Quick hits and notes from NC State’s 74-58 win over Arkansas Little Rock in front of 14,078 fans at PNC Arena Saturday afternoon in Raleigh.

NC State sophomore forward Jericole Hellems was able to drive from the top of the key and draw redshirt junior center D.J. Funderburk’s defender. Hellems then made the heads up pass to Funderburk on the baseline, and the big man threw it down with two hands to put NC State up 16-7 with 13:19 to go in the first half.

That was in the middle of NC State jumping out to a 37-13 lead in a game that was nowhere near as close as even the lopsided final score.

On one end of the floor, redshirt junior guard Devon Daniels blocked a shot. Junior guard Braxton Beverly grabbed the deflection, passed ahead to fifth-year senior guard C.J. Bryce, who in one motion lofted an alley-oop pass to Hellems for the dunk, giving NC State a 39-15 lead with 3:36 left in the first half.

The stat sheet does not do Hellems justice for the game that he had. He did not shoot well (2 of 8 overall and 1 of 4 on three-pointers) and finished with a modest seven points.

But Hellems also led the team with six assists and four steals and tied for a team-best six rebounds. Hellems had not had an assist this year prior to Saturday, and the six represented a new-career high. He also had a new personal-best in steals and was one off his most ever rebounds.

After looking a bit tired and sluggish during a win over Alcorn State on Tuesday at Reynolds Coliseum, the Pack came out with much more energy Saturday against an Arkansas Little Rock team that had battled Memphis to the wire in its previous outing.

As noted above, NC State led 39-15, a lead that lasted until less than three minutes to go in the half before Little Rock scored the final six points before the break.

Still, the 18-point halftime lead is the largest at the break in a game this year, and it was the first time an opponent had less than 30 points in the opening half.

NC State was actually outscored 37-35 in the second half, and one of the issues were 10 second half turnovers.

As part of the Barclays Center Classic, both No. 16 Memphis and NC State played two common opponents at home to different results.

• Memphis blitzed Alcorn State on Nov. 16, jumping out to a huge 52-24 lead and breaking the century mark in a 102-56 win. Three days later, NCSU was up 44-32 at half before winning 87-64.

• On Nov. 20, Little Rock was down only two to Memphis at 55-53 with 5:37 left before the Tigers pulled away for a 68-58 win. NCSU had the opposite experience with the Trojans.

The game had one of the weirder endings for a college basketball game. As head coach Kevin Keatts and Darrell Walker were sharing a friendly embrace while the final seconds were ticking off, words were being exchanged with NC State’s Devon Daniels the primary participant on the Pack’s side.

The officials stopped the action with just over one second left to break up the heated discussion and then signaled the game was over. As the teams were shaking hands, players were called back out to the court to finish the final second. More words were exchanged, and eventually Daniels and Arkansas Little Rock’s Isaiah Palermo were ejected.

There were not a lot of notable names in attendance, although former Pack guard Ernie Myers was on the broadcast.

Here we keep track of the scoring between each official timeout to help give an idea of the game flow:

First half

20:00-14:47: NC State 12, Little Rock 4

14:47-11:43: NC State 9, Little Rock 5

11:43-7:37: NC State 9, Little Rock 4

7:37-3:01: NC State 9, Little Rock 2

3:01-Halftime: Little Rock 6, NC State 0

Second half

20:00-15:19: NC State 9, Little Rock 5

15:19-11:42: Little Rock 11, NC State 7

11:42-7:23: Little Rock 8, NC State 6

7:23-3:50: NC State 6, Little Rock 5

3:50-Final: Little Rock 8, NC State 7

Using Hollinger’s measure of productivity, players are graded 1-40 with 10 being average.

Bryce: 14.5

Hellems: 10.6

Funderburk: 9.2

Freshman center Manny Bates: 6.9

Senior guard Markell Johnson: 6.1

Daniels: 5.6

Beverly: 4.1

Senior forward Pat Andree: 3.2

Freshman Max Farthing: -0.7

Freshman Chase Graham: -1.0

Here is the plus/minus for each player (the difference between points scored while they were on the floor) on NCSU.

• Johnson +20 (23:11 minutes played)

• Bryce +13 (33:55)

• Beverly +13 (28:00)

• Hellems +12 (26:40)

• Bates +12 (17:43)

• Funderburk +4 (22:17)

• Daniels +3 (26:54)

• Andree +3 (15:53)

• Graham +1 (2:09)

• Farthing -1 (3:18)

NC State is 5-1 while Little Rock is 3-3. It was only the second time the two teams had played. The previous time was when NCSU won in double overtime in the second round of the 1986 NCAA Tournament. NC State would eventually reach the Elite Eight.

The game was broadcast on ACC Network Extra. During the season, we’ll keep track of how NC State does on the various networks.

- ACC Network Extra: 3-0

- RSN: 2-0

- ACC Network: 0-1

We will also track NC State’s records by month:

- November: 5-1

• Both teams had 36 points in the paint.

• NCSU outscored the Trojans 16-15 in fast break points.

• The Wolfpack had a slight edge in turnover margin 18-15 and in points off turnovers, 17-14.

• Little Rock won the battle on the boards overall 37-33 and offensively 12-7. That led to the Trojans winning second-chance points 12-8.

• Defensively, NC State had five blocks and nabbed a season-high 11 steals. The Trojans had two blocks and seven steals.

• NC State led for 37:59 and the game was tied for 2:01. The Pack’s largest lead was 24.

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