RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- As Scott Wood jogged out of the locker room, he tossed a towel over North Carolina State teammate C.J. Leslie's head.
It might have been the best anybody covered Leslie all day.
The junior forward scored a career-high 33 points to lead the 25th-ranked Wolfpack past St. Bonaventure 92-73 on Saturday.
"Calvin was tough to guard today," N.C. State coach Mark Gottfried said,
referring to Leslie by his first name. "I thought when he attacked the
rim and was aggressive, he either scored or got fouled."
Wood added a season-best 23 points on 8-of-10 shooting and Lorenzo Brown had a season-high 11 assists for the Wolfpack (9-2).
The nation's most accurate shooting team shot 57 percent, never trailed
and now heads into its weeklong holiday break on a five-game winning
streak.
"The main thing is that we have games where it may be one guy, and
lately I feel like it's been all of us -- all the leaders and
upperclassmen, it's been all of us playing well to a certain extent,"
Leslie said. "It may be that one person is getting a little bit more and
the other person can't get it, but we all have stepped up and led and
played fairly well these last couple games."
Eric Mosley had 18 points for the Bonnies (7-4), but leading scorers
Chris Johnson and Demitrius Conger -- who average roughly 14 points
apiece -- combined for 14 on 5-of-18 shooting.
The Bonnies were outscored 50-24 in the paint, shot just 40.6 percent,
never got closer than 12 in the second half and had their two-game
winning streak snapped.
"In a game of this magnitude, your best players have to play well,"
coach Mark Schmidt said, referring to Johnson and Conger. "That's not
good enough when you play a team of this caliber."
Brown finished two assists shy of his career-high 13 set last December
against Syracuse. In building upon his previous season best -- a
17-point performance last time out in the win over Stanford -- Wood made
his first eight shots before missing a 3-pointer midway through the
second half.
"I saw the sheet and I was like, `If I screw this up, I'm going to be
mad,'" Wood said. "And right when I shot that one, I was like, `That was
a little short.' I knew."
Leslie, who beat the Bonnies last year on a last-second layup, took care
of them much earlier this time, in the process surpassing his previous
high of 24 points set last season against North Carolina.
"When Leslie plays the way he played today," Schmidt said, "they're hard to beat."
During the highest-scoring day for an N.C. State player since J.J.
Hickson had 33 points against Western Carolina in 2008, Leslie was 10 of
13 from the field and 13 of 18 at the free throw line.
"I just wanted to come out and be aggressive," he said. "I know we have
some very important games coming up and it's time to get a little bit
more serious. Not saying I wasn't serious earlier, but it's time to
buckle down and really get with the plan."
He locked up his seventh straight double-figure game well before
halftime, scoring 18 points in the opening 20 minutes and throwing the
pass that had PNC Arena buzzing.
Leslie poked the ball free from the Bonnies near midcourt and chased it
down in the left corner before dribbling toward the basket and lobbing a
perfect alley-oop for Brown -- whose two-handed slam made it 26-18 with
6:25 before the break. That game-defining play came early in the 17-4
run midway through the half that broke this one open.
N.C. State, which makes a Division I-best 53 percent of its shots, came
away with points on nine straight trips downcourt. Freshman T.J.
Warren's fast-break dunk with just under 4 minutes left capped the run
and pushed the lead to 36-22.
Warren finished with 13 points.
Youssou Ndoye added career highs of 14 points and 14 rebounds for the
Bonnies. The reigning Atlantic 10 champions had won their previous two
games by a combined 74 points but were denied in their attempt to match
their best start since opening 8-3 in 2001-02.
Only one thing really went wrong all day for N.C. State: Big man Richard
Howell, who was going for his fifth straight double-double, was in
perpetual foul trouble and finished with no points and five rebounds in
12 minutes.
