RALEIGH_This time, there was no escape.

This time, with control tottering unsteadily in Georgia Tech’s hands, it was the visitors who played mistake-free ball and came away with a 77-74 victory, the program's second ACC road win in three seasons and first at Raleigh since 1996.

Unlike N.C. State’s most recent RBC Center outing, a win over Miami, no bonehead foul was committed near the end of regulation to give the Wolfpack the free throw attempt that forced overtime. And there was no bonehead inbounds pass, thrown carelessly by a fifth-year senior into the hands of Gavin Grant for the winning score.

This time, when the last shot was taken, Grant was not available to provide heroics. The senior, whose late baskets and free throws already had clinched three of the Pack’s 12 wins this season, was on the bench, disqualified due to fouls.

This time, when the game was there for the taking, Georgia Tech took it, continuing its fitful rise from a stumbling start that threatened to turn a promising season into a sour one. “The thing that’s been hurting us is the last four minutes of the game,” said Yellow Jackets coach Paul Hewitt after his team scored on its final seven possessions to improve to 9-9. “We’ve hung close with everybody.”

This time, when the issue was in doubt, it was N.C. State that misfired. Freshman guard Javi Gonzalez, wide open on the right wing, shot an airball 3-pointer that would have tied the score virtually as the game clock expired.

Gonzalez played with notable confidence against the ACC’s weakest field goal defense. Georgia Tech opponents make better than 45 percent of their shots, and Gonzalez, doubtless urged to be more aggressive by his coaches, responded with a personal-best 9-point outing. He took eight shots, more than in any game this season, and several times drove uncontested to the basket in halfcourt settings.

Point guard play has been problematic for both N.C. State and Georgia Tech.

The Jackets have found a nifty, scrappy playmaker in Matt Causey, a human pinball who has bounced from Georgetown to North Georgia to Georgia Tech. Causey, like Gonzalez, did not start at Raleigh. Freshman Mo Miller got nearly half the minutes, but it was Causey who played when it mattered most.

The aggressive, scraggly-haired senior had five assists against one turnover, four steals, and 18 points in 22 minutes against the Wolfpack. He had 30 points in 22 minutes in Georgia Tech’s previous game, a home victory against Virginia Tech.

Perhaps most important, Causey provides a measure of toughness the Jackets sorely need now that Mario West and Javaris Crittenton, last year’s backcourt leaders, are playing in the NBA.

Gonzalez similarly shared time against the Jackets with fellow newcomer Marques Johnson. Both are vying to fill the void left by Engin Atsur's graduation and Farnold Degand's injury.

Steadier with the ball on this night, Gonzalez was the one on the floor at the end, a sign of his coach’s confidence.

Unfortunately, where just days earlier Miami’s Anthony King was the goat in defeat, now Gonzalez tasted the bitterness of failure in tight circumstances. But N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe quickly gave the youngster from Miami a vote of confidence, properly taking the long view.

“It’s one shot,” Lowe said just moments after the N.C. State logo fell off the podium at which he stood, mutely accentuating the evening’s outcome. “That’s one shot. He’s going to have, in his career here, he’s going to have many chances to win ballgames or tie ballgames, or whatever. That’s just one shot, and if he has to do it again I’ll give it to him again.”

N.C. State’s success this season may ultimately depend not on how opponents contend with standout big man J.J. Hickson (16 points, 10 rebounds against Georgia Tech), but on how Gonzalez deals with the memory of his 18th collegiate game.

The inability to come through in clutch circumstances is a player’s nightmare, the sort of experience that, like an actor forgetting his lines, is a possibility mentally best kept at bay.

Yet there is value in enduring the worst-case scenario, particularly if, having lived one’s fears, they become less intimidating. Coaches and self-help gurus preach regularly that you cannot succeed unless you risk failure; trite as such advice may be, it remains true.

Fear is an unspoken companion in competitive athletics. Not everyone wants the ball when the outcome hangs in the balance. Virginia center Ralph Sampson, a three-time ACC player of the year from 1981 through 1983, quietly was known for shying from taking the clutch shot during a career that never saw his teams win an ACC or NCAA championship.

A member of the Georgia Tech entourage confided that senior wing Anthony Morrow had previously wilted at the foul line with the weight of his team’s aspirations on his narrow shoulders. But at Raleigh, with a blizzard of white towels waving frantically behind the transparent backboard he faced, and spectators’ voices raised in ardent supplications to fate, Morrow twice was fouled and made his free throws in the final 19.1 seconds.

The 85.4 percent foul shooter provided the margin of victory, his free throws sandwiched around a fierce follow dunk by N.C. State's Courtney Fells, who had a career-best 23 points.

Fells continues to show improvement. Entering this season, despite a reputation as a shooter the junior had made fewer than a third of his 3-pointers. This year he’s hitting at a 37.2 percent clip from long-range, including a key three in the final seconds of overtime against Miami. Fells also drove for a key basket with under a minute to go against the Yellow Jackets, pulling the Pack within two points.

So, even in defeat, there were clear signs of better days ahead for Fells and Gonzalez and a team still trying to overcome the sour taste of its Jan. 12 meltdown at Chapel Hill.