It didn’t take long for North Carolina State’s highly-regarded recruiting class to pay dividends for coach Sidney Lowe.

Led by the freshman trio of C.J. Leslie, Lorenzo Brown and Ryan Harrow, the Wolfpack posted an 82-69 victory over Tennessee Tech on Friday in the season opener for both teams.

Lowe likely has to lead the Wolfpack back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006 to save his job.

From the looks of it, Lowe will likely be leaning heavily on a recruiting class that was ranked No. 5 in the nation by both Rivals.com and Scout.com.

Leslie scored 21 points, shooting 7-of-10 from the field and 7-of-11 from the line. Fellow freshmen Harrow and Brown chipped in 16 and 14 points respectively.

The Wolfpack led just 37-34 at the half on the strength of 13 points from Leslie. North Carolina State came out and outscored Tennessee Tech 25-15 in the first 11 minutes of the second half for a 62-49 lead and held on from there.

Tracy Smith also reached double figures with 10 points for the Wolfpack, who were meeting the golden Eagles for the first time and improved to 12-2 all-time against teams from the Ohio Valley.

The Pack has won their past 17 season openers.

The Golden Eagles got scoring from 10 different players but could not overcome 37 percent shooting from the field (24-of-65).

Zac Swansey led Tennessee Tech with 13 points.