COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Duke spoiled Maryland’s party – again.

On a night where the Terrapins honored former coach Gary Williams, naming the court at Comcast Center after him, the No. 8 Blue Devils hushed the sold-out crowd and dimmed the celebration with a scrappy, if not pretty 74-61 victory.

The Devils decided to attack the smaller Maryland front court and fed 6-foot-10 junior forward Mason Plumlee, who powered for 23 points, 12 rebounds and four assists. There were few easy buckets for him, but he finished in the paint to help lift the Devils to their fourth straight win over the Terps.

Three Points from N.C. State's 79-74 win over Maryland:

1) A little transparency can go a long way

Mark Gottfried told his team before the Maryland game that it needed to win 11 games in the ACC to make the NCAA tournament. He told the media the same thing on Friday and then repeated his goals after the win on Sunday.

"That's our goal, I'm not afraid to say it," Gottfried said Sunday night.

RALEIGH – Once again, N.C. State won a game with a collection of players fulfilling their roles, not having just one star individual who carried the rest.

That was the formula N.C. State used in a closer-than-it-looked 79-74 win over Maryland on Sunday night.

And executing this type of game plan set in by first-year coach Mark Gottfried will most likely determined whether the Wolfpack reach their ultimate goal: the NCAA Tournament.

In the ACC opener for both teams, the Wolfpack showed more maturity in the second half. They limited their turnovers. They helped each other on the defensive end. And when it was time to pull away and win the game, the Wolfpack did just that.

N.C. State has two goals for the start of the ACC season, that are seemingly at conflict with each other.

The Pack wants to win 11 ACC games but it also wants to take the conference season, "one game at a time."

Eleven wins is the number first-year coach Mark Gottfried has set as the goal for his team to make the NCAA tournament.

N.C. State's first ACC game of the season, and first for coach Mark Gottfried, is against Maryland on Sunday at the RBC Center.

Except Gottfried's not interested in looking ahead, not even to Maryland on Sunday, not with Delaware State (4-8) coming to Raleigh on Wednesday.

RALEIGH — Both versions of N.C. State's football team showed up for Saturday's regular-season finale against Maryland.

The "good" N.C. State, the one that dominated Clemson and North Carolina, and the "bad" N.C. State, the one that lost ugly to Cincinnati and Boston College.

The good version rallied from 27 points in the second half — the biggest comeback in N.C. State history — to knock off the Terrapins in a wild 56-41 win at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Updated 8:12 p.m.

WINSTON-SALEM -- This started nothing like the greatest day of Wake Forest wide receiver Chris Givens’ college-football career.

Hacking and wheezing constantly, he’d kept his roommate up all night. He awoke with a splitting headache, and by kickoff against Maryland, “I couldn’t run two plays without being out of breath.’’

And yet Givens was the Deacon who sucked all the air out of Maryland. He finished with career-best 191 yards off eight catches, including a 35-yard touchdown in the second half of a 31-10 blowout at BB&T Field.

CHARLOTTE – North Carolina received 57 of a possible 59 first-place votes to finish atop the ACC media poll released Wednesday at the conference’s Operation Basketball media event.

The Tar Heels return all five starters, including preseason ACC player of the year selection Harrison Barnes, from a team that finished 29-8, reached an NCAA regional final and won first place in the ACC with a 14-2 conference record last season.

Duke was picked second in the poll, followed by Florida State, Virginia, Miami, Virginia Tech and Clemson. N.C. State was selected to finish eighth, with Maryland, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Boston College closing out the poll.

You don't have to look far to find ACC talent in the NFL.

Every team in the league has at least three players from ACC schools and the conference has a total 249 players in the league as the season begins tonight in Green Bay.

Despite a recent downturn on the field, Miami leads the ACC with NFL players with 44. For the first time since expansion, Maryland takes over the second spot with 28, edging Florida State, which is down to 25 from an ACC-best 46 in 2006, and North Carolina (24).

BALTIMORE -- Duke’s men’s lacrosse players could barely move a yard without feeling a nudge, push or knock from their Maryland opponents on Saturday evening.

The unseeded Terrapins chased down the No. 5 seed Blue Devils, thwacking arms with sticks and checking with impunity. When junior midfielder Justin Turri slipped inside late in the game, his shifty moves were met with a ferocious blow that forced him to the ground. He never got off a shot.

That hard-hitting, aggressive style led to a 9-4 Maryland victory over the defending national champions at M&T Bank Stadium in the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse semifinal game.