UNC loss 'bad' and 'weird' for N.C. State

Two days later, N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe still doesn't know what to make of his team's 20-point loss to North Carolina on Saturday.

Lowe used the adjectives "weird" and "bad" to describe the 84-64 loss to the Tar Heels, the ninth straight in the series for Lowe and the Pack.

"That was just a game, I don't know, it was a weird game," Lowe said. "The guys seemed to be ready to go and excited and I think initially when we don't hit a few shots early our defense suffered and our energy went down.

Senior forward Tracy Smith said after the loss that the players didn't fight as "hard as we could."

Lowe said the players have played hard this season and "will play hard" going forward but stopped short of repeating Smith's claim.

"It was just a bad game," Lowe said. "We picked the wrong time to do that."

Lowe said effort hasn't been an ongoing problem but there have been lapses.

"What we haven't done is to play a full 40 minutes," Lowe said. "We put together 30 minutes, 25 minutes but we haven't put together 40 minutes of tough, tough basketball."

Lowe noted the strength of State's schedule, particularly in the league, where it has had to play at UNC (5-1), Florida State (5-2), Clemson (4-3) and Boston College (4-3) and lost all four games.

The schedule doesn't ease up with Virginia Tech on Wednesday followed by a trip to Duke on Saturday.

"There's a lot of time left," Lowe said. "We still have nine games. We won six of our last eight last year so there's still time left."

-- J.P. Giglio