State got their win, their fans are happy, and Carolina basically looked like they didn’t want to be on the floor with them. After losing to Louisville by 41 and then gagging a seven-point lead in a minute to Miami, they finally found something worth fighting for—beating a Carolina team missing their two best players.
Carolina played like they knew they had no chance because they were missing Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar. They basically prayed that they would make threes and when they didn’t they would keep
trying to make threes. When that didn’t work they shot more threes.
Really when you lose in a game that the opponent really is giving you every chance to get into and you just refuse, it’s hard to name anyone as a Player of the Game. That said, you do have to give some kudos to one player who’ll be important when Veesaar and Wilson return, and that’s Jarin Stevenson.
Stevenson didn’t make a three, but he at least tried to get points closer to the basket scoring 13 overall—doing so on 4-7 shooting and 5-5 from the free throw line. He also pulled down nine rebounds and didn’t have a single turnover which on its own was a big accomplishment.
Many would wonder why Zayden High wouldn’t get this shoutout — and indeed he was one of the best players on the court for Carolina.
That was the problem.
High also scored 13 but let’s be honest, when both Veesaar and Wilson are back his minutes are going to be severely curtailed and on Tuesday night we saw why. He’s just a problem on defense, as by the end State was just able to go in at will against him. He ended up fouling out, his free throw shooting was only 5-8, and he had four turnovers in a game where valuing the ball was needed. He also took another ill-advised three-point shot with the rest of the team — at least Stevenson has a history of makes. Make no mistake, High had a good game and he was a big reason why Carolina was still in it for as long as they were.
Honestly everyone else was just horrid. There’s no other word for it but horrid. Well, there is, but it’s not really fit to type so we’ll go with horrid. Listening to the Tar Heel Sports Network call was instructive as Tyler Hansbrough was on color, and he kept harping all night about how no one was running any offense. As the referees actually seemed to want to call fouls on State, the Tar Heels refused to go inside more. Everyone else who suited up for Carolina Tuesday night just played horribly. It’s almost as if beating a bad Pitt team lulled them into thinking they could go on the road and beat a desperate State team who was going to treat this game like no other one mattered.
Instead they helped Will Wade cash the checks his mouth had written, and they’ll have to move on to Syracuse on Saturday with the smell of this effort fresh in their nostrils. If Veesaar and Wilson are still out they are going to need to remember this is an Orange team also desperate for a win and looking to complete the job they had a few weeks ago with the near comeback.
