The stakes have been all too familiar for N.C. State basketball around this time in March.
For the second straight season, head coach Kevin Keatts and the Wolfpack can only hope that their strength of schedule and NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) ranking will let the selection committee put N.C. State in the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team.
The No. 5-seed Wolfpack (20-12, 11-10 ACC) pulled out a 73-58 victory over the No. 13-seed Pitt Panthers in Wednesday's second round of the ACC Tournament and the question once again is whether or not N.C. State has done enough for a tournament bid?
Just a year ago, Keatts was very vocal that he believed his team had done enough to warrant a tournament berth, but they were ultimately sent to the NIT due to low strength of schedule ranking.
"Our resume looks good," Keatts said on Monday. "If you put our resume up against anyone else, I think it will show favorably, but I’m not on the committee. I can only control how hard our guys play from game to game, and that’s what we need to look at."
This season, the Wolfpack are 1-5 against Top 25 teams, rank 54th in NET, 46th in strength of schedule and have a 4-5 record against "Quadrant 1" teams.
"When you look at our quality of wins, they’re pretty impressive," Keatts added. "Especially going to Virginia and winning, beating Duke at home, beating Wisconsin, who won the Big 10, going to Syracuse. We’re one of the only ACC teams that went to a mid-major place and won, at UNC Greensboro. When you look at Arkansas-Little Rock, they won their conference."
N.C. State will have a chance to even further prove why it deserves a trip to the tournament with a matchup against 10th-ranked Duke on Thursday, but the Wolfpack still hold on hope that fellow bubble teams Indiana, Xavier and Stanford end up losing in their conference tournaments.
"I don't think our team is really too focused on the outside noise," guard C.J. Bryce said. "Inside the locker room, we focus on one game at the time. We know we can't go where we want to go unless we take care of the game at hand."
The Wolfpack have a win over a then-No. 6 Duke in February, and a January win against the defending national champion Virginia, but they also have blowout losses to Virginia Tech, Louisville and Clemson on their resume.
The Wolfpack believe they have proven enough this year and increased the competition of their schedule when compared to last year, but another win against Duke would surely put less doubt in the selection committee's mind.
"We have some pretty good wins on our resume, but that's not something we're focused on," Bryce said. "It's to win the conference championship and get ready for tomorrow."