The last time an NC State team won four consecutive ACC road games in a single season, it went on to win the national championship.

While the 2020-21 Wolfpack squad won’t be remembered quite like the 1974 team, the Pack displayed a championship effort to claim its fourth-straight conference road win over the last team to win the Big Dance in 2019.

NC State (11-9, 7-8 ACC) defeated No. 15 Virginia (15-6, 11-4 ACC) 68-61 in Charlottesville for the second-straight year Wednesday night to claim its second win over a ranked opponent this season.

“Our guys did a tremendous job,” Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts said. “To say how proud I am of these guys, it’s unbelievable the fight that we’ve shown these past few weeks. We’ve had so much adversity in this program this year.”

Virginia’s pack-line defense is notorious for being tough around the rim, but it was no match for the Pack.

NC State outscored the Cavaliers 30-16 in the paint.

Fifth-year senior forward DJ Funderburk scored 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting and added six rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal.

“That's the strength of our team right now,” Keatts said. “It’s why we're throwing the ball into DJ or Manny Bates or our guys are driving it and getting in the paint. We're playing to our strength. That's the way we practice now, and it was good. We're looking for our bigs, they understand that, and they accepted a bigger role now.”

Redshirt sophomore center Manny Bates also came up big for the Pack. He finished with eight points on 3-of-6 shooting along with three rebounds and one block.

Most notably, he tied his career-high of three assists which he originally set in the road win over Pittsburgh last Wednesday.

Virginia consistently double-teams opposing bigs once they get the ball in the post, but every time they did so to the 6-11 Bates, he had an answer.

“His skill level is getting better,” Keatts said. “The next step, and I know you guys are going to laugh when I say this, but the next step is I'm going to get him shooting threes like Jay Huff. He's put in a lot of work. Now he thinks he's Magic Johnson, and he's not anywhere near that, but he's passing the ball well.”

Junior forward Jericole Hellems also scored eight points, dished three assists and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds.

For the third-straight game, freshman guard Cam Hayes scored in double figures, something he had yet to do in ACC competition prior to the Pittsburgh game.

Hayes finished with a team-high 16 points, a new personal-best in conference play, on 3-of-5 shooting, including a 3-of-4 mark from the perimeter.

He also reeled in three rebounds, forced two steals and didn’t produce a single turnover.

“If you guys remember early in the year, Cam Hayes was playing some of the better basketball on our team,” Keatts said. “That was non-conference, it was a short non-conference. Then because we had to pause because of COVID, I think the pause affected our freshmen more than anyone. He's getting confidence every game. It's hard in this league to basically give the keys to the car to a freshman, but he's earned it.

“He's stepping up, and he's playing big for us. He's doing a good job of finding people, he's doing a good job of scoring the ball when we need him to, and he's also doing a good job of taking care of the basketball, and it means a lot.”

Freshman guard Shakeel Moore was the third Wolfpack player to finish in double figures, finishing with 12 points while adding four rebounds, one assist and one block.

Redshirt freshman guard Dereon Seabron, who made his fourth-straight start, chipped in five points, three rebounds, three assists, one block and one steal. He also played a big role on defense, consistently handling Virginia guard Kihei Clark, who finished the night shooting just 2-of-7 from the field.

Another big difference from the first meeting in Raleigh, which resulted in a Wolfpack loss, NC State made its free throws, particularly down the stretch to secure the win.

The Pack shot 82 percent on 23-of-28 free throws and went 11-of-12 from the line in the final 1:01. 10 of those attempts in crunchtime came from its freshman guards.

“It says a lot that those guys are growing up,” Keatts said. “When you look at situations late in the game, when you need guys to make free throws, you typically don't want to put a freshman to the line. I felt very comfortable.

“Sometimes the greatest thing about freshmen, they don't know what they don't know. They don't get nervous because they can just step up and they never had to be in that situation. It was good to see our guards step up and make free throws because the weird thing about it is, our best free throw shooters this year have been our post guys.”

One of the most noticeable differences from NC State in its recent three-game winning streak is the energy from its bench.

In a season in which most games have been played before little-to-no fans, teams have to create their own energy in an emotional game such as college basketball.

Wednesday night, and really ever since the blowout home loss to Duke, the Wolfpack bench was electric, consistently giving the players on the court a much-needed spark.

“The biggest thing for us is that we got a complete buy-in from everyone,” Keatts said. “I don't know if you guys got a chance to see our bench during the entire game, but the energy level on the bench is unbelievable. Everybody is truly happy for one another, and we're building a great team. That doesn't happen when you got so many young guys, but our guys are buying in.”

The players notice it too.

Funderburk, who is a fifth-year senior, has had to embrace a larger leadership role in recent weeks due to the season-ending injury of fellow fifth-year senior Devon Daniels, who tore his ACL in late January.

He recently came to the realization a few games back that this season is it for him, and that he was committed to finishing the year strong no matter the end result. That's translated to encouraging his teammates to embrace their roles with positive energy, which has been particularly contagious in the past two weeks.

“We got guys like Jaylon [Gibson] and Nick [Farrar], they keep us alive on the bench, and they always emphasize in timeouts and during halftime we need to keep the energy on the bench up,” Funderburk said. “We noticed in the last game we lost, the team we lost to was just way more hyper than us, way more positive on the bench. We could hear them the entire game, it felt like it there were way more fans in there. From then on, we just wanted to try to match that energy on and off the court.”

That energy is something the freshman guards have needed, and it’s shown in their performance during the Pack’s recent three-game win streak.

“Especially these last couple of games, we hit threes or make good plays, you can hear them say something crazy or just be really loud out there,” Hayes said. “It just makes it a lot of fun. There's no fans, so basically, the benches have to bring all the energy.”

“Previously, when we've been having it going, our bench was a factor in that. We just stress energy from the bench,” Moore added. “Bring it so we can be able to produce and bring that on the floor. It's a team game and when everybody's got the energy, it uplifts everyone on the floor, next to you on the bench. Even when I'm on the bench, it just uplifts everyone, coaches included.”

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