CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Scott Wood didn't score until late in Saturday's ACC opener against Boston College but he made his points count.

Wood's 12 points in the final 3:45 left in the game led N.C. State to a 78-73 win at Boston College on Saturday.

Wood knocked down a 3-pointer with 48.8 seconds left, which kept BC at bay, but it wasn't until Joe Rahon's 3-pointer with 2.5 seconds left that the Wolfpack could exhale.

For the third time this year, reserve center Jordan Vadenburg did not play. After the game, Mark Gottfried gave the sparingly used redshirt junior (he has only played more than 10 minutes in one game this year) a vote of confidence.

“Here’s the thing Jordan. Number one, we’re going to need him, and I believe in him,” Gottfried said. “Sometimes it’s tricky when you’re playing against 6-foot-4 and 6-5 post players. It’s hard for a 7-foot guy sometimes, it’s a different matchup. And as the game wore on, I like Jordan a lot, I told him, ‘I’m not going to put you in here at the end. I’m just not going to do that.’ He knows that I believe in him.”

RALEIGH After a listless first half, particularly on the defensive end, the Wolfpack found a spark at the beginning of the second and used that to put away UNC Greensboro 89-68. With that, the nonconference portion of the schedule is complete, and ACC play awaits.

“'Are our guys ready for that next step? Probably. They're ready,'” Wolfpack head coach Mark Gottfried said about beginning league play. “I wouldn't say you look past anybody. But we're all honest here, our guys are ready for the next step. We did what we needed to do to be able to win.”

The No. 23 Wolfpack (11-2) opened the second half on a 12-4 run. A Scott Wood 3-pointer game N.C. State its first double-digit lead at 49-38, and the run was capped by a C.J. Leslie steal and reverse slam. That put the Wolfpack up 55-40 with 16 minutes left in the game.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A season that started with so much hope for N.C. State ended in the worst-case scenario on Monday in the Music City Bowl.

Vanderbilt turned five turnovers into a 38-24 win over N.C. State for its seventh straight win of the season and third bowl win in program history.

Under interim coach Dana Bible, N.C. State (7-6) was sloppy and undisciplined, racking up turnovers and penalties to close the season with the same way it started — a loss to an SEC team.

Updated 3:40 p.m.
RALEIGH -- Just like the previous game against St. Bonaventure, Richard Howell fouled out against Western Michigan on Saturday.

And just like the St. Bonaventure game, N.C. State beat the Broncos going away, 84-68, but Howell atoned for a scoreless effort against the Bonnies with 19 points and nine rebounds on Saturday.

The senior forward added three assists and two blocks and overcame a minor ankle sprain in the second half.

The expanded 18-game ACC schedule kicks off in 10 days.

North Carolina has an important game with UNLV and N.C. State gets a potential RPI-helper in Western Michigan on Saturday, but it's fairly safe to gauge how the 12 ACC teams did outside of league play.

Duke and N.C. State are in the top 10 of the RPI and the ACC could get another four or five teams in the NCAA tournament.

There have been some surprises (hello, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech) and some disappointments (really, FSU and Clemson?). A breakdown of all 12 teams (in order of RPI ranking, according to Jerry Palm at CBS Sports):

Dave Doeren's new staff will have an N.C. State connection. Doeren named Clayton White the safeties coach on Monday.

White played linebacker for the Wolfpack from 1997 to 2000 and went on to play in the NFL. White joins Doeren's staff from Connecticut, where he coached running backs the past two seasons.

RALEIGH — Last season, it took a last-second basket by C.J. Leslie for N.C. State to edge St. Bonaventure.

Not this year.

Leslie scored 18 of his career-high 33 points in the opening half and Scott Wood finished with 23 points as the No. 25 Wolfpack spurted to a 92-73 victory over the Bonnies at PNC Arena.

Mike Uremovich will coach N.C. State's offensive line. The school made the announcement Friday as new coach Dave Doeren's staff continues to come together.

Doeren, who was hired on Dec. 1, said he would bring most of his assistants from Northern Illinois and Uremovich was the running backs coach and special teams coordinator for the Huskies. Uremovich is the fifth coach on Doeren's staff who worked with the new Wolfpack head coach at NIU.

N.C. State's basketball game with UNC-Greensboro on New Year's Eve will start at 5 p.m. to accommodate the Wolfpack fans that want to watch the Music City Bowl earlier in the day.

N.C. State faces Vanderbilt at noon in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 31. The basketball game with UNCG had originally been set to tip at 1 p.m. but was moved back four hours.

The football game will be televised by ESPN and the basketball game will be shown on ESPNU.