N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried had avoided adding commentary to the incident involving two former Wolfpack players and official Karl Hess from Saturday's game until a late Monday night appearance at a student rally on campus.

At the "Ram Roast," aptly near the Freedom of Expression tunnel, Gottfried offered his unfiltered comments about Hess and his decision to eject Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta in the second half of Saturday's game. A student taped the impromptu question-and-answer session and put it first on Facebook and then the video found its way to YouTube.

Gottfried's comments from the video:

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.

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.

Mark Gottfried and Mike Krzyzewski are in a mutual admiration society, at least before Thursday's game between their ACC teams in Durham.

Krzyzewski complimented Gottfried's N.C. State team earlier in the week, calling them an NCAA tournament team, and Gottfried returned the favor on Wednesday, calling Duke one of the "two or three best teams" in the country.

"They're a terrific team and they've had a great year. I really like their team," Gottfried said.  "They're certainly one of the two or three best teams in the country, in my opinion."

Mike Krzyzewski thinks N.C. State is an NCAA tournament team, so does ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi.

Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried is not as sure.

"Without question, we have a long way to go," Gottfried said Monday on the weekly ACC teleconference.

Lost in the way N.C. State played Wednesday night in a 56-51 win over Boston College was the fact that the Wolfpack surpassed its win total from last season and equaled its ACC win total.

The Wolfpack improved to 16-7 overall, one more win from last season, and 5-3 in the ACC, it finished 5-11 in the conference in each of the past two seasons.

State coach Mark Gottfried is more concerned with how his team has played than its record.

Three Points from Wednesday's 56-51 win at Boston College:

1) Body language counts

When Richard Howell, Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie slumped their shoulders, dropped their heads and sloughed off to the locker room at halftime, they were greeted with a warning from N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried.

"I told them that is not acceptable and we won't do that — and we have not done that any night this year," Gottfried said. "We were allowing things to bother us. Mentally, we were out of synch."

Updated 11:15 p.m.

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Boston College started the week at No. 229 in the Rating Percentage Index, one spot ahead of Savannah State and one behind Lafayette.

That's not the kind of company N.C. State can afford to keep if it wants to end its season in the four-letter postseason tournament instead of the three-letter one. Scott Wood and C.J. Leslie saved the Wolfpack from an RPI-crushing loss on Wednesday — and string of other four-letter words from a portion of its fan base.

Wood (16 points) and Leslie (13) lifted a cold-shooting and sloppy State (16-7, 5-3 ACC) team to an ugly 56-51 ACC win, in name only, over the Eagles.

Three Points from State's 61-60 loss to the Cavaliers on Saturday.

1) Effort vs. execution

Effort was a problem for N.C. State before coach Mark Gottfried was hired. "Was" as in past tense and Saturday's 61-60 loss to Virginia is the latest proof of how far a State team, made up of essentially the same players as a year ago, has come on the effort front.

Any of Rich Howell's nine offensive rebounds, or the three jump-ball tie-ups on Virginia's end of the floor he caused, qualify as proof, but there's also the matter of State's defensive effort as a team in the second half.

Three Points from N.C. State's 74-55 road loss to UNC on Thursday:

There's no shame in losing to the best team in the country on their home floor but there is in the way N.C. State lost to UNC on Thursday.

The Wolfpack (15-6, 4-2 ACC) kept making the same mistakes — at least while the game was still close in the first half — over and over and over. And they were the same mistakes from last year's losses to the same UNC team.