This one had a different feel for N.C. State.
After an alley-oop from sophomore forward Andrew Brackman to sophomore center Cedric Simmons with 4:40 left in the game, the players on State’s bench laughed and waved their towels — celebrating early for the first time in a while.
The No. 21 Wolfpack (20-5, 9-3 ACC) beat Florida State (15-7, 5-6) 86-64 Wednesday night at the RBC Center, after the Pack’s previous four games had been decided by four points or less or in overtime.
“I feel incomplete. I feel like there’s another half to play,” senior guard Cameron Bennerman joked. “We got our share and it’s always good to get a win like this.”
State took a commanding 45-27 halftime lead off a 16-0 run to end the first half, kicked off by back-to-back three-pointers from junior guard Engin Atsur and Brackman.
“We just started to step our game up and got some quick stops and some open looks, and we were able to go on that big run which was really big for us,” Atsur said.
Atsur led the way for the Pack, scoring 19 points on 6-of-7 shooting, including 5-of-6 from three-point range.
His foreign counterpart, senior Ilian Evtimov, left the game at halftime due to a sprained foot and was taken to the hospital to be tested.
“Ilian told our staff that someone came down on his foot, and we heard something pop,” coach Herb Sendek said. “He was given an X-ray here at the RBC Center, which was negative. We’re just waiting on the MRI now.”
But the Pack still shot 63.6 percent from the floor, their highest percentage since 1996.
“They did a very good job of executing their offense,” Seminoles coach Leonard Hamilton said. “They knew we would be helping a lot [on defense], and they skipped the ball and spread us out. When they got shots, they knocked them down and made us pay each time we made a mistake.”
Brackman was part of that shooting effort, resulting in 12 points for the sophomore, his highest point total in nine games.
“Andrew is a gamer, and I think that is what he has been his whole life,” Sendek said. “He’s one of those guys that knows when to turn the pressure on.”
State’s other big man, Simmons, also had 12 points, most of them off dunks where his teammates found him open.
“It was a lot of up-and-down basketball, but it was real fun. And I had a lot of dunks,” Simmons said with a wide grin. “I mean, that’s always fun.”
FSU put the pressure on State in the second half, playing full-court defense and playing tight man-to-man in the half-court game, resulting in 23 Pack turnovers.
“We were a little careless with the ball, and it led to some turnovers. But we didn’t let that hurt us, and we came together,” Atsur said.
Despite the win, Sendek said he was not pleased with the amount of turnovers.
“Florida State put a lot of pressure on us tonight, and we were way too uneasy with it,” he said. “We need to handle that sort of pressure better in the upcoming games.”
The Seminoles average just over 80 points per game, but State was able to hold them well below their average by face-guarding FSU leading scorer Al Thornton, who shot 5-of-14 for the night and scored 14.
“We definitely keyed in on Al Thornton and wanted to keep their three-point shooting as difficult as possible,” Bennerman said. “They’re pretty much a complete ball team. We just have experience as well and feel like we deserve everything we get.”
The Pack hit the 20-win mark Wednesday night, the quickest a State team has gotten to it since the 1974 team who started 20-1.
“I’m glad we did it,” Sendek said. “I’m sorry we didn’t do it sooner.”
With only four games left in the regular season, the road doesn’t get any easier for State with a trip to Virginia Tech, followed by North Carolina and Boston College visiting Raleigh.
“All those teams are playing well right now, but we just have to take it one game at a time and fight to the end,” Simmons said.
