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NC State Basketball Quad Wins Tracker - 2/5/26 - Taking that low hanging fruit

WELCOME BACK TO THE NC STATE MEN'S BASKETBALL QUAD TRACKER EXTRAORDINAIRE!


Our last update was after the Quad 2 win, nay, escape, at Pitt. Since then, NC State has played three additional ACC games:


  • vs Syracuse, Q2 win, 88-68

  • @ Wake Forest, Q1 win, 96-78

  • @ SMU, Q1 win, 84-83


Starting from the top,


  • It's wild that NC State can just have nights where it explodes offensively and blows teams out semi-regularly. What world are we living in where this happens IN ACC GAMES?!?

  • Syracuse and Wake Forest are not really very good, but are just good enough that big wins against them help your NET ranking.

  • The fact that Wake counts as a Q1 win is lowkey funny

  • The games at Wake (70th) and SMU (34th) were the last (as of now) Q1 opportunities against non-ranked opponents. These were the lowest hanging fruit available to get those coveted Q1 wins. Needed to get these to bolster the resume.

  • Don't get me wrong, SMU is quite good, and they brought a boisterous crowd for a weeknight conference game against a team they'd never played before. It was honestly very impressive. But NC State desperately needed extra Quad 1 wins, and will be playing four very tough Q1 teams out of these last eight games.



Let's get to the Quad Tracker update!


Some things have shifted slightly:

  • Liberty and Syracuse have upgraded to Q2 wins for NC State. Thanks, guys! Liberty has moved up to 71, and Syracuse has moved up to 69. Nice.

  • Quad 3 games at home are counted for teams ranked between 76-160 in the NET. Georgia Tech is currently stuck at 143. This means that loss is closer to sliding down to a Quad 4 loss than having any hope of growing to only a Q2 loss. Something to keep an eye on, let's hope the wheels don't completely fall off for the Yellow Jackets.

  • On the flip side, Kansas has now moved to #11 in the AP poll. Losing by 1 to a borderline top 10 team counts for something, doesn't it?

  • On the flip flip side, while it was previously true that all games after GT would be Q1 or Q2, Stanford has slid down to 77th in the NET, putting them just into Quad 3 range. This means NC State surely cannot afford a trap game bad loss to end the season.

  • NC State is now 17-6 (8-2). They are tied for 3rd in the ACC standings, two games back from first place.

  • Most bracketology metrics have the Wolfpack solidly in, somewhere in the 7-seed range.

  • The Pack are on a glide path now to finish at that magic number of 12 conference goals that I had set as a goal for them to hit. Eight games left on the schedule, with eight wins in hand means they just have to not lose more games than they win and they'll get there.

  • But if they can finish 5-3 down the stretch, notching one additional Q1 win, they'll finish 13-5 in conference, and very likely get a double bye in the ACC tournament. Or finish 5th at worst.

  • All four remaining Q1 games are against ranked teams. Getting just one would get NC State with the other goal number I'd laid out for them, and that's 4 Q1 wins. All these goals are well within reach.

  • Lastly, the Wolfpack received some votes in the AP poll this week, and currently sits at 25th in the NET. Finishing in the top 25 in both could lead to a seed with a number <= 6, which would be excellent for Wade's first campaign.



Special shout out to the AI slop image of the week. The clanker completely forgot the assignment of the trend of images we've been making and came up with something otherworldly. This looks like something I'd see on the wall at the pediatrician's office or something.



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