NC State survives late surge from Louisville in win

DJ Horne scored a game-high 27 points, helped by six 3-pointers, as visiting North Carolina State held off Louisville to capture an 89-83 victory on Saturday in Louisville, Ky.

DJ Burns Jr. and Casey Morsell added 13 points apiece for the Wolfpack (12-4, 4-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), while Michael O'Connell added 11 points. Mohamed Diarra tallied 7 points and 11 rebounds for NC State, which has won five of its past six games.

Mike James led Louisville (6-10, 1-4) with 20 points, followed by 15 points from Curtis Williams. Ty-Laur Johnson chipped in 14 and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield tallied 13 points and 10 boards.

Facing a nine-point halftime deficit, Louisville put together a 17-8 run to start the second half, knotting the score at 52 at the 12:33 mark.

A Williams 3-pointer with 9:55 left tied the score at 58, before a 10-4 Wolfpack run that pushed the NC State lead to six.

A pair of Johnson free throws cut the Louisville deficit to four with 7:26 left. NC State answered with a 7-0 run that was punctuated by a Horne layup, pushing the Wolfpack lead back to double digits.

NC State took an 83-69 lead, its largest of the second half with 2:18 left, before an 11-0 Louisville run cut the deficit to three points with 52 seconds left.

Horne then converted an and-one, giving NC State an 86-80 lead that Skyy Clark answered with triple for Louisville, cutting the lead in half with 22 seconds left.

NC State made three free throws in the final 14 seconds en route to the victory.

In the first half, NC State jumped out to a 12-0 lead before Johnson's jumper helped crack the scoreboard for Louisville at the 15:41 mark.

With 1:17 left in the opening half, Morsell knocked down three free throws to give the Wolfpack their largest first-half lead, 44-30. Louisville scored the final five points before halftime. Horne paced NC State's first half scoring with 14 points on 4-for-6 3-point shooting. James led Louisville with 9 points at halftime.

Saturday was NC State's third straight win over Louisville in the series.