NC State is Officially Eliminated from the 2025 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament

Despite beating Pitt 71-63 this evening at the Lenovo Center on Senior Night, NC State has been officially eliminated from the 2025 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament after Notre Dame’s 76-74 victory over Stanford in South Bend tonight.

The Cardinals were up by one with 30 seconds left in the contest, but Cole Certa hit a three-pointer with 18 seconds remaining to give the Irish a two-point lead they would not relinquish.

Heading into tonight’s contest, NC State’s only path to making the 2025 ACC Tournament was to win their final two games and for Notre Dame to lose their final two. According to PlayoffStatus.com, the Wolfpack had a 7% chance of making the tourney before tipoff.

NC State took care of what was in their control tonight by winning their final home regular season game against the Panthers. Stanford, entering tonight’s matchup as a 1.5-point favorite over Notre Dame, was seconds away from victory.

The Wolfpack, who entered the 2024 ACC Tournament as the number 10 seed, went on to win five games in five days to claim their first ACC Tournament Championship since 1987. It’s surreal to go from the top of the mountain—no matter how unlikely—to being one of the three teams not to make the conference tournament in the first season of the ACC as an 18-team conference.