Seed Lines and Redemption

It’s been a week since N.C. State used a bedazzled belt to administer one of the biggest whoopings of its rivalry against UNC-CH.

That one will feel good for a while, but this program is playing for much more than viral moments against Tobacco Road neighbors. The finish to the inaugural Will Wade campaign isn't easy, and State is teetering on major seeding edges for both ACC and NCAA tournaments. 

State has a healthy chance to make it to Charlotte with a double bye, but home gaffes to Georgia Tech and Miami have made it much more complicated to do so. If the favorites in every ACC game were to win out the rest of the way, the Pack would finish in a five-way tie for third - and they’d get the 6 seed due to tiebreakers. 

According to CBB Analytics’ seeding projections, State has a good chance to finish in the top four, but the chance of missing that double bye is pretty high, too:

The thing that is going to make this wacky down the stretch: there are 8 matchups remaining amongst teams in the top eight of the standings, all of which have some non-zero chance at making it into double bye territory.

Going 2-2 down the stretch gives State a chance, but flipping Virginia or Duke would put State in a position of strength, especially with Louisville dropping one on the road to UNC last night. It'd also be a Q1-A win and a big boost for Selection Sunday.

As far as the NCAA tournament goes, State’s safely in the field today in the 7-9 range. Bracketmatrix.com grabs data from over 100 bracketologists, and State is in all 121 brackets with an average seed line of 7.44. Their floor and ceiling is 9 and 6, respectively. 

The NCAA looks at three major buckets of data when selecting and seeding the field:

• A team’s NET performance (primarily used for tournament selection)

• Results-based metrics like Wins Above Bubble (WAB), KPI, and Strength of Record (primarily used for tournament selection)

• Predictive metrics like KenPom, BartTorvik, and BPI (primarily used for seeding)

Right now, State’s predictive metrics are ahead of their NET and results-based metrics. State is sitting at 36th in WAB, but 23rd in KenPom. This would seem to bode well for State avoiding the 8/9 line, but State has struggled against the cream of the crop this year compared to what it’s doing to bad teams:

State can’t afford blow ups like it had against Virginia and Louisville if it wants to keep its predictive metrics intact. And it definitely wants to, given how much weight that could potentially hold on Selection Sunday.

The last time State played Virginia, it was a fanny whooping. A 21-5 run in the first half pushed the margin to 20, and while State did make a couple of runs in the second half, this was a 25 point game with 4 minutes left. They got smoked.

A few things doomed the Pack against the Hoos in Raleigh:

Three point shooting. The difference in the first half is largely what doomed State. Virginia finished the half 8-19, while State crawled to a 1-9 finish. We know Will Wade’s defense is going to challenge opponents to take a higher volume of threes, but State was blowing assignments right and left, while taking poor shots of their own. Virginia cooled off in the second half, but the damage was done. On Saturday against Miami, they had their first 3 point shooting performance over 40% since December 9th. It'll be curtains if we see anything remotely similar tonight.

Defense and Discipline - building off of point number one, Virginia had an effective field goal rate of 62.5% when these two met in January. Scorching. It was a script we've watched many times this year when State’s defensive bottom has completely fallen out: poor communication, poor handling of the pick and roll, and at times, poor effort. Sometimes it is as simple as just locking in.

Star Power - or lackthereof. In Raleigh, State’s dudes were average. Outside of Quadir, State got very little from its starters: 

1. Darrion Williams: 7 points (3-8)

2. Paul McNeil: 13 points (3-7)

3. Ven-Allen Lubin: 7 points (2-6)

4. Matt Able: 2 points (1-5)

That's not gonna work tonight.

According to BartTorvik’s game scoring tool, UVA’s win in Raleigh was their best performance of the year. This is a team that has played with its food a bit in conference play since:

That's a nice win streak, and this isn't how probability works, but I'm wondering if we're looking at a team that might be due to get got.

It's difficult to tell what you're going to get from this Wolfpack team on any given night, but I actually like State in this one. I think Wade can bang the "they kicked your ass" drum effectively and this team seemingly prefers playing on the road. Matt Able is emerging, Alyn Breed shouldn't get major minutes in this one like he did in January, and some of the wonky regression should theoretically fade.

This would be a massive one for the Wolfs. Let's see how they respond to a week of hearing how good they are.