CHAPEL HILL — NC State’s remarkable ability to get up for ranked opponents was on full display Saturday in putting away North Carolina.

The Wolfpack did a 180-degree turn from struggling at Pittsburgh on Wednesday, pulling out the game in the final minutes. NC State showed a steely resolve and got North Carolina to get into an offensive shootout.

In past years, that might have been in a mistake but the Tar Heels didn’t have the firepower to keep up with the Wolfpack, who got career games from several of their players to pull out a 95-91 overtime win in front of 21,750 fans at the Dean E. Smith Center. The upstart Wolfpack improved to 15-7 overall and 5-4 in the ACC, and the Tar Heels fell to 16-6 overall and 5-4 in the league.

“These are great wins,” said NCSU head coach Kevin Keatts, who is doing his first trip to the Bell Tower. “This [UNC] is an unbelievably program and always has been and always will be. We are proud to come out with a win.”

NC State showed off the version that had previously knocked off then No. 2 Arizona 90-84 in the Bahamas on Nov. 22, and then a 96-85 win over No. 2 Duke at home on Jan. 6. The formula might be different since the Bahamas, and even slightly altered since topping the Blue Devils.

NC State went with its bread and butter pick and roll offense with sophomore point guard Markell Johnson and sophomore center Omer Yurtseven down the stretch of regulation and overtime.

Johnson hit a pair of layups in the final 57 seconds of regulation and had seven points in overtime.

“That was key because I knew that they would go under a lot of my screens,” Johnson said. “I know Omer would get open. I felt very confident today and my coaches believed in me. Today it clicked down the stretch.”

Johnson, a former Rivals.com four-star prospect, couldn’t be kept out of the lane, and either scored himself or set up a teammate for a good look. He finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and five rebounds to propel the Wolfpack offense.

“He has made us better in every aspect,” Keatts said. “Markell was very aggressive at times in pick-and-roll situations. I thought he was aggressive today.”

Yurtseven, a five-star recruit from Istanbul, Turkey, worked the interior and cleaned up the misses. The 7-footer had 16 points and 13 boards, with seven coming on the offensive glass.

“This is the best win we’ve had all season,” Yurtseven said. “Either Markell will go all the way to the rim or he finds me on the pump out. Sometimes they will go under him and he knocked down some big shots.”

The wild card — as he has been all season — was Baylor graduate transfer Allerik Freeman, who can shoot a team into a game or out of it, sometimes all in the same contest. Freeman was on fire against North Carolina to help him go down in Wolfpack lore, plus carved out a spot in the UNC record books. Freeman became the first opposing player to go 7 of 7 from three-point land en route to a career-high 29 points off the bench. The previous best was 5 of 5 on three-pointers by a pair of players.

Freeman entered the game shooting 7 of 25 from beyond the arc over his last six ACC games, and he lost his starting spot against Miami three games ago Jan. 21. Freeman’s performance was reminiscent of when he pumped in 24 points against Arizona, but that was more off drives against the Wildcats.

“We know he knocks down those shots in practices,” Yurtseven said. “It’s all about him, getting himself mentally ready. Whenever he does, we get big wins like Arizona and UNC.”

Keatts has insisted the Wolfpack can be a good three-point shooting team, and the advantage of outscoring UNC 45-12 from beyond the arc carried NCSU.

“We are a lot better shooting team than we have showed in some games,” Keatts said. “I know you guys don’t believe me, but when we get the guys in the right spots, I’ve always said this, ‘A good passing team is a good shooting team.’”

With all the changes at NC State, it proved to be easy to erase last year’s house of horrors performance against North Carolina.

North Carolina crushed NC State 107-56 on Jan. 8, 2017, where what could go wrong, went wrong. Only four Wolfpack players that played in that blowout played this Saturday in the rematch.

NC State cleaned house not that long after by firing head coach Mark Gottfried and his staff before the season ended. To add salt in the wounds, the Tar Heels went on to win the national title.

North Carolina lost two underclassmen who went in the first round of the NBA Draft, and two starting seniors from last year and reserve guard Nate Britt.

