CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) -- It didn't take long for North Carolina State coach Herb Sendek to figure out the difference on the floor Saturday night as No. 14 North Carolina beat his team 83-75.

"Ed Cota was not only seeking his shot but his presence for 38 minutes out of the 40 made them so much better. He puts them at another level when he plays like that," Sendek said of the North Carolina point guard, who scored a career-high 23 points on 8-for-8 shooting.

	North Carolina's Ed Cota was unstoppable Saturday -- as Archie Miller and the Wolfpack quickly learned.

Fellow guard Joseph Forte added 18 points as the Tar Heels shot 79 percent in the second half and finished 27-for-38 from the field.

Cota's teammates said it didn't take them long to follow the team's senior leader.

"Ed was super aggressive offensively," Jason Capel said. "He leads by example and not by being vocal. When we saw him being aggressive we said we had better be aggressive too to live up to his expectations."

The Wolfpack got off 30 more shots than North Carolina, but the Tar Heels outscored N.C. State 26-6 at the foul line.

"I guess we did force 20 turnovers and that's a silver lining for our defense, but that pales in comparison to the parade to the foul line and the field goal percentage that we gave up," Sendek said.

The Tar Heels (11-4, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) shot 63.2 percent in the first half and then went 8-for-9 from the field to open the second period to bury the upstart Wolfpack (10-2, 1-1).

North Carolina shot 71 percent, bettering 70 percent for the first time since hitting for 75 percent against Old Dominion in 1992.

"That's pretty efficient," North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge said in the understatement of the night. "Ed Cota was directing the offense and he was able to get the ball to the right people at the right time."

Cota, the school's career assist leader, was the shooting star on this night. His previous best point total in a game was 20 four times.

In addition to his perfect shooting from the field, Cota was 7-for-9 from the foul line and added six assists and three steals.

Anthony Grundy, Damon Thornton and Kenny Inge led the Wolfpack with 15 points each.

North Carolina has won eight of the last nine in the series and improved to 8-0 this season when leading at the half.

N.C. State, coming off a two-point victory over Maryland (No. 15 ESPN/USA Today, No. 12 AP) on Thursday, had held opponents to an average of 57 points a game. North Carolina had that total with 13 minutes left as the ACC's best-shooting team played its best game of the season.

"I can't say they are overrated. How many turnovers did we have?" Cota asked. "They got great pressure on the ball. It looked like they had six guys out there sometimes, but we just kept our poise."

The 6-foot-4 Forte sank a 3-pointer to open the second-half shooting barrage, and Capel, scoreless in the first half, had seven points in the opening 4{ minutes as the Tar Heels pushed a two-point halftime lead to 58-43.

N.C. State got no closer than seven points until the final seconds.

The Wolfpack played a near flawless first half until the final two minutes as the Tar Heels went on a 10-0 run to erase an eight-point deficit.

Forte, Brendan Haywood, who was 7-for-7 from the field, and North Carolina's trapping defense keyed the late first-half surge.

Forte made two free throws and a 3-pointer in a 22-second span, Haywood had a slam dunk and a layup and the Wolfpack coughed the ball up three times over the final 1:58.