NC State’s NCAA Tournament hopes have withstood late-season slide due to its non-conference scheduling approach

By Noah Fleischman

Will Wade stood on a makeshift stage on the Reynolds Coliseum court and spoke with confidence during his NC State introductory press conference just under a year ago. He promised a finish in the top part of the ACC, while also making the NCAA Tournament in his first campaign with the Wolfpack. 

But he also made another point clear, one that would make his postseason ambition come true. NC State was going to play a schedule that positioned itself for March, one that would be able to stand the comparison test on Selection Sunday. 

“We’re going to challenge ourselves in the ACC, we’re going to challenge ourselves in the non-conference,” Wade said when he was hired. “You can’t be the best playing a bunch of bad teams. You get better by playing the best teams in the country.

“At McNeese, we had the 21st-ranked non-conference schedule in the country. That was at McNeese. We’re going to play the best. We’re going to challenge the best. We’ll schedule some Hall of Fame coaches if we need to.”

Fast-forward to now, and despite NC State’s late-season skid, the Wolfpack is in position to make the tournament as an at-large squad with a NET ranking of 35th nationally. Why? Its non-conference scheduling approach, the one that Wade touted before he even had it put together, has allowed the program to lean on its early-season success against the likes of Ole Miss, VCU and UAB as it limps into the biggest month of the season. 

That’s why Wade, who is looking to take a fourth different program to the NCAA Tournament, isn’t too stressed about where his team stands on the bubble after losing six of its last seven to end the regular season campaign.

“You’re judged on the body of work,” Wade said. “The last couple weeks haven’t been very good … but we’ve banked a lot of good wins. And that’s why it’s judged on the season.”

Let’s take a look at exactly why Wade is confident about his team’s standing nationally heading into the postseason, even though the last three weeks have been turbulent, beginning with the Wolfpack’s ACC Tournament opener on Wednesday afternoon in Charlotte.

Comparing NC State’s non-conference schedule to the bubble

Wade, who guided VCU, LSU and McNeese to multiple NCAA Tournament appearances each over the past decade, constructed a non-conference schedule that has aged extremely well by this point of the season. The Wolfpack’s out-of-ACC slate ranks 19th by ESPN’s BPI strength of schedule, while it checked in at No. 84 in KenPom’s metrics.

ESPN’s BPI ranking measures the strength of schedule with more than just wins and losses being factored in. It takes the opponent into account, while looking at the location as well. The metric’s goal is to see how likely the No. 25 team in the country would fare against that respective schedule, ranking them from lowest expected winning percentage to the highest. 

By using this metric, it proves that the Wolfpack challenged itself in the non-conference. NC State played nine teams that finished the regular season inside the top 120 teams in the NET rankings, earning five wins that boosted the team’s standing — VCU (NET 44), Boise State (57), Ole Miss (92), Liberty (100) and UAB (117) —  despite its losing streak to cap the campaign.

Conversely, the Pack played just four teams that ranked outside the top 230 in the NET rankings. It’s exactly the balance that Wade was looking for to make a competitive schedule in terms of building a quality résumé that has amassed 11 total Quad 1 (5) and Quad 2 (6) wins — three of that latter came from the non-conference. 

How does that match up with the 11 other teams that are fighting for the last eight spots in the NCAA Tournament field, according to ESPN, which has NC State as one of the last four byes? Quite well.

Team	NET ranking	ESPN BPI NC SOS	KenPom NC SOS	Non-conference top-120 opponents	Wins vs. non-conference top-120 opponents	Total Q1+Q2 wins
Texas*	42	225th	321st	5	1	7
Santa Clara*	38	26th	90th	7	4	8
Missouri*	60	268th	347th	4	1	10
UCF&	51	141st	257th	4	3	10
VCU&	44	104th	223rd	6	2	4
SMU&	39	71st	140th	6	4	8
Indiana&	37	192nd	301st	4	2	6
Auburn^	40	17th	26th	7	3	7
Virginia Tech^	55	72nd	210th	6	4	8
Stanford^	59	164th	194th	4	3	9
New Mexico^	45	144th	168th	3	2	8

NC State, by comparison, has one of the strongest cases for the NCAA Tournament at-large bid with its non-conference approach paying off. The Wolfpack, which was positioning itself for a 7-seed in the Big Dance a month ago, remains firmly in the mix with its strong non-ACC slate that it was able to take advantage of, for the most part. 

It’s exactly the position that Wade, an analytics-based coach, wanted to have as a fall-back plan. NC State’s postseason hopes have been able to lean on the non-conference to boost its total metrics, but finding a way to win a game or two in the ACC Tournament would make the program feel even more confident heading into Selection Sunday.

“I think we’ll stack up pretty favorably, but we certainly don’t want to risk it by going one-and-done in Charlotte,” Wade said. “That would certainly put us at further risk, not that winning one secures anything. I think we’d be well-advised to win our first game.”