On-Site Reaction to NC State's Win Over Pitt in ACC Tournament

NC State came into the ACC Tournament in dire need of just one victory to reach the 20-win threshold, a massive benchmark for a team trying to make the NCAA Tournament in its first season under coach Will Wade. The Wolfpack found a way to outlast Pittsburgh, beating the Panthers 98-88 in the second round of the event at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte on Wednesday.

The Pack rode some hot shooting performances and the dominant play of Quadir Copeland to the victory, setting up a rematch with a Virginia team that dominated Wade's group in the two regular-season matchups. On this episode of the NC State Insider Podcast, get a full breakdown of the Wolfpack's win over Pittsburgh, looking at key statistics, performances and more from the Wednesday clash in the Queen City.

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What Will Wade said about the win

The Panthers and the Wolfpack played a very different game back in January, beating each other up inside as Pitt hauled in over 20 offensive rebounds but still couldn't win. On Wednesday, the Panthers shot the leather off the ball, knocking down 12 triples for the first time in an ACC game all season. Still, Wade was proud of the way his team managed to control the flow of the game as the shots fell.

"We had to weather the storm a little bit. They hit some tough ones. They hit one off the bounce, they hit one at the end of the shot clock," Wade said. "But we had to weather the initial storm. They were shooting almost 70%. I think they were 8-for-12 to start the game, and they finished 4-for-15. We were hoping for some regression back to the mean, and they started playing more through Corhen, who was obviously tremendous for them today."

Having secured that 20th win, the Wolfpack's NCAA Tournament résumé received a nice boost. While a win over 2-seed Virginia in the quarterfinal would go a long way in improving it further, Wade felt confident about his team's standing following the win over Pitt.

"You never know. But our metrics are really good. Everything is really good," he said. "We needed to avoid a tough loss today on top of some of the other ones. Certainly, I'd like to have a couple more wins. ... We're not going to take anything for granted. We're going to put everything we have into seeing if we can find a way to chip away at Virginia tomorrow and see if we can hang in there for a little bit and see what happens."