Did NC State Men's Basketball Earn a Ranking?
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RALEIGH — In Will Wade's first season as head coach, NC State men's basketball has performed solidly, but not reached the expectations set by the coach or the fan base. After getting its first ranked win and two conference road wins, the Wolfpack sits at 14-6 overall and 5-2 in the ACC standings.
The Pack received enough votes to jump into the AP Top 25 for two weeks early in the season, reaching No. 23 before the two-loss trip to the Southwest Maui Invitational. Since then, NC State has lacked consistency, and it came up short in a handful of key opportunities to regain some respect reputationally. A recent turnaround might be pushing the team in the right direction, however.
Has the Wolfpack done enough to get back into the Top 25?
The AP Poll releases Monday. Despite a win over No. 18 Clemson and the win over Pittsburgh, the Wolfpack still has a lot of work to do to get back into the Top 25. The Tigers could potentially fall out of the top 25, which would obviously hurt NC State's resumé slightly from an eye test perspective. However, it did give the Pack a coveted Quadrant 1 victory that it was lacking before last week.
NC State received just one vote after the Georgia Tech loss and three after the road trip sweep of Florida State and Boston College. Wade's team is likely to earn more than the last two weeks, but still lacks the Quadrant 1 success necessary to jump into the Top 25. The AP poll isn't as critical as some of the other rankings systems, though, and the Wolfpack is viewed somewhat favorably by both KenPom and the NET.
The Wolfpack falls just outside the top 25 of both the NET and KenPom, ranking 27th in the former and 26th in the latter. State is slightly ahead of in-state rival UNC according to KenPom, as the Tar Heels are ranked 29th, even after a Quadrant 1 road win over a ranked Virginia squad that had not lost in Charlottesville before Saturday.
For now, NC State is going to be living around the bubble or as a No. 9 or No. 10 seed in the various NCAA bracketology projections. The opportunities are there for the Wolfpack to make moves, as the team has six Quadrant 1 opponents remaining on the ACC schedule. That's excluding additional shots at top teams in the conference tournament, assuming the Pack makes the cut for Charlotte.
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Tucker Sennett graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Sports Journalism from the esteemed Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. A former basketball player, he has gained valuable experience working at Cronkite News and brings a deep passion for sports and reporting to his role as the NC State Wolfpack Beat Writer On SI.
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