N.C. State lost games it should not have, mainly at Wake Forest in January and at home to Georgia Tech in March.
Sunday, they lost in committee.
The NCAA Tournament selection committee said “no” to a team that competed in what was far and away the best league in the country. Three of its teams landed No. 1 seeds.
The Wolfpack finished in bubble range, so we were told in the days and last couple of weeks leading up to the ACC Tournament in Charlotte. When the task was deemed an 8-9 game with Clemson, some thought this to be a “play in” game of sorts for the NCAA. Perhaps even to reach that First Four round in Dayton before the true six rounds begin later this weekend.
State won, then got bounced by Virginia.
Sunday came with an NIT consolation invitation. The Wolfpack didn’t even get a top seed that goes to the first four out of the NCAAs.
Granted, that’s a bad loss to the Yellow Jackets. No excuses, just plain bad.
But the Wolfpack’s body of work is fine. It’s worth a trip to the Big Dance.
We’ll let Debbie Yow, the retiring athletics director and veteran of this bubble scene, fill in the argument. She says it well, and accurately.
“Last August, the NCAA NET calculation was introduced as the ‘new ranking system to replace the RPI as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams during the Division 1 men’s basketball season.’ Per the press release, it relies on ‘game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and the quality of wins and losses.’ Other metrics noted in the press release that would be used included the Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin rankings, as well as ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, along with the Kevin Pauga Index and ESPN’s Strength of Record.
“N.C. State is ranked No. 33 in the NET, 32 in the KenPom, 26 in the BPI and 24 in the Sagarin. Our Strength of Schedule is 179 and only the Kevin Pauga ranking is higher than No. 33 at 66.
“We finished 8-9 versus quad 1 and 2 programs, with five of those games outside of our home arena, while playing 14 games against teams in the Top 50 of the NET rankings and having only two losses outside of the Top 22 in the NET. This included a win against the SEC Champions, Auburn University and five games against the field’s No. 1 seeds.
“Based on the metrics sited (sic) above that the NCAA indicated they would use to evaluate team performance, we are disappointed for our athletes, coaches and fans that our total body of work was not rewarded with selection to the NCAA Tournament.”
They were good enough.
N.C. State finished 9-9 among the best competition in the country, the ACC, and 22-11 overall. They were within a whisker of winning at Wisconsin, beating Carolina, winning at Louisville, beating Virginia and winning at Florida State. Ultimately, the committee said they should have won one or more of those, or not lost so poorly to a very good Virginia Tech team or bad Wake Forest and Georgia Tech teams.
So it’s Hofstra first in the NIT. Kevin Keatts has his work cut out for him, rallying an entire program and its fanatics that are rightly disappointed.
Hopefully, State rebounds and convincingly so. They played well this season, good enough to be in the NCAA Tournament.
They got robbed Sunday.