The junior guard couldn't convince himself that Ben McCauley's dunked follow shot had beaten the buzzer, that N.C. State had beaten Demon Deacons 67-65 in a Super Bowl Sunday thriller.

"I really didn't think it would count," Hale said. "I thought the [referees] would rule it off, say it was late."

But not the Deacs' Jeff Teague.

"I knew it was good," the freshman guard said. "I had seen it go in. I already knew."

McCauley's putback was ruled good by the officials after a replay review. While the crowd of 14,183 roared and the Pack players madly celebrated, the Deacons somberly walked off the court with dazed looks.

"I thought we controlled the whole game until the last few minutes," Hale said. "We came into a hostile environment. I know we played as hard as we can. For something like that to happen is really, really tough."

Teague, who scored 17 points despite second-half foul trouble, was aware of State's 79-77 overtime win over Miami, of how the Pack's Gavin Grant won it with a sudden steal off a Miami inbounds pass in the final seconds.

"I saw what happened to Miami," Teague said. "I didn't think that would happen to us. All we talked about was finishing the game. ... We had the lead almost the whole game.

"We gave it away. We gave that game away."

Or the Pack won it. State, using a zone defense, did force the Deacons to miss eight of their last 10 shots in the final 3 1/2 minutes. The Pack also scored 43 second-half points after trailing 31-24 at the break.

"It's about the character of our team. When we want it and we concentrate, we play well," NCSU coach Sidney Lowe said.

Grant knocked in two 3s early in the second half and had 15 points in the period. Freshman Javi Gonzalez also hit two 3-pointers and sophomore guard Trevor Ferguson came off the bench to add another 3 to help the Pack rally.

"That's Trevor Ferguson," McCauley said. "He works hard day-in and day-out, and when he got in there he did what he knows how to do: He played defense, and he hit a big shot for us."

The Pack played most of the first half as if it was trying to shake off the residue of its second-half battering at Duke on Thursday, when State was outscored by 29 points in a 92-72 loss. The RBC Center crowd was dead and the Pack listless.

But not in the second half.

"Wake Forest played a great game, but we pulled through in the second half," McCauley said. "We got some stops when we really needed to and hit some shots. The first half we really weren't hitting too many shots."

McCauley, of course, hit the biggest shot. His left-handed dunk, off a Grant miss, will go down in Wolfpack basketball lore.

"I didn't want to take any chances of laying it up," McCauley said. "I just threw it home."

Lowe called the play, set up during a timeout with 5.2 seconds remaining, "perfect."

"We got it to the guy we wanted to [Grant]. I didn't even see Ben coming until he was at the rim," Lowe said.

Neither did the Deacons.

"Everybody was ball-watching," Hale said of Grant's 3-point shot.

Everybody but McCauley.

"This one," Teague said, "is tough to swallow."