Close Games and Hustle

Posted: 2/4/2008 6:03:55 AM

Over the weekend, we had another 6 great games in the ACC. While I'll give my moment of the weekend in a moment, those games have been analyzed by the media and countless blogs, so we'll just give you some links. Now, let's take a look at some numbers that stand out at this point in the ACC season...

Margin of Victory

Of the 43 games conference games played so far this season, there has been an incredible number of close games so far this year. On top of the 9 overtime games that there have been already, we can look at the margin of victory.

Margin of Victory
Decided by Less than...	# of Games
2 points	3
3 points	12
4 points	16
8 points	20
10 points	26

Moment of the Weekend

So far this season NC State has had injury problems and chemistry problems wearing on them. On Sunday they faced their in-state rival Wake Forest and the game was tied with just 5 seconds remaining. The play was drawn up for NC State's best one-on-one player, Gavin Grant to attack the rim. Grant did his job taking the ball the length of the floor but missed the layup sending the game into OT.

What's that? That's not what happened? Oh, let's take a look at that play again. Back at the start of the play, Ben McCauley throws the ball into Grant and continues to trail the play hustling the entire length of the floor and follows Grant's miss with a left-handed dunk that beats the buzzer by 0.2 seconds. While some would be content watching, McCauley's hustle made himself part of the play and subsequently game the Wolfpack the win. Watching the play gave me chills. As a person who appreciates the game of basketball, it is great to see a guy be rewarded for simply hustling.

Here's the video courtesy of ACC Now...

Getting back to those chemistry problems that NC State has had this season, would Lowe have as many problems if his guys were willing to hustle like McCauley on that last play? More to the point, answer this for me. Would Brandon Costner have made that play?

Links