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Gottfried said "there’s a strong chance" the Wolfpack will opt to redshirt 7-1 junior Jordan Vandenberg, who has been sidelined by a lingering shoulder issue. Vandenberg has not played in eight of the last 10 games. "I think we’re at that point right now where that decision needs to be made pretty quickly," Gottfried said.

New Jersey Nets have signed former NC State PF Dennis Horner after inviting him to camp.

"(The odds) are against you ... no question," [Gottfried] admitted. "But we work on it in practice. Here’s the things you try to discover. One, who can make the pass. We ran through everybody on our team ... we let different guys throw it. Some guys were throwing it and hitting the wall ... it was all over the place. But C.J. Williams could make it."

"The old saying that when the going gets tough the tough get going, we have to be better when it gets tougher. It's really simple. We have to enjoy that challenge, enjoy that part of the game, when another team makes a run. Do we invite that and say 'let's go to another level?' or do we seem to get unsure or more passive. We have to love the challenge, I've always said it, competitive greatness is the real love of a hard battle. When it gets real hard you have to love it, we have to get there, I don't think we're there yet."

N.C. State says forward Scott Wood is "day-to-day" with an ankle sprain, with no timetable for his return.

T.J. Warren, Rodney Purvis and Tyler Lewis, have all officially signed with NC State. Lewis just sent his in.

Asked which North Carolina men’s basketball team will finish highest in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season, 58 percent of respondents voted for the Tar Heels. Duke garnered 30 percent of the 612 responses, while N.C. State managed about 9 percent.

First-year NC State coach Mark Gottfried hasn’t given up on jumping out of an airplane for the thrill, the bucket list or drawing attention to his program. Gottfried was supposed to jump out of a plane and land at midfield for the Sept. 17 football game against South Alabama on Military Appreciation Day, but high winds scrapped the jump. Gottfried said Wednesday there is a chance he could make the jump for the Wolfpack’s rivalry game against North Carolina on Nov. 5.

"I know we've been doing a lot of conditioning, so I think we're going to be up tempo,'' senior Fayetteville native C.J. Williams said. "We're attacking from the perimeter and we'll be putting guys in position to exploit mismatches.'' Will that be enough to end a five-year absence from the NCAA Tournament field? "We'll have to wait and see,'' sophomore guard Lorenzo Brown said. "We can say we'll get there, but we have to go out and earn it.''

Gottfried and Purvis make for a good match because they see perceived pitfalls, like sharing a stage with two powerful rivals, as blessings.

"I think that's the best part of it," Purvis says. "Getting the chance to play against Duke, Carolina, they're always the name around the Triangle. You've got an opportunity to add N.C. State into the mix of that. It's just going to be great."