The Wolfpacker’s weekly NET report

Remember last week when the prevailing thought was that NC State basketball’s loss at Clemson was damaging to it’s postseason résumé? At the time, the Tigers were not even in the top 100 of the NET, which is the rankings used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee to sort teams.

Fast-forward a week later, and Clemson has added wins at UNC and home against Duke. Suddenly NC State now has a quad one loss at Clemson. It goes to show that in January the NET can change quickly. Not until mid-to-late February does it start to really settle in.

A week ago, the Wolfpack was No. 46 in the NET entering its home contest against Notre Dame. The Pack won that night, but the overall metrics of the victory were apparently not kind because NCSU slipped in the immediate aftermath. By the time it tipped off at Virginia Tech Saturday, NC State was seven spots lower at No. 53.

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And the setback at VT was not that damaging. NCSU enters Wednesday’s game against Miami actually one spot higher than it was before VT, checking in at No. 52.

In other NET developments:

• The positives included UNC Greensboro picking up a much-needed win (from NC State’s perspective) over Furman this past weekend. That catapulted the Spartans back up the NET and it now checks in at No. 79. If it can get inside the top 75, that would result in the Pack picking up a quad one victory.

Wisconsin also continues to rise. It scored an impressive home win over Maryland Tuesday evening and is now No. 23 in the NET, giving NC State a résumé-building win.

• The negatives include the slide of three non-conference opponents: Appalachian State, Florida International and Little Rock. Appalachian has lost three straight and five of six. FIU and Little Rock have both dropped two in a row. The result is all three wins that were quad three victories a week ago are now quad four wins, which tend to be disregarded by the selection committee.

Last week, NC State’s non-conference strength of schedule was an impressive No. 39, but the recent struggles of the above three teams have changed that dramatically. That said, NC State’s non-conference strength of schedule rating remains in the top third (No. 109 through Tuesday), which means it will not stick out like a sore thumb on the Pack’s team sheet should it remain in contention for a tournament bid.

Looking ahead to the rest of the week and this weekend, NC State is in that tricky spot of trying to win a couple of tough home games that may not count for much on the team sheet. Miami, which is No. 83 in the NET rankings, is a quad three contest. Clemson is ranked No. 75, which is the cutoff for being a quad two home game, but should NC State win that, odds are CU would drop back to quad three.

These are the sorted rankings used by the NCAA Tournament (with “sorted” being the key word) committee. What is more important is the quadrant rankings below them.

This is updated through games of Tuesday:

5. Auburn — L (road) (up one from a week ago)

6. Duke — TBD (road, home) (down four)

14. Florida State — TBD (home) (up four)

15. Louisville — TBD (home) (no change)

23. Wisconsin — W (home) (up three)

25. Memphis – L (neutral) (no change)

36. Virginia Tech — L (road) (up 16)

52. NC State (down six)

74. Virginia — TBD (road) (down 11)

75. Clemson — L (road), TBD (home) (up 37)

76. Pittsburgh — TBD (home) (up three)

79. UNC Greensboro — W (road) (up eight)

83. Miami — TBD (home, road) (up 11)

84. Syracuse — TBD (road) (up nine)

86. Georgia Tech — L (home), TBD (road) (up six)

89. Notre Dame — W (home) (down 11)

112. Wake Forest — W (road), TBD (home) (down 22)

115. North Carolina — TBD (home, road) (down 12)

153. Boston College — TBD (road) (down 21)

184. Arkansas-Little Rock — W (home) (down 35)

187. Appalachian State – W (home) (down 27)

194. Florida International — W (home) (down 39)

289. The Citadel — W (home) (up 13)

297. Alcorn State — W (home) (down 10)

307. Detroit Mercy — W (home) (down 12)

308. St. Francis (Brooklyn) — W (home) (up one)

Note there are 353 teams in the NET.

Broken down by quadrants the NCAA committee uses (quadrant-four wins are disregarded by NCAA committee):

Quadrant 1 (Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Road 1-75): 1-4 with five remaining

Quadrant 2 (Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Road 76-135): 2-0 with five remaining

Quadrant 3 (Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Road 136-240): 1-1 with five remaining

Quadrant 4 (Home 161+, Neutral 201+, Road 241+): 7-0 with none remaining

Non-conference strength of schedule: No. 87

Overall strength of schedule: No. 72

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