Zoe Brooks embraced ACC Tournament spotlight in NC State win over Duke
GREENSBORO, N.C.— Zoe Brooks is no stranger to the postseason stage. She out-dueled Notre Dame point guard Hannah Hidalgo last year to win a New Jersey sectional championship as a high school senior.
The Wolfpack point guard hit the winning shot at the buzzer that day, capping off a 33-point performance. Hidalgo scored 19 points in the loss, and now both freshman guards are playing huge roles on ACC semi finalist teams.
Brooks’ standout performance helped NC State advance to the league’s final four Friday evening. She scored 12 points, dished out 5 assists and swiped 3 steals in the 54-51 win over Duke. The ACC postseason exceeded her expectations.
“It’s more than I expected it to be… I thought the atmosphere was great, and it was a lot of fun,” Brooks said.
In the year following her high school championship game winner, she joined Team USA at the Nike Hoop Summit, moved to Raleigh, recorded a triple-double in her tenth career college game and made the ACC’s all-freshman squad.
“I think I’ve grown a lot,” Brooks said. “Coming in here, I had a lot of things that I had to improve on. I watched a lot of film and listened to my coaches, and I think I made a lot of progress from the beginning of the year.”
She finished second in sixth person of the year voting. Matched up against Duke guard Oluchi Okananwa, who won the award, Brooks helped the Pack gut out a tournament win and avenge its previous loss to the Blue Devils.
After Duke held her to 2 points on 1 of 6 shooting in their first meeting of the season, Brooks has scored in double-digits in each of their past two matchups against the Research Triangle rival.
NC State’s bench, which is pretty much entirely made up of freshmen, stepped up when it needed to Friday. In addition to Brooks’ heroics, freshman forward Maddie Cox also grabbed 3 boards in 5 minutes during a critical stretch of the second quarter.
The program needed its first-year players to grow up fast this season. Brooks ended the first half with two missed free throws after she recorded 1 of her 3 steals against Duke. She went into the locker room with her head down. Junior guard Aziaha James and the rest of the Pack’s veterans quickly lifted up their teammate.
“We got to her and said ‘Look, you’re not a freshman. You’ve got to step up,’” James said. “And that’s what she did.”
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NC State’s freshman-turned-veteran then put up 10 points over the final 20 minutes, leading the Wolfpack in scoring.
“The second half is a whole new game,” Brooks said. “I think my teammates just picked me up and told me that and helped me get going.”.
This time last year, the Wolfpack exited the tournament in the quarterfinals while Brooks finished up her senior year. She elevated NC State to victory Friday night, returning the Wolfpack to its winning ways in Greensboro.
In her first collegiate postseason game, she wove through Duke’s full court pressure with the composure of an upperclassmen. She accounted for 0 of the Wolfpack’s 15 turnovers. NC State has full trust in its first-year guard. Graduate center River Baldwin often finds herself on the receiving end of Brook’s assists and said the team can always count on her to make the correct read.
“I trust her wholeheartedly that she’s going to draw two and make the right decision on offense,” Baldwin said.
Brooks met the freshman wall, leapt over it and helped catapult the Wolfpack into a Saturday semi final showdown.
“Zoe stepped up in a big way,” head coach Wes Moore said. “For a freshman on this stage for the first time, proud of what she did.”
