RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina State women's basketball coach Wes Moore beat his old team again, this time on his home court.
Elissa Cunane scored 17 points, and the No. 9 Wolfpack had a 23-0 second-quarter run in a 74-38 victory over the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Thursday night.
Moore was head coach at UTC from 1998 to 2013, guiding the Mocs to nine NCAA tournament berths before heading to Raleigh. He led the Wolfpack to a 78-58 victory in Chattanooga last season, and this year it was his turn to host his former UTC player and assistant Katie Burrows, who is in her second season as head coach of the Mocs.
"I saw a lot of people who really mean a lot to me," Moore said. "UTC is a place I'll always love, so I wish them the best."
Grace Hunter added 14 points for the Wolfpack (11-0) in their final nonconference game of the regular season.
N.C. State broke open a tie game with the 23-0 run, holding the Mocs (1-12) scoreless for more than eight minutes.
Erika Cassell ignited the spurt with a pair of 3-pointers, and Aislinn Konig followed with two 3-pointers of her own. Jada Boyd finished with 11 points for N.C. State in its 36th consecutive home nonconference victory.
"I feel like we can play better than we've played the last couple of games, but there's also a lot to be said for being 11-0," Moore said. "There are some men's and women's teams that have lost some games that you're kind of taken aback by. For us to survive that and go into conference play unblemished, that's what you ask for."
UTC's Bria Dial scored all of her team-leading 12 points in the first half. Lakelyn Bouldin was second on the scoring list for the Mocs with nine points, and she also had three steals. Eboni Williams' seven rebounds were a team high for the Mocs, who were beaten badly on the glass, 50-31.
The Mocs, who shot 29% from the field and were 7-for-25 from 3-point range, have lost 10 in a row. They hung tough for 11 minutes of game clock in Raleigh, but they simply couldn't score enough to keep up.
UTC entered the game as one of the nation's lowest scoring teams, and its season-long offensive struggles continued.
"If you don't put the ball in the hole, you can't win," Burrows said. "We've got to score. That's the bottom line."
N.C. State appeared to seize control in the first quarter with a 9-0 spurt, but UTC answered with an 8-0 run to tie the game at 13. That led to N.C. State's game-breaking barrage, which UTC followed by scoring the final four points of the first half.
Burrows played on four of Moore's teams that made the NCAA field before becoming his assistant for three seasons and then working five seasons as an assistant to Jim Foster. She took over after Foster retired in spring 2018.
Before their second on-court meeting, the coaches enjoyed a visit Thursday morning in which Moore showed Burrows around N.C. State's campus. They embraced twice before tipoff and posed for a photograph along the sideline.
"He called me this morning to come pick me up," Burrows said. "He said, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'I'm watching film, but I don't know why. I know you like the back of my hand.'"
UTC returns to competition Dec. 29 when it hosts Ohio University for a 4 p.m. tipoff.
The Wolfpack open Atlantic Coast Conference play that same day at Boston College, and they are off and running just like last season, when they had a program-best 21-0 start. They continue to show impressive balance, combining their typically stingy defense with Cunane's post presence and a plethora of potent 3-point shooters.
Cunane was efficient in her brief outing, shooting 8-for-11 in 17 minutes of game time. She also grabbed seven rebounds, all in the first half, ending her streak of consecutive double-doubles at four. She rested during the final 15 minutes with the Wolfpack ahead comfortably.