Bryce, Beverly lead NC State over Harvard 78-77 in NIT

Mar 25, 2019, 02:59 am

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Braxton Beverly scored all his 10 points in the second half and forced a Harvard turnover in the closing seconds to help N.C. State beat the Crimson 78-77 on Sunday night in the second round of the NIT.

The No. 2 seed Wolfpack plays fifth-seeded Lipscomb in the quarterfinals Wednesday.

CJ Bryce had 16 points, Devon Daniels 14 and Markell Johnson scored 13 for N.C. State (24-11). Torin Dorn added 10 points and eight rebounds.

Beverly hit two free throws and then made a 3-pointer to spark a 9-2 spurt that gave the Wolfpack the lead for good at 68-63 with five minutes left. After Harvard's Rio Haskett made a 3, Dorn made 1-of-2 free throws to make it 76-73 with 24 seconds to go. Bryce Aiken drew a foul with 17 seconds remaining and made the first foul shot, to make it a two-point game, but missed the second. Danilo Djuricic grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it out to Aiken who pulled up for a deep 3-pointer. Beverly closed out quickly, changing Aiken's shot and pressuring him into losing it out of bounds.

Bryce hit two free throws to make it 78-74 before Rio Haskett's running 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds to go capped the scoring.

Aiken and Noah Kirkwood led Harvard (19-12) with 19 points apiece and Chris Lewis scored 16.

The Crimson made 29 of 55 (52.7 percent) from the field and limited N.C. State to just 40-percent shooting. The Wolfpack, who tied their season low with seven turnovers, scored 23 points off 17 Harvard miscues and scored 17 second-chance points off 17 offensive rebounds.

---

For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP-Top25

---

Elements of this were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com