Dook

Last night’s loss hurt.

We were up by 19 the first half and 20 the second half.

Unfortunately, State suffers from a self fulfilling reputation. We get into foul trouble; so the refs know we get into foul trouble; therefore they expect us to foul and call any questionable foul on us.

Actually, we are prone to picking up some dumb fouls. But we don’t foul anywhere as much as we’re called for.

Last night it hurt us bad. We were in foul trouble already in the first half – and then about midway through the second half we had a time where we quickly picked up a couple legitimate fouls but were then called for some that weren't quite as real.

With guys having to sit on the bench, we just don’t have any depth beyond 7 players. Couple that with Dook’s really great athletes and momentum shift – and the game slipped away from us. You could see our players getting rattled and panicky.

Bottom line - Dook has overall better athletes, much greater bench depth, a self-fulfilling reputation for not fouling and the Cameron Indoor Stadium home court advantage.

All that is hard to overcome for a team like NC State. Even with a huge lead.

That . . . . and the fact I’m pretty sure Krzyzewski has sold his children’s souls to Satan.