NC State moves into the preseason Top-40: Already outpacing last year’s ranking and not done yet

The Will Wade hype campaign was so real last year.

When you think back, you remember the big press conference, the ‘Red Reckoning’ talk, and all of the big-time portal additions we were so excited about. But even with all of that, we began the season ranked 39th in Bart Torvik’s rankings (which tends to be the most accurate year over year). NC State was also ranked 18th overall in its Offensive Efficiency prediction.

Wade is gone, and Justin Gainey has gone about his first season in a very different way. In fact, Gainey, since his press conference, has been working in absolute silence. No big talk, no promises, no marketing gimmicks. However, the roster he’s putting together is on the cusp of surpassing Wade’s in the preseason rankings.

Since the announcement of Paul McNeil’s return, the Pack has shot up the charts, coming in at #37 (two spots better than last year), with their offense projected to be 20th overall.

The defense last year was projected to be 66th, and this year it’s projected to be 70th.

Last year, NC State actually didn’t finish too far off that overall ranking. They finished 43rd overall, with their offense ranked 27th. The prediction on defense proved to be off, with them finishing 86th overall.

But here’s the thing, right now, Torvik can only factor in the players that NC State has. It’s likely they will add 6 or 7 more players before the season starts.

It’s likely that 2 of those will be guys getting significant rotation minutes, which means this rating could actually jump again if NC State adds what I think they’ll add.

I believe you’ll see the Pack bring in another quality guard and some significant front-court size. I don’t believe they’ll be adding much shooting or offense; they already have that in droves. I believe they’ll be adding some defensive-minded guys and some meat in the middle to back up Evans and Yalaho.

All in all, it’s pretty interesting to me.

The Will Wade hype train had everyone in a tizzy at this time last year, but Gainey, working in the shadows, is very likely going to put together a more complete roster, according to one of the best predictive rankings out there.

I know a lot of you will turn up your nose at the metrics at this point of the year, and make a comment on social about “How about we just let them go out and play and figure it out!” … and yeah, we get it. But this ranking was pretty spot on last year, and it’s known to be pretty spot on year over year. So I think it’s worth noting where we are in context to last year, as we’re all crafting our early opinion of NC State’s new head man, Justin Gainey.