This is the year of living dangerously for the N.C. State men’s basketball team. The Wolfpack beat Elon 87-72 Wednesday night at the Greensboro Coliseum, but it was another game in which State was behind and in trouble.

We take plays off,” freshman guard Ryan Harrow told Pack Pride. “That’s what we have to get better at.”

Harrow made a great point. If you look at the Pack’s performance so far, what you see is a good record but one built on uneven performances:

* State beat Tennessee Tech in the opener 82-69 but led just 37-34 at halftime.
* State trailed ECU 23-22 but won,85-65
* State was down 56-55 to George Mason before winning, 78-65
* State led Fairleigh Dickinson by just four points in the second half before winning, 77-67
* State had a slow start against USC Upstate before winning 79-60
* State trailed Youngstown State 31-13 before winning, 67-50
* State needed a last-second shot to beat Delaware State 72-70
* State trailed Elon by 10 in the first half before winning, 87-72

Now, is any single game there indicative of disaster? Of course not. But slow starts are going to hard to overcome in places like Clemson and Virginia, let alone Duke and UNC. State has an easy ACC opener Saturday against Wake Forest – of course, the Pack could turn that into a cliff-hanger – and the schedule gets tougher after that.

This is a young team, and one that will grow. But, whew, you just wonder what ACC play holds if the Wolfpack continues to start so slowly. The larger question that looms over the program is whether this coaching staff has the team ready to play. A few slow starts is one thing – a pattern of behavior is another.

What an ugly loss for Virginia Tech Monday night in the Orange Bowl, a 40-12 drubbing at the hands of Stanford. That loss put the ACC at 4-4 in bowls this season, with Boston College still to play Nevada in San Francisco’s Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (huh?) on Jan. 9 (what? Isn’t that time for spring football?).

So how often can we say N.C. State and North Carolina came through for the league in football? But this year, that’s the way it played out, with those schools getting wins while the rest of the ACC largely floundered.

Winners
Florida State beat South Carolina 26-17 in the Chick-fil-A
N.C. State trounced West Virginia 23-7 in the Champs
UNC topped Tennessee 30-27 in double overtime in the Music City
Maryland routed East Carolina 51-20 in the Military

Losers
Virginia Tech lost to Stanford 40-12 in the Orange
Clemson lost to South Florida 31-26 in the Meineke
Georgia Tech lost to Air Force 14-7 in the Independence
Miami lost to Notre Dame 33-17 in the Sun

Overall, it was a mediocre end to a disappointing ACC season. Hey, at least we have Wake Forest basketball …

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski made some important points on his television show Sunday afternoon. Speaking of Kyrie Irving, he noted that the Blue Devils had to be thinking about the team they are without him, not the team they could be with him. If you heard it, it was clear Coach K isn’t expecting Irving back any time soon, if at all.

So Sunday night’s game with Miami was a great preview of what this Duke team is trying to be. The Hurricanes aren’t great but they are athletic and tenacious on defense. The Blue Devils are clearly more skilled, but the gap between Duke and the rest of a weakened ACC isn’t the gulf that it was with Irving. As Krzyzewski pointed out in his show, Seth Curry and others will have expanded roles now, on offense and on defense.

Nolan Smith remains a star, as he showed in Duke’s 74-63 win in Cameron. Smith scored 28 points, but 13 game in a first-half stretch that was the difference in the game. Smith has a great 3-point shot, even from well behind the college arc, and he simply blew Miami out in that stretch.

But how Duke develops beyond the established pair of Smith and Kyle Singler will be fascinating. Curry looked overmatched on defense Sunday. Ryan Kelly from Raleigh looks much stronger than a year ago and could start to become more of a factor on offense. Same for Andre Dawkins. What’s evolving is more of a halfcourt team that plays rugged defense and depends less on fast breaks.

That’s not a bad formula at all – Duke rode it to a national title last year. But the Devils had three playmakers in 2010, with Jon Scheyer the third. Right now, it’s Smith and Singler – and a player to be named with Irving on the bench.

The return of Tracy Smith sets up a conference stretch for N.C. State that will be among the most interesting in recent memory.

