NC State wanted a challenging non-conference, will face at least 3 preseason ranked squads

NC State coach Kevin Keatts wasn’t shy about scheduling a tough non-conference slate this season. While he has joked about what he was thinking when setting up some of the marquee games on the Wolfpack’s schedule this season, Keatts knows it will be beneficial in the long run. 

In all, NC State will face at least five preseason Top-25 teams this season, including a minimum of three in the non-conference slate, coming off its miraculous run to the Final Four this past March. 

“We wanted to challenge ourselves,” Keatts said. “We didn’t want to get to the end where we have such a good year and we don’t have the opportunity to play [in the NCAA Tournament] because someone’s going to hold the non-conference against us.”

NC State missed the 2020 NCAA Tournament, despite having a No. 33 NET ranking, and Keatts wants to avoid being put in that situation again. 

The Pack’s biggest early-season test will come via its first true road game of the season: at No. 1 Kansas on Dec. 14. 

For Keatts, this was an opportunity to not only play one of the top programs in the NCAA this season, but to also get a headlining non-conference game for next season. The Jayhawks will make a return trip to Raleigh next December in a rare home-and-home with an elite program. 

“If we have opportunities to start great home-and-homes with programs, we will do that,” Keatts said. “It presented itself to us to play Kansas. We get a chance to go there. … But we also get a chance for them to come back here and play us. I think it’s a good deal for us. We’re excited about it.”

NC State was in talks with Marquette, who the Pack knocked off in the Sweet Sixteen, to play a home-and-home, but it did not come to fruition, while the Kansas game presented itself and the Wolfpack inked that deal. The Pack is 1-12 all-time against Kansas, including a 3-point win over the Jayhawks in the first meeting between the two programs during the 1958-59 season. NC State last played a true road game at Kansas during the 1996-97 campaign, a 28-point loss. 

In addition to playing Kansas, the Wolfpack will host No. 19 Texas in the ACC-SEC Challenge on Dec. 4, while it will travel west over Thanksgiving to play in the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego. There it will face off with No. 14 Purdue in a rematch of the Final Four before a possible bout with either BYU or No. 24 Ole Miss the following day. 

The Wolfpack also has seven buy games at home to prepare the team for ACC play. NC State will pay $664,000, according to documents provided to TheWolfpacker.com through a Freedom of Information Act request. Four teams will be paid $90,000 (Colgate, Coastal Carolina, Presbyterian and William & Mary) to play at Lenovo Center, while two opponents will receive $95,000 (Coppin State and USC Upstate) and Rider will make $114,000 for its Dec. 22 trip to Raleigh. 

Keatts thought the entire ACC raised the bar in terms of which teams its peers are playing in the non-conference, which seemed to be a key emphasis from the league office after an offseason deep dive of the basketball programs. The ACC has received 15 total bids to the NCAA Tournament in the past three seasons, and the conference is looking to increase that total. 

“No one in our conference has the luxury of waiting until the tournament,” Keatts said. “We all have to win early if we want more teams in the tournament.”

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips held the same line of thinking. He believed the member institutions scheduled well to set up an opportunity to use November and December as a statement months before league play begins.

“Then whether we like it or not, the narrative starts to get set in November and in December in the non-conference games,” Phillips said at ACC Media Days in Charlotte. “You have to perform at a greater level.”

“Now we have to go win games,” Phillips later added. “I think we have the structure in place. We’ll promote the heck out of our programs on the men and women’s sides. We’ll have great platforms for them to play on. We have to win. We have to win.”

Once the conference schedule kicks off in December into the new year, NC State will have two preseason top-25 teams on its slate in No. 7 Duke and No. 9 North Carolina.