Is NC State basketball still on the bubble? The short answer is, yes. The loss to UNC last night, while damaging, did not change that dynamic.

Using bracketmatrix.com, which combined 126 mock brackets and averaged them out, the 16 teams that are analyzed below were competing for the last eight spots in the brackets as of Tuesday (pre-UNC loss). However, that's in a perfect world where the East Tennessee States, Northern Iowas, Stephen F. Austins, Liberties and Yales of the world secure automatic bids into the NCAA Tournament and don't muddy up the picture.

Realistically, a few bids will probably get stolen during the conference tournaments. Thus a better perspective is figuring five teams from the list of 16 are probably going to get into the Big Dance. How does NC State stack up after last night?

The Wolfpacker breaks it down as best it can after diving into the team sheets that were updated this morning by the NCAA.

For quick clarification, the NCAA divides up the quad one and two games into tiers on the team sheets.

The question is does NC State have one of the top five "quad records" profile. Providence stands out with its seven quad one victories, including four upper-tier quad ones, and a 10-8 combined Q1/Q2 record. Otherwise, NC State's combined Q1/Q2 of 9-8 and five quad one wins holds up nicely.

NCSU has an ugly 2-3 quad three record, but it's more likely that the Q1/Q2 record carries more weight. But this is where beating Pittsburgh and Wake Forest, it goes without saying, is incumbent. Both are home quad three games coming up for NC State. It is worth noting that Providence's back-end of the quads record is even uglier, 1-2 in quad three and two quad four defeats.

Oklahoma (9-11 Q1/Q2 with four Q1 wins and undefeated in Q3/4) is another that stands out above.

If you are looking for the five best in the eyes of the computers, NC State is probably not it. Purdue, Utah State and Wichita State stand out on the list above, and Cincinnati is another team that has across-the-board better ratings than the Wolfpack.

The good news is NC State is in a long list of teams that have mixed results when compared to others and don't stick out for any wrong reasons. Georgetown and Memphis, for instance, are rated below NCSU in each model, and the NET is the only computer holding up USC.

NC State runs in the middle of the pack in these metrics with the exception of its five road wins, which is tied for third most on this list behind a pair of teams that hail from non-Power Five conferences. On the flip side, its average NET loss number is tied for third worst. Ironically, the loss to UNC on Tuesday night hurt these two numbers as much as anything for the Pack, costing it a chance to add to its valuable road record and dropping its average loss.

The Pack has the ninth best overall strength of schedule, and its non-conference SOS is sixth. In essence, it will not win points nor lose any with its schedule. Similarly, its average NET win is ninth and its strength of record rating is eighth.

The good news for NC State is there are not a bunch of standouts in this metric. Oklahoma comes closest but it does have a poor road mark (2-8). Cincinnati and Georgetown also do fairly well in these categories.

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