NC State
How many bids will the ACC get this season? That’s a question that we certainly cannot answer for several weeks, but Kevin Keatts wants his Wolfpack back in the Big Dance for a second straight season. This NC State squad has struggled at times in recent years but looked to be building something special last season and earlier this year too.
A resume certainly was not built based off NC State’s nonconference slate. They won all of the games they were supposed to win, but lost all three opportunities, losing to BYU, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. There was nothing bad about any of those losses, but it gets outweighed by the blandness of the rest of their schedule.
There are certainly more chances against their ACC foes, and they did win a couple of road games early before toppling Virginia a few days into January. Losing to an elite North Carolina team wasn’t a problem, but the Wolfpack have really been scuffling in recent weeks. They’ve now lost three straight games, including Quad 2 performances against Virginia Tech and Syracuse, putting them just 5-4 in conference play.
Having no bad losses is good, but being 0-5 against Quad 1 foes won’t get the job done. The Wolfpack’s NET wasn’t in great shape even before these recent losses and NC State might need to find a way to win at Clemson or North Carolina to get themselves back on track. It’s hard to imagine this team in the Big Dance with how they are playing but stranger things have happened in the ACC.