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When David Meets Goliath on the Hardwood: Richmond’s Date With NC State
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Three hours before tip-off, the Avent Ferry Street traffic already snarls around PNC Arena. Wolfpack red streams past the jersey vendors who, in a twist of fate, have hung a second rack this evening: Richmond Spiders T-shirts, charcoal with the spider poised like it’s about to rappel onto the court. It’s the sort of detail that reminds you this isn’t a league game, it’s a story.
I’m standing next to a State alum who’s been coming since the Sidney Lowe days. He tells me, without a trace of arrogance, that he “expects to win.” A few feet away, a Richmond father tightens the drawstrings on his daughter’s hoodie and says, quieter, “We just need to make them feel us for 40 minutes.” Same building, two gravitational pulls.
The game itself never stays within chalk lines. NC State’s roster is taller at every position; their center could pass for an NFL tight end. Richmond starts four guards and a forward who looks like he’d rather be reading a book than boxing out. The mismatch is comic on paper, electric in person. The Spiders counter with pace and angles, swinging the ball until the defense tilts, then driving into the void they just created. Every possession feels like a pop quiz for physics: can motion beat mass?
Early in the second half, Richmond’s sophomore guard—listed generously at 6'0"—lobs a 30-foot three that splashes while the shot clock expires. The arena exhales a collective “ohhh” that isn’t disappointment so much as disbelief. The lead shrinks to two, and suddenly the red-clad crowd remembers the 2011 Kansas game, the 1983 championship, every time David’s slingshot found its mark.
NC State responds the way power programs do: they blitz the offensive glass, tip-dunk their own misses, and draw fouls that send the Spiders’ best scorer to the bench with four. Yet Richmond keeps conjuring answers. Their zone morphs from 2-3 to a 3-2 junk set that dares the Wolfpack to beat them from the corners. Miss, long rebound, leak-out layup. Eight-point game. Four-point game. Tie game.
Under four minutes, the scoreboard reads 71-71. The possession arrow favors Richmond, and that’s when the building begins to sound like two different concerts happening at once. One half chants “Let’s go Pack!” The other half, smaller but louder per capita, hisses “De-fense, Spi-ders!” It’s a volume duel you rarely get outside March.
NC State’s senior wing finally exploits the size edge, backing down for a right-shoulder jump hook. Richmond answers with a flare screen and a dagger three. Timeout, NC State, 38.7 seconds left. In the huddle, the Richmond coach—who looks like he slept in his suit—draws a play that starts with a decoy flare and ends with a lob to the short corner. It works, but the roll man is fouled. Two shots, both good.
State still has life. They push in five seconds, miss a contested layup, grab the board, miss again. Foul. Richmond’s freshman guard, the one who grew up 20 minutes from this arena but never got a Wolfpack offer, sinks both free throws with the casual air of a guy mailing a rent check. Final horn: Richmond 78, NC State 74.
The handshake line is brief but telling. NC State’s coach congratulates every Spider by name, an act that feels both classy and concessionary. Fans linger, half in shock, half in applause. The father I met earlier lifts his daughter onto his shoulders; her spider hoodie now doubles as a victory flag. On press row, a beat writer mutters, “Bracket-buster résumé just grew another line.”
Outside, the temperature has dropped eight degrees, as if the night itself is trying to cool down the building. A group of Richmond students pose for a picture beneath the giant metal wolf that guards the arena’s south entrance. One of them yells, “We came, we saw, we webbed!” It’s corny, but after a win like this, corniness is currency.
Driving home, I keep thinking about the difference between talent and belief. NC State had the former in surplus, yet it was Richmond’s collective conviction—that 40-minute insistence that physics could be outwitted—that tilted the floor. March may still be months away, but games like this are why the tournament is less about seeding than about possibility. Any night, any court, the spider can spin the story it wants.
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