What they're saying about NC State women's basketball
On Saturday afternoon, NC State women’s basketball advanced to the Elite Eight in thrilling and dramatic fashion.
Using late heroics from senior guards Raina Perez and Kai Crutchfield, NC State rallied and scored a last-second 66-63 win over Notre Dame.
The victory improved NC State to 32-3 on the season. The top-seeded Wolfpack will play second-seeded Connecticut in Bridgeport, Conn., with a trip to the Final Four on the line at 7 p.m. on Monday evening on ESPN.
Here is what those who covered and watched NC State’s win over Notre Dame are saying.
• Matt Carter, The Wolfpacker — Raina Perez creating a legacy at NC State women’s basketball
NC State was on the verge of losing a fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. After having a 16-12 lead at the end of the first quarter, NC State fell behind while Notre Dame made its first nine shots of the second quarter.
From that point forward, the Irish controlled the game. On multiple occasions they stretched the advantage to double-digit leads in the second half. With six minutes left, ND still was keeping NC State at arm’s length, up 59-51.
But this NC State women’s basketball has a history of pulling out wins from the jaws of defeat, and with 35.0 seconds left, Cunane stepped to the line with a chance to tie. However, her second free throw missed.
After a timeout and a couple of errant inbound passes knocked out of bounds by NC State, the Irish finally settled into a possession.
Notre Dame senior guard Dara Mabrey made the mistake of turning her back near midcourt at the wrong time on Perez, opening a lane for Perez to reach in from behind and take a swipe at Mabry’s dribble.
“The ball was still stuck on her hip, so I went for it,” Perez noted.
By the time Mabrey was able to start sprinting back, Perez already had several feet in distance between them on her way to an uncontested layup with 14.8 seconds left.
Even as N.C. State stiffened after the intermission and narrowly started to outscore the Irish, Notre Dame entered the fourth with a 7-point advantage. Wes Moore, the Wolfpack coach, was relegated to standing on the sideline a minute into the fourth and hollering a primal plea: “We need to score! We need to score!”
His exhortation, simplistic as it was, reflected the lateness of the hour, how there was only so much time for N.C. State to dodge the kind of March letdown that has teetered toward ritualistic for the program from Raleigh. Simple, though, can be rather formidable in tournament play.
Jada Boyd unleashed a jumper. The margin fell to 5.
Kai Crutchfield’s layup became a 3-point play. Down to 2.
Notre Dame started to rally once more, with a 6-point run of layups.
A flurry of scoring followed. But Notre Dame stopped with 102 seconds to go, its tally forever stubborn at 63 and that of Miles, who made the Irish’s last 3-pointer, held at 21, the most of any player on the floor on Saturday.
Perez’s scoring had been quiet for a while by then, her last burst of scoreboard-worthy offense a 3-pointer she made in the second.
Mabrey, Perez noticed, had turned her back.
State outscored the Irish 20-10 in the fourth quarter after trailing by double digits.
Kai Crutchfield (14 points) started the fourth quarter with a steal and layup. She drew a foul on the play and her free throw made it a two-point Irish lead.
That moment woke up the Pack crowd, outnumbered by fans wearing Notre Dame green.
Crutchfield ended the third quarter with a 3 and her defense turned to instant offense to start the final frame. With Kayla Jones on the bench, and Elissa Cunane and Raina Perez quiet to that point, Crutchfield carried the water for her classmates.
The best player on the floor to that point was Notre Dame freshman Olivia Miles. She answered the bucket from Crutchfield with a layup, just her second basket of the second half. Even when Miles missed it seemed to be a good thing for the Irish.
A missed layup by Miles led to an offensive rebound and score from Maya Dodson, pushing the lead to eight with fewer than six minutes to play.
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Once again, it was Crutchfield for State who got a steal and layup, cutting the lead to six.
“As seniors and as a fifth-year senior, we were determined to get over that hump,” Crutchfield said. “We wanted it more, we did the best we could and came out on top.”
Notre Dame’s overall youth and North Carolina State’s overall experience seemed to collide in the final minutes as the Wolfpack rallied late to stun the Irish, 66-63, in Saturday afternoon’s NCAA Tournament women’s basketball Sweet 16 matchup at Bridgeport, Conn.
A gloriously steep rebound season by ND, from 10-10 last winter, ended at 24-9.
Top-seeded NC State improved to 32-3, avenged a 69-66 regular-season loss to the Irish and advanced to its first Elite Eight since 1998.
“Really, really hard going through this scenario,” second-year Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said, “but I’m super proud of my team. I’m so proud of them coming from last year, not making the tournament, to being one possession away from going to the Elite Eight, and I talked to them about it in the locker room.
“We have come so far,” Ivey said, “and the growth, maturity of this team the entire season, the belief, the buy-in, I could not ask for a more special group. … But again, this hits hard. It’s going to take a long time to recover.”
The Wolfpack came at the fifth-seeded Irish with four senior starters, three of them of the fifth-year variety and the other an All-American in Elissa Cunane, plus a junior, while ND featured two freshmen and a sophomore among its first five.
“Can’t say enough about Notre Dame — man are they gonna be good for a while, a lot of young players that are really tough,” NC State coach Wes Moore said. “We were fortunate there, (but) we had some unbelievable plays down the stretch to win the game, and that’s what they’ve done their whole careers here.”
• Dom Amore, Hartford Courant — NC State steals Sweet 16 win over Notre Dame, 66-63
Notre Dame, after missing the tournament last season, led for nearly 32 minutes, almost all of the second, third and fourth quarters. The Fighting Irish led by as many as 10 as Olivia Miles, with a series of spectacular plays, had 21 points, six rebounds and six assists. Her reverse layup produced a 63-59 lead with 1:48 left.
But NC State edged back in. It missed a chance to tie when Elissa Cunane (16 points, 10 rebounds) missed the second of two free throws with 36 seconds left. Notre Dame, though, had trouble handling the ball against the Wolfpack’s pressure.
Finally, with 18 seconds left Perez, a grad transfer from Cal State Fullerton, tipped the ball away from Dara Mabry and took it to the rim to give NC State its first lead since the first quarter. ND had time for one last shot but Maddy Westbeld missed a 3-pointer and the 5-foot-4 Perez came away with the rebound and drew a foul. She then sank both free throws to end it. Perez was only 2-for-9 from the floor but had four steals.
“[Mabry] turned her back,” Perez said. “The ball was still stuck at her hip so I went for it, got the steal.”
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