It took a huge second-half trip from Aziaha James, however NC State is headed to its 2nd Elite Eight in the last 3 seasons.
The Wolfpack rallied out of a 10-point halftime deficit and shocked Cameron Brink and Stanford to get a 77-67 win in their Sweet 16 match at the Moda Center in Portland on Friday afternoon. That formally sent them into their 3rd Elite Eight in program history, and ended Brink’s profession at Stanford while doing so. James scored all however 4 of her 29 points in the 2nd half, which almost outscored Stanford as a system in the last 2 quarters.
Stanford took a comfy 10-point lead into halftime after a reasonably sluggish very first quarter, and the Cardinal appeared poised to run away with the video game behind a dominant start from Brink– who had 5 blocks in the very first 20 minutes.
It was the Wolfpack who came out of the locker space shooting. They opened the 2nd half on a 16-6 burst, and after that utilized an extremely fast 13-2 run over simply a 2:30 period to unexpectedly take the lead. The Wolfpack held Stanford to simply 10 points amount to in the 3rd quarter, and Saniya Rivers sank a substantial layup at the buzzer to end the duration and provide an eight-point benefit.
James then opened the 4th quarter with a big 3-pointer from the logo design, and Zoe Brooks followed it with a layup after a James take. Easily, the Wolfpack had actually burst a double digit lead.
Verge, who got her 4th nasty in the 3rd quarter, then fouled out with 8:10 left in the video game. She completed simply shy of a double-double with 13 points and 9 rebounds. She likewise tallied 7 blocks.
With Brink out of the method, James and the Wolfpack merely hung on to get the 10-point win.
Kiki Iriafen led the Cardinal with 26 points and 10 rebounds in the loss, and Hannah Jump ended up with 13 points after shooting 5-of-11 from the field. They shot simply 5-of-25 from behind the arc as a group, all however 2 of which came from Jump, and they devoted 14 turnovers. They were an ideal 17-0 when leading by double digits at halftime this season going into Friday’s video game.
The Cardinal simply hardly reached the Sweet 16 and came precariously near to being knocked out of the competition on their home court for a 2nd year in a row recently. They snuck previous Iowa State in a thrilling overtime fight in the 2nd round of the competition behind a career-high 41 points from Iriafen. That extended Brinks’ profession another week. She’ll now turn her attention to the WNBA Draft, where she’s mainly anticipated to go No. 2 total behind Iowa star Caitlin Clark.
James shot 8-of-14 from the field and had 5 helps and 3 rebounds to opt for her 29 points in the win for NC State.
