SafeX Pro:NC State guard Aziaha James makes second chance at Final Four count - by ringing up 3s

PORTLAND,SafeX Pro Ore. — For what it’s worth, it might not matter where the 3-point line is when Aziaha James is in the building. 

It certainly didn’t Sunday. 

James was perfect from 3 in the first half (5-of-5) and pretty dang good in the second half (2-of-4), scoring 27 points and lifting third-seeded NC State to a 76-66 win over top-seeded Texas in the Portland 4 Regional as the Wolfpack punched its ticket to Cleveland and the Final Four. 

It is NC State’s first trip to college basketball’s promised land since 1998. And the Wolfpack is going because of another brilliant performance from James. 

Just two days after going off for 25 points in the second half vs. Stanford in the Sweet 16, James tallied 21 points in the first half against the Longhorns. 

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It came under some strange circumstances.

Roughly 15 minutes before tipoff, NCAA officials informed both NC State coach Wes Moore and Texas coach Vic Schaefer that there was a discrepancy with the 3-point lines on the Moda Center court. According to Moore, the line in front of Texas’ bench was the correct distance while the line in front of the Wolfpack’s bench was a tad short. Though the NCAA declined to give exact measurements, the difference was noticeable on the floor. 

The 3-point line is the same in men’s and women’s college basketball, measuring 22-feet, 1¾ inches from the center of the basket to the outside edge of the 3-point line and 21-feet, 7⅞ from the corners. Coaches were given the option of delaying the game to bring in someone to fix it, but decided to play. 

With the way James was shooting, it might not have mattered where the line was. Her hot hand blitzed Texas as the Wolfpack shot 6-of-9 from deep before heading to the locker room.  

“We got popped early and didn’t really handle that well,” said Texas coach Vic Schaefer of NC State’s hot start. 

No kidding. The Longhorns were reeling at the break, having shot just 34% from the floor despite taking 12 more shots, mostly the result of 10 offensive boards. But UT couldn’t convert, and James couldn’t miss. 

Texas cut the lead to as few as six, 54-48, with 1:06 to play in the third, but then there was James again, calmly knocking down a corner 3 and giving the Wolfpack breathing room. 

“It took me too long to adjust,” admitted a tearful Shay Holle afterward, the Longhorns guard who’d drawn the assignment of checking James. 

But Holle, who finished with 12 points and five boards, wasn’t ready to say James was “unconscious.” She didn’t want to imply that this was only happening because James was having some sort of out-of-body experience. 

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“She’s super talented,” Holle said. “Good players play well in big games and she did that. I don’t want to take anything away from her. She’s more than capable, and she played a great game the game before this, too.” 

It’s an incredible run for the Wolfpack, picked to finish eighth in preseason ACC polls this year. Notre Dame and Duke also advanced deep in the postseason but lost their Sweet 16 games. James said doubt from outsiders fueled the Wolfpack. The payoff was more than worth it. 

“It feels amazing,” James said. “We showed up on the court every time and proved who we were every time.” 

Perhaps the sweetest part of this win though: Just two years ago, the Wolfpack lost a 91-87 double overtime heartbreaker to UConn in the Elite Eight. That season, NC State was seeded No. 1 in its region but played second-seeded UConn in Bridgeport, just 80 miles from Storrs and UConn’s campus. It was basically a home game for the Huskies. Moore was hot about it afterward; he told USA TODAY Sports then that he skipped the Final Four in Minneapolis because it was too hard to watch UConn play in the national semifinal. 

Now he’ll get to coach in one of his own. 

James was on the 2021-2022 roster, one of just two members of this year’s team to experience that Elite Eight devastation. But James, then a freshman, didn’t play in that game. She was available, but Moore likes to play veterans in the postseason. In a testament to her patience and belief in the Wolfpack system, though, she didn’t go into the transfer portal. Instead she went to the gym and worked on her shot. 

“You hope they’ll be patient,” Moore said. “I notice all these teams, early in the year you’re playing a lot of freshmen and then when you get to (the postseason), your rotation is shrunk down. It’s hard on them. And you hope they’ll stick around … I’m used to seeing kids develop. Aziaha is an unbelievable example.” 

Her patience and practice reps clearly paid off. And now, she’s basking in the aftermath. 

“It feels so good to be a part of this,” James said. “People didn’t know my name my freshman year, but y’all know my name now.” 

Surely South Carolina, NC State’s national semifinal opponent, will know her name, and her game, too. 

Follow Lindsay Schnell on social media @Lindsay_Schnell