WATCH: Ben Middlebrooks After NC State’s Win Over USC Upstate (with transcript)

Senior Forward Ben Middlebrooks posted a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds in NC State’s season opening 97-66 win over USC Upstate tonight. He also had 4 blocks. Last season, Middlebrooks had 1 double-double all year. Middlebrooks was 5 of 8 from the field.

Middlebrooks spoke with the media after the game. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

What does it mean to have those two banners raised?

Oh it’s awesome, to have that piece of history stamped. It’s incredible. Obviously, we’re looking forward now. That was amazing, especially for all the returners that experienced it last year. To have that moment and be a part of that. Now we’ve got that out of the way, and we’re just trying to do it again.

You had a lot of juice, with that big block in the 1st half. 

Absolutely. All the energy. All the fans coming out to see the banners dropping. A place like this, this arena, there’s no place like it. With all the Wolfpack fans out there, this place was pumping for sure.

The diversity of scoring

Look at how many guys scored double-digit points. We had like 4o or 50 points off of the bench. We have some of the most competitive practices in the country. We go at each other every day. You see different guys being successful against each other. So many different skill sets. We’ve got a lot of big things coming for a lot of different guys.

When he got a layup off of a steal, the team was feeding off of his energy

I always pride myself on being an energy guy. I felt like we had a lot of juice going in. A lot of fans in the building. We’re a real high paced, high intensity team. I was just trying to feed off of the energy of my teammates and everything going on.

How did you and Brandon work in the offseason to replace the absence of Burns and Diarra?

We go at each other every day. He’s an incredible player. I said this a lot about Burns last year, but having another guy like that on the team that is a dominant very skilled big, to go against that every single day, it only makes me better. I’m excited to see us play together.