GREENSBORO N.C. State’s win over Virginia Tech on Thursday set up a rematch with Virginia.

That’s fine with Wolfpack senior Richard Howell.

The Wolfpack dropped a 58-55 decision at Virginia on Jan. 29, a game in which guard Lorenzo Brown injured his ankle in the first half and a loss that ultimately cost N.C. State a bye in this tournament.

“It’s definitely a revenge game,” Howell said. “We feel like they got away with one up there. If we take care of business, with Lorenzo here, it can definitely be a different outcome.”

Twenty-points from Joe Harris helped the Cavaliers (21-10, 11-7 ACC) beat the short-handed Wolfpack at John Paul Jones Arena.

Forward C.J. Leslie also played in that game with the flu, although he did have 20 points and 14 rebounds.

“That was a tough day for us,” Wolfpack coach Mark Gottfried said.

The last three times the two teams have met have been close. Virginia beat N.C. State by one point last year in Raleigh and then the Wolfpack beat Virginia, 67-64 in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament in Atlanta.

Return of Hess: Longtime ACC official Karl Hess returned to the ACC tournament on Thursday night, working the Wake Forest-Maryland game.

Hess did not work the ACC tournament last year in Atlanta, which set off a controversy when three officials taped Hess’ initials to their sneakers for the first game of the tournament.

Hess was involved in a firestorm last season with N.C. State after he had former players Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta ejected from the Florida State game in Raleigh.

Hess, who has worked 22 ACC games this season, the most of any official, has not refereed an N.C. State game yet this season.

Spelling counts: Boston College freshman Olivier Hanlan was trending nationally on Twitter after his 41-point performance against Georgia Tech. Hanlan even got a congratulatory tweet from new Boston College athletics director Brad Bates.

Problem was, Bates misspelled Hanlan’s name in the original tweet. Bates later apologized on his Twitter account for the mistake.

Lewis OK: N.C. State freshman Tyler Lewis collided with Virginia Tech’s Jarell Eddie with 2 minutes and 7 seconds left in Thursday’s game.

Both players remained on the floor for a few minutes and Lewis went to the bench favoring his right knee. He had an ice pack on it after the game but said he would be ready for Friday’s game against Virginia.

“I’m OK,” Lewis said. “We went knee to knee.”

Lewis finished four points and three fouls in six minutes. Veteran official Bryan Kersey was giving Lewis a hard time in the second half after a quick flurry of calls.

Kersey joked with Wood, after one call, that Lewis couldn’t talk to him because he was only a freshman. Senior Scott Wood acted as intermediary between Lewis and Kersey.

“He was standing up for me,” Lewis said of Wood. “That was nice of him.”

Fly Eagles fly: Perhaps lost in the astonishment over Olivier Hanlan’s 41-point game for Boston College was the fact that the Eagles fell behind 15-0 to Georgia Tech in that game before outscoring the Yellow Jackets 84-49 the rest of the way.

Two weeks ago, the Eagles came back from 10 points down with 10 minutes to play to beat Virginia, and they were down 10 in the second half against Georgia Tech in the final game of the regular season Saturday.

“We said being down 15 with 35 minutes to go is much easier than being down 10 with 10 to go,” Hanlan said. “So that loosened us up a little bit.”

Luke DeCock contributed to this report.