Costly Georgia Tech Loss Raises New Questions About NC State’s Résumé

RALEIGH — NC State men's basketball continued its journey through the conference season on Saturday, but the program's hopes for a strong run in the postseason took a major hit. Will Wade's Wolfpack suffered its second ACC loss to a struggling Georgia Tech team in the friendly confines of the Lenovo Center.

While the loss outlined some major issues like a lack of consistency and growing dysfunction in certain parts of the rotation, it also created a much larger issue for the Pack's NCAA Tournament resumé. The defeat at the hands of the Yellow Jackets created a major blemish that could hurt the team's chances later in the season.

Why Will Wade is worried about the resumé

As it currently stands, Saturday's loss was a Quadrant 3 loss for the Wolfpack. With Georgia Tech ranked 141st on the NET rankings, the result is not out of the danger zone of eventually sinking into the Quadrant 4 loss range for the Wolfpack, but for now, that doesn't appear to be the situation.

While one loss to a Quadrant 3 opponent doesn't mean the end of the world for NC State, it eliminated one of the lone strengths the team had going from a resumé point of view.

"Look, our resumé wasn't great to begin with, but the best of our resumé was that we didn't have any bad stuff on it," Wade said. "It was pretty clean. We didn't have any Quad 1 wins, but we didn't have any (Quad) 3 or 4 losses either. We had a bunch of Quad 2 wins."

NC State vs. Georgia Tec — Jan 17, 2026; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets guard Lamar Washington (1) reacts during the second half of the game against the NC State Wolfpack at Lenovo Center. Mandatory Credit: Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images | Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images

The Wolfpack failed to win a single Quadrant 1 game through the first two months of the season, starting 0-5 in such opportunities. While most of those results are fairly solidified as top-tier losses, there is always a chance for movement across the Quadrants, which could hurt or help the Wolfpack. As Wade said, the strength of the Pack before Saturday was the lack of a hiccup.

"The best part of our resumé is blemished," he said. "We're going to have to punch above our weight class a couple of times here to get this thing back where it needs to be."

The weight class Wade referenced is the Quadrant 1 opportunities. Luckily for NC State, the ACC has rebounded from a few years of struggles. That means the rest of the schedule is littered with chances to take down Quadrant 1 and Quadrant 2 competition across the conference, with some teams posing more of a challenge than others. The Georgia Tech game was likely the Wolfpack's last against the third or fourth tier of the NET rankings.

However, there is reasonable concern with the team's ability to do anything with those tests. NC State came up short in its biggest chances, losing to Kansas in overtime at home, being dominated by Virginia in the Lenovo Center and losing two of three games in the Southwest Maui Invitational back in November. Not much changed between those November losses and Saturday's Georgia Tech debacle.

Can NC State change?

The season went through different phases. It opened with the promise of a "Red Reckoning" for college basketball, as preseason ACC Player of the Year Darrion Williams and Wade ignited a starving fan base with smack talk and confident proclamations. Then came Wade's "hostile takeover," in which he promised wholesale changes to the rotation.

As he sat looking more dejected than at any point earlier in the season on Saturday, Wade referenced that his teams of the past made it commonplace to rip off win streaks of seven or eight games at a time. He then added that this NC State squad wouldn't be capable of that due to its problems with consistency.

Instead of another confident proclamation or promise of a change NC State could make to fix things, Wade took responsibility for the performance of the team. It wasn't just accountability for the 78-74 loss. It was acceptance that this team isn't going to be what he promised. The team's first opportunity to turn things around comes on Tuesday against a strong Clemson team on the road. To put it simply, Wade lacked confidence when asked about the chance to avoid spiraling into something worse.

"We'll see if we can respond. I can't guarantee that's going to happen. I can't guarantee you with this group that that's how we're going to respond," Wade said. "I don't know. I wish I could... We have at other times this year. Hopefully we get off the mat and play well on Tuesday night."

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