That the Wolfpack played poorly without Smith is undeniable. State was 6-4 with the  senior forward on the sidelines, and coach Sidney Lowe constantly talked about how losing Smith slowed the team’s progress. Smith was terrific Saturday in his return getting 16 points in State’s 76-54 win over San Diego.

The Pack has Elon Wednesday in Greensboro and then the steady run of ACC games begin. First up is Wake Forest in Raleigh, followed by games at Boston College and Florida State and home to Duke. This run will be an enormous test for Lowe, who has to integrate Smith back into a young team. And State enters the new year with its rotation undetermined.

For example, who is the point guard? Senior Javy Gonzalez remains the starter, but he played only 18 minutes Saturday and contributed four points and two assists. Gonzalez is nothing more than a backup on a good ACC team, but Lowe has stayed with him so far. That leaves Ryan Harrow coming off the bench, and he had 21 minutes and 12 points Saturday. Sure, that’s lesser competition – what can he do against Duke? Or more significantly, what will he do against mid-level ACC teams like Boston College?

Assuming Smith is fully healthy, Lowe has to create a consistent playing rotation, and fast. This is still a team trying to figure out its parts. State appears to have the talent to be an upper echelon ACC team, especially in such a down year. But a poor ACC performance would be disastrous for State, which has yet to make the NCAA Tournament under Lowe.

Elizabeth Edwards took the word and made it hers, but you can look at the N.C. State football team of 2010 and see resilience etches in faces on the field.

That trait was evident again Tuesday in a pulsating 23-7 win over West Virginia in the Champs Sports Bowl. Russell Wilson snatched the headlines with 275 yards of passing and 41 yards rushing. Wilson is so savvy, and so elusive, that you almost forget State even has any running backs. And Wilson’s numbers would have been much higher if his receivers had not had so many drops.

But the play that made the game came from the other side, and it was oh so typical of this Wolfpack team. West Virginia trailed by just nine points when quarterback Geno Smith gunned the balldownfield in the fourth quarter. The ball roared off his arm toward an open receiver knifing behind the Wolfpack defense, but safety Brandon Bishop swooped over for a stunning interception.

That throw, had Bishop missed his timing, was an easy touchdown, and a two-point game. But Bishop made a Pro Bowl level snag that had him fully extended in the air and grabbing the ball with both hands. After State had given up whopping passing yards to UNC and Maryland, Bishop’s play made a statement that the Pack would not yield again.

But the Wolfpack has been like that this year. State never lost two straight games and came back in convincing fashion after each defeat. Tuesday’s game came off a disappointing effort at Maryland, but there was no flat performance from the Wolfpack.

The future of Russell Wilson remains uncertain, and there’s no question he is one of the school’s all-time great players and worthy of having his jersey retired. But whether Wilson returns or not, Tom O’Brien seems to have finally found the type of team he wants at N.C. State – tough, determined … resilient. That’s a superb foundation for a program that turned an important corner in 2010.

This isn’t a good sign for Wolfpack fans. In case you missed it, Clemson pounced on visiting Delaware State Monday night, winning 76-41 and leading by 21 at the half. The Associated Press story said the visitors “struggled to find open shots.”

That had not been a problem for Delaware State in an earlier game at N.C. State, when they hit 9 of 22 three-point shots. The Wolfpack barely held on for a two-point win when Scott Wood scored in the final seconds.

Delaware State is now just 4-7.

Clemson, by the way, is 9-4 under new coach Brad Brownell, who was the head coach at UNC-Wilmington for four seasons before leaving for four years at Wright State.

East Carolina deserves some love for making the Military Bowl in Washington, D.C., and facing Maryland in what really could have been a set-back year for the Pirates.

Losing Skip Holtz could have been a colossal blow for this program, and still could be. But so far, you have to be impressed by coach Ruffin McNeill’s body of work. His  players love him, he exudes passion for the school, and he righted a Pirate ship that could have taken on a great deal of water this year.

ECU’s defense put up some dreadful numbers this season. The Pirates gave up 43.4 points per game and allowed rivals to convert a stunning 52 percent of their third downs. Even worse, opponents converted 71 percent of their fourth downs.

