NC State basketball and ACC Tournament seeding scenarios
By the end of Saturday evening, the field will be set for the ACC Tournament, and NC State basketball will learn its path towards a potential first title since 1987. The Wolfpack, though, has no control over where the seeds will play out.
NC State basketball is the lone team in the ACC not to play Saturday, and instead is practicing up to the Pack’s debut in the tournament in Greensboro, N.C., on Wednesday.
NC State cannot have a double bye, nor can the Pack fall past the No. 7 seed. The outcome for NC State’s seeding is pretty simple and almost entirely dependent upon the rivalry game between Duke and North Carolina on Saturday evening.
Unless Louisville, which has won 4 games all season, pulls off a massive upset at Virginia, the only thing that matters for NC State’s seeding is that Duke-UNC contest. With a win, the Cavaliers would clinch a tie for first place and the No. 2 seed in the ACC Tournament. Louisville is already locked into the last-place No. 15 seed.
Assuming Virginia wins, that would clinch a tiebreaker advantage for North Carolina over NC State. The Wolfpack is 12-8 in the ACC, and UNC is 11-8. A win by the Heels forces a tie for sixth, and the two rivals split their head-to-head meetings. The next tiebreaker is win-loss record against the top team(s) in the standings, moving down the order until broken.
The winner of the Miami-Pittsburgh game Saturday evening will clinch the top seed of the ACC Tournament, and barring a Louisville upset force a tie with Virginia. NC State went 1-1 against Miami, while the Heels lost its one showdown with the Canes. The reverse is true for Virginia.
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That would cancel each other out if Miami and Virginia tied for the ACC lead. In that case, among the other other three teams that will finish higher than both NC State and UNC in the standings, the only difference is the Pack went 0-2 against Clemson, and the Heels defeated the Tigers in Chapel Hill. Hence why North Carolina wins the tiebreaker.
If UNC loses to Duke, then NC State locks in as the six seed.
The No. 6 seed will face the winner of the No. 11/14 game Tuesday. Notre Dame has already been penciled in as the 14 seed. The 11 seed will be the winner of Saturday’s Florida State at Virginia Tech contest.
The No. 7 seed will face the winner of the No. 10/15 game. Louisville is locked in at No. 15. The 10 seed will either be Boston College or Syracuse. If the Orange beat Wake Forest at home on Saturday, BC is the 10 seed. If the Eagles win at home over Georgia Tech and Syracuse loses, the Orange slide down to the 10 line.
By virtue of being a 6 or 7 seed, NC State basketball will play in the evening session Wednesday. The 7 seed goes first at 7 p.m. The 6 seed plays 30 minutes after that.
