PITTSBURGH — Sophomore center BeeJay Anya going to the basket and shooting a left-handed hook shot with time winding down was probably not the shot that NC State ideally wanted down one in the final seconds to LSU in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Nevertheless, that was the best NC State could do and it was good enough. Anya's improbable shot bounced in with 0.1 seconds left to give the Pack a come-from-behind, stunning 66-65 win over LSU, who led the entire second half up to that point and at one point had a 16-point advantage.

Anya had the final four points of the game. He tapped in fifth-year senior wing Ralston Turner's missed three-pointer with 46.2 seconds left to slice LSU's lead to 65-64. After LSU sophomore forward Jordan Mickey missed a leaning shot in the lane, and Pack redshirt junior guard Trevor Lacey grabbed the defensive rebound, NCSU called a timeout with 13.9 seconds left to set up a final play.

"We ran a play for Trevor to score," Anya admitted.

"We had an isolation play with Trevor," Gottfried clarified. "I think he is as good as anybody in the country one-on-one when he has some room to operate."

The problem was that LSU sophomore wing Tim Quarterman was hounding Lacey's every move as precious time was ticking away. With Lacey not comfortable attempting the shot, he passed to the first open teammate he could see: Anya.

"Trevor called for it back, but he had his chance so it was my turn to shoot it," Anya joked.

So Anya, who caught the ball at the left elbow 15-feet away from the basket, took one hard dribble to his right into the lane before coming to a jump stop, turned to his left left and fired an off-hand hook eight feet away from the basket. The ball bounced first off the left side of the rim, then hit the backboard before bouncing softly off the front of them.

Wolfpack freshman forward Abdul-Malik Abu came tenuously close to potentially offensively goaltending at that point but held off touching the ball as it rolled in the net.

"It was nervous," sophomore point guard Anthony Barber, who scored a team-high 17 points, said. "You can't do nothing but watch it and see what it's going to do. If it had went off it would have hurt us, but luckily it went in for us."

LSU had no time to get a final shot off, sparking a spirited on-court celebration for the Pack after an improbable rally helped by the Tigers' offensive inefficiency down the stretch. LSU missed their last 12 shot attempts over the final 10:26 of the game, but more importantly went just 5 of 13 at the free throw line.

Particularly damaging was four consecutive misses by Mickey, the first two with 1:25 left and the next pair with 1:03 remaining, all of them with LSU up 65-62. Quarterman also missed the front end of a one-and-one with the Tigers up 65-60 prior to Mickey's misses.

"Unfortunately, stepping up to the line tonight, they didn't go down for them at a crucial part of the game," LSU head coach Johnny Jones said.

During the first half, LSU put on its best impersonation of Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma from 1983. The 1983 Wolfpack was able to contain the real dunking fraternity, but this year's version of NCSU allowed the Tigers to turn the first half into a highlight reel, especially for sophomore forward Jarrell Martin, who skied twice for momentum-turning dunks.

It was a dunk by Mickey however that started the LSU spurt. His put back slam on a missed layup from junior guard Jordan Gray put LSU up 21-20 and started a 12-0 Tigers run that forced two different timeouts from Gottfried.

NCSU did a better job protecting the basketball in the second half, turning it over just once after having 10 giveaways in the first half. That slowed down LSU's transition points, but it was still a grind to get back into the game, especially with NC State's shots not falling.

The Pack shot just 5 for 24 on three-pointers, but they got an unexpected lift off the bench from sophomore forward Kyle Washington. His dunk on an offensive rebound and three-pointer on the subsequent possession were key moments in a 10-0 NC State run that cut LSU's lead to 62-58 with 5:39 left and forced a Tigers' timeout. Washington finished with nine points in 12 minutes.

Senior wing Desmond Lee also came into the game with 9:39 left in an attempt to help get some stops on defense. The Tigers did not make a field goal attempt after Lee's substitution.

"I thought both of their minutes were really good," Gottfried said. "Kyle had some big baskets for us. I thought the tipped dunk was an emotional play. I thought Desmond defensively gave us some quality minutes. Sometimes it's hard when you are not playing as much. I thought they both hung in there. They were both ready to play, and they done a very nice job for us.

"Couldn't have done it without them."

NC State (21-13) will face top-seeded Villanova in the second round Saturday. The Wildcats had little problem dispatching of 16 seed Lafayette in the game prior to NCSU-LSU, jumping out to a 49-26 halftime lead en route to a 93-52 blowout win.

Villanova, Big East regular season and conference tournament champions, is 33-2. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.