RALEIGH, N.C. - The VMI basketball team scrapped, hustled, and competed, but it was the inside presence of N.C. State that ultimately delivered a 75-55 decision to the Wolfpack before a RBC Center crowd of 10,120 Wednesday night.
VMI is still searching for its first win of the season, but head coach Duggar Baucom was proud of the effort his team gave against an ACC program that reached the Sweet 16 last year and the NCAA tournament the last four seasons.
"I'm really proud of the way our guys competed," said Baucom. "N.C. State is a great team and we're not going to face anyone as good as them in our conference this year. Of course, you hate to lose by 20 points, but there is so much that a team like this can take away from this kind of game. It lets the guys know that they have the ability to compete with any team."
The Keydets threw a scare into the Pack by hitting eight of their first 10 shots from the floor and built a 21-10 lead following a Travis Holmes 3-pointer at the 12:18 mark of the first half. N.C. State answered with a 9-0 run to pull within one following an Ilian Etimov layup with 8:51 left but the Keydets battled back to take the lead twice more- the last on a layup by Matt Murrer off a Reggie Williams assist with 7:12 left in the half to put the Keydets up 26-24.
N.C. State responded by outscoring the Keydets 12-4 over the last 6:57 of the half to take a 39-30 advantage at halftime.
The Wolfpack appeared poised to break the game open in the second half on a couple of occasions, but VMI hung tough to make things interesting.
A Cameron Bennerman layup with 14:47 left put NCSU ahead, 47-34, but two jumpers by Chavis Holmes, the last a three-pointer at the 10:46 mark, pulled the Keydets within nine, 49-40.
The Wolfpack then gradually pulled away, using an 8-0 run to start the spurt. The lead grew to as many as 22 points on three occasions.
Reggie Williams led the Keydets in scoring with 10 points and was the only VMI player to reach double figures. But the story was different from Monday night's loss to Army, as all but two Keydets who saw action against NCSU scored. The balanced scoring attack was aided by junior guard Matt Murrer (9 points, 4 rebounds), Chavis Holmes (7 points, 5 rebounds), Tadas Mankevicius (6 points, 5 rebounds) and Travis Holmes (6 points).
VMI shot 37.3% from the field (22-59) but held the Wolfpack to 37.1% from the field on 23 of 62 shooting, including 8 of 35 from 3-point range.
N.C. State placed five in double figures scoring and was led by Evtimov with 18 points, followed by Andrew Brackman (15), Cedric Simmons (14), and Engin Atsur and Cameron Bennerman each with 10 points.
VMI (0-2) faces James Madison at the Convocation Center in Harrisonburg, Va. Saturday night at 7 p.m. N.C. State (4-0) travels to Indianapolis to face Notre Dame in the Wooden Classic Saturday at 6 p.m.
More Duggar Baucom Quotes - "I thought we came out with a lot energy and intensity tonight. We got off to a pretty good start and had the lead for a couple of minutes. When you are able to make your shots, then a lot of things can go right. Around the eight minute mark, we started to miss some of our shots and we started to run into some trouble, but our guys played well and battled a good N.C. State team."
"We were playing a man defense in the first half even though it looked like a zone. We had our guys pack in and didn't want to sag. We were going to contest their shooters. They have the kind of personnel that can beat you inside or out, so we wanted to make their shooters beat us."
