Luke DeCock: Wave carrying NC State hasn't broken. It's taken Pack within a win of the Final Four.

DALLAS — The wave hasn’t broken yet. N.C. State is crouched in the tube, swept along by powerful forces it might not fully understand but will happily enjoy as long as they last.

Ride it. Ride it as long as you can. See where it takes you. Why stop now?

The Wolfpack has been a game away from going home for three weeks and now it’s a game away from the Final Four.

N.C. State led by as many as 16 in the second half before holding on for a 67-58 win over second-seeded Marquette, and now the South Region lies at the Wolfpack’s doorstep.

Depending on Friday’s late game, the 1974 reunion with Marquette will be followed by a 1983 reunion with Houston or an ACC tournament rematch with Duke, the latter guaranteeing an ACC team in the Final Four no matter what else happens this weekend.

It’s an appropriate stew of history and overlapping connections and rivalry befitting a run that continues to confound all expectations and defy belief. Of course reminders of the Wolfpack’s greatest moments should be so close at hand. This run, however it ends, has officially joined them in the pantheon.

And here’s the thing about it: It wasn’t even that hard, no trouble at all compared to the overtime escape against Oakland. N.C. State pulled away late in the first half and Marquette was never able to close the gap late. D.J. Burns did D.J. Burns things, scoring or assisting on nine of N.C. State’s 26 field goals. Mo Diarra had 11 rebounds — in the first half. (He finished with 15.)

Seven Wolfpack players played, and seven Wolfpack players scored. But the spinning Wolfpack wheel of fortune landed on Casey Morsell in the first half, back where it started against Louisville when this all began, and D.J. Horne in the second half. Eight wins. Five different leading scorers.

If you want to know just how tidily the universe has lined up behind N.C. State, Burns was called for his second foul midway through the first half trying to pivot for space on the baseline. The officials went to the monitor, presumably to check for an elbow. They instead took the foul away from Burns and gave it to a Marquette player.

The kind of weird, improbable, convoluted event that always used to go against the Wolfpack instead went in its favor.

If N.C. State (Stuff) wasn’t vanquished before, at some point in the preceding seven games, it was dead as disco then. Call it. 6:41 p.m. local time. Sign the certificate.

Maybe this really is like 1983 all over again. Or maybe it’s like Miami last year, the middle-of-the-pack ACC team that hit its stride at the exact right moment and carried the conference’s flag when others faltered.

That’s all open to conjecture, especially if N.C. State can seize its destiny Sunday and extend this unlikely run all the way to the promised land in the desert. But for now, the Wolfpack will continue to ride this wave, wherever it goes, however long it lasts.

Ride it and see where it takes you. Ride it. Ride it.