Today was quite a day for me. For the first time, I got to sit on press row and the watch the Friday Day Sessions of the ACC Tournament. For some of these media guys this is old hat, but this was quite a thrill for me. It kind of made feel like that these last few years of blogging turned into something I never thought would actually happen. What was the biggest gameday impression I got on this day of firsts? Well I want to do this again first of all, but gamewise it’s that North Carolina State belongs in the NCAAs for the first time since 2006.
Do the Wolfpack have sparkling resume? No but their current 4 game winning suggests this team is getting hot at the right time. By beating Virginia today the Wolfpack moved 22-11 (11-7), and picked up another top 50 win. Did you see the 11-7 ACCmark? All year I’ve been saying 11 ACC wins is the magic number for an ACC team to get into lock status, and they’ve done that.
Virginia is a bit of exception at 9-7 due to some quality non-conference wins over Michigan, LSU, and Oregon. For NC State, the non-conference win over Texas also will carry weight. Most importantly NC State moved ahead of fellow ACC bubble team Miami. The Wolfpack already owned a sweep of the Hurricanes, but with Miami losing to Florida State the Wolfpack got to the ACCT semi-finals while obviously the Canes did not.
The Wolfpack are an interesting team. They are one of the few ACC teams that can score from multiple positions on the floor. They have 5 players that average more than 10 points a game, and today they played with intensity that wasn’t always there at times this season. From where I was sitting I got an up close view of the war NC State F Richard Howell was having with Virginia star Mike Scott in the paint for position time and time again. Right then I didn’t know if NC State would win the game. Virginia is a resilient team themselves, but I was positive that the Wolfpack were ready to play a full 40 minutes in a game they had to have.
NC State knocked off a solid Virginia team, now NCAA selection committee put them in the Big Dance whether they beat UNC or not.
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