NC State women’s basketball advances to Elite Eight after NCAA Tournament win over Stanford

N.C. State director of women’s basketball communications Matti Smith stood outside the locker room fixing head coach Wes Moore’s hair before his news conference. Like the locker room floor, his head was drenched with water from the team’s celebration.

“Does it look OK?” he asked with a laugh.

Truthfully, it didn’t matter. The team was just happy the Cardiac Pack struck again.

No. 3 N.C. State (30-6) pulled off the comeback victory over No. 2 seed Stanford (30-6), 77-67, to advance to the Elite Eight, despite trailing by 10 points at halftime Friday.

“When we first got here, you know, everybody thought that (Stanford was) a better team,” Madison Hayes said. “They are a great team, but I thought we were the better team all around. We have people that do different things on the floor. We played harder than them. It just takes heart and energy effort, and we had just a lot of confidence in each other. That’s all it took for us to win this game.”

Stanford entered the game as a 4.5- or 5.5-point favorite, according to most sports books. Hours before the game, ESPN analytics gave the Cardinal an 80% chance of winning.

At first, it looked like those odds would hold. The Wolfpack struggled mightily in the first half on offense and in its rebounding effort. It trailed the Cardinal by 11 rebounds at the break and shot 12-36 from the field in the first half.

Everything changed in the second. N.C. State out-rebounded Stanford, 19-15, after the break. It also shot 15-27 from the field and 5-10 from deep. The defensive effort overall forced the Cardinal to take tough, contested shots.

Aziaha James led all scorers with 29 points after recording four in the first half. James’ big game included the go-ahead 3 with 3:44 left in the third quarter and a second on the subsequent possession to take a four-point lead. The Wolfpack never trailed and led by as many as 15 points. James also topped the Pack with five assists.

The team didn’t want to get overconfident, but they felt in the third quarter that a win was possible. The Pack outscored Stanford 28-10 in the period. James scored 16 alone.

“When she sees one go in, it’s over,” said Zoe Brooks. “She’s gonna keep shooting and they’re just gonna keep falling. I think it’s scary for the other team when she gets a couple shots falling.”

That success continued early in the fourth quarter, when James hit a 3 from the logo. Then, N.C. State forced a turnover and Brooks scored a transition layup. The assist, unsurprisingly, came from James.

Moore said they didn’t really have a lot of drawn-up plays down the stretch and the game plan was pretty simple: Get James the ball.

“She was pretty special tonight. We got where we were just running for her,” Moore said. “Every possession down, let’s try it again, get the post involved. We’ll set a pick on the ball, make the post help, switch, whatever. When you realize the player is on a roll like that, you just have to keep going to her.”

Brooks, who finished with 12 points, said she knew they could pull off the win in that third period when the Wolfpack outscored Stanford, 28-10.

Saniya Rivers contributed 13 points, seven rebounds and a pair of assists.

N.C. State forced 14 Stanford turnovers and scored 14 points off of them.

N.C. State got plenty of help from Stanford’s foul trouble as well. Kiki Iriafen played 22 minutes and finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds, four fouls and three turnovers.

Cameron Brink fouled out of the game with 8:10 remaining. She played just 24 minutes and finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks. She also recorded three turnovers, including a charge early in the first quarter. Brink hadn’t been called for a foul in the first half, but she picked up four in the third.

“Getting her in foul trouble and getting that big presence out of the middle, we were able to run our offense more fluently,” said River Baldwin.

“I think watching their game against Iowa State, we knew that it was possible to get their bigs in foul trouble,” Rivers added. “Coming in, we knew we needed to attack their bigs. Once we got (Brink) out of there and Kiki in foul trouble, it definitely gave us some momentum.”

“We’ve worked on a whole lot of different stuff and you hope that something sticks, something works,” Moore said of Brink and Iriafen before the game. “No doubt a challenge for us and I don’t think you’re going to stop them, but you hope you can maybe slow them down a little bit.”

N.C. State certainly did that.

And with Stanford picking up 21 personal fouls, N.C. State got to the line for plenty of free throws. It finished 16-19 from the stripe.

Lizzy Williamson and Maddie Cox deserve credit in the win, as well. They played a combined 15 minutes due to N.C. State’s early foul trouble. Williamson scored her first points since Feb. 11, while Cox recorded an assist.

“I feel like the team that we have and the players that we have, we can do that to anybody here,” Hayes said. “It was just confidence and effort. Then, we had a lot of energy coming into this game. We were really excited. That showed in this game.”

The Wolfpack faces the winner of Texas/Gonzaga at noon Sunday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.