GREENSBORO – Not too many people believed this could happen.

Why would they? 

The N.C. State women’s basketball team entered the ACC tournament as a ninth seed. The Wolfpack had loss six of its last seven regular season conference games until it knocked off eighth-seeded Florida State in the first round to set up a match-up against top-seeded Duke on Friday.

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."

GREENSBORO – The N.C. State women's basketball team had Florida State right where it wanted.

The ninth-seeded Wolfpack, rallying in the second half and drawing the game within two points with three minutes to play, thrive in tight games, especially in the ACC tournament.

So it was no surprise to anyone that the plucky Pack (17-14, 5-11 ACC) pulled out another upset in the first round on Thursday, claiming an improbable 74-71 victory over the eighth-seeded Seminoles at Greensboro Coliseum.

“Our team is pretty proud right now,” said N.C. State coach Kellie Harper, whose intrepid group shot themselves back from a 10-point first-half deficit and kept making plays despite the reality of the scoreboard.

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."

N.C. State linebacker D.J. Green won't be able to play football in 2012 after he tested positive for a banned substance.

The NCAA has declared Green, who started seven games as a sophomore, ineligible for the 2012 season. According to Green, it was for a failed drug test stemming from a nutritional supplement he used.

What N.C. State needs the most to revive its fading NCAA tournament hopes is to do what it hasn't since Feb. 9 — win a basketball game.

The Wolfpack, 18-11 overall and 7-7 in the ACC, has lost four straight games. The possibility of reaching its preseason goal of 11 conference wins is gone, with only Wednesday's home game with Miami and a trip to Virginia Tech on Sunday, left on the schedule. But the Pack's flickering tournament hopes are still alive as coach Mark Gottfried pointed out on Monday.

Outlook: There aren't many sure wins on the Wolfpack's schedule outside of the two home against nonconference opponents.

There aren't many sure losses, either, which means the Pack's season will be contingent on how it does in "coin toss" games.

See video highlights from the Wolfpack's overtime loss to Clemson at Littlejohn Coliseum.

CLEMSON, S.C. -- As N.C. State’s basketball season continued to slip away Saturday with a 72-69 overtime loss to Clemson in Littlejohn Coliseum, Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried tried to stay philosophical – and upbeat.

“It’s the ebbs and flows that make athletics really challenging,” Gottfried said after his team lost for a fourth consecutive time and saw its chances at an NCAA tournament at-large berth all-but vanish. “But I love these guys. I told them to keep their heads up. I said if you give us this kind of effort every night then eventually things will turn around for us.”

An admirable sentiment, but time is running out for the Wolfpack (18-11, 7-7 ACC), which was sunk Saturday when Clemson’s Andre Young banked in a 3-pointer from the corner with 10.1 seconds left in overtime for the winning points. The Wolfpack’s C.J. Leslie missed a 3-pointer at the other end as time expired that would have tied it.

Three Points from N.C. State's 86-74 loss to UNC on Tuesday night:

1) N.C. State just got beat by a better team

North Carolina's a better than N.C. State, this is a point all sides of the Triangle can concede, and when the Tar Heels make 10 3-pointers and 50.9 percent of their shots, they're not going to lose to anybody this side of the NBA.

So really, it's only "One Point" today and a rehash of the Kendall Marshall vs. Lorenzo Brown matchup, which caused Marshall to call me out on Twitter last night.