Paul Atkinson Jr.’s 15 points and Blake Wesley’s 14 points paced a balanced scoring attack as Notre Dame used a strong start and a convincing finish to defeat host North Carolina State 69-57 on Saturday at Raleigh, N.C.
Prentiss Hubb added 13 points, while Dane Goodwin and Trey Wertz each had 12 points for the Fighting Irish.
Notre Dame (16-7, 9-3 ACC) won for the sixth time in its past seven games and continued its impressive play in conference, while keeping pace with the ACC leaders.
After trailing by as many as 17 midway through the first half, NC State pulled ahead 38-37 less than five minutes into the second half after Cam Hayes scored five straight points.
Trailing 40-37 with 14:26 remaining, the Irish surged to a 56-44 edge with 5:52 remaining as six different players scoring during the deciding stretch.
Terquavion Smith poured in 19 points for NC State (10-14, 3-10), which lost its fourth game in a row. Dereon Seabron added 14 points, while Hayes and Casey Morsell each had 11 points, but the Wolfpack shot just 29.9 percent from the field.
Hubb made three 3-pointers, but he was the only Irish starter to connect from beyond the arc. Notre Dame overcame 14 turnovers for its second road win of the week following Monday night’s home loss to No. 9 Duke in a makeup game. The Irish rebounded to win at Miami on Wednesday.
Notre Dame scored the game’s first 11 points and stretched the edge to 21-4. The Wolfpack then scored 24 points in the last 9 1/2 minutes of the first half.
Notre Dame led only 33-28 at halftime, while shooting 50 percent (14 of 28) from the field.
It took NC State more than six minutes for its first points of the game. With 15 points, Smith had more than half of the Wolfpack’s first-half total. He was 4 of 8 from the floor, with the rest of the NC State team a combined 4 of 23.
NC State had center Ebenezer Dowuona back on the floor after he missed Wednesday’s home loss to Syracuse with an injury. He had two points with three rebounds in 16 minutes.
Notre Dame won the first meeting 73-65 on Jan. 26 at home.
–Field Level Media
