LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Sophomore guard Donovan Mitchell scored 21 of his 28 points in the first half and finished with a season-high six 3-pointers in No. 13 Louisville's 85-60 win over North Carolina State on Sunday at the KFC Yum! Center.

"I'm really, really pleased with this performance tonight because we are getting better each game," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said.

Mitchell had a hot hand early and Louisville kept feeding him the ball. He scored the Cardinals' first 14 points as he more than capably filled in for injured starting point guard Quentin Snider (hip).

"Donovan is getting a chance to play his normal position, which is point guard," Pitino said. "You always look for a silver lining in any injury, and he's got a chance to work at that, which I think will pay huge dividends down the road."

With 36 NBA scouts in attendance, the game was billed as a showdown between young guards Mitchell and NC State freshman Dennis Smith Jr.

The Cardinals (18-4, 6-3) used Mitchell, former walk-on David Levitch and freshman Ryan McMahon to frustrate Smith into missing eight of his first 10 shots from the floor. Smith was held to a season-low eight points.

"We wanted to intelligently dog Smith as much as we could to wear him out, and we wanted to make sure that we defended the 3 and most of the game we defended it really well," Pitino said. "We contained the ball much better, and this was one of our better games. The guys played terrific."

After NC State (14-8, 3-6) scored the first six points of the game on two 3-pointers, Louisville went on a 21-3 run to take a 21-9 lead with 11:55 left in the first half. The Cardinals led 28-13 just 10 minutes into the game.

"We just seemed heavy," NC State coach Mark Gottfried said. "We had cement boots on. We played with cement boots. We couldn't do anything right, couldn't make an open shot, couldn't make a foul shot -- layups. Defensively we were slow to the ball. Rebounding we were slow to the ball. Communication was slow. Everything was slow."

NC State briefly cut the margin to single digits at 31-22 after a 3-pointer by Terry Henderson and a free throw by Abdul-Malik Abu, but Louisville answered with another 3-pointer by Mitchell, his fourth of the game to that point.

Louisville led by double digits the rest of the half, including 45-33 at the break, led by Mitchell's 21 points.

The second half saw Louisville's lead swell from 12 to 32 points. The Cardinals outscored the Wolfpack 24-7 to build a 69-41 lead with just over 10 minutes left.

"We came down and no one was talking to each other, so we switched from our man to our zone," Gottfried said. "Two guys were playing man and three were playing zone and no one's talking to each other. That was kind of a snapshot of our performance."

Louisville maintained a comfortable lead the rest of the game, helped by 14 points from senior center Mangok Mathiang and 10 from sophomore wing Deng Adel.

Maverick Rowan and Abu led NC the Wolfpack with 13 points apiece.

NOTES: Louisville leads the series with NC State 11-9. ... The two schools have played four times since 2015 but not at all from 1988 until Louisville joined the ACC in 2015. ... Louisville hit 12 3-pointers against NC State, tying its season high. ... Louisville played without starting PG Quentin Snider (hip) and backup PG Tony Hicks (broken hand).