Coach Sidney Lowe, after back-to-back home ACC losses against Boston College and Clemson, switched up his team’s rotation Saturday at Wake Forest en route to an 88-74 victory, his first ACC win as coach.

Lowe put in guards Bryan Nieman and Trevor Ferguson less than five minutes into the game, and he put freshman Darrell Davis — a football player who joined the team in December and had previously played one minute all season — into the contest less than a minute later.

Nieman, a senior who had played 14 minutes in the previous five games after starting five games earlier in the season, would play 22 minutes and Ferguson and Davis would log 12 minutes and six minutes, respectively.

It was the deepest in the bench Lowe has gone in four ACC games, and it was a move Demon Deacons senior center Kyle Visser said was a smart one.

“A big thing with us is pushing the ball on offense, so I guess that was a pretty good decision to try to keep some legs fresh because that was one of our goals was to get at their legs a little bit,” Visser said. “I think their playing more players allowed them to keep running with us.”

Wake senior guard Michael Drum also said he had expected N.C. State to wear down by the end of the game.

“You figured they’d be tired with the smaller number of players they have, but it seemed like they had endless amount of energy tonight. They were making shots, and I’m sure that’s not going to tire you out too much,” Drum said. “And it wasn’t really hard to guard us tonight.”

Lowe noted the emergence of Davis and walk-on Justin Clark, who played in the closing seconds of the first half. He said the opportunity for them to play was an important development for his team.

“The thing with those two guys is they’re going to come in and play hard. So if we can keep them in there with some of the starters, guys that can control things, then they certainly can help us out a great deal,” Lowe said. “That’s how we’re going to have to play because otherwise we’ll wear the starters down.”

Davis went high to pull down a rebound on one play in the second half, and he also went above the rim on the offensive end on one play to try to get a rebound. He was whistled for a foul on the play, but sophomore guard Courtney Fells said it was still a nice effort for Davis.

“I was excited to see that because that shows that he wasn’t going to back down from anyone. Even though it was a foul, we liked the aggression out of him,” Fells said. “So that was big for us.”

By the end of the game, State was even able to put in five non-starters — Nieman, Ferguson, Davis and walk-ons Braxton Albritton and Chad Williams — for the final 15.9 seconds of a 14-point ACC win.

As for whether the switch-up in playing eight players at least six minutes and seven guys at least 12 minutes kept the team fresher, junior Gavin Grant said he certainly saw a difference.

“Usually by the end of the game, me and Courtney are kind of tired,” Grant said. “Today we felt great.”