BLACKSBURG -- Jamon Gordon made a number of good moves during Saturday's game, but his best one came after the buzzer.

The Virginia Tech guard scrambled on top of the press table, waved his arms and shouted with delight. He watched as Tech students ran onto the Cassell Coliseum court and engulfed his teammates after a 94-88 win over No. 1 North Carolina.

"I can't be in that middle. They'll be jumping around too hard in that middle," Gordon, who had 17 points, six rebounds, six assists and five steals, said later.

Fellow senior guard Zabian Dowdell made his way to the scorer's table and jumped on it. He thought back to last weekend, when he had been scolded by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski during Tech's celebration of a win over the then-No. 5 Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

"[At game's end], that's when all your emotions come out," said Dowdell, who had 23 points and four steals. "I wanted to try to contain mine because of what Coach K told me last week. I wanted to try to hold my feelings in.

"My emotions were not as wild as they were when we beat Duke."

The victory in front of an extremely loud, near-capacity crowd was also savored by senior center Coleman Collins, who had 12 points and five rebounds.

"This is the kind of win I would've liked to have gotten last year," said Collins, whose father died of cancer last February. "This is the kind of game I would've liked my father to be able to see, but my mom was here ... and I was able to share it with my teammates. I love this team."

The Hokies (13-4, 3-0 ACC) beat a No. 1 men's basketball team for only the second time in their history; they knocked off No. 1 Memphis State at home in January 1983.

"This is one of those special moments," Hokies coach Seth Greenberg said. "It's a real great win for Virginia Tech basketball."

The Hokies have won nine of their last 10 games.

"Hopefully this is a sign of things to come," Dowdell said. "If we can continue to play as hard as we played tonight and play as hard as we played against Duke, the sky's the limit for this team."

The Tar Heels (15-2, 2-1) had beaten Tech 18 straight times, including twice since the Hokies joined the ACC. But they trailed by as many as 23 points in the second half.

"I didn't expect us to be up by 20 at any point in the game," Dowdell said.

UNC, which had risen to No. 1 in the polls Monday, did throw a late scare into the Hokies.

Trailing 81-61 with 3:48 to go, the Tar Heels whittled the lead to 91-88 with 16.9 seconds to go. UNC made four 3-pointers during the run, and Tech had three turnovers in that span. Tech's final basket came with 4:54 to go.

"Bad things always happen to us at the end of games," said Dowdell, whose team lost at then-No. 1 Duke last season on a 40-footer at the buzzer. "I couldn't help but think bad things.

"We got a bit passive at the end of the game."

Dowdell made one free throw and Gordon two to extend the lead to 94-88.

UNC shot 43.8 percent from the field and committed 17 turnovers.

"I didn't do a good job of getting the team ready to play with the intensity that we had to play with," said UNC coach Roy Williams, whose team had won 12 straight.

The Hokies did better inside than they had against UNC the past two seasons.

"It was a lot of hard work," Collins said. "I'm tired now. Dead tired."

All-American center Tyler Hansbrough had 19 points and 15 rebounds for UNC. But Hansbrough, who was guarded by Collins, had four turnovers and was just 5-of-13 from the field.

"We knew that Tyler Hansbrough was the main focus," Tech small forward A.D. Vassallo said. "You take him out of the game, they get a little bit out of control. They don't know how to do anything.

"We defended him early. We tried to make him get a little rattled. He got a little mad because he was not getting easy shots."

UNC freshman power forward Brandan Wright added 13 points and eight rebounds but was 1-of-8 from the free-throw line.

Freshman guards Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington had 16 and 12 points, respectively, but were outplayed by the more experienced Dowdell and Gordon.

Vassallo scored 17 points off of the bench. Greenberg had been concerned about UNC's waves of subs, but his reserves outscored UNC's 36-23.

The Hokies went on a 17-0 run to grab a 30-21 lead with 7:45 left in the first half. In the second half, Tech went on a 19-5 run to build a 68-45 cushion with 11:29 left.

"They really took us out of our game," Wright said.

No. Carolina MP FG FT R A F PT

Terry 16 2-6 0-0 3 3 1 5

Wright 25 6-9 1-8 8 0 2 13

Hansbrough 34 5-13 9-10 15 1 2 19

Ellington 27 4-12 2-2 2 1 2 12

Lawson 24 6-10 2-3 3 6 4 16

Ginyard 19 2-6 1-2 3 0 5 5

Frasor 6 0-1 1-2 1 1 1 1

Thomas 7 0-1 0-0 1 2 1 0

Green 14 1-5 0-0 4 0 3 3

Thompson 10 3-3 0-2 0 0 2 6

Miller 14 2-5 0-0 1 2 2 6

Stepheson 4 1-2 0-0 1 0 0 2

Totals 200 32-73 16-29 47 16 25 88

Virginia Tech MP FG FT R A F PT

Washington 10 3-6 0-0 3 1 5 6

Witcher 10 0-2 0-0 2 0 4 0

Collins 29 4-6 4-4 5 0 2 12

Dowdell 33 5-9 11-15 3 3 0 23

Gordon 32 6-16 5-7 6 6 4 17

Munson 17 3-4 2-2 2 3 2 10

Krabbendam 8 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 0

Sailes 11 0-0 0-4 0 0 1 0

Diakite 14 3-4 0-0 3 0 5 6

Vassallo 28 5-9 5-6 3 1 3 17

Tucker 8 1-1 0-0 0 0 0 3

Totals 200 30-57 27-38 33 14 27 94

Rebounds include team rebounds.

Score by periods:

No. Carolina 37 51 -- 88

Virginia Tech 47 47 -- 94

3-point goals -- UNC 8-26 (Terry 1-3, Hansbrough 0-1, Ellington 2-8, Lawson 2-3, Ginyard 0-1, Frasor 0-1, Green 1-4), VT 7-13 (Washington 0-1, Dowdell 2-3, Gordon 0-2, Munson 2-2, Vassallo 2-4, Tucker 1-1).

Turnovers -- UNC 17 (Hansbrough 4, Lawson 4), VT 11 (Dowdell 4).

Blocked shots -- UNC 4 (Wright 2), VT 5 (Diakite 3).

Steals -- UNC 7 (Lawson 3), VT 14 (Gordon 5).

Officials -- Mike Wood, Ray Natili, Sean Hull.

A -- 9,847.