CBS includes NC State in their latest NCAA Tourney Bracket

For some reason, the debate over ‘is NC State in or out of NCAA tournament.’ is raging today on social media.

Maybe it’s because NC State’s hometown paper, the N&O led their Monday sports page with an article titled “NC State isn’t yet a lock for the NCAA Tournament” and went on to explain how their strength of schedule could keep them out. Or maybe it was Andy Katz claiming that barring a complete collapse, NC State will be in.

Either way, we’re only halfway through the ACC season and NC State is well ahead of where anyone believed they’d be coming into this season. Not one person believed Kevin Keatts would have a clean sweep of Tobacco Road in his first go-round (Wake, #2 Duke, #10 UNC). No one thought this team could hang with #2 Arizona on a neutral floor or beat a #19 ranked Clemson team.

But here they are, and the people are starting to take note.

Today, Jerry Palm (Bracketologist from CBS) has moved the Pack into his field of 64, as a “Last 4 In” (12 seed).

They don’t really go into specifics here and Palm doesn’t offer up and reasoning as to why State is a “Last 4 in,” but if you ask me, the assumption is that people aren’t sold on the Pack yet.

This isn’t an “If the season ended today, who would be in” bracketology. Watching the videos, you hear Palm explain a few of his picks by addressing future schedule and ‘paths’ to a certain seed. He’s looking at the future schedule and making predictions based on prior play.

If you think NC State got lucky against Arizona, Duke, Clemson and UNC, and you believe that they’ll just revert into the team that lost to UNCG or the one that let Notre Dame thump them by 30, then yeah, NC State will, at best, squeeze into the tournament by the skin of their teeth.

But if you really believe that, then what have you been watching?

NC State is becoming a very good basketball team. In fact, it seems as if this is a team that is just starting to realize their true potential. Don’t just look at the big wins. Look at the play of this team over the past few weeks. They haven’t always been perfect, but they’ve found ways to win. If Al Freeman continues to play the way he has over the past 3 games and Markell Johnson steps up a bit more as a scorer, then this is a dangerous team and one that with one more good run of wins could put themselves squarely in the field of 65.