With just three regular season games left, NC State seemingly remains in a good position to make the NCAA Tournament, but it’s not on solid footing.
The latest updated bracket from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi dropped NC State to an 11 seed, and he now has the Wolfpack as one of his “last four byes,” referring to the final four at-large teams that do not have to play in Dayton, Ohio, before moving onto the field of 64.
Lunardi’s projection has the Wolfpack playing sixth-seeded Buffalo in Hartford, Conn. The winner of that game would likely play third-seeded Marquette in the second round.
CBS’s Jerry Palm also has NC State as an 11 seed in Hartford, but playing Cincinnati in the opening round with the winner probably getting Texas Tech in round two. Palm does not have a category for “last four byes,” but his seeding suggests that he considers NC State hovering around that group.
According to BracketMatrix.com, NC State is listed on 110 out of 118 mock brackets with an average seed of 10.02.
What’s the biggest strength of NC State’s case at the moment? It’s simple: the newly established NET rankings. The NET has taken the place of the RPI as the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s primary ranking tool, although it is not the sole factor taken into consideration when the group fills out the official bracket.
NC State moved up two spots from Tuesday to Wednesday and is now No. 30. In the history of the previously used RPI, the highest ranked ACC team that did not make the tournament was Louisville last year at No. 38. Every other league team in one of the major six conferences in college basketball (the Power Five conferences in football plus the Big East), rated higher than 40 have missed the field.
It is noteworthy that with its No. 30 ranking, NC State is considered a quad one team for all of its opponents regardless of location of the game.
NC State has also, with one exception, avoided any bad losses. It has a quad three setback at Wake Forest, but otherwise is 19-1 in non-quad one games including a perfect 6-0 mark in quad two. That is tied for the sixth-most victories without a loss in quad two. That loss at Wake Forest was also played without junior starting point guard Markell Johnson.
So why is NC State on the bubble with such a high NET ranking? There are two factors that particularly are damaging for the Wolfpack. It has just one quad one victory, a home win over Auburn. The Tigers are No. 24 in the NET, and home games against top 30 teams count in the quad one. NC State’s overall quad one record is just 1-7.
Among top 30 teams in the NET, only two have fewer quad one victories: Nevada has not played any quad one games, and Washington is 0-4. Further, there are 10 teams ranked between 30 and 50 with at least three quad one triumphs.
The Pack's record can be somewhat offset by the fact that all seven quad one defeats were to teams ranked in the top 25 (and six ranked in the top 15), and four of them were on the road.
NC State has one certain quad one game remaining when it plays at Florida State at 12 p.m. Saturday. It may also get another opportunity at the ACC Tournament.
Also damaging is its strength of schedule (SOS). NC State’s non-conference SOS has fallen to last among the 353 teams in Division I, and its overall SOS is 216 when conference games are included. The next worst overall SOS among a Power Five team is Oregon State’s 117.
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