Elliott Avent's N.C. State baseball teams have had the anecdote for a UNC hangover. At least until Tuesday's 2-1 loss to UCLA in the College World Series.
While the basketball and football teams have struggled to follow up an emotional win over the Tar Heels, Avent has done so regularly since 2005.
Five times in the last nine seasons, including earlier this season, Avent has won the last game of a series against UNC and each time N.C. State has won the next game.
Mark Gottfried continues to rebuild N.C. State's roster. The third-year added a sixth newcomer to the Wolfpack program on Monday in Alabama transfer Trevor Lacey.
Lacey, a 6-3, 215-pound guard, averaged 11.3 points and started every game for the Crimson Tide last season as a sophomore and led the team in 3-pointers (62). Under NCAA transfer rules, Lacey will have to sit out the 2013-14 season but will have two years of eligibility with the Wolfpack.
Convicted felon and former University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro claims he made more than $1 million when N.C. State upset Miami 19-16 in 2007, he recently told Sports Illustrated in a series of wide-ranging interviews from prison.
Shapiro, who was interviewed by SI at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, La., before being moved to a facility in Butner, was convicted in a $930 million Ponzi scheme, and is at the heart of Miami’s troubles with the NCAA. Shapiro claims to have paid players and provided other improper benefits to primarily the football program for nearly a decade.
Grant Hill threw the pass that led to Christian Laettner's famous shot against Kentucky. Credit: DUKE SPORTS INFORMATION
Grant Hill retires: His Duke coaches and teammates reflect
Epilogue: Does Grant Hill belong in the Hall of Fame?
Basketball’s Hall of Fame differs from that of other professional sports in that it honors amateurs and Olympic participants, in addition to professional accomplishments. So, in Hill’s case, it means his Duke career and 1996 Olympic gold medal factor into his candidacy.
Grant Hill was beloved by coaches and teammates alike while he was at Duke. Credit: AP
Bobby Hurley remembers playing pick-up games with Grant Hill while they were in the midst of winning back-to-back titles at Duke. Hill was a popular pick, Hurley said, because his presence greatly increased the odds that a team would hold the court.
Those games occurred more than 20 years ago, in the early 1990s. Hurley is about to begin his first season as Buffalo’s head coach, 15 years removed from his last professional game. Hill just retired a few weeks ago.
“The way my body feels on a day-in and day-out basis, I can’t believe that he was still playing at that level,” Hurley said. “It brought me back to the times that we played together, so I guess is was kind of living through him, to a degree, watching him play and rejuvenate his career.”
Hill was valued in those pickup games, and throughout his 18-year NBA career, for more than just his on-court skills1. His positive energy was contagious, and, even as a teenager, people gravitated toward him
RALEIGH It took 17 innings, and more than 7 hours, but N.C. State is going to the College World Series.
Senior center fielder Brett Williams drove in Tarran Senay in the 17th inning to lift N.C. State to a 5-4 win over Rice and clinch a spot in Omaha, Neb. for the Wolfpack for the first time since 1968.
N.C. State (49-14) needed another ninth-inning rally and nine pitchers, but it out-lasted the Owls in a classic college baseball game.
RALEIGH Wayne Graham, with almost 1,000 wins at Rice, knows what a win looks like.
With a one-run lead in the ninth, and his best relief pitcher on the mound, the Owls coach thought Saturday's Super Regional game at N.C. State looked like another winner.
"We had the game," the veteran Rice coach said.
Rice had it right up until N.C. State walked off with it. Jake Fincher's clutch single and Brett Williams' hustle gave the Wolfpack a 4-3 win over Rice and moved N.C. State to within one win of the College World Series.
RALEIGH N.C. State needed everything from star pitcher Carlos Rodon to beat William & Mary once.
The Wolfpack got a little bit of everything from everybody else on Sunday to knock out the Tribe and advance to the Super Regional for the second straight year.
Senior first baseman Tarran Senay drove in five runs to help N.C. State eliminate William & Mary 9-2 on Sunday night and win the NCAA regional at Doak Field.
RALEIGH Some of Carlos Rodon's family members call him "Carly," and some of his N.C. State teammates call him "Los."
Whatever Rodon lacks in creative nicknames, he makes up for with his left arm. The Wolfpack pitcher was lights out on Saturday night in the NCAA regional against William & Mary. Rodon pitched a two-hit shutout to lead N.C. State to a 1-0 win over the Tribe.
"You don't need to say anything," N.C. State coach Elliott Avent said about Rodon. "All you've got to do is just watch."
North Carolina's Landon Lassiter scored the game-winning run in the 18th inning early Sunday morning. ROBERT WILLETT
DURHAM — It was in the late, long hours of Saturday night, after it'd turned into Sunday morning, when for the first time Mike Fox attempted to describe what he’d just watched and been a part of. What Fox wanted to say, maybe he couldn’t. Perhaps it was a sense of deliriousness or exhaustion. Or both.
After 18 innings and more than six hours, it was over. North Carolina’s 2-1 victory against N.C. State on Saturday night came in the longest game in the history of the ACC baseball tournament, and in front of the largest crowd to watch a college baseball game in North Carolina – or at least what was left of it at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
