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NC State Basketball Quad Wins Tracker - 2/10/26 - What's the opposite of low hanging fruit?
- Essad Malik
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
WELCOME BACK TO THE NC STATE MEN'S BASKETBALL QUAD TRACKER EXTRAORDINAIRE!
Our last update was after the Quad 2 win vs Virginia Tech, as NC State extended its ACC winning streak to six game. They've since played one additional ACC game:
@ Louisville, Q1 loss, 118-77
On Monday, NC State fans were waiting with bated breath to see whether the Wolfpack’s six game winning streak would be rewarded in a return in this week’s AP Poll. After the devastating no-show at Louisville, it’s probably for the best NC State did not end up getting ranked, as they missed it by just three spots. It would have been yet another short-lived stay and back to unranked territory.
NC State’s resume is now quite odd when looking at their losses. Here is their margin of loss in their seven losses:
Seton Hall, 11 points
Texas, 5 points
Auburn, 10 points
Kansas, 1 point
UVA, 15 points
GT, 4 points
Louisville, 41 points
Just 24 hours earlier, we were wondering if the Pack were coming together to make a late season push to win the ACC regular season outright. Now, we’re left to wonder who this team is. Four of their seven losses are by double digits. Obviously, there is zero excuse for a lopsided loss as big as what they suffered at the hands of the Cardinals. Losing by 41(!) points is just a staggering number. There’s just no telling who this team is, with only six games left.
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What we do know is they regularly feast on lower level teams, and largely no-show against higher level competition. There’s enough evidence to definitively say that now. The good news, if any, is that it is just one loss, and this team has shown a good track record of not allowing losses to steamroll. Also, the Pack only lost two places in the NET with the loss, moving from 27th to 29th, hanging onto 5th in the ACC and just ahead of Clemson (for now). The analytics still work in their favor.Â
I had previously predicted that game to be loss 2 in a 3-game losing streak, with Miami up next. NC State already proved me wrong by beating VT when I had thought they’d fall into the trap game trap, so maybe they’ll be able to handle the up-start Hurricanes.
The odd part about playing Miami is it is a home game. The energy in the Lenovo Center has been off, and that’s putting it nicely. The crowd has been timid, and can you blame them when you’re not sure which team is going to show up? The Wolfpack are just 3-2 in ACC home games. The fans haven’t been shown a consistent product to root for. There’s a whole other debate of whether that matters, and whether fans need to be fanning no matter what, but that’s a conversation for another day. The students in the stands today have literally never seen a dominant product play in front of them, so it will be a learning process for them during Wade’s tenure.
Opportunity still awaits, but this team needs to be thinking must-win for each game now, if they want to finish in the top four of the ACC. They are currently fourth, 0.5 games behind UVA, and 1 game ahead of UNC, who’s tied with Miami. NC State plays all three in the final six games.
The bid for the NCAA tournament is by no means locked into place. But after the performance against Louisville, in conjunction with most other high level teams, I will be adjusting my prediction for the final six games as such:
Until they show otherwise, I don’t think this team is currently constructed to defeat any of the three remaining ranked opponents on their schedule. This puts immense pressure on winning the Miami game as the primary hope of finishing at the totally made up threshold of 12 wins I created.
A final record of 21-10 (12-6) ought to be good enough, but it’s still bubble-icious territory creating a feeling of unease until Selection Sunday. A factor that the selection committee does take into account would be performance in the final 10 games of the year, to see how well a team is trending. The Wolfpack wouldn’t look great in this scenario, potentially being 6-4. But if they flipped back a bit they could leverage the previous winning streak and 9-4 in the final 13 looks much better. We’ll see, I suppose.
