Does NC State have to win Wednesday afternoon to avoid any consternation for Selection Sunday? Based on the bracketologists, probably not.
NC State will play Boston College shortly after 2 p.m. Since the game is on a neutral court, BC (whose RPI is No. 97) is a quadrant two game. It would be difficult to imagine that losing a quad two game on a neutral floor is enough to bump the Wolfpack from its current position.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi tweeted out his current field from 1-68, and he currently has NCSU at No. 33, thus the first No. 9 seed. His last at-large team, Alabama, is No. 46.
In his bracket updated this morning, Lunardi has NC State playing eighth-seeded Rhode Island in Pittsburgh, where the winner would likely play top-seeded Villanova in the next round. It’s the same set-up NC State had when it reached the Sweet 16 in 2015. The Pack knocked off LSU on a last-second shot in the first round and then upset No. 1 seed Villanova in Pittsburgh.
CBS’ Jerry Palm is in fairly good agreement with Lunardi. He has NC State as a nine seed in Pittsburgh where Villanova is the top seed. The only difference is NC State would be playing eighth-seeded Missouri to open the tournament. Wolfpack freshman guard Blake Harris arrived at NCSU as a transfer from Missouri in December.
Lunardi and Palm are probably the two most identifiable bracketologists in the business, although NC State fans likely have a soft spot for Patrick Stevens after Stevens correctly predicted NCSU into the field in 2014 when few others did. (For the record, Stevens has NC State as an eight seed playing Butler in the first round in the West Region in Wichita, Kan. with top-seeded Kansas awaiting.)
However, there are a ton of bracketologists out there. The website bracketmatrix.com tracks 133 of them to be exact, and NC State was one of 33, excluding the smaller and mid-major conference title winners, listed in the field on all 133 of them. The average seed was 8.96.
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