“I quickly dismissed that [last year’s loss] because we are not the same team nor is Carolina,” Keatts said. “Every game you play in the ACC will be a different game.”

UNC’s biggest returning player, current senior point guard Joel Berry, proved to have a nightmare game of his own in the rematch. He had 19 points and five assists in just 23 minutes of action last year, but couldn’t get much going against Johnson and the Wolfpack guards. Berry went 3 of 12 from the field for six points, plus four assists and three turnovers. The 90.0 percent free-throw shooter missed on a one-and-one that just about summed up his frustrating afternoon.

UNC junior power forward Luke Maye and senior wing Theo Pinson picked up the slack for Berry, but it proved to not be enough. Maye had 31 points and 12 rebounds and Pinson exploded for 22 points and 15 rebounds.

“Coming into the game, Carolina is dangerous in three categories — they can really shoot the basketball, can kill you on the offensive glass and then they are unbelievable in transition,” Keatts said. “We knew if we could take two of those three away, we’d have a chance.”

For players like Yurtseven who lived through last year’s contest or Allerik Freeman, who didn’t, there really wasn’t much thought about what happened a year ago.

NC State has also shed the mental weakness of having games go south at the first few signs of adversity, which occurred the last two years and reared its ugly head in losing at Clemson and at Notre Dame by a combined 50 points to kick-start the ACC slate this season.

Part of that mental toughness was playing at Pittsburgh, returning home at 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning, and then having to turn around and play at North Carolina at 12 p.m. Saturday.

“I’ll sleep very well,” Johnson said.

Keatts hasn’t publicly pushed the in-state rivalries with North Carolina and Duke, and even after defeating both in the same season, he played it down the middle again.

“I know you guys want something for me to say we beat Duke and we beat Carolina, and I’m proud of that, but I’m also proud of the other three teams we beat in our league,” Keatts said. “That is what it is about, focusing on the next guy.”

NC State will get some much-needed rest and host Notre Dame on Feb. 3.

NC State improved to 4-2 against ranked teams this season and 3-1 against in-state colleges with the lone loss against North Carolina Greensboro.

The Wolfpack could conceivably have two or three more contests against top 25 teams remaining on the regular season schedule. The time has started for the expectations to change into reaching the NCAA Tournament.

NCSU loaded up with six of the lowest ranked teams on RPI.com — all ranked No. 282 and lower — and that could affect the tourney resume. Going 10-8 or better in the ACC regular season will make the non-conference issues obsolete in all likelihood.

Allerik Freeman has only known about playing in the Big Dance, having been on the bench as a redshirt or active as a player during his four years at Baylor.

“I’m just going out there to enjoy it because this is my last year in college,” Freeman said. “I don’t even get why people counted us out. We still got 10 more games or something like that.

“We have one goal, and if it means me coming of the bench, it is what it is. The last three games, I’ve closed like a starter and have played starter’s minutes.”

NC State is no stranger to new head coaches working some magic right away.

Sidney Lowe was an ACC Tournament upset away from reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2006-2007. The Wolfpack finished 20-16 and 5-11 in the ACC and reached the NIT Tournament.

Gottfried went 24-13 overall and 9-7 ACC in the ACC and went on to reach the Sweet 16 in setting the standard for new coaches in 2011-2012.

Keatts is also no stranger himself to turnarounds, having taken a struggling UNC Wilmington program to winning a share of the CAA regular season title in 2014-2015.

“All we talk about is winning,” Freeman said. “Coach Keatts is a great coach and that is why I came here to play for him.”

Keatts has meshed his group of newcomers with Gottfried’s holdover players, giving the Wolfpack a five-star center, four four-star prospects and a pair of three-star prospects, plus Charlotte transfer Torin Dorn among the healthy players on the roster.

The eclectic group has shown its ability to live up to full potential at times, but also frustrate in other games. Getting a consistent groove will be the key to reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s not really a challenge, but before this game all we talked was ‘We know this is the next ACC game to focus on.’ It’s not about the UNC-NC State rivalry or anything like that. It’s another ACC game we need to win on the road.”

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