'W' the hard way

No. 3 N.C. State overcomes slow start, holds off No. 13 La.-Lafayette

Julius Hodge and the Wolfpack made the ACC 5-0 in the first round. Jamie Squire/Getty Images PHOENIX REGIONAL First Round: Various Sites Thursday, March 18 • (4) Maryland 86, (13) UTEP 83 • (8) Alabama 65, (9) Southern Illinois 64 • (5) Syracuse 80, (12) Brigham Young 75 • (1) Stanford 71, (16) UT-San Antonio 45 • (2) Connecticut 70, (15) Vermont 53 • (7) DePaul 76, (10) Dayton 69 Friday, March 19 • (3) N.C. State 61, (14) La.-Lafayette 52 • (6) Vanderbilt 71, (11) Western Michigan 58 Second Round Saturday, March 20 • (5) Syracuse 72, (4) Maryland 70 • (8) Alabama 70, (1) Stanford 67 • (2) Connecticut 72, (7) DePaul 55 Sunday, March 21 • (6) Vanderbilt 75, (3) N.C. State 73 Regional Semfinals America West Arena Thursday, March 25 • (2) Connecticut 73, (6) Vanderbilt 53 • (8) Alabama 80, (5) Syracuse 71 Regional Finals Saturday, March 27 • (2) Connecticut 87, (8) Alabama 71 More from SI.com • Updated bracket | Daily schedule • SI.com Writers: Inside the tournament • E-mail Alerts | Hoops Bracket Challenge • Complete NCAA tournament coverage

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- When its offense struggles, North Carolina State turns to defense for a lift.

The Wolfpack, seeded third in the Phoenix Regional, did it again Friday and overcame a slow start to beat Sun Belt Conference champion Louisiana-Lafayette 61-52 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

N.C. State plays the winner of Vanderbilt-Western Michigan on Sunday.

"There's going to be grind-out games when you just have to do whatever it takes to win," North Carolina State's Julius Hodge saimes and was held to 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting.

"I wasn't scoring so I had to do other things," said Hodge, who had 10 rebounds. "I hit the boards and did whatever it took. I didn't necessarily have to score 30 for us to win."

Louisiana-Lafayette (20-9) kept it interesting, cutting its biggest deficit -- 11 points -- to seven on Antoine Landry's 3-pointer with just under three minutes to go. North Carolina State put the game away by going 6-for-6 from the foul line the rest of the way.

Landry led Louisiana-Lafayette with 16 points, but the Ragin' Cajuns shot just 32.7 percent from the field, including 5-for-22 on 3-point attempts, and were held to their second-lowest point total of the season.

The key was a field-goal drought of nearly 12 minutes that spanned the last 9:15 of the first half and the first 2:40 of the second.

"We were up three or four and took some quick 3s, looking for the home run to try to increase the lead," Louisiana-Lafayette coach Jessie Evans said. "We knew every possession is critical and you have to play 40 minutes against a team like that. It just didn't work out."

North Carolina State entered the tournament after squandering a 19-point second-half lead in a loss to Maryland in the semifinals of the ACC tournament.

Yet the Wolfpack seemed primed to make their deepest run in the postseason since Jim Valvano led the school to its last national championship in 1983 with a No. 3 seeding on the strength of its second-place regular-season finish in the ACC.

But 14th seeded Louisiana-Lafayette was hardly awed by Wolfpack or Hodge.

The Ragin' Cajuns led for much of the first half and weathered a surge by North Carolina State to trail just 27-23 at the break, despite shooting just 25 percent (6-of-24) in the first 20 minutes.

They thrived on 3-point shots during the regular season, but misfired on 11 of 12 attempts from beyond the arc in the opening half and were nearly as bad after the intermission.

Second-leading scoring Brad Boyd finished 1-for-7 from behind the line. Orien Greene, a transfer from Florida with the most NCAA tournament experience, was 0-for-5.

Despite the solid defensive performance, North Carolina State coach Herb Sendek knows the Wolfpack will have to play better to stay in the tournament, let alone make a run at the championship.

"All week long we said this was going to be a challenging game. Many of the analysts and pundits said they wouldn't be surprised if N.C. State went home after the first round. We won the game, and our guys need to be able to celebrate an NCAA tournament first-round win," Sendek said.

"Did we play as well as we would have liked? Obviously not. But Louisiana-Lafayette is a good team. Everybody knows that."