How NC State losing streak affects its NCAA tournament projection in new bracket

N.C. State would need a lot to go wrong to miss the NCAA tournament.

N.C. State looks like it will not play beyond the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.

These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

First, the acknowledgment of the obvious. The Wolfpack (19-11, 10-7 ACC) has had a rough 3½ weeks. It has dropped three in a row and five out of six, and three of those losses (at Louisville, at Virginia and at home against Duke) have come by at least 29 points.

According to Stathead.com, only seven other ACC teams in the past 16 seasons have done that: 2015 Wake Forest, 2015 and 2017 Georgia Tech, 2018 Pitt, 2021 Boston College, 2025 Miami and 2026 Florida State. None reached the NCAA tournament.

But getting bludgeoned three times is not part of the NCAA men’s basketball committee’s selection criteria. When it comes to the stuff that really counts, N.C. State is doing OK.

It entered Wednesday in the top 45 of all seven rankings the committee uses to evaluate the field. It is 6-4 on the road, and has only one glaring, low-quality loss (Jan. 17 at home against Georgia Tech). It is 4-7 in Quadrant 1 games, the top tier of contests — not overwhelming, but also not atypical for a team that ends up a No. 9 or No. 10 seed.

And that’s important to remember. For where the Wolfpack would get placed in the bracket if the season ended now, it wouldn’t be getting compared to Duke and Michigan and Arizona. It wouldn’t even be getting compared to BYU and St. John’s and Tennessee.

Instead, it’s keeping company with Iowa and Missouri and TCU, not to mention Texas and Texas A&M and UCLA. That group of teams is well-positioned to avoid a trip to Dayton for a play-in game with 11 days to go before Selection Sunday. There’s even more room beyond that to get to the cut line.

N.C. State would do well in comparisons with less accomplished teams like New Mexico, Ohio State and VCU, which have overall profiles right around the edge of the field.

The committee is going to select 37 at-large teams on March 15 — not 32 or 35 or some other number. The task for N.C. State to get one of them isn’t to be good enough to make a deep run. It just needs a better resume than the 38th-best at-large candidate.

And barring a bunch of conference tournament upsets spawning some bid snatchers in the next week and a half, the Wolfpack will end up inside the field — though beating Stanford on Saturday and winning a game in the ACC tournament would probably soothe a lot more nerves in Raleigh than any assurances about overall resumes and metrics could ever provide.

Here’s a look at how the bracket plays out, as of now:

East Region

If there was any doubt Georgia would end up in the tournament, it was erased when the Bulldogs defeated Alabama on Tuesday. Georgia owns five Quadrant 1 victories and ranks in the top 35 of all the team sheet metrics. … St. John’s doesn’t have much top-tier heft to its resume — 3-5 in Quadrant 1 — but that’s mostly because of a slow start and a down year for much of the Big East. The Red Storm has one loss outside Quad 1 and ranks between 17^th and 22^nd in the committee’s metrics. …

Ohio State did exactly what it needed Sunday, upending Purdue at home. But can the Buckeyes remain on the right side of things? They’d better beat Penn State on Wednesday, and they would be well-served to handle Indiana on Saturday as well. … Michigan State brings a four-game winning streak into the final week of the regular season and will face Rutgers at home Thursday before a rematch with Michigan on Sunday.

South Region

There wasn’t much of a chance Saint Mary’s was going to get left out before last weekend, but a victory over Gonzaga in the teams’ final regular-season game as the WCC rivals topped off the Gaels’ resume. A WCC tournament title might elevate them another line or two. … North Carolina is solidly on the No. 5 line after beating Virginia Tech and Clemson in the last week, and the one downside of that is it looks like two or three of the pods with Nos. 4 and 5 seeds will get sent to western locales (Portland and San Diego). …

Tuesday’s defeat of LSU didn’t save Auburn’s season, but it did keep it in this projection as the last team in the field. There’s never been an at-large pick with 16 losses, and the Tigers would get there if they lose to Alabama on Saturday and then fall at any point of the SEC tournament. … Florida is knocking on the door of a No. 1 seed. The defending champions started 5-4, but have won 19 of 21 since (including their last 10) and own 11 Quadrant 1 victories. That tied with Michigan for the third most nationally behind Arizona (14) and Duke (13).

Midwest Region

Michigan’s worst ranking in any of the team sheet metrics is third, and it’s increasingly unlikely the Wolverines will be knocked off the top seed line. They visit Iowa on Thursday, then play host to Michigan State on Sunday to wrap up the regular season. … Virginia is 8-2 on the road and 11-3 away from Charlottesville. That’s going to stand out to the committee even though its lost both of its games against teams projected to be a No. 5 seed or better (Duke and North Carolina). …

Louisville is 0-8 in upper Quad 1 games (facing top-15 teams at home and top-40 teams on the road) after Saturday’s loss at Clemson. The Cardinals are 21-1 in all other games. Few teams have so clearly established their level this season. … UCLA is a bit of a homecourt hero — it’s 3-6 on the road and 3-9 outside of Pauley Pavilion — but Tuesday’s defeat of Nebraska (coupled with earlier victories in Westwood over Illinois and Purdue) has gotten the Bruins to a fairly safe place to pin down an at-large.

West Region

Clemson’s victory over Louisville on Saturday should end any concerns about the Tigers earning their way into the field. … Gonzaga dropped down to the No. 4 line after its setback at Saint Mary’s, but it still looks like it is on its way to Portland for the opening weekend. The Zags don’t play until Sunday night at the WCC tournament. …

Southern Methodist lost at both California and Stanford last week, so the Mustangs would be wise to win at least one of their last two games (against Miami and Florida State) to avoid too much anxiety during the ACC tournament. … One of the week’s biggest winners is Texas Christian, which picked off Texas Tech in Lubbock to win its fourth in a row and seventh of eight. The Horned Frogs would need a lot to go wrong elsewhere to tumble out of the field at this stage.

This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 4:15 PM.