It may not be if but where when it comes to NC State and the NCAA Tournament.
Last night, while Wolfpack fans may have been watching the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, they may have noticed on the bottom of the screen that ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had moved NC State from “On the bubble” to “Lock.”
In his updated bracket Sunday morning, Lunardi did move NC State down a line to the 10 seed, where it would play seventh-seeded Nevada, led by former NCSU players Caleb and Cody Martin, in the West Region in games played in Detroit. Second-seeded Purdue would await in the next round.
Lunardi also had NC State as one of his last four byes along with Florida State, USC and UCLA.
Nevada’s lopsided loss to San Diego State in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference Tournament was an unwelcomed development for teams closely watching the bubble. Nevada is a lock to make the field, but the MWC was generally considered a one-bid league after Boise State lost in the first round of its tournament. Now the league will get an unexpected second team in the Big Dance (San Diego State and New Mexico will play for the conference title.)
Elsewhere on the bubble, it was mostly a good day regarding the scenarios we laid out Friday. Oregon, Mississippi State and Georgia had any Cinderella runs stopped. In the Pac-12, Arizona remains alive and will play USC for the league title. Arizona beating UCLA was also a good development for NCSU.
The three dominant teams in the American Athletic Conference (Cincinnati, Houston and Wichita State) all moved to the semifinals. Only Memphis, which probably needs to win the tournament to get into the field, joins them.
Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure also advanced in the Atlantic 10 to the semifinals. If both wins today, then it would ensure that the A-10 remains a two-bid league. Rhode Island plays St. Joseph’s and St. Bonaventure goes against Davidson.
A couple of teams though did pick up big wins and likely cemented spots in the field: Alabama and Providence.
CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm went on local radio show Adam and Joe on 99.9 The Fan in the Triangle and said that he thought NC State was safe. He noted that its high number of quality wins overshadowed its poor non-conference slate.
Palm also noted the NCSU’s non-conference schedule is not the worst the committee will see. As of Saturday morning, NCSU’s non-conference strength of schedule ranked just No. 251 out of 351 teams, but two teams Palm brought up were worse. Virginia Tech is No. 333 while Florida State is No. 323.
As for Palm’s updated bracket, he had NC State as a nine seed in Wichita with top-seeded Kansas potentially awaiting, but he had a new first round opponent in Providence.
BracketMatrix.com updated 106 brackets as of 8:30 p.m. on Friday night and NCSU made the field in 102 of them, with an average seeding of 9.57, which was the last of the four nine seeds.
The NCAA Tournament selection show is Sunday at 6 p.m. on TBS.
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