Top-25 NCAA Basketball Team Scorched After Scoring Just 1 More Point Than Their Ranking
Here’s a sentence you may never read again: A top-25 college basketball team only scored 24 points in an entire game. That’s not a misprint or a joke, although a lot of people on social media certainly had fun with it.
It is in fact true that N.C. State, a 16-6 team that’s ranked No. 23 in the country, scored just 24 points in 47-24 loss to ACC rival Virginia Tech on Saturday.
It was the least amount of points a top-25 team had scored in the shot-clock era, according to ESPN.
A 12-10 N.C. State win over Duke in 1968 still holds the distinction of being the lowest-scoring game in ACC history. But that was back when there was no shot clock in men’s college basketball, and teams often ran slow-down, four-corners-style offenses where they would hold the ball for minutes at a time.
It wasn’t the worst overall scoring output in the shot-clock era. That honor belongs to Saint Louis, who scored just 20 points in a 2008 loss to George Washington, according to Yahoo Sports. Georgia Southern in 1997 and Princeton in 2005 both scored just 21 points in a game.
As one might expect, social media users had a field day:
Virginia Tech is a good team, ranked No. 12 in the country. And the Hokies are one of the best defensive teams in the nation, allowing just 60.2 points per game, which is sixth-best among all Division I schools.
But 24 points? Good defense by Virginia Tech was certainly part of it, but there was also a lot of really bad shooting. N.C. State shot just 9 of 54 from the field — or 16.7 percent. And they made just 2 of 28 3-point attempts.
N.C. State’s leading scorer, Torin Dorn, who averages 13.8 points per game, scored just 5. C.J. Bryce, who averages 12 ppg, was his team’s leading scorer with 7.
Here are the game’s highlights, or rather lowlights:
The Wolfpack are not some anemic offensive team that relies on defense to win. It’s just the opposite, in fact. N.C. State is actually one of the better scoring teams in the country.
They average 81.6 points per game, which is 30th in Division I, shooting 47 percent from the field and 36 percent from three.
“It was crazy,” Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts said after the game, according to ESPN. “It was almost like there was something on the rim.”
“At halftime I told them to relax and let’s laugh a little bit, because I said, it’s 20-14,” Keatts said.
“I don’t think even in high school I’ve seen anything like it,” Virginia Tech’s Ty Outlaw said.
“This is a different level, of course. I just thought it was an ugly game. We weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders on offense, either.”
Virginia Tech improved to 18-3 and 7-2 in ACC play. The Wolfpack are now 4-5 against conference opponents and will almost certainly fall out of the top 25.
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