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NC State Basketball: Wolfpack heating up in the ACC

By Daniel Tran

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With three straight victories, NC State basketball is beginning to make its case for an NCAA tournament bid.

For the NC State Wolfpack, much for their glory lies behind them rather than ahead of them. Jim Valvano and his ragtag group blessed with Cinderella magic in 1983 live on for eternity, but currently they are all but forgotten in an ACC that has Duke and North Carolina. Add Louisville, Syracuse, and Notre Dame in the mix and they are basically invisible.

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However, as all of the aforementioned teams have found out, do not sleep on the Wolfpack who have been lurking in the shadows and quietly building a resume worthy enough to make the NCAA Tournament. NC State won against Duke and pushed Notre Dame into overtime before losing and kept Virginia honest on their home floor. Their latest run of success in the form of three consecutive wins is raising a lot of eyebrows and shaking a lot of knees.

The previous three games have been against opponents that anyone would hardly refer to as bums. They faced Louisville on the KFC Yum! Center and North Carolina at Chapel Hill and came out with hard fought triumphs against two ranked teams.  Understandably, this is pleasing to their rabid fan base.

NC State basketball has accomplished this by rebounding the ball well and making it tough for opponents to score from inside the three-point arc. Although they do not have a player listed above 6’9”, they are fourth in the ACC in offensive rebounds and total rebounds during ACC play. During their three-game winning streak, the Wolfpack have averaged nine offensive boards per game.

Players like Anthony Barber, Trevor Lacey, and Ralston Turner have been producing at a high level, but it is NC State’s bench players that have been stepping up as well.  The Wolfpack has averaged 14.3 points per game during this latest win streak.  If they continue to contribute at this rate, NC State basketball will be tough to stop.

Their effort on defense has also been a plus, playing tough on the interior and only allowing opponents to convert on 38.2 percent on their two-point field goals during this three-game stretch. However, this is not the first time we have seen NC State appear to turn the corner, only to fall flat the next couple of games.

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    • The problem with NC State basketball this season has been their consistency. After beating Duke, who was ranked No. 2 in the nation at the time, they fell to North Carolina three days later. After beating Georgia Tech in overtime, they lost two straight games against Wake Forest and Virginia.

    With their next two games on the road against Boston College and Clemson, who have already beaten them on their home floor, and Syracuse making the trip to the PNC Arena in Raleigh, the Wolfpack do not have a soft remaining schedule. However, head coach Mark Gottfried has made it a habit of getting hot at the end of the season during his tenure coaching NC State basketball, compiling a 6-3 record his final three games in the past three seasons.

    If history repeats itself, the ACC will have to take into account NC State making their run to get an NCAA Tournament bid. So whatever you do other ACC teams do not sleep on the Wolfpack.

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