N.C. State 91, UNC 83: Three things to take away for the Wolfpack

Three Points from N.C. State's 91-83 win over North Carolina:

1) Lorenzo Brown is the best player in the ACC

Brown put on a clinic with 20 points and 11 assists against the Tar Heels. Through seven ACC games, the junior point guard averages 14.7 points, 8.7 assists and has made 53.8 percent of his 3-pointers.

Brown's outside shot had been a weakness before conference play, making just 6 of his first 24 3-pointers this season, but he has made 7 of 13 in league play, including both of his 3s on Saturday.

Brown's true value, as Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski pointed out two weeks ago, is in transition. N.C. State took control of the game in the first half, when it out-scored UNC 20-0 in fastbreak points.

Brown had a three-minute stretch in the first half, while State was in the midst of a 20-2 run, that was as good as any in his career.

At 5:30 in the first half, he wrapped a pass around UNC point guard Marcus Paige's back to Richard Howell for a layup. At 4:41 he abused Paige off the dribble with a strong spin and two-handed finish at the rim.

At 3:03 he grabbed a Paige miss and threw a perfect, length-of-the-court pass to State freshman Rodney Purvis in stride for a dunk and 27 seconds later, beat Paige down the court and set up T.J. Warren for an easy layup.

Paige, a freshman, got a master class from Brown on how to push tempo and attack. Brown was also instrumental in turning the team around after Tuesday's collapse at Wake Forest.

It was Brown who said the point of the team meeting on Thursday was to clean up the "nonsense" around the program since the Duke win on Jan. 12 (State had lost two of three before Saturday's win).

After the UNC game, I asked Brown if State had taken care of the "nonsense."

"You tell me," Brown replied.

He then relented.

"Everybody is back on the right page," Brown said. "Everybody was scoring and nobody was complaining about who's touching the ball more or who's shooting more. I'm just happy that we're back on track."

State's back on track largely because of Brown, who was glowingly praised by ESPN's Dick Vitale during the game but not by his own coach after the game. The way Brown's playing, Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried will get another chance to compliment his best player, sooner rather than later.

2) Another 50-point half

Gottfried was livid, rightfully so, after giving up 51 points in the second half of Tuesday's 86-84 loss at Wake Forest. The Wolfpack gave up 57 points in the second half of Saturday's win.

Like a good jockey, Gottfried knows when to use the whip, and the afterglow of the first win in 14 tries against UNC was not the right time to be critical of the team's defense, but he did mention the discrepancy between the two halves.

"The first 20 minutes, I thought defensively we were as fundamentally sound and unselfish as I've seen us be," Gottfried said. "I loved our defense in the first half, and that's how we've got play."

N.C. State gave up 26 points in the first half and held UNC to 30.3 percent from the floor. In the second half, UNC made 60.5 percent of its shots, including 68 percent (17 of 25) of its 2-pointers.

"Parts of the second half, we weren't nearly as good defensively, but we can get there," Gottfried said.

Where this second-half trend becomes problematic is Gottfried attributed the problems to fatigue. To Gottfried's point, UNC scored 12 points in the first 10 minutes of the game, compared to 40 in the final 10 minutes.

If you break down the scoring into four 10-minute quarters, N.C. State won the first 22-12, the second 23-14, the third 18-17 then lost the fourth 40-28.

Gottfried has settled on a six-man rotation, with Warren (27 minutes) coming off the bench. Gottfried used forward Jordan Vandenberg for 3 minutes in the first half, to spell C.J. Leslie and Richard Howell, and guard Tyler Lewis for 3 minutes in the second half to spell Brown.

With Miami lurking next Saturday, along with the return trip to Duke (Feb. 7), Gottfried has to try to get more out of Vandenberg. The junior 7-footer was relatively productive at Wake, when Leslie and Warren were in the foul trouble, and there's no reason Gottfried can't get 8 solid minutes a game out of Vandenberg, if for no other reason than to give fouls.

