North Carolina State wants to keep its momentum rolling with a strong showing against East Tennessee State on Friday night in Raleigh, N.C.
Led by Ven-Allen Lubin’s 20 points on 8-for-8 shooting from the field and his 10 rebounds, the Wolfpack (1-0) easily beat Campbell 83-64 on Monday night.
Justin Gainey, who played for the Wolfpack from 1996-2000, made his debut as NC State’s head coach. He replaces Will Wade, who resigned in March after one season to return to his former job as head coach at LSU.
Despite what Gainey called a “special” return to the program, he said NC State needs to do a better job of rebounding.
“Everybody’s got to rebound,” Gainey said. “You know, there’s a lot of long shots, a lot of long rebounds. And so our bigs are in there fighting, they’re wrestling, and now those long rebounds come out. And so our guards have got to get in there and rebound the ball.”
The Wolfpack pulled down 38 rebounds but only eight on the offensive glass.
Campbell had 34 rebounds, 14 on offense. The Fighting Camels were powered by Rashawn Inglemon, who scored 20 points, and Lance Waddles, who contributed 19 points and nine rebounds.
On Friday, NC State will face an East Tennessee State squad that already has met one Power Four team, losing its opener to Arizona State 75-65. The Buccaneers haven’t beaten a power-conference school since their victory over Georgia in December 2021.
BJ Ward, who figures to be one of East Tennessee State’s key players, scored 25 points on 10-for-23 shooting from the field while adding three assists, four rebounds and four steals. Trevor Hennig scored 15 points, and Jayden Cooper added 10 in the Buccaneers’ season opener.
“I thought our pick-and-roll game was really strong,” coach Brooks Savage said after the game. “We had them confused a number of different times on what they wanted to do coverage-wise. BJ Ward is a good pick-and-roll player. A really good effort for Trevor (Hennig); I thought he got going downhill. We played really good offense.”
The Buccaneers are recovering from a season in which they won the conference regular-season title (23-11) but fell short to Furman in the Southern Conference championship game.