ETHAN HYMAN - ehyman@newsobserver.com
N.C. State's Tracy Smith (23) slams in two over the Blue Devils in the second half.
RALEIGH -- Even if it hadn't been his 22nd birthday, Tracy Smith still might have had that sparkly red party hat sitting on his head late Wednesday night. There was just too much for the N.C. State forward to celebrate.
"I've wanted to beat Duke for the longest," Smith said. "It just feels so good."
On this night, Smith was the best player on the floor -- better than Jon Scheyer, better than Kyle Singler and good enough to give N.C. State its first regular-season win over Duke since 2004, 88-74.
Smith scored 14 of his game-high 23 points in the first half as N.C. State took the lead less than eight minutes into the game and never trailed again.
"He was feeling it tonight," Duke center Brian Zoubek said. "We gave him some confidence early, and the ball kept going in."
That's the story of the ACC this season: Get one big night from one big player, and anything can happen -- even one of the biggest, and perhaps most unexpected, wins of the Sidney Lowe era.
Duke is clearly ahead of the field, but the losses to Georgia Tech and N.C. State illustrate how small the gap is, and there's no gap between everyone else bunched in one big mess down the standings.
Georgia Tech beats Duke and North Carolina but loses to Virginia in the middle; Wake Forest loses by 20 to Duke then turns around and smokes the Tar Heels; N.C. State loses to Virginia at home but wins on the road at Florida State and beats Duke; North Carolina blows out Michigan State, a team headed for the Big Ten title, but is 5-6 since; Virginia is in first place and Boston College can't figure out which way is up.
At this point, it's pretty clear anything can happen on any night. And on this night, Smith happened.
Singler, playing with a brace on his sore right wrist, was 6-for-16 from the field and Scheyer was 1-for-5 at the half before banging in a quick trio of 3-pointers. Sunday's rough-and-tumble win over Wake Forest clearly wore out the Blue Devils from top to bottom, and while Singler finished with 22 points and Scheyer 21, neither was at their best.
That's what Smith provided Wednesday -- his best: 10-for-12 from the floor and 3-for-4 at the free-throw line.
"We had trouble with Tracy all night," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "One, he's very good. The things we planned to do, we never executed. Some of that has to do with how sharp they were running their things. Some of it was us not being as sharp."
There was more to it than Smith, to be sure. He was one of five N.C. State players in double figures, and a lot of his success had to do with Farnold Degand and Javi Gonzalez picking apart Duke's perimeter defense, opening space for Smith down low.
But through it all, Smith kept on going, carrying the Wolfpack to an insurmountable lead. At one end of the court, with Duke trying to cut N.C. State's lead to six early in the second half, he blocked a shot, pumping his fists in triumph. Then he went down to the other end and slipped behind Zoubek to take a Dennis Horner pass and slam the ball home.
"I felt like they couldn't stop me," Smith said. "Every chance I had, I wanted it. I had the hot hand."
Duke couldn't stop him. Not then, not all night.
And in this year's top-light, bottom-heavy ACC, that's all it takes to send the students streaming onto the court, with Smith smiling somewhere in the middle.