3) Whose state is it?

With wins over UNC and Duke, N.C. State can certainly make its "This is our state" claim. There's still the matter of Tuesday's loss to Wake Forest, and return trips to both Chapel Hill and Durham, before that will be decided, though.

But for N.C. State, Saturday's win was important, as was the win over Duke two weeks ago. There's the practical matter of you can't win the ACC without going through those two teams.

Then there's the psychological effect of knowing you can beat the blue teams. N.C. State had Duke by 20 at Cameron last year and lost. It had UNC in the ACC tournament and Kendall Marshall got them at the wire. It's one thing to be picked in front of UNC and Duke in the preseason, it's another to go out and actually beat those teams.

Getting the best of UNC coach Roy Williams has been particularly difficult for State. Williams hasn't just crushed State with his really good teams, he also won all the games (in theory) State should have at least split, in 2006 (Herb Sendek's best team) and 2010 (Williams' worst team).

"Our program has lost a lot of games to North Carolina. They're good and have been good," Gottfried said. "We're trying to get good. At some point, you've got to turn it a little bit. This is a start."

Yes, a start. The next step is following up wins over Duke and UNC without a letdown.

Otherwise, it will be Miami's "state."

Bonus) About the refs

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mike Eades is the best official the ACC has. It was no surprise to see Eades work Saturday's spotlight game, along with veterans Mike Stuart and Ray Styons.

I appreciate Eades' work because he has a tendency to let the players decide the game and for the way he handles the coaches.

Saturday's final foul tally was 25. UNC finished with 16 fouls but six of those fouls were in the final 56 seconds when UNC was trying to foul, which makes it a 10-9 split.

Now, UNC wasn't especially thrilled with two early fouls on star forward James Michael McAdoo, but neither was a 50-50 call and McAdoo was able to play 17 minutes in the second half before fouling out.

Twenty-five combined fouls is a welcome change to Tuesday's game at Wake (44) and the ACC opener at Boston College (44) on Jan. 5. Eades also worked State's loss to Maryland on Jan. 16, which had 22 combined fouls.

- Joe Giglio

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N.C. State's Mark Gottfried, UNC's Roy Williams team up for charity commercial

In addition to being for a good cause, these Infiniti Coaches' Charity Challenge commercials are actually pretty funny.

This one stars N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried and UNC's Roy Williams, and the voiceover is done by Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.

And unless, there was some serious high-tech editing (which is possible), it also appears that Gottfried and Williams actually got together to film the commercial (unlike the old "Guitar Hero" ad with Krzyzewski and Williams.)

There's more information on the Coaches' Charity Challenge at this website.

- Joe Giglio

N.C. State 91, UNC 83: Three things to take away for the Heels

Three things to take away from the Tar Heels' defeat:

1. The Tar Heels do have a talent issue - at least for now.

Some have argued this season that among UNC's problems, talent is not among them. But last night proved once again that Heels do have a talent deficiency. It was evident earlier this season when UNC played at Indiana. And it was clear last night against an N.C. State that simply had better players at nearly every position. UNC has plenty of good players, too. It'd be silly to argue otherwise. And it's not like the Heels are without talent. But UNC's four freshmen are still developing and aren't as strong now - physically or mentally - as they will be down the road. Further, the guys UNC needs to be star players - James Michael McAdoo, Reggie Bullock, P.J. Hairston - aren't quite there yet, either.

2. It was a tough night for Marcus Paige.

The biggest difference in this game, to me, was how dominant N.C. State was at point guard. Lorenzo Brown finished with 20 points and 11 assists, and was a master during the first half of getting the Wolfpack out in transition. It was a struggle, though, for UNC freshman Marcus Paige, who missed his first eight shots and finished with seven points, four assists and three turnovers. Paige played well late but by then the Heels were in scramble mode, desperately trying to get back into the game.

