were in attack mode.
There were times against Louisville that Johnson looked down at her wrist while she was on the bench.
“It just gives me a reminder of who I am,” Johnson said. “Don’t lose your confidence, just keep shooting. My shot wasn’t falling the first three quarters, so, just keeping confidence. That’s what it’s basically there for.”
Anyone who has watched N.C. State the past few years, especially in the ACC Tournament, has seen this movie before.
The Wolfpack like to make it interesting, and that’s what happened at Reynolds Coliseum against No. 3 Louisville.
No. 4 N.C. State erased a 16-point lead in four minutes, igniting the capacity crowd and picking up its third straight home win over a ranked opponent. In one of the most impressive games of the year, the Pack came alive in the fourth quarter and knocked off the Cardinals, 68-60.
“Really proud of the effort and the way we fought back,” State head coach Wes Moore said. “You have to give Louisville credit, they came in here and they were the aggressor. They manhandled us on the boards, every which way possible. They were confident, they were knocking down shots. Finally in the fourth quarter I decided let’s go with the veterans.”
State veterans Diamond Johnson, Elissa Cunane and Jakia Brown-Turner combined for 29 points in the fourth. N.C. State went on an 11-0 run to pull within one after trailing by double-digits most of the game. Johnson’s 3 with 5:31 remaining gave N.C. State its first lead (55-53) since it led 11-10 in the first quarter.
In a game that looked all but over for NC State’s women’s basketball team, the No. 4 Wolfpack came up with a fourth quarter for the ages Thursday and a 68-59 victory over No. 3 Louisville that could have NCAA tournament seeding implications.
Down by 14 entering the final period after trailing throughout the game, the Wolfpack scored almost as many points in the last 10 minutes (31) as they did in the first 30 (37). The win put NC State in the driver’s seat in the ACC standings race at 8-0, while Louisville is 5-1.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, the Wolfpack’s comeback was the fourth-largest fourth-quarter deficit made up this season in women’s basketball. Teams trailing by at least 14 points going into the final period were 3-1,278 going into Thursday night’s action.
And Louisville was 83-1 over the past five seasons when it had a halftime lead of double digits. The only loss in that stretch before Thursday was in last season’s NCAA Elite Eight game against Stanford, which trailed Louisville 38-26 at halftime but won 78-63 on the way to the national championship.
Louisville, 15-2 overall, has one of the top-rated defenses in Division I and it flummoxed the Wolfpack for much of the game. NC State, 17-2, scored just six points in a particularly frustrating second quarter. But the Wolfpack didn’t give up hope, and things finally turned around in a big way in the fourth quarter.
“We started hitting shots, we started getting some stops, got a couple of turnovers off the press that I really thought got the crowd into it,” NC State coach Wes Moore said of the fans at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina. “It’s a great, great win for our program. I just have so much respect for Louisville. They came in with that 1-3-1 zone and we had some trouble with it.”
• Brett Friedlander, North State Journal: Epic comeback catapults Wolfpack women past Louisville
With his fourth-ranked team trailing No. 3 Louisville by double digits and playing poorly on both ends of the court, coach Wes Moore issued a stern but direct challenge to his NC State women’s basketball team at halftime on Thursday.
“I just reminded them that you can either keep doing what you’re doing and be totally embarrassed or you can do something really special,” he said. “They chose something special, thank goodness.”
Did they ever.
It took a full quarter for the turnaround to finally begin. But once the blitz got started, the Wolfpack literally couldn’t be stopped.
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Led by the hot shooting of Diamond Johnson and Jakia Brown-Turner and fueled by a raucous sellout crowd at Reynolds Coliseum, State roared back from a 14-point fourth quarter deficit to stun the Cardinals 68-59.
“It was an unbelievable comeback win against a great team and a great coach,” Moore said. “We were fortunate it worked out.”
Diamond Johnson finally got her chance to shine.
The guard from Philadelphia, ranked the No. 6 overall prospect coming out of high school in 2020 by ESPN, has had moments of brilliance since her transfer to NC State from Rutgers last spring.
But nothing like this.
Johnson took control of Thursday’s game against No. 3 Louisville in the fourth quarter and flipped the momentum, turning a season-high 16-point deficit into a nine-point victory for the fourth-ranked Wolfpack (17-2, 8-0).
She scored 14 of her team-high 16 points in the final frame, shooting 5-of-7 from the field in that span, including 3-of-4 from 3-point range, as NC State claimed a 68-59 victory in the top-five matchup.
“I never lost my confidence,” she said after the win. “I know who I am. I know what I can do.”
Pressure makes diamonds, after all.
Maybe that’s why she seemed perfectly calm and composed releasing a 3-pointer on a kickout from Elissa Cunane that would sail through the net and give NC State a 55-53 lead with 5:37 remaining. That shot gave the Wolfpack its first advantage since the game was only six minutes old.
“That was the shot that kind of gave her the juice,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “She was the best player on the court in the fourth quarter, there’s no question about it.”
For three quarters Louisville looked like the best team in the country.
It defended well, holding the best three-point shooting team in the country to one made shot from deep through three quarters. And for Louisville that starts everything.
But even more than the defense, Louisville was efficient on the offensive end, too. Emily Engstler had 15 points and 11 rebounds. Hailey Van Lith had 14 points.
It turned its defense into offense early and often.
“For three quarters we played patient, we executed, we got the ball reversed, but it was because we guarded first,” Walz said.
What was even more impressive was Olivia Cochran’s performance against All-American Elissa Cunane. The sophomore had 19 points in the game. When she’s playing well on both ends of the floor, Louisville is a hard team to stop and the Wolfpack saw that.
On top of individual performances, Louisville forced NC State into 15 turnovers, scored 19 second-chance points and outscored NC State 32-28 in the paint.
Louisville was the best team on the floor for 32 minutes. But to beat a top-5 team on the road you have to be great for 40 minutes.
Walz took blame for getting NC State in a rhythm down 12 by switching to Louisville’s 1-3-1 zone, NC State guard Diamond Johnson hit a three and everything started spiraling.
“She got one wide open one and then that got her going, that was a bad call on my part,” Walz said. “Then we got out of sorts.”
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