Whittenburg 3-pt Leads 1983 NC State Over Cooper Flagg's 23-pts and into Final 4

 Dereck Whittenburg is famous from the clip in ESPN's 30 at 30 Survive and Advance for his long  attempt that was a foot short - but grabbed and put in by Lorenzo Charles to give NC State the 1983 title after being a 7-point underdog against Houston.

In our Value Add Basketball Game Elite 8 tournament of newly created teams, Whittenburg nailed NC State's only 3-pointer of the game with 53 seconds (2 possessions) to play to give NC State an 84-81 lead over the 2025 Duke team favored by 4. Until then Duke had eight 3-point possessions to none for NC State, as Tyrese Proctor hit four 3-pointers, and Cooper Flagg had two 3-pointers and two traditional 3-point plays en route to fouling Charles out with 7 possessions to play.

However, Duke could only get a 2-pointer by Sion James to cut it to 84-83, but then Duke forced a turnover to get one more shot. 

However, Ernie Myers (who also had a big game tying Thurl Bailey with a team-high 16 points) came up with NC State's eighth steal of the game to ceil the game.  Five of the steals were by Sidney Lowe.

In an Elite 8 in which all four games were either within two points or went to overtime, NC State closes to the Final 4 of all new teams created this year.

If you click on the semifinal teams and look at the rating on the team sheet you will see who the favorites are in each game.

NC State has a rating of +0, which means they are about our "average" great team - which would be a team that was in the top 8 overall for the season (using a combo of AP rankings, SRS or beginning in 2002 www.kenpom.com) AND was an Elite 8 team in the tournament. In the case of NC State, they were only about 16th for the season as a whole BUT they went beyond Elite 8 to win the national title, so that averages out to roughly an "average" GREAT TEAM. So -

NC State (rating +0) is a 9-point favorite against Ball State (rating -9) in one semifinal game. (NC State was 

City College of New York (rating +3) and Long Island University (rating +3) in the other semifinal has no favorite because their ratings are exactly the same.

If NC State wins, they will be a 3-point underdog against whoever wins the CCNY vs LIU semifinal, but they were already a 4-point underdog against Duke. So far teams in our game who are 1- to 5-point underdogs have won 38% of  the time (see chart).

If Ball State wins, they will be a 12-point underdog in the final. So far in our game, teams that are 11- to 15-point underdogs have won 17% of the time.

In the other Elite 8 games,, CCNY was a 6-point favorite over Long Beach State and won 69-67. Long Island University was a 1-point favorite over Auburn and won. Iona was a 1-point favorite over Ball State and lost 64-66.