Gavin Grant and J.J. Hickson combined to score 41 of N.C. State’s 74 points in the Wolfpack’s 74-49 win over South Carolina State on Saturday at the RBC Center. With the home win, State improved its record to 5-3 following road losses to Michigan State and East Carolina.

“It’s good to get home and get a win,” Grant said.

Grant, a senior forward, poured in a game-high 23 points in 29 minutes. Hickson, a freshman center, scored 18 points to go along with eight rebounds and a 10-for-13 day from the free-throw line.

“It was just running the floor,” Hickson said. “Gavin is 6-8, but he can handle the ball and get to the rim to shoot a lot of free throws.”

Coach Sidney Lowe said the fast-break points are great for a team because having to grind out baskets in a half-court offense makes it difficult to win games consistently.

“You’ve got to get easy baskets,” Lowe said. “We’ve got guys that can run the floor. We’re not a run-and-gun team, but we certainly want to get those easy baskets.”

Lowe said the team played well on defense, limiting S.C. State to just nine field goals in the second half and a 29.7 field-goal percentage for the game.

“We got stops,” he said. “We got a lot of deflections, and we got some big rebounds that allowed us to get out and run. We’d like to do that every game.”

With more than 13 minutes to play in the game, State led 60-31. What followed was a nine-minute span without a field goal that saw the Bulldogs cut the 29-point lead to 16 points.

Grant said the team made the most out of a lot of its chances, but the scoring droughts will hurt the team if it can’t play through them.

Hickson said such letdowns could cause the team to lose games it shouldn’t, like last week’s loss to East Carolina.

“We can’t have mental letdowns,” he said. “We went without a field goal for [nine] minutes. We have to get together. We can get beat by anybody. We’ve got to learn how to come out and play hard every night.”