NIT First Round - USF vs NC State

(6) North Carolina State 58, (3) South Florida 57

If the calendar says its March, wacky college basketball endings must be the order of the day. On Tuesday night, the North Carolina State Wolfpack became the beneficiary of a crazy collection of events on a play that defied all logic.

Forget all the stats and trends that led up to the final, fateful and fascinating 11 seconds in this 40-minute battle. N.C. State and the South Florida Bulls had traded punches (no, not literal ones - those were reserved for idiotic Jackson State and Seton Hall players in two of Tuesday night's truly bizarre NIT incidents...) for 39 minutes and 49 seconds, but nothing had been resolved in this ACC-Big East showcase at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa.

NCSU trailed 57-56 at the time, but Coach Sidney Lowe's Pack Attack had the ball out of a timeout underneath the South Florida basket. Everyone in the building was expecting a pass, a jump shot, and some kind of reasonably conventional resolution to a taut and hard-fought thriller.

Oh, the ticketholders who witnessed this tussle got so much more than they hoped for, at least in terms of entertainment value. They probably didn't like the fact that the ultimate outcome cut against their beloved Bulls.

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The inbounds pass started in a manner that suggested a complete calamity for NCSU. With Wolfpack players bunched near the 28-foot hash mark and also toward the two sidelines, the inbounds pass - which went to the middle third of the court beyond the 3-point arc - bounced freely and headed toward midcourt. For a few moments, there seemed to be a distinct possibility that the Bulls could corral the orange sphere and coast downcourt for a dunk at the other end, but NCSU guard Scott wood beat two USF pursuers to the pill. However, Wood gained full possession of the ball when crossing from the frontcourt to the backcourt. This detail might seem innocuous, but it wasn't.

When Wood made a jump stop and gathered the ball on the backcourt side of the midcourt line, the USF players hesitated for a brief while. In basketball, it is not possible to commit a backcourt violation if - on a throw-in - a player touches the ball in the frontcourt but does not fully possess the ball until completing his jump-stop and landing in the backcourt. South Florida's defense did not seem to realize this, or at the very least, all five USF players froze because they (almost surely) entertained for a fraction of a second the idea that a backcourt violation had been committed.

It had not.

Wood - after scanning the court from the center jump circle - immediately found his teammate, Richard Howell, camped under the basket with no Bulls standing near him. USF had been so eager to collect the steal and had been so preoccupied with the possibility of a backcourt violation against the Wolfpack that it overran the play and got caught upcourt. Wood's pass to Howell was straight and true, and Howell laid the ball in the bucket to give NCSU a one-point lead with eight seconds left. On the Bulls' final possession, USF big man Augustus Gilchrist had his shot blocked by Howell with one second on the clock, and the sixth-seeded Pack had survived.

What's Next

While the NIT title hopes of the third-seeded Bulls are over, leaving USF coach Stan Heath to build on a very encouraging 2010 campaign, the Wolfpack move on to the second round. N.C. State will take on second-seeded Alabama-Birmingham in the NIT's round of 16.

By: Matt Zemek
BigEast-fans.com Senior Staff Writer