The Pirates somehow salvaged a 6-6 record, stealing a win over Tulsa in the opener and beating N.C. State in overtime – to gain a bowl berth.  If they surprise Maryland on Wednesday, they’ll have a winning season.

Holtz, by the way, had success at South Florida. His Bulls beat Miami 23-20 in overtime – aiding the departure of Randy Shannon – and lost their finale to UCon on a 52-yard field goal with 17 seconds left. A 7-5 record was good enough to put South Florida in the Meineke Car Care Bowl against Clemson.

The contrast in that game will be stark. Clemson continues to be the ACC’s most underachieving franchise in football, a Dabo Swinney’s 6-6 mark this season didn’t have the IPTAY club roaring with delight. An overtime loss at Auburn – a game Clemson should have won – seemed to symbolize the season for both teams. The Auburn Tigers escaped one noose after another en route to a berth in the title game, while the Clemson Tigers bumbled to close losses to Miami and UNC that derailed any hopes of a big year.

Quarterback Kyle Parker had a mediocre year, with 12 touchdown throws and 10 interceptions. You have to believe Clemson fans will watch this game and wonder what the Tigers would look like if Skip Holtz were leading the orange down the hill.

This just isn’t turning out to be the season N.C. State expected, and you can bet there will be a rising tide of concern if the present trajectory continues.

Wednesday’s events were significant if you were a Wolfpack fan. First, State announced a new men’s soccer coach, Kelly Findley. Findley replaces George Tarantini, who announced his retirement at the end of the 2010 season.

Whether Tarantini retired on his own or not isn’t all that important. The key point here is everyone knows new athletics director Debbie Yow isn’t going to be satisfied with moribund sports, and the Wolfpack soccer program had settled into the bottom of the ACC standings. The Pack was 10-8-2 overall last season and 1-5-2 in ACC play, hardly the type of performance to excite a new AD.

Yow faces a more significant decision on basketball. Sidney Lowe is a great ambassador for the program and good guy who has now shown he can recruit. But he has yet to show he can build a winner, and the lingering injury to Tracy Smith has deflated the start to this season. Scrambling to beat Delaware State 72-70 on Wednesday night didn’t exactly thrill the crowd of 11,435 at the RBC Center.

Joe Giglio, writing in The News & Observer, described the Wolfpack defense as “porous.” That’s an adjective you could attach to NCSU’s defense for a while now – too many times, you watch the Wolfpack play and think, Wow, they just don’t seem in sync on defense.

Another issue, and fans are picking up on this on the message boards, is State seems to be fishing when it comes to a rotation. Who’s the point guard – Gonzalez or Harrow? What are the roles of all the different players? Obviously the injury to Smith damaged the coaching staff’s plans, but injuries are part of the game. Heck, Duke may be without Kyrie Irving the rest of the season, and you can beat Mike Krzyzewski and his staff fill find a new formula. Some of Dean Smith’s greatest coaching efforts came when he had critical players injured.

State has three easy non-conference games ahead, Alabama A&M on Dec. 28, San Diego on Jan. 1 and Elon on Jan. 5. after that, it opens ACC play at Wake Forest, and the steady drumbeat of conference games follows. The ACC is down this year – wow, some of these preseason scores have been downright scary – and State should be ripe to make a run up the standings.

With Smith back, there is still a chance of that. But an early season schedule that was expected to excite fans has now concerned them – and you can bet Yow is watching closely and evaluating.

There were plenty of people who had doubts about C.J. Leslie coming to N.C. State, recognizing that he was a great talent but wondering if he threw himself into the game. So far, the results are clearly mixed.

State had a huge opportunity Sunday against a good, but beatable, Arizona team at the RBC Center. The Wolfpack has yet to make it to NCAA play under Sidney Lowe and needs some signature wins to get national recognition. But it wasn’t to be Sunday as Arizona won, 72-62.

the most surprising, and disappointing, line of the night came from Leslie. He scored just two points and hit one of 14 shots as the Wolfpack shot just 32 percent from the field.

Well, that just won’t cut it. Leslie is now hitting just 39.5 percent of his shots on the season.