3. Roy Williams doesn't want to hear it, but UNC will have to build off a moral victory.

Tar Heels coach Roy Williams didn't much want to hear that this was a moral victory for his team. Sure the Tar Heels cut a 28-point deficit to five with about 30 seconds to play, but Williams basically said moral victories are for pansies. He also said learning experiences "are for babies" but, still, UNC has no choice but to attempt to build off its second-half performance. The Heels shot 60.5 percent and scored 57 points - the third-most they've scored in a half this season.

QUOTABLE "Well in my opinion there's not a lot I can say. It was a butt-kicking, is what it was. We were going to try to emphasize sprinting back on defense, and that's the thing we talked about yesterday, and talked about today ... first half today they have 20 fast-break points to our zero. So I didn't do a very good job of coaching and getting our guys ready. I'm not big into moral victories whatsoever, and we did try to make a comeback but I think our teams will always make a comeback. But North Carolina state was more prepared, they had a greater sense of urgency and they worked harder." -Roy Williams

"We've got to have a greater sense of urgency, we've got to have greater effort. Got to have better coaching. ... It was, I've already said it - it was a butt-kicking." -Roy Williams

"I'm not into moral victories, guys, and I'm not into this pansy-kind of crap. We stunk." -Roy Williams

"They were guarding us a lot harder than we were guarding them. And all this stuff about streaks, and people making comments - on game nights you've got to step out there and you've got to play. And we didn't do that." -Roy Williams

"We definitely need to learn from this. Florida State was a good road win for us, but this was a whole other level, coming in here playing N.C. State at their own gym. But regardless, we didn't show up ready to play." -James Michael McAdoo

"I mean, I can learn a lot from watching the first 30 minutes of that film - just trying to keep our team under more composure in a hostile environment. That's my job as a point guard. I think I can definitely do better in that regard." -Marcus Paige

- Andrew Carter

Jeff Capel can empathize with Austin Rivers' emotions

As Austin Rivers comes down from his adrenaline rush of a Wednesday night, the person who may have the best idea of how Rivers' one shot will affect his Duke legacy is Jeff Capel.

It's conceivable that Rivers' game-winning 3-pointer was the Blue Devils' most memorable shot in the series with North Carolina since Capel hit a running 30-footer at the end of the first overtime of the teams' Feb. 2, 1995 game.

There are differences between the two buzzer-beaters, with the most notable being that Capel's effort didn't win the game for Duke - North Carolina ended up outlasting Duke 102-100 in double overtime.

So in that sense, Rivers' heroics were even more magical for the Blue Devils.

"It's something that he'll be able to tell his kids about it," said Capel, who is now an assistant coach for the Blue Devils. "It's something that his team will always remember, too - everyone that was associated with it.

"The game will probably be known as the 'Rivers shot.' "

The Capel shot game has taken on a life of its own and become something of an urban legend. Many people, Capel said, have only seen highlights of his shot and do not realize it only tied the game.

That doesn't bother Capel so much as the final score still irritates. With Mike Krzyzewski on leave with an ailing back, that was the season everything went wrong for the Blue Devils. In some ways, the loss to UNC encapsulated the entire season.

"It would have meant more to me and would mean more to me know if we would have won the game, especially if that would have been the game-winner," Capel said.

Nonetheless, Capel enjoys his place in Duke-North Carolina lore.

Capel said he still gets asked about the shot - with the Tar Heels up three, Serge Zwikker missed a free throw before Cherokee Parks rebounded the ball and passed it to Capel, who dribbled twice and took two steps before letting fly from a spot halfway between the top of the 3-point arc and the half-court line - all the time.

"For a kid that really understands this rivalry, to have a moment that will always be remembered in this historic rivalry - it's something that's very special to me," Capel said. "I know Austin didn't grow up in this state, but Austin's a student of the game. I know it's always going to mean something to him and for him to always have a moment like that.

"He'll always have this moment and it's always something that people will remember and identify him with. Hopefully, there are many moments like that for him. But certainly around here and in college basketball, people will always remember that."