Pack Hosts Tar Heels at Sold Out Lenovo Center on Tuesday Night

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NC State Game Notes | North Carolina Game Notes

RALEIGH, N.C. – The NC State men's basketball team (18-8, 9-4 ACC) hosts 16^th-ranked North Carolina (20-5, 8-4 ACC) Tuesday night at a sold out Lenovo Center.

Tipoff against the Tar Heels is scheduled for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised on ESPN. NC State fans can also listen to Matt Chazanow and Chucky Brown call the action on the Wolfpack Sports Network.

Pack Notes
- NC State fell to Miami, 77-76, on Saturday afternoon as the Hurricanes ended the game on a 9-0 run. The game between the two teams featured 19 lead changes and 14 ties.
- Ven-Allen Lubin tied for the team lead in scoring with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting while also pulling down a team-high nine rebounds and tying his career-high with four blocks. In the last two games, Lubin is averaging 18.5 points per game and shooting 73.7 percent (14-of-19) from the field. Lubin has now shot over 50 percent in every game except for one this season. The Orlando, Fla., native leads the ACC and ranks third in the NCAA in field goal percentage at 68.4 percent. In his fourth season of college basketball, Lubin is averaging a career-best 13.7 points per game and his rebounding average of 7.1 per game is also the best of his career.
- Quadir Copeland had 11 points and five assists against Miami. Copeland leads the ACC and ranks 11th in the NCAA in assists per game (6.8 per game), but his eight assists in the last two games tie for his lowest assist output in consecutive games this season. Copeland has a 2.57 assist-to-turnover ratio this season which ranks sixth in the ACC and is currently the 10th-best single season assist-to-turnover ratio in program history.
- Copeland was named ACC Player of the Week last Monday after two stellar performances in NC State wins the week prior. In an 84-83 win at SMU, he had a career-high 16 assists with zero turnover and also had a season-high 10 rebounds. The 16 assists tie for the fourth-most in a single game in program history. Copeland is the first Division I player to log 16 assists and zero turnovers since 2019 and the first ACC player to have 16 assists and zero turnovers since 1997. Copeland set the program record for most assists without a turnover. (previous 15 ast/0 turnovers by Ishua Benjamin on 12/18/97).
- NC State has made double-digit three-pointers in 12 of 26 games this season. The Pack has had two games with 19 made three-pointers, a game with 17 made threes and three games with 16. The 1986-87 season was when the three-point line was introduced to college basketball. From the 1986-87 season through the 2024-25 season, NC State made 16 or more three-pointers in a game six times in 39 seasons. The current NC State team has made 16 or more three-pointers in six of 26 games this season. The Pack currently ranks second in the ACC and 11th in the NCAA with an average of 10.6 three-pointers made per game. NC State leads the ACC and ranks ninth in the NCAA in three point percentage, making 39.4 percent of its attempts from long range this season.

Tuesday storylines
- Through games of Sunday, Feb. 15, NC State has a 12-7 record against Q1 and Q2 teams in the NET rankings. The only ACC team has that more Q1/Q2 wins than the Pack is Duke (15). There are only nine teams in all of NCAA DI that have more combined Q1 and Q2 wins than the Pack.
- Tuesday marks the first time Ven-Allen Lubin has played against his former school as a member of the Pack. Lubin averaged 8.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game while shooting 68.4 percent from the field in 37 games (20 starts) last season for the Tar Heels. Lubin's final season of college basketball is proving to be the best of his career. Lubin is averaging a career-best 13.7 points and a career-best 7.1 rebounds per game for the Pack and his field goal percentage of 68.4 percent this season leads the ACC and is third in the NCAA.
- Pick Your Poison: The Pack's scoring balance has been on full display this season, with the team's top four scorers separated by just five points through 26 games. Quadir Copeland leads NC State with 358 total points, followed closely by Darrion Williams and Ven-Allen Lubin who both have 356, while Paul McNeil Jr. has 353 points.
- Paul McNeil Jr. made four three-pointers in Saturday's game against Miami and now has 81 on the season. He is just three three-pointers away from entering the program's top-10 single-season three-point list and also just three three-pointers away from his 100th career three-pointer. McNeil, Jr., has seven guaranteed games left in the season (five regular season, at least one in both the ACC Tournament and postseason) and at his current rate of 3.12 three-pointers made per game he'd finish the season with 103 three-pointers which would be two short of the single-season NC State record held by DJ Horne (105 in 40 games) set in the 2023-24 season.
- Tuesday is a matchup of the best two teams in the ACC in valuing the basketball. UNC leads the ACC and ranks 11th in the NCAA in turnovers per game (9.3) while the Pack is right behind the Tar Heels in second in the ACC and 24th in the NCAA with an average of 9.7 per game. UNC and NC State also rank 1-2 in assist-to-turnover ratio in the ACC. The Tar Heels 1.81 assist-to-turnover ratio is eighth in the NCAA while the Pack's 1.69 is 20th. The 1.69 assist-to-turnover ratio would be a program record for NC State. The previous single-season best in program history is currently 1.61 by the 1987-88 team.
- Freshman Stepping Up: Matt Able scored a season-best 17 points on Saturday against Miami, tying for team-high scoring honors. He finished the game 6-of-10 from the field. In the last four games, Able is averaging 11.3 points per game and shooting 50 percent from the field (16-of-32), including 43.8 percent (7-of-16) from three-point range.
- Miami scored 56 paint points in its win over the Pack on Saturday. It was by far the most paint points given up by NC State this season. The previous most allowed was 44 by UAB back in the second game of the season on Nov. 7. NC State was outscored by 24 in paint points in the loss, its worst margin of the season. Despite the Pack being one of the nation's top teams in three-pointers per game (10.6 3s per game; 21st in the NCAA), NC State typically wins the paint points battle this season. The loss to Miami marked just the seventh time in 26 games this season that its opponent outscored the Pack in paint points.
- Get Darrion Williams back on track - After scoring 20 or more points in three consecutive games from Jan. 27 through Feb. 3, Williams has only scored 23 points total in the Pack's last three games against Virginia Tech and Louisville. Williams has been hot and cold in ACC play. He's scored 20 or more points in five ACC games and has been held to single digits in six ACC games. In the Pack's nine ACC wins, Williams is averaging 16.2 points per game while he is averaging just 8.3 points per game in the Pack's four conference losses.
- NC State has outscored its opponent in points off turnovers in 10 of 13 ACC games this season. In 13 ACC games this season, the Pack has outscored its opponents by 98 points in points off turnovers. In 26 games overall this season, NC State has outscored its opponents by 179 points in points off turnovers.
NC State had more turnovers (10) than Miami (9) in the loss on Saturday. It's the first time in ACC play and just the third time all season that an opponent has had fewer turnovers than the Pack. The Pack has a +46 turnover margin in its 13 ACC games this season and leads the ACC and ranks 15th in the NCAA with a +3.8 turnover margin.
- Win the Boards, win the game? The Pack is 12-0 when it outrebounds its opponent this season, but just 6-8 when it is outrebounded.
- NC State has scored 100 or more points in four games this season. It's the most 100 point games in a single season for NC State since the 1995-96 team had four. For the season, NC State averages 85.0 points per game which is third in the ACC and 25^th in the NCAA. The Pack is currently on pace to average its most points since Fire & Ice (Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe) led the Pack to an average of 89.3 points per game in the 1990-91 season.

NC State series with North Carolina
- Tuesday will be the 250th all-time meeting between NC State and North Carolina. The Tar Heels lead the all-time series 168-81, including a 20-6 advantage in games played at the Lenovo Center.
- Tuesday's game is the only regular season meeting between the two programs that are just over 20 miles from each other. It's the first time since the formation of the ACC in 1953 that the two teams are not playing a traditional home-and-home
- If the two teams don't meet in the ACC Tournament or the NCAA Tournament, it'll be the first time since the 1918-19 season that NC State and North Carolina won't play each other at least twice in a season.
- Last Meeting (February 19, 2025): UNC shot 57.4 percent in beating the Pack, 97-73, in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels led by 28 at halftime and despite the Pack shooting 55 percent and turning it over just once in the second half, couldn't make much of a dent in its halftime deficit. Jayden Taylor led NC State with 19 points, Dontrez Styles added 18 points and Paul McNeil, Jr., finished with 14 points.

Pack Hosts Tar Heels at Sold Out Lenovo Center on Tuesday Night

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Players Mentioned

Matt Able

Quadir Copeland

Ven-Allen Lubin

Paul McNeil, Jr.

Dontrez Styles

Jayden Taylor

Darrion Williams

North Carolina State University Athletics