ATLANTA — N.C. State picked up another win in the ACC tournament on Friday. The question now is will it be enough to get the Wolfpack into the NCAA tournament?

With 19 points and 14 rebounds from C.J. Leslie, N.C. State knocked off Virginia, 67-64 in the quarterfinals on Friday in Atlanta.

N.C. State (22-11) will face top-seeded North Carolina on Saturday in the semifinals. It's the first time the two have met in the ACC tournament since the 2007 championship game.

It has been hard to miss, but Boston College coach Steve Donahue is as aware as anyone of C.J. Leslie's second-half surge for the Wolfpack. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged more than 17 points per game in N.C. State's final 10 games, and Donahue on Wednesday noted Leslie's improvement.

“I think he’s as talented as anybody in the league, for sure," Donahue said. "I think he’s made incredible strides, not only from last year but the middle of the season on, just so confident. With his size, he’s hard to guard, he can go off the dribble, he’s got a great feel for the game. Very difficult -- it’s a hard matchup for our guys, no doubt about it."

Updated 9:25 p.m.

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The last five times an N.C. State team finished with nine ACC wins, it made the NCAA tournament.

Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried thinks it should be six in a row after his team beat Virginia Tech 70-58 on Sunday night to finish the regular season at 9-7 in conference play.

"I think there are six (ACC) teams, right now, that should be in the (NCAA) tournament," Gottfried said.

When Mark Gottfried worked in the SEC, he got to vote for all-conference honors. The coaches don't get in a vote in the ACC, but Gottfried knows one player who would be on his ballot. Gottfried made a case for Wolfpack forward C.J. Leslie on Friday.

"I think he has gotten better as the year has gone along," Gottfried said. "He has played his best basketball in the last month."

Updated 11:56 p.m.

RALEIGH — Nobody has ever wanted to go to Dayton this bad.

When a trip in Starkville, Miss. or Fort Collins, Colo. for the NIT is the alternative, Dayton, Ohio — the home of the "First Four" of the NCAA tournament — is Shangri-La.

C.J. Leslie and Scott Wood carried a desperate Wolfpack team to a much-needed 77-73 win over an equally needy Miami team on Wednesday night at the RBC Center.

"We're not dead yet," Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said, in reference to his team's NCAA tournament hopes. "We still have a pulse."

Updated 11:26 p.m.

RALEIGH — North Carolina beat N.C. State, again, on Tuesday for the 12th straight time.

The end result was the same for the Tar Heels, who have won 18 of 19 games in the series under coach Roy Williams, but the 86-74 road win had a different feel from previous meetings.

For one, the Tar Heels got a career-high 22 points from pass-first point guard Kendall Marshall, to keep them in a first-place tie in the ACC race and to keep the Wolfpack without a scalp for its NCAA tournament profile.

Three Points from N.C. State's 76-62 loss to Florida State on Saturday:

1) Reloading the gun

N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried compared the timing of the turnaround from Thursday's loss at Duke to Saturday's game with Florida State to the setup of the NCAA tournament.

One problem with that comparison: You don't have to play again after a loss in the NCAA tournament.

It's tough to reload the gun that quickly, even under normal circumstances, and this did not qualify as normal.

Updated 6:37 p.m.

RALEIGH —N.C. State's eventful 76-62 loss to Florida State on Saturday featured three technical fouls, two Wolfpack legends getting "ejected" by a referee and one disheartened coach.

After all of the hullabaloo, N.C. State's NCAA tournament chances were reduced and the Wolfpack was searching for answers for what went wrong in such a big game.

Maybe Wolfpack senior C.J. Williams put the wild afternoon at the RBC Center best: "We just didn't have it."

Three Points from N.C. State's 78-73 loss at Duke on Thursday night:

1) Comeback or collapse?

Any time you lose a 20-point lead, especially in the second half, there are elements of a collapse. And after N.C. State's lead over Duke grew to 61-41 with 11:33 left in the game, the Wolfpack certainly contributed to its own demise.

State made 22 of its first 43 shots (51 percent) in the first 28 minutes and 27 seconds of the game and then went 4 of 16 (25 percent), without making a 3-pointer, the rest of the way.

DURHAM — In the course of eight days, Duke has come up with two of its more memorable rallies in recent memory.

The Blue Devils rallied from a 20-point second half deficit against N.C. State on Thursday for a shocking 78-73 win over the Wolfpack at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Austin Rivers hit a 3-pointer with 2:24 left to bring Duke all the way back from the huge deficit.

By that point, N.C. State seemed hopelessly rattled, as the Blue Devils finished the game on a 37-12 run. It was somewhat reminiscent of last Wednesday, when Duke rallied from a 10-point deficit with a little more than 2 minutes left for a thrilling victory over UNC.