NC State Basketball
NC State Left Out of ESPN’s Latest Preseason Top 25
It looks like the Pack have some more material for the Preseason bulletin board as ESPN’s latest preseason poll has left the pack off their list (Along with the honorable mention list). The pack are coming into the season with arguably their strongest roster since the underachieving 2012-2013 squad which consisted of the likes of CJ Leslie, Lorenzo Brown, Scott Wood, Richard Howell, and TJ Warren.
According to the rankings in the article, the ACC will be absolutely stacked with talent this year, sporting 6 teams in the top 25 and 3 of those teams in the top 6 alone. Along with all that, you also have Virginia Tech receiving and honorable mention.
ACC Top 25 Rankings:
1. Duke
5. Virginia
6. UNC
14. Louisville
17. Syracuse
25. FSU
Honorable Mention: Virginia Tech
Understandably, there are several question marks coming into this season with the eligibility concerns of Yurtseven and Kapita, along with a group of promising yet unproven talent. It seems as if the Pack are being overlooked, whether it be the question marks or the results of last season, by most the big time sports writers.
What do you think Pack fans? Is this team a top 25 team?
Preseason rankings are pretty useless anyways. There needs to be games played for rankings to mean anything. Anyhow, the last time State was highly ranked in the preseason it did not work out too well.
Honestly, I like this scenario. In 2012-13, I think the national hype hindered our players. In my experience, State functions better as the underdog. Doubt and criticism will benefit this group much more so than undeserved praise at this point. After last season’s disappointing finish, this team already has something to prove. This just adds fuel to the fire.
Not even sure why it is a debate to ESPN whether or not we are a top 25 team, when they assume our point guard is going to go in the lottery and we had Malik Abu finish as well as he did. Even if Yurtseven sits for some games, we’ll be very good with Terry Henderson back and Torin Dorn (the rookie of the year for his conference) joining us. We are so disrespected this year and I don’t know why.