By james art 
Durham – NC State played perhaps its best half of the season, and then became a battle everywhere.
Duke freshman ahead forward Cooper Flagg He scored 23 of their highest 28 points in the second half, and Blue Devils with # 2 did enough, as on Monday at Cameron Stadium indoors.
Duke looked mortal, despite its overall record with 18-2 and 10-0 in ACC. Flag, however, turned out to be a difficult match, especially if it hadn’t been guarded by NCSU senior striker Dontrez StylesS NC State also missed the Styles crime as he had 18 points and went 4 out of 6 to three indicators.
After Stiles fell into trouble, Flag took, whether he made a few triphoners or just driving to the rim and creating discrepancies.
“Usually we switch one-fourth-four, but it’s hard to turn to it,” NCSU coach Kevin Keats He said. “We went big then and Bin [Middlebrooks] Ful him once he made a three -point shot. “
The NC State losing series reached five straight games, and seven of the last eight fell to 9-11 as a whole and 2-7 in ACC. NCSU hosts Clemson at 1:30 pm Saturday on the CW network.
“What we talked about is that we were on the unhappy side of a lot, you know, wins and lost this year,” Keats said. “What I told them is,” Hey, if you can stay consistent and play the way we played tonight, “and Duke is good. Probably the # 1 team in the country.”
Flagg is designed as a # 1 choice in the NBA draft this June and he played as in the second half. When Stiles came out with three fouls with 17:44 left in the game, Wolfpack tried a variety of defenders against him, but he was either too long and athletic or too qualified by the perimeter.
“Cooper is as good as it is advertised and I think it’s the difference in the game,” Keats said, “If I had a Cooper Flag, I could win it.”
NC State hoped to withdraw from the disorder and was only 63-62 after senior guard Marcus Hill Playing three points with 4:40 remains. However, what is the trend of the latest losses, Wolfpack was exceeding 11-2 from that moment on.
The NC State came out hot from a three-point land to take a lead of 37-33 at halftime. Wolfpack went 7 out of 12, easily outputing efforts to shoot the last two games against SMU and California – NCSU went 5 out of 34 in these two losses.
Hot shooting from Styles and also senior guardian Jaden Taylor Helped to build 35-22 leads with 4:14 left in the first half.
“Their strength attacks the basket and plays in the paint and the middle range and the pull and all that,” the Duke coach coach coach John Sheyer He said. “Tonight they hit the triples. So I thought we were spread then. So then they started to drive us again.”
The NC state defense was also as best as possible as the styles fought with Flagg as much as possible. Flag went 2 of 7 of the pitch for just five points. The Blue Devils received three triphoners from a fellow freshman KON KNUEPELBut the rest of the team went 0 out of 8 beyond the rainbow. Knuepel finished with 19 points and went 3 out of 10 to three indicators.
“I thought we had a great movement of a player and a ball,” Keats said. “I thought we really shared basketball. We were able to go out and go.”
The good will, accumulated from the first half, was closed with the Duke, continued with 12-0 to start the second half to build a lead by 45-37 with the remaining 14:25 in the game. Adding at the end of the first half and it was 19-0 for the Blue Devils.
Nc state freshman Treiman Parker The spark became unlikely and scored 10 of their 15 points in the second half for a new maximum career. Parker played only three to no avail minutes against SMU on Saturday and is not a factor since November.
“I’m very excited about our young boys,” Keats said. “We don’t have Mike James and we needed another guard to activate.”
Parker entered the game, shooting 6 out of 19 for 14 points in the matches December 4. 25, and they broke these numbers overnight, passing 6 out of 9 of the pitch and 3 out of 4 points in 19 minutes.
“He didn’t change it a little, he changed him a lot,” Sheyer said. “I want to say that he is a sacred smoke, man. Like he was fast. The way he was shooting it was a little different.”
The state NC stunned the Duke in Washington, Colombia County, in the quarterfinals of the ACC 74-69 tournament last year. Wolfpack then had a rematch in the elite eight of the NCAA tournament. NC State controls the action and center DJ BURNS There were 29 points in Victory 76-64 on March 31 in Dallas. NCSU has reached the final four for the first time since 1983.
Winning three in a row against Duke did not happen since 1987-88. Winning in Duke was also a dry spell.
The last time the NC State won in Duke was 84-82 on January 23, 2017 in what is simply known as “Dennis Smith Game. “Smith had 32 points and Abdul-Malik Abu Added 19 and Wolfpack heads future NBA players Jason Tatum., Luke Kennard., Harry Jails and Grayson AllenS
Keats said there was simply no man, as Duke does.
“We didn’t want the game to get out of us and we relied on our protection,” Keats said. “Our thought our defense was really good tonight [Duke shot 39.0 percent]